ountry as reaching three
hundred millions. No man quoted this document oftener than Redmond, and
none was a firmer believer in its justification. But he realized, as his
countrymen did not, that such a claim could never hope for cash
settlement, that its value was as an argument for the concession of
freedom upon generous terms. How could he urge that the terms proposed
were ungenerous, when Great Britain offered to pay the cost of all Irish
services--amounting to a million and a half more than Irish revenue--and
to provide over and above this a yearly grant of half a million,
dropping gradually, it is true, but still remaining at a subsidy of two
hundred thousand a year so long as the finance arrangements of the Bill
lasted?

Nevertheless, these arrangements were bad ones, and this was where the
Bill was most vulnerable on its merits; for self-government without the
control of taxation and expenditure is at best an unhopeful experiment.

But in the public mind at large only one difficulty bulked big, and that
was Ulster. Men on both sides began to be uneasy about the consequences
of what was happening, and this temper reflected itself in the House. On
New Year's Day 1913, at the beginning of the Report stage, Sir Edward
Carson moved the exclusion of the province of Ulster. His speech was in
a new tone of studied conciliation. But, as the Prime Minister
immediately made clear, there was no offer that if this concession were
made opposition would cease. It was merely recommended as the sole
alternative to civil war. Redmond, in following, let fall an _obiter
dictum_ on the position of the Irish controversy:

"No one who observes the current of popular opinion in this country can
doubt for one instant that if this opposition from the north-east corner
of Ulster did not exist, Home Rule would go through to-morrow as an
agreed Bill."

For this reason, he said, he would go almost any length within certain
well-defined limits to meet that section of his fellow-countrymen. His
conditions were, first, that the proposal must be a genuine one, not put
forward as a piece of tactics to wreck the Bill, but frankly as part of
a general settlement of the Home Rule question; secondly, that it must
be of reasonable character; and thirdly, not inconsistent with the
fundamental principle of national self-government. Ulster's present
proposal, if accepted, carried with it no promise of a settlement; it
was unreasonable as proposing to