thousand rifles
with bayonets, in cases marked "electrical fittings," was seized at
Belfast on June 3, 1913. Other incidents of the same nature followed. It
was argued, by those who sought to represent the whole campaign as an
elaborate piece of bluff, that the weapons were useless and that they
were deliberately sent to be seized. A feature which scarcely bore out
this view was that one consignment was addressed to the Lord-Lieutenant
of an Ulster county who was also an officer in the Army. A justice of
the peace, or an officer, to whom a consignment of arms had been sent
for a Nationalist organization would have been ordered to clear himself
in the fullest way of complicity, and even of sympathy, or he would have
forfeited his commission. The noble-man involved, however, made no
explanation, and was probably never officially asked to do so.

It was commonly believed in the House of Commons that at some point, if
not repeatedly, Government consulted the Irish leader or his principal
advisers as to whether measures of repression should be undertaken
against Ulster. No such consultation took place. But the opinion
prevailing among the leading Nationalists was no doubt known or
inferred. Mr. Dillon, speaking on June 16, 1914, when the danger-point
had been clearly reached, justified the previous abstinence from
coercion.

"I have held the view from the beginning that it would not have been
wise policy for a Government engaged in the great work of the political
emancipation of a nation to embark on a career of coercion. I knew, and
knew well, all the difficulties and all the reproaches that the
Government would have to face if they abstained from coercion. It is a
difficult and almost unprecedented course for a Government to take, and
it is, as the Chief Secretary said, a courageous one. But with all its
difficulties and dangers it is the right course. We who have been
through the mill know what the effect of coercion is. We know that you
do not put down Irishmen by coercion. You simply embitter them and
stiffen their backs."

It is therefore unquestionable that the decision to do nothing had
Redmond's approval. Whatever may be thought of that policy, one factor
was assuredly underestimated--the effect produced on the public mind by
the spectacle of highly placed personages defying the law and defying it
with impunity. It was possible to argue that a conviction for
hypothetical treason would be difficult to secure and t