s brothers-in-arms with their fellow-countrymen. May history repeat
itself! To-day there are in Ireland two large bodies of Volunteers, one
of which has sprung into existence in the North and another in the
South. I say to the Government that they may to-morrow withdraw every
one of their troops from Ireland. Ireland will be defended by her armed
sons from invasion, and for that purpose the armed Catholics in the
South will be only too glad to join arms with the armed Protestant
Ulster men. Is it too much to hope that out of this situation a result
may spring which will be good, not merely for the Empire, but for the
future welfare and integrity of the Irish nation? Whilst Irishmen are in
favour of peace and would desire to save the democracy of this country
from all the horrors of war, whilst we will make any possible sacrifice
for that purpose, still, if the necessity is forced upon this country,
we offer this to the Government of the day: They may take their troops
away, and if it is allowed to us, in comradeship with our brothers in
the North, we will ourselves defend the shores of Ireland."

It needed no gift of prophecy to be certain that such a speech would be
popular in the House of Commons, and many Unionists that day were almost
aggrieved that Sir Edward Carson had not risen at once to reply to the
offer in the same spirit. They did not realize the difficulty of the
Ulster leader's position. To admit and welcome the unity of Ireland was
to give away Ulster's case. To accept the Nationalist leader's utterance
as sincere, still more to assume that Ireland as a whole would endorse
it, was to weaken, if not to give away, Ulster's best argument, and from
that hour to the end of the war Sir Edward Carson was most loyal to
Ulster's interests.

Further, it is conceivable that by some who cheered it the speech may
have been misunderstood. Yet it is not probable that many who heard
Redmond believed that in order to serve England he was flinging away
Ireland's national claim, to the successful furtherance of which his
whole life had been devoted. The Unionist party as a whole certainly
understood that to accept Redmond's offer in the spirit in which it was
made meant accepting the principle of Home Rule: and on that afternoon
in August they were not unready to accept it. They felt, for the speech
made them feel, that a great thing had happened. Yet they might well be
pardoned for some scepticism as to how the utterance m