ight be taken in
Ireland, and how it would issue in action. A famous Nationalist said
some ten days later: "When I read the speech in the paper, I was filled
with dismay. Now I recognize that it was a great stroke of statesmanship
which I should never have had the courage to advise."

Redmond's instinct had been right. He trusted in the appeal to national
pride and to the sense of national unity. Ireland was perfectly willing,
and he knew it, to give loyal friendship to England on the basis of
freedom. But the test of freedom had now come to be the right to bear
arms, and this was a proposal that Ireland should undertake her own
defence. Ireland was sick of the talk of civil war, and this was a
proposal that Ulstermen and the rest should make common cause. It was an
appeal addressed by an instinct, which was no less subtle than it was
noble, to what was most responsive in the best qualities of Irishmen.
None the less it was a statesman's utterance addressed to a people
politically quick-minded; Ireland saw as well as Redmond himself that
what stood in the way of Ireland's national aspiration was the
opposition of one section of Irishmen. To that extent, and to that
extent only, was the speech political in its purpose. Whatever made for
common action made for unity; and whatever made for unity made for Home
Rule. That is the key to Redmond's attitude throughout the war--perhaps
also to Sir Edward Carson's.

II

The response from Nationalist Ireland had not long to be waited
for--although the inquest on the victims of the Bachelor's Walk tragedy
was in progress on the very day when Redmond's speech appeared in the
Press. Waterford Corporation instantly endorsed their member's
utterance, and throughout the week similar resolutions were passed all
over the country, Unionist members of these bodies joining in to second
the proposals. In Cork, the City Council had before it a resolution
condemning the Government for its attempt to disarm the Irish
Volunteers, and calling for stringent penalties on the offenders in the
Bachelor's Walk affair: the resolution was withdrawn and one of hearty
support to Redmond's attitude adopted.

Yet Irish opinion did not go so far as Mr. William O'Brien, who proposed
the complete dropping of the Home Rule Bill till after the war, in order
to bring about a genuine national unity. The action of the Offaly corps
of Volunteers, for instance, was typical. They agreed to offer their
services g