ous for Irish policy unless Liberal statesmanship exercised a
strong control over him. Neither Mr. Asquith nor Mr. Birrell was likely
to do this.

Two views were taken of the proposal to encourage and utilize the Irish
Volunteers. The first view was that Volunteers of any kind were a
superfluous encumbrance at a moment when the supreme need was for men in
the actual fighting-line; that encouragement of Volunteers gave an
excuse for shirking war; and further, that Volunteers outside the
State's control were a danger; that the danger was increased when there
were two rival Volunteer forces which might fly at each other's throats;
and that it was a matter for satisfaction that one of these forces
should be very greatly inferior to the other in point of arms and
equipment, so that considerations of prudence would lessen the chance of
collision. This satisfaction was greatly heightened by the reflection
that the armed force was thoroughly loyal to the Empire and could be
trusted to assist troops in the case of any attack upon the Empire begun
by the other--a contingency which should always be taken into account.

This line of thought was certainly Lord Kitchener's. He had no distrust
of Irish soldiers in ordinary regiments; no professional soldier ever
had. But he had a deep distrust of a purely Irish military organization
under Irish control. At the back of Lord Kitchener's mind was the
determination "I will not arm enemies." This was the very negation and
the antithesis of the second view, which was Redmond's.

Redmond's aim was to win the war, no less than Lord Kitchener's. But if
Lord Kitchener realized more clearly than other men in power how
far-reaching would be the need for troops, Redmond realized also far
more than the men in power how vital would be the need for America. He
saw from the first, knowing the English-speaking world far more widely
than perhaps any member of the Government, that the Irish trouble could
not limit its influence to Ireland only. Greater forces could be
conciliated for war purposes by reconciliation with Ireland--by bringing
Ireland heart and soul into the war--than the equivalent of many
regiments. Yet even from the narrower aspect of finding men, he regarded
the same policy as essential. He assumed that recruiting in Ireland must
always be voluntary--at any rate a matter for Ireland's own decision:
the question was how to get most troops. Knowing Ireland, he recognized
how complete was