hey should get all
the preparations aimed at without having to use them.

"I say, speaking again on behalf of the Government, that in our view,
under the conditions which now exist--we must all recognize the
atmosphere which this great patriotic spirit has created in the
country--the employment of force, any kind of force, for what you call
the coercion of Ulster, is an absolutely unthinkable thing. So far as I
am concerned, and so far as my colleagues are concerned--I speak for
them, for I know their unanimous feeling--that is a thing we would never
countenance or consent to."

This utterance has dominated the situation from that day to this. Ulster
had organized to rebel, sooner than come under an Irish Parliament; and
had refrained from rebellion because the Great War was in progress. For
this reason Ulster should never be coerced, no matter what might happen.
Sir Edward Carson's line of action had secured an enormous concession:
he might have gone back to his people and said, "We have won." But he
was strong enough to represent it as a new outrage, which they for the
sake of loyalty must in the hour of common danger submit to endure. By
this course, risky for himself, he vastly improved their position in all
future negotiation.--After a violent speech from Mr. Bonar Law the Tory
party walked out of the House in a body.

Redmond rose at once. He denounced the view that Ireland had gained an
advantage, or desired to gain one. The Prime Minister had at every stage
assured him that the Bill would be put on the Statute Book in that
session, and therefore it was unjust to say that his loyalty was only
conditional; he had asked for nothing that was not won in advance. Now,
instead of an Act to become immediately operative, Ireland received one
with at least a year's delay. Yet this moratorium did not seem to him
unreasonable.

"When everybody is preoccupied by the war and when everyone is
endeavouring--and the endeavour will be made as enthusiastically in
Ireland as anywhere else in the United Kingdom--to bring about the
creation of an Army, the idea is absurd that under these circumstances a
new Government and a new Parliament could be erected in Ireland."

Further, it gave time for healing work. The two things that he cared for
most "in this world of politics" were: first, that "not a single sod of
Irish soil and not a single citizen of the Irish nation" should be
excluded from the operation of Irish self-government