ait for instructions from
headquarters now that they could trust their leaders to give the
necessary instructions at the proper time.

The net result, therefore, of an expedition which was designed to expose
the hollowness and the weakness of the Ulster case was to augment the
prestige of the Ulster leaders and the self-confidence of the Ulster
people, and to make both leaders and followers understand better than
before the strength of the position in which they were entrenched.

FOOTNOTES:

[14] See _ante_, p. 38.

[15] _The Times_, January 18th, 1912.

[16] _The Times_, January 26th, 1912.

[17] _The Standard_, January 18th, 1912.

[18] _The Saturday Review_, January 27th, 1912.

[19] _The Times_, January 20th, 1912.

[20] See Interview with Mr. F.W. Warden in _The Standard_, February 8th,
1912.

[21] See Dublin Correspondent's telegram in _The Times_, January 29th,
1912.

CHAPTER VII

"WHAT ANSWER FROM THE NORTH?"

Public curiosity as to the proposals that the coming Home Rule Bill
might contain was not set at rest by Mr. Churchill's oration in Belfast.
The constitution-mongers were hard at work with suggestions. Attempts
were made to conciliate hesitating opinion by representing Irish Home
Rule as a step in the direction of a general federal system for the
United Kingdom, and by tracing an analogy with the constitutions already
granted to the self-governing Dominions. Closely connected with the
federal idea was the question of finance. There was lively speculation
as to what measure of control over taxation the Bill would confer on the
Irish Parliament, and especially whether it would be given the power to
impose duties of Customs and Excise. Home Rulers themselves were sharply
divided on the question. At a conference held at the London School of
Economics on the 10th of January, 1912, Professor T.M. Kettle, Mr.
Erskine Childers, and Mr. Thomas Lough, M.P., declared themselves in
favour of Irish fiscal autonomy, while Lord Macdonnell opposed the idea
as irreconcilable with the fiscal policy of Great Britain.[22] The
latter opinion was very forcibly maintained a few weeks later by a
member of the Government with some reputation as an economist. Speaking
to a branch of the United Irish League in London, Mr. J.M. Robertson,
Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade, summarily rejected fiscal
autonomy for Ireland, which, he said, "really meant a claim for
separation." "To give fiscal autono