The other is the Irish response to Mr.Gladstone.It was not the assent of mere tacticians who had gained an advocate and a point.

It was genuine, warm and living feeling, a response of gratitude and sympathy the same in kind and as living as his own." If Redmond's task from 1912 onwards was not lightened by the existence of any such genuine, warm and living feeling for any of Mr.Asquith's Ministry, perhaps Ireland is not to blame.

There was no intense grip of any fact in the Government's attitude, and on one cardinal point they were unstable as water.

Sir Edward Carson, in opposing the introduction of the Bill, had used the words: "What argument is there that you can raise for giving Home Rule to Ireland that you do not equally raise for giving Home Rule to that Protestant minority in the north-east province ?" Redmond, following him, made one of his few false moves in debate.

"Is that the proposal?
Is that the demand ?" he asked.