They are a small, a very small section.
They were once a very large section.

They are a very small section, but the men who hold, these views at this moment only desire separation as an alternative to the present system, and if you change the present system and give into the hands of Irishmen the management of purely Irish affairs, even that small feeling in favour of separation will disappear; and if it survives at all, I would like to know how under those circumstances it could be stronger or more powerful for mischief than at the present moment." Sincerer words were never spoken, nor, I think, a better justified forecast.

Where Redmond and all of us were wrong was that we underestimated the possibility of accomplishing what Pearse ultimately accomplished, even when assisted by the widespread disillusionment and sense of betrayal which was the atmosphere of 1916.
But no one in Ireland in 1912 thought of a separatist rebellion.

What was on all tongues was the possibility of physical resistance to Home Rule.

The debate on the first reading went by with little reference to this contingency, but Mr.Bonar Law closed his speech on that note.