The armed Ulstermen would be "much slower to break the peace" when they realized the certainty of formidable resistance--and this, be it said, was no ungrounded observation.

Yet at the same time the very success of the Volunteer movement was disquieting Redmond.

He was not in the same position as Sir Edward Carson, who from the first had directed, presided over, and controlled the raising and equipment of his force; and unless the force were to be a menace to his leadership, he must secure control.

As Mr.Bulmer Hobson puts it in his _History of the Irish Volunteers_: "The Volunteers had men in their ranks who were political followers of Mr.Redmond's, and men who were not, and who never had been.

The latter were willing to help him if he had been ready to help them; they would have made terms with him, but were not prepared to be merely absorbed into his movement." The strength of Redmond's position lay in the fact that the vast majority of the enrolled men looked to him as their leader: his weakness, in that the committees under which enrolment had taken place were largely composed of the extremist section.