It said what badly needed to be said, and said it with a freshness and a dash that came superbly from a company commander in his fifty-fourth year.

It was the best service that had yet been rendered to John Redmond's policy.
Everybody quite naturally and simply accepted the Nationalist Irishman as the spokesman for all the troops who were actually in the line.

Mr.
Walter Long, always a generous and candid human being, was quick to give voice to this feeling: "The honourable and gallant member for East Clare has been in conflict, not only with one particular political party, but during the greater part of his career with every party in turn, and has engaged in bitter controversy with them.

Does anybody doubt the fact that when war was declared one great factor in the mind of the Emperor responsible for this war was that dissension would paralyse the hands of Great Britain?
Ireland, whatever may have been our differences in the past, and whatever may be our differences in happier days again when we are at peace, everybody must feel by the action of her representatives, who have fought so bitterly in this House and in the country, has created a new claim for herself upon the affection, the gratitude, the respect of the people of the Empire by the great and proud part that she has played in this great struggle." That was the position to which Redmond's policy, backed by the Irishmen who supported it with their lives, of whom his brother was the outstanding representative, had brought this great issue.

The next thing which brought the name of Ireland prominently before the world was the story of action taken by other Irishmen, also at the risk of their lives, to reverse the strong current which was then carrying us forward with so hopeful augury.
FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 5: Lieutenant-Colonel Maurice Moore, C.B., an officer who had served with distinction in South Africa, and whose father, George Henry Moore, had been a famous advocate in Parliament of Tenant Right and Repeal.] [Footnote 6: Rifles were really not available, nor competent instructors.