It is difficult, if not impossible, to find in Mr.Asquith's conduct any recognition of this cardinal fact.

He judged rebels as if preparations for rebellion had never been palliated or approved.
All that Redmond could achieve was by incessant personal intervention to limit the list of executions, to put some stay on what he called later "the gross and panicky violence" with which measures of suppression were conceived and carried out.

He could not prevent the amazing procedure of sending flying columns throughout the country into places where there had been no hint of disturbance, and making arrests by the hundred without reason given or evidence produced.

In many cases, men who had been thoroughly disgusted by the outbreak found themselves in jail; and disaffection was manufactured hourly.
On May 3rd, when Redmond made his public appeal to Mr.Asquith, it was still not too late to prevent the mischief from spreading.

By general consent, Redmond was right when he said that the rising was thoroughly unpopular in Ireland, and most of all in Dublin.