He was convinced that the new Premier could, if he chose, force a settlement of the Irish difficulty, and was very hopeful of this happening.

Sir Edward Carson dared not, he thought, set himself in opposition; at this moment the Ulster party was not popular, while there was in the House a widespread feeling that Redmond in particular had been treated in a manner far other than his due.
Another of his brother's interventions in debate gave an impetus to this sympathy.
Again in a thin House, during some discussion on Estimates, Willie Redmond got up and spoke out of the fullness of experiences which had profoundly affected his imagination.

He told the House of what he had seen in Flanders, where the two Irish Divisions had at last been brought into contact, so that the left of the Ulster line in front of Ploegstreet touched the right of ours in front of Kemmel.

It had always been said that the two factions would fly at each other's throats: by a score of happy detailed touches the soldier built up a picture of what had actually happened in the line and behind the line, and then summed it up in a conclusion: "They came together in the trenches and they were friends.

Get them together on the floor of an Assembly, or where you will, in Ireland, and a similar result will follow." Then, from this theme, he passed to one even more moving--the fate of Irish Nationalists, who were confronted daily with evil news of their own land.