This is a passage from it which is well worth repeating: 428 There is a possibility, at any rate, of history repeating itself. The House will remember that in 177s, at the end of the disastrous American War, when it might, I think, be truly said that the military power of this country was almost at its lowest ebb, and when the shores of Ireland were threatened with foreign invasion, a body of 100,000 Irish Volunteers sprang into existence for the purpose of defending her shores. At first no Catholic-ah, how sad the reading of the history of those days!—was allowed to be enrolled in that body of volunteers, and yet, from the very first day, the Catholics of the South and West subscribed money and sent it towards the Army of their Protestant fellow countrymen. Ideas widened as time went on, and finally the Catholics in the south were armed and enrolled as brothers in arms with their follow countrymen of a different creed in the North. May history repeat itself. Then my hon. Friend went on to say: To-day there are in Ireland two large bodies of Volunteers. One of them sprang into existence in the North. Another has sprung into existence in the South, I say to the Government that they may to-morrow withdraw every one of their troops from Ireland. I say that the coast of Ireland will be defended from foreign invasion by her armed sons, and for this purpose armed Nationalist Catholics in the South will be only too glad to join arms with the armed Protestant Ulsterman in the North. That speech, which gave the full adhesion of the Irish people to the cause of the Allies, was welcomed warmly in this House and by men of all parties. It was welcomed as warmly by the most bigoted and convinced opponents of the principles of my hon. and learned Friend as by the warmest supporters. I remember the impression very well that was made upon my mind when man after man from the Unionist ranks came up to me in the Lobby, I had almost said violating all the reserve for which the English race is remarkable, and in almost choking voices expressing their gratitude to my hon. and learned Friend for his speech, and declaring from that hour their whole attitude to the demands of Ireland was transformed. That was the effect of my hon. and learned Friend's speech in this House. Let me look to the effect of that speech in Ireland. I claim to have worked for the reconciliation of the peoples of this country and of Ireland all my life, but I never thought, I never was foolish enough to think, that national hatred, running through centuries, could be appeased in a moment, or even in a generation. I never looked to the reconciliation of England and Ireland, and the masses of the peoples of the two countries, coming even in a generation, or until after I and my own generation had disappeared. I was wrong. In Ireland the effect of that speech, coupled with other things—coupled with the invasion of Belgium and the abominable atrocities of the German Army in that country, the massacre of priests, and the violation of the homes of the people and 429 of women who had retired from the struggles of life and devoted themselves to the good of mankind, and also, I think, the natural hatred, the inborn hatred, and even the educated hatred in the history of the Irish people of militarism—was to produce a state of feeling which, I think, was a surprise to Irishmen more intimately acquainted with the interests and dealings of their own country. Let me give a few examples: Everybody remembers the tragical incident which occurred at Bachelors Walk a very short time before the War. There was a disturbance, and some people were shot. There was a feeling of most violent exasperation) in Ireland, and especially, of course, exasperation against the particular regiment which had taken part in putting down this disturbance—I think the Scottish Borderers. I should say that after this occurrence no man or officer of that force could go through the streets of Dublin without insult, and perhaps without even assault. They were confined to barracks, I believe.

After the declaration of war, and the speech of my hon. and learned Friend, when the time came for the Scottish Borderers to leave Dublin, they went through the streets, not only without insult and assault, but amid the good wishes of the Irish people for their success in France. I am told by my hon. Friend near me that they were actually cheered. These men who had been hooted and assaulted a week or two before, were, in spite of the blood still fresh on the streets of Dublin, cheered through the streets of that city by the Irish, who wanted to show their full sympathy with this country and the War that it is making for the principles of liberty and justice. There was another incident—I do not regard it with much gratification—it is not a form of patriotic feeling of which I approve, though there was something of the same thing in this country as occurred in Ireland—in which some of the principal shops reputed to belong to Germans in Dublin—in fact, I believe they belong to Russians—were looted by the population there, and all the efforts of the police could not drive them off. An hon. Friend of mine above the Gangway says, "It was very Irish"; it was very English as well. If my hon. Friend had done me the honour to listen he would have heard that I did not boast of this occurrence, and I only give it as an instance showing the feeling of the country. But there were much more remarkable things than these. Throughout all Ireland there was a perfect 430 fever on the part of the youth of Ireland to rush to the ranks, I know the Irish of Great Britain with whom I associated, and I claim that no race in the whole Empire has given so largely and promptly to the support of the Flag as members of the Irish race in this country. In Ireland there was a perfect fever of recruiting; I do not exaggerate when I say that. The men were escorted to the railway station with their priests, their bands, and local bodies. There was not a man in Ireland who dared say a word at that time against the policy of my hon. and learned Friend or the policy of the Allies and this country. I read the passage in the speech of my hon. and learned Friend in which he proposed that the Volunteers of the North and South of Ireland should join together to defend the shores of that country.

But my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Waterford was not satisfied with making that statement to the House of Commons. I think it was the very day after my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Waterford and my hon. Friend the Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon) and my hon. Friend the Member for West Belfast (Mr. Devlin) went to the War Office and renewed the offer. The story has been told so often, I will not repeat it, but the offer was refused. Let any man with any imagination think of 130,000 volunteers, as there were then in Ireland on the National side, in khaki, drilled and equipped, and anybody knowing the martial spirit of Irishmen must realise that the greater number of those men would have been in the trenches by this time, and you should not have the anxieties about man supply which you have at the present moment. That was the state of feeling in Ireland produced by the action of the Germans and by the speech of my hon. and learned Friend. What were the grounds of objection in the quarters in which any objection was raised to the policy of my hon. and learned Friend. At that time the critics of his policy were very few and insignificant. He and his colleagues were able to go over Ireland and to make speeches in favour of the Allies, not only without interruption, but with acclamation from all sides. My hon. Friend the Member for West Belfast was able to go to his city to the Nationalist quarters; and, by the way, the recruiting sergeant of the Nationalists was sent to the Orange quarter, as far away from the Nationalists he was expected to recruit as possible—a characteristic attitude of the 431 recruiting departments in Ireland. What was the solitary criticism that was then ventured upon—the policy of my hon. and learned Friend? It was that he gave the price of liberty without getting it.

What was the position of my hon. and learned Friend and of his party? He recognised the difficulty of putting the Home Rule Act into operation in the middle of a war. The remarkable thing is that our people in Ireland accepted that delay of their rights at that time. The position of my hon. and learned Friend was that we could trust to the honour of England and of English statesmen. I remember reading a very remarkable speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for West Belfast at one of those recruiting meetings He was answering this Objection which I have mentioned, and in that speech my hon. Friend answered the critics of his leader and of himself by saying: "People say that Home Rule may not come after the War." I cannot repeat the eloquent terms, but I give the idea of the speech. "But," said my hon. Friend, "can anybody imagine that the Government and the people of Great Britain, fighting for the independence of Belgium and of Serbia, and of all the other small nations of Europe, and for the principle of nationality, and for Poland, can anybody imagine that any Government could be so so stupid or so inconsistent or unjust as to deny to Ireland what they are fighting for elsewhere." That was the state of Ireland.

Let me begin the disastrous chapter of how that state of feeling was transformed and deformed. It is an old story, and I will pass over it as rapidly as I can. We had the War Offiec on our back. I may dismiss its connection with that part of Irish history in the words of the Prime Minister when he was War Secretary, when he said that he could offer no defence for the "ineptitudes and malignities of the War Office." First fame the rejection of the offer of the volunteers to go into khaki. Let me tell the story, and as it has been told so often I will only repeat the few main points. There is one little story I must tell, and that is the story of the manner in which the Irish Brigade was treated. In the first place, there was a great objection—perhaps the Prime Minister can support me on that point—to an Irish Brigade, or even a Welsh Brigade. Unfortunately, the Irish 432 people had not the advantage of having a Member in the Cabinet who was not afraid to stand up even to the most highly constituted and most powerful authorities of the War Office and to obsolete traditions. But we managed, in spite of every obstacle, to raise an Irish Brigade. I am glad to see my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for East Clare (Major William Redmond) in his place. I remember a story he told me about the Sixteenth Division, that was one of the Irish Brigades. He said the people in Fermoy watched a field day with the soldiers and officers passing by, and the colonel on horseback, the major on horseback, the captain on horseback, the lieutenant on horseback. I am quite wrong, the colonel was on horseback, the major was on horseback, and perhaps the captain. They were all Protestants. But the lieutenants were on foot because they were all Catholics. And there was this remarkable phenomenon which could not occur in any country but Ireland, that while 95 per cent. of the men were Catholic and Nationalist, from 80 to 85 per cent. of their officers were Orangemen and Unionists, or Protestants and Unionists. Let me immediately say, because I see my Friends restive above me, that I do not think that in practice this thing worked out as badly as might have been anticipated. I went down to a portion of the Sixteenth Division, and I was-delighted to see, in spite of their differences of creed and politics, that nothing could have been more cordial or more intimate or more loyal than the relations between the officers and men. But that does not do away with the fact that every request for a commission for a Catholic, or nearly every request, was turned down, so that by way of appeasing the Nationalists they made religion a bar and an exclusion.

Such was the beginning of the intervention of the wisdom of this Government and its Departments in the situation created by the speech of my hon. and learned Friend. I never denied that he had some critics, that he had some political opponents even in the ranks of Nationalists themselves. What I do deny is that for months after the beginning of this War those opponents were able to make headway against him or against the cause of the Allies until the stupidities and ineptitudes and maligni- 433 ties of the Government drove those people into open hostility. In the Volunteers there were some opponents of my hon. and learned Friend. The leader of his opponents among the National Volunteers was Mr. John MacNeill, who afterwards figured in the events connected with the rebellion. Mr. MacNeill took issue with my hon. and learned Friend and the issue was the support of this country in the War or a system of either benevolent or hostile neutrality. A vote was taken. There were about 130,000 men altogether, I believe, in the Volunteers at the time, and of those 130,000 men I believe 110,000—[An HON. MEMBER: "One hundred and twenty thousand!"]—I believe 120,000 followed the lead and adopted the policy of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Waterford and 10,000 adopted the policy of Mr. John MacNeill. Was there ever such a transformation of the spirit of a country that bad for centuries hated the side of this country in every war in which it had been engaged? Was there ever so marvellous, I might almost say miraculous, transformation of a nation, and all carried out not by the Government, but by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Waterford?

I do not deny that since the beginning of the War, and even for some years before, there was a movement in Ireland which was hostile, not merely to my hon. and learned Friend, but to all constitutional movement and to all Parliamentary parties which came to this House. Sinn Fein was originally rather a literary and academical than a political movement. The words mean "ourselves alone." In the birth of new hopes which the gradual growth of Irish history in the constitutional movement had achieved, there began a renaissance of the Celtic spirit, which of course everybody, whatever his nationality may be, must sympathise with. The language of Ireland had been discouraged and insulted, and I have heard of children being beaten every time they spoke a word of Irish. There was a feeling that the Irish language must be studied, and even revived, and that Irish history and Irish archeology should be more carefully studied, and that movement at first consisted mainly of poets and dramatists and idealists, Protestant as well as Catholic. There were two young men, by the way, in that movement at its start. The name of one of them was Thomas Kettle, and the name of the other was Thomas MacDonagh. 434 They both joined the movement at the same time, and both joined with the same purpose, namely, to revive the study of the language, literature, and history of Ireland, and of making an Irish Ireland. If the Government had acted properly, those two men would be either living or in the same grave to-day, but owing to the stupidity of the Government, owing to the criminal stupidity of the Government, the body of one man lies in Kilmainham and the body of the other lies on soil outside the trenches in France.

And then came a transformation. Up-to three or four years ago the whole feeling of Nationalist Ireland had been weaned from revolutionary methods. My right hon. Friend on the Front Bench below me (Mr. Asquith) may well recall the memorable days in which he as a young counsel took part, when Mr. Parnell gave his evidence. When Mr. Parnell had described how he had gradually built up his movement, weaning people away from revolutionary methods, and teaching them that, under constitutional methods, they could gain all the rights of Ireland, and, as he recounted difficulty after difficulty with a complete reserve of language, I remember my right hon. Friend was so impressed by the evidence that he said to me—I do not know whether he recalls it, but I do well—"Parnell as a statesman deserves to be ranked with Bismarck and Gladstone." I answered that I remembered quite a different state of things, that when Parnell started the present movement he was hooted off platforms in Ireland by the then powerful Fenian organisation. By the steady growth of our victories achieved in this Chamber on constitutional lines, the movement in favour of revolution, which was almost universal in my boyhood and youth, was gradually disappearing, and even in America, where feeling is more virulent than in Ireland, because the people there are the sons of the men and women who were driven from their homes in Ireland under every circumstance of cruely by the legislation of the Parliament of this county—even in America the movement had gone down almost to insignificance.

I come now to one controversial point of the story, and I will deal with it fairly, calmly, and I hope without being offensive to anyone. What brought revolutionary feeling back to Ireland was the revolutionary movement in Ulster. It is 435 not my business at this moment to utter any criticism of that movement or its authors, or any defence it might make for itself. It is not my business to enter into that. After more than a century of struggle for Home Rule, thirty years after Mr. Gladstone first proposed a Home Rule Bill in this House, Home Rule was carried by a majority of the Imperial Parliament—after two General Elections—and by a British majority, and it received the Royal Assent, and yet the Home Rule Act was confronted by a movement which threatened and certainly was able to postpone it. Therefore, the whole idea which had almost been rooted out of the Irish mind, that the proper way to achieve liberty was not by Parliamentary and constitutional agitation, but by guns, was brought home to them again. I pass that by as carefully as I can. Everybody knows that that revolutionary movement in Ulster was backed up what I will call a military demonstration at the Curragh. I put it to the most severe critics of Ireland, if the opponents of my hon. and learned Friend who put up armed revolters against constitutional agitation were not enormously strengthened in their view by the fact that a revolutionary movement with arms in its hands was able to defy the high Parliament of this nation, and, consequently, a gospel which was almost dead and obsolete was brought into life again, and men summed up the situation by saying, "The crack of the rifle is more powerful than even the greatest Parlimentarian, or the most eloquent orator."

That was the beginning of the trouble. It was followed by others. In the first place, there was a delay of six weeks in putting the Home Rule Bill, after it had passed all its stages, on the Statute Book. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Waterford did his best, but I express the solemn opinion that neither he nor his colleagues were ever able entirely to recover that interval of six weeks. Things still, however, were not bad. Recruiting went on. There was very little public criticism of the policy of my hon. Friend. Everybody in Ireland—everybody in this country—knew he ran great political risks in the course he was taking, but the success that attended his policy justified his taking those risks. But then came another incident, and that was the formation of the Coalition Government. Put all these things together—the War Office 436 discouraging recruiting in Ireland, embarrassing it, insulting and flouting Nationalist Catholic opinion in Ireland on the one hand; on the other hand, an apparently indefinite postponement of Home Rule—and add to all this the impression, strong, universal, and well founded, that English Ministries may come and go, but Dublin Castle ascendancy is always rooted—what else could be expected? I do not blame the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Admiralty (Sir E. Carson) for entering the Coalition Ministry; honestly I do not think it was his fault. As far as I know—I am not, of course, in his confidence—he had no desire for office, and I think his judgment was sounder than that of his English friends, but when the right hon. and learned Gentleman became a member of the Coalition Ministry, and when the present Lord Chief Justice of Ireland was mentioned as Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and afterwards became Attorney-General, the. feeling of Nationalist Ireland was that the new-Government meant the triumph and placing in power of all their political opponents, and practically the threat that Home Rule would never be allowed to come into force. It may have been a sound or an ill-founded opinion, but it was a natural opinion among the people of Ireland, who have always known, as I have said, that whatever Minister may be there, there is one governing and stable power. and that is the power of the officials of the ascendancy party in Dublin Castle.

From that time forward prospects began to darken in Ireland. My hon. Friend the Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon), who was very intimately acquainted with the inner conditions of Irish life, saw that after the formation of the Coalition Government there was a tremendous transformation of opinion in Ireland; the authorities themselves had given evidence that in their opinion there was such a transformation. The Volunteers, who previously had followed my hon. Friend the Member for Waterford and repudiated Mr. John MacNeill and his opinions, to the extent of 120,000 to 10,000, these National Volunteers began to turn away from him by hundreds and then by thousands, convinced that constitutional agitation had failed, and that Home Rule would be destroyed by the crack of the ascendancy rifle. They went 437 to join the ranks of the Sinn Fein Volunteers, and thus the efforts of my hon. Friend, who was trying to bring the country to safety, were hindered. These are the events which led up to the rebellion.

With regard to the rebellion in itself, judged by its proportions, and above all judged by the amount of sympathy and support it got from the Irish people, it was comparatively insignificant. What I would like to get into the mind of the House, even of those who ordinarily differ from me, is this, that the insurrection was not one-half as important, not one-tenth as important, as the events which followed. Was the rebellion a rebellion of the Irish people? I will quote some words from my right hon. Friend below me (Mr. Asquith) on that point, after his return from Dublin: We rejoice, the whole country rejoices, in the overwhelming evidence that the great bulk of the Irish nation of all creeds and all parties have no sympathy of any sort or kind with the recent ill-advised undertaking. My right hon. Friend, who I am glad to see back in the House, the late Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. Birrell) also made a speech, in which he said practically the same thing. The whole evidence, indeed, showed that at the beginning of this insurrection the rebel leaders had no sympathy whatever from the majority of the population, even in Dublin. They were repudiated and denounced, and they were regarded, and rightly regarded, as dealing a deadly blow at the heart of Ireland in risking Home Rule with such disastrous methods. English statesmen have had many triumphs in their genius for stupidity, but its greatest triumph was after that rebellion. In twenty-four hours it transformed practically a whole population that was friendly and reconciled to this country, and in full sympathy with its issues in this War, into a population filled, I regret to say—but I must say it—with as bitter a hatred of this country and its Government as ever existed in the past. I warned the House that I should have to speak the truth, and that is the truth! Can anyone be surprised? People are surprised! I dare say many people in this country are shocked by this extraordinary transformation of opinion. Does anybody who has ever studied the history of human nature feel any surprise at such a revulsion of feeling in Ireland? What is the whole history of mankind but this— 438 that the most disturbing of the influences on the human soul is execution for an idea? I need not go into examples. They are familiar to everybody. Take our own movement. Consider! This constitutional party, sitting on these benches to-day, and which has sat here for some forty years, was largely brought about by the execution of Allen Larkin and O'Brien. If the national spirit exists in Ireland to-day in such strength, and has on its side not only Catholics, but many high-minded and broad-minded Protestants, it is because Lord Edward Fitzgerald and Robert Emmett died for Ireland. Therefore, when I find the resentment and passion—I believe I might go to the length of saying something like insanity of emotion—which has followed these executions, I look upon it as a natural, frequent, and almost unbroken tradition of the effect on the human soul of execution for an idea. Of these executions what have I to say? The tragedy of this event is this: I have spoken of the Ireland I knew in my boyhood and early youth—an Ireland still without any faith in this country, without any faith in constitutional movement, without any faith either in the English people or English statesmen—a country suspicious and hostile. Then came Gladstone.

Parnell first restored faith in the constitutional movement by the remarkable results be obtained on the floor of this House. Gladstone followed. Gladstone gave at least the feeling to the Irish people that the Old England of hostility, cruelty, and tyranny had died and that there was a new England arising. From that hour until a few years ago that feeling of growing reconciliation between the people of Ireland and the people of England went on and grew, and would to-day have been stronger than ever but for the incidents of the last two and a half years. That is the reason for the present state of feeling in Ireland. It may be asked, What is your remedy? There is only one. I put it to the Prime Minister that there are only two alternative policies in Ireland to-day—settlement of the Irish question or coercion. Both have difficulties. I think, however, the difficulty of coercion is patent. Any man who thinks for the moment, who knows anything of the history of England and Ireland and of the realities of this War, will know which is the more dangerous path to tread. My right hon. Friend the Member for St. George's (Sir G. Reid), not 439 representing in the question he put to-day the opinion of the great self-governing Dominion from which he comes—great and loyal because it has Home Rule!—my right hon. Friend objects to me raising this question of Home Rule for Ireland at this particular moment. Was there ever a moment when it was more necessary?

The word in my Resolution is "forthwith," and I stand by it! You have either of two choices in Ireland. The one is a growing disturbance and turbulence in that country, which, of course, will involve what you are pleased to call "firm government," but what we call "coercion," and what the world calls"coercion"—-which nobody called "coercion" so eloquently and fiercely as the present Prime Minister when he was opposing a Tory Government exercising it. "Forthwith!" In the first place, forthwith for the sake of Ireland. What man can contemplate except with horror a state of disturbance in Ireland on the one side and military rule on the other? I put it on another ground. I put it in the interests of England. I put it in the interests of the Empire. I put it in the interests of the Allies. As to England, I think the majority of sane men in this country of all parties, and in this House, have come to the conclusion that the settlement of the Irish Irish question is an absolute necessity for this country. In fact I am inclined to believe—and this is one of the ironies of the situation—that the sentiment for settlement is even more powerful in England than in Ireland. Ireland for the moment is in such a state of violent and morbid resentment over the events of the last two and a half years that it does not press for a settlement as much as, I think, the public opinion of this country does. Settlement was tried before. I must add—I say it again very cautiously—that one of the many factors that have created this morbid, this deplorable, feeling in Ireland, was the failure of the negotiations last summer. I am not going into the merits of that now dead and gone transaction beyond this sentence—