l of the flag.]

There was a gleam of almost sardonic triumph in the Old Man's eye as he
sat down, having shot this bolt; and he looked as if he had thoroughly
discomfited his enemies. But his enemies were not so easily discomfited.
Treacherous, base, unscrupulous, call it what he liked, they were not
going to miss the opportunity of baiting him: and Mr. Chamberlain's pale
face wore a deadlier pallor. There was even a colder and fiercer ring
than usual in his clear, cruel voice; his always saturnine look deepened
as he seemed to grasp beforehand his great and long delayed hour of
vengeance. Mr. Balfour adopted the same tactics. In favour of 103
members? Not at all--the vote would mean nothing of that kind--it would
simply mean that they were opposed to the plan of the Government; in
short, there was the issue quite plain. The Tories and the Unionists
would vote black was white, wrong was right. This way one moment, the
other way the next--they would do anything, provided only they could
turn the Government out, defeat the Bill, and humiliate the Old Man. And
so the situation grew more difficult every moment.

For it was now plain that the Government were most certain to be beaten,
and that if they were beaten, there must be an end of Home Rule. It
might be good Parliamentary tactics to say that the Government would
accept the decision of the House, but everybody knows what moral
authority, what reality of strength, there is in a Government which has
been "snowed under" by a majority of 200.

[Sidenote: Mr. Sexton makes the running.]

It will now be understood what tremendous issues rested on the speech
which Mr. Sexton rose to deliver. In moments of stress and difficulty he
is the man always selected by his colleagues to state the Irish case.
Never in his chequered and stormy early career did that wonderful
Parliamentarian have a task more difficult than that by which he was
now confronted. In front of him was the Government in the very panic of
impending ruin. He had only to look across the floor of the House, and
he could see the pallid face of that mighty statesman who lives so high
in the hearts and affections of the people whom Mr. Sexton represents,
and who at that moment was in his hour of agony, if not of final and
irretrievable ruin. Behind the Prime Minister were other men--equally
eager to hear what he had to say--that sturdy band of Radicals, mostly
from Scotland, who only wanted the word to desert their