e life-work of the Nationalists in "a sea of blood."

The Government were at their wits' end what to do. Mr Birrell, the
amiable and inefficient Chief Secretary, had to go. Mr Asquith went
over to Ireland on a tour of investigation and returned to Westminster
with two dominant impressions: (1) the breakdown of the existing
machinery of Irish Government; (2) the strength and depth, almost the
universality, of the feeling in Ireland that there was a unique
opportunity for the settlement of outstanding problems and for a
combined effort to obtain an agreement as to the way in which the
government of Ireland was to be carried on for the future. He
announced that Mr Lloyd George had undertaken, at the request of his
colleagues, to devote his time and energy to the promotion of an Irish
settlement.

Undoubtedly "the machinery of Government had broken down." But the
Government of England had taken no account of what was happening in
Ireland--of the veritable wave of passion that swept the country
after, the "executions" of the Rebel leaders, of the manner in which
this passion was fanned and flamed by the arrest and deportation of
thousands of young men all over the country, who were believed to be
prominently identified with the Volunteer Movement, of the unrest that
was caused by the reports that a number of the peaceable citizens of
Dublin were deliberately shot without cause by the troops during the
military occupation of the city. What wonder that there was a strong
and even fierce revulsion of feeling! And this was not reserved
altogether for the Government. The Irish Parliamentarians had their
own fair share of it. The process of disillusionment now rapidly set
in. That portion of the country that had not already completely lost
faith in the Party and in Parliamentary methods was fast losing it. It
only required that the Party should once again give its unqualified
assent, as it did, to Mr Lloyd George's "Headings of Agreement," which
provided for the partition of Ireland and the definite exclusion of
the six counties of Down, Antrim, Londonderry, Armagh, Monaghan and
Tyrone, to send it down into the nethermost depths of popular favour
and the whole-hearted contempt of every self-respecting man of the
Irish race. The collapse of Parliamentarianism was now complete. There
was no Nationalist of independent spirit left in Ireland who would
even yield it lip service. Irish public bodies which a year or two
previously were