he offer was made by
Sir A. Paget to my brother, saying: 'Something is up' (we had been
suddenly ordered to a conference). 'What is it? If I receive orders
to march North, of course I will go.'"

'All the officers of the 3rd Cavalry Brigade took the same line'
(continues the correspondent of the _Manchester Guardian_) 'and
resigned. This decision seems not to have been expected by the
authorities, and caused great perturbation. General Gough was urged
by Sir Arthur Paget to withdraw the resignation. Sir Arthur Paget
told them that the operations against Ulster were to be of a purely
defensive nature. Unfortunately, Sir Arthur Paget based his appeal
on expediency and private interest, and not sufficiently on the
call of public duty. This failed to influence the officers. They
persisted in their resignations, and only finally withdrew them on
receiving a written undertaking from the War Office that they would
not be again presented with the alternative of resigning or
attacking Ulster.'

The Irish Party had no guess at the inner aspect of the occurrence.
Naturally, but regrettably, we were the section of the House which had
least touch with what was thought and felt in barrack-rooms and
regimental messes. Naturally, but most regrettably, the opinion of the
Army regarded us traditionally as a hostile body; and at this time every
effort to accentuate that belief was made by the political party with
which the Army had most intercourse and connection.

Writing now, as I hope I may write without offence, of a state of things
not far off in time, but divided from us of to-day by the marks of a
vast upheaval, it can be said that the old professional Army was a
society governed in an extraordinary degree by tradition. Part of that
tradition was that the Army had no politics; and as everyone knows, the
man who says he has no politics is in practice almost invariably a
Conservative. In the Army, usage was at its strongest--stronger even
than at a public school; it was almost bad manners, "bad form," to hold
political opinions differing from those of your mess. Political
discussion was sharply discouraged; but this never meant that a man
might not express vehemently the prevailing opinion. On the broad facts
it was inevitable that the prevailing opinion should be unfriendly to
Irish Nationalists. Irish Nationalists had taken passionately the line
of o