equipment and arming and instructing of a certain number of the
Irish Volunteers for Home Defence, and that this will be done
without interfering in any way with the character or organization
of the existing Volunteer Force.

Carrying out this programme will really not stand in the way of the
preparing of the new Army. All that is required is a few thousand
rifles, and there are plenty of them in the military stores in
Ireland at this moment which are not being used and will not be
used, because they are too old, in the training of the recruits,
but which would be quite suitable for making a beginning at any
rate in the drilling of the Volunteers. It might be stated that
they would be replaced by better weapons gradually, as soon as the
rush was over.

A few instructors should be placed at the disposal of the
Volunteers.[6]

If this is done, intense satisfaction will be given all through the
country, and the pride and sentiment of the Volunteers will be
touched, and the appeal for recruits generally through the country,
and even in the ranks of the Volunteers themselves, will, I am
confident, be responded to.

But, as I have said, if this course is not taken, inevitably
recruiting will flag.

I would earnestly beg of you to take this matter vigorously in
hand, so that some satisfactory announcement may be made before I
return to Ireland next week.

Very truly yours,

RIGHT HON. A. BIRRELL, M.P. J.E. REDMOND.

Mr. Asquith's speech on September 24th was at least an indication that
the Prime Minister desired to act in the spirit of Redmond's
suggestions. The Chief Secretary was of the same disposition. But
neither of them was able to control the imperious colleague who now had
taken charge of the Army, and who in the most critical moment thwarted
effectually the designs of Liberal statesmanship in Ireland.

After Redmond's death an "Appreciation" published in _The Times_ (with
the signature "A.B.,") by Mr. Birrell, contained this passage:

"He felt to the very end, bitterly and intensely, the stupidity of
the War Office. Had he been allowed to deflect the routine
indifference and suspicion of the War Office from its old ruts into
the deep-cut channels of Irish feelings and sentiments, he might
have carried his countrymen with him, but he jumped first an