possible for it in
appointing to the command an Irishman who was a first-rate soldier and a
first-rate man to supervise the training of troops. So far as my
judgment is able to go, the credit for making the Sixteenth Division
what it was when we went to France belongs chiefly to the divisional
general under whom we trained.

General Parsons had the gift, which appears to be rare in soldiers, of
imparting ideas not merely about discipline but about the art of war;
and he had an enthusiasm which communicated itself. But these were the
qualities of the soldier in his own sphere, with which Redmond had no
contact. What Redmond knew was the writer of letters which now lie
before me. Running through them all is the tone of a soldier in
authority who accepts assistance from a friendly, influential,
well-meaning but imperfectly instructed civilian. There is no
recognition of the fact that Redmond was the accepted leader of a
Volunteer Force numbering over a hundred thousand men; no glimpse of any
perception that morally, and almost officially, Redmond was the
accredited head of the nation in whose name the division was being
raised--a nation to which the statutory right of self-government had
just been accorded.

The whole position was extraordinary. Legally and theoretically, Redmond
was a simple member of Parliament. Practically and morally, he was the
head of Ireland, exactly as Botha was of South Africa; and he was trying
to do without legal powers what Botha was doing by means of them. He was
far more than the Leader of the Opposition in Great Britain; for in
Ireland there really was no Government. Moral authority, which must
proceed from consent of the governed, the Irish Government had not
possessed for many a long day; but its legal status had been
unimpeachable. Now even that was gone; it was merely a stop-gap
contrivance, carrying on till the Act of Parliament should receive
fulfilment; and, as a bare matter of fact, it was powerless. No
operative decision of any moment was taken or could be taken at this
moment in Ireland. Everything was referred to the Cabinet, and that body
had no power to carry out a popular policy in Ireland.

Redmond had put forward a policy which they had accepted in principle.
It could only be carried out through him, and for success he must be
consulted in detail. Neither Lord Kitchener nor General Parsons in fact
recognized the status which this implied. They were prepared to listen
to