is a small measure of what was lost in Ireland by
his inclusion.

IV

The formation of the Coalition Government marks the first stage in the
history of Redmond's defeat and the victory of Sir Edward Carson and
Sinn Fein.

Of what he felt upon this matter, Redmond at the time said not a word in
public. Six months later, on November 2, 1915, when a debate on the
naval and military situation was opened, he broke silence--and his first
words were an explanation of his silence. He had not intervened, he
said, in any debate on the war since its inception. "We thought a loyal
and as far as possible silent support to the Government of the day was
the best service we could render." This silence had been maintained
"even after the formation of the Coalition"--when the Irish view had
been roughly set aside, and when the personal tie to the Liberal
Government with which he had been so long allied had been profoundly
modified. He claimed the credit of this loyalty not merely for himself
but for the whole of his country. "Since the war commenced the voice of
party controversy has disappeared in Ireland."

This was pushing generosity almost to a stretch of imagination, for the
voice of party controversy had not been absent from the Belfast Press,
nor had it spared him. But he was speaking then, and he desired that the
House should feel that he spoke, as Ireland's spokesman; he claimed
credit for North and South alike in the absence of all labour troubles
in war supply. "The spectacle of industrial unrest in Great Britain, the
determined and unceasing attacks in certain sections of the Press upon
individual members of the Government and in a special way upon the Prime
Minister, have aroused the greatest concern and the deepest indignation
in Ireland," he said. "Mr. Asquith stands to-day, as before the war,
high in the confidence of the Irish people." The "persistent pessimism"
had effected nothing except to help in some measure "that little fringe
which exists in Ireland as in England, of men who would if they could
interfere with the success of recruiting."

No doubt there was an element of policy, of a fencer's skill, in all
this. Sir Edward Carson had not maintained silence and certainly had not
spared the Prime Minister. But in essence Redmond was relying on the
plain truth. He had pledged support and he gave it to the utmost of his
power, even at his peril. Mr. Birrell in the posthumous "Appreciation"
which has been alrea