e two standards of justice. The second factor
was the licence accorded by a Liberal Government, and the sanction given
by a Tory Opposition, to preparations for rebellion, and acts of
rebellion, in Ulster. This was generally recognized by public opinion,
though I think deliberately set aside by Sir John Maxwell--who perhaps
is not to be blamed. But the Prime Minister, who had been chiefly and
ultimately responsible for the decision to let Ulstermen do as they
liked, was specially bound to consider and provide for the consequences
of that line of policy in the past as it affected the present
development. He was also, as the Minister responsible alike for carrying
a Home Rule Act and for denying to it operation, specially bound in such
a pass as this to be guided largely by the judgment of the man who but
for that postponement would have been head of an Irish Government. But,
under the various pressures of the moment, Mr. Asquith moved in a wholly
different direction. Redmond's appeal and advice went totally
disregarded. Yet Redmond knew Ireland as no Englishman could know it;
and his hands were clean of guilt for what had happened. Mr. Asquith by
his past inaction, his Tory colleagues by their action before the war,
were deeply involved in responsibility. It is difficult, if not
impossible, to find in Mr. Asquith's conduct any recognition of this
cardinal fact. He judged rebels as if preparations for rebellion had
never been palliated or approved.

All that Redmond could achieve was by incessant personal intervention to
limit the list of executions, to put some stay on what he called later
"the gross and panicky violence" with which measures of suppression
were conceived and carried out. He could not prevent the amazing
procedure of sending flying columns throughout the country into places
where there had been no hint of disturbance, and making arrests by the
hundred without reason given or evidence produced. In many cases, men
who had been thoroughly disgusted by the outbreak found themselves in
jail; and disaffection was manufactured hourly.

On May 3rd, when Redmond made his public appeal to Mr. Asquith, it was
still not too late to prevent the mischief from spreading. By general
consent, Redmond was right when he said that the rising was thoroughly
unpopular in Ireland, and most of all in Dublin. The troops on whom the
insurgents fired were in the first instance Irish troops. Later in that
year I was attached to one