t
into contact, so that the left of the Ulster line in front of
Ploegstreet touched the right of ours in front of Kemmel. It had always
been said that the two factions would fly at each other's throats: by a
score of happy detailed touches the soldier built up a picture of what
had actually happened in the line and behind the line, and then summed
it up in a conclusion:

"They came together in the trenches and they were friends. Get them
together on the floor of an Assembly, or where you will, in Ireland, and
a similar result will follow."

Then, from this theme, he passed to one even more moving--the fate of
Irish Nationalists, who were confronted daily with evil news of their
own land. "It is miserable to see men who went out with high hearts and
hopes, who have acquitted themselves so well, filled with wretchedness
because their country is in an unhappy condition." He appealed for a new
and genuine attempt to set all this right; and he eulogized once more
with warm eloquence the conduct of the troops, Ulstermen and the rest
alike. Raw lads, who eighteen months before had never thought of seeing
war, had come in before his eyes bringing prisoners by the hundreds from
the most highly trained soldiery in Europe.

Man after man, when Willie Redmond had ended, rose and thanked him; but
the most notable words came from Mr. Bonar Law:

"His name and his action, in connection with that of the leader of his
party, stand out as a landmark for all the people of this country as to
what is being done by those who represent Nationalist feeling."

All this increased Redmond's hopes of what might be expected from the
new Premier, the representative of another small nationality, whose
early days in Parliament had linked him almost more closely with Irish
Nationalists than with British Liberalism. I was on the upper bench when
Mr. Lloyd George came in, amid loud cheering. "Look at him," said Willie
Redmond (his senior in the House by ten years), who sat beside me: "It
seems only the other day he was sitting over here cheering like mad for
the Boers; and there he is now, Prime Minister."

But Mr. Lloyd George's speech, which had been deferred for several days
owing to illness, was long before it came to Ireland, and then its tone
was no way hopeful. He referred back to the negotiations of June and
July, with their "atmosphere of nervous suspicion and distrust,
pervasive, universal, of everything and everybody."

"I was drenched