the principle of separate treatment for two
peoples, there were "ways and means by which it could be worked out."
Suggestion of a Conference of Irishmen was thrown out, or of a
Commission to discuss the details of partition. Redmond, in replying,
answered to this that "after experience of the last negotiations he
would enter into no more negotiations." He warned the Government that
the whole constitutional movement was in danger. There were in Ireland
"serious men, men of ability, men with command of money," who were bent
on smashing it.

"After fifty years of labour on constitutional lines we had practically
banished the revolutionary party from Ireland. Now again, after fifty
years, it has risen."

The rest was a prophecy only too accurate:

"If the constitutional movement disappears, the Prime Minister will find
himself face to face with a revolutionary movement, and he will find it
impossible to preserve any of the forms even of constitutionalism. He
will have to govern Ireland by the naked sword. I cannot picture to
myself a condition of things in which the Prime Minister, with his
record behind him, would be an instrument to carry out a government of
that kind.... I say this plainly. No British statesman, no matter what
his platonic affection for Home Rule may have been in the past, no
matter what party he may belong to, who by his conduct once again
teaches the Irish people the lesson that any National leader who, taking
his political life in his hands, endeavours to combine local and
Imperial patriotism--endeavours to combine loyalty to Ireland's rights
with loyalty to the Empire--anyone who again teaches the lesson that
such an one is certain to be let down and betrayed by this course, is
guilty of treason, not only to the liberties of Ireland but to the unity
and strength and best interests of this Empire."

After these bitter words he called on his colleagues not "to continue a
useless and humiliating debate," but to withdraw from the House: and we
accordingly followed him into the lobby. In our absence the discussion
continued, in a tone not flattering to the Government. It was remarkable
for one utterance from Mr. Healy, concerning Redmond:

"I wish to say at the outset that in my opinion this Empire owes him a
debt of gratitude which it can never repay, and I wish also to say of
him as an opponent that in my opinion, if his advice had been taken by
the War Office, it is absolutely true, as he contends