he meantime we should shrink from the responsibility of
rejecting anything which, after that full consideration which the
Bill will receive, seems to our deliberate judgment calculated to
relieve the sufferings of Ireland and hasten the day of her full
national convalescence."

There is no doubt that the element in him which urged him to welcome
anything that could set Irishmen working together on Irish problems made
it almost impossible for him to throw aside this chance. It was clear to
me also that by long months of work in secret deliberation the proposals
originally set out had been greatly altered, so much so that in
surveying the Bill he was conscious mainly of the improvements in it;
and that in this process his mind had lost perception of how the measure
was likely to affect Irish opinion--especially in view of his own
hopeful prognostications. At all events, the reception of Mr. Birrell's
speech, even by Redmond's own colleagues, marked a sudden change in the
atmosphere. Some desired to vote at once against the measure; many were
with difficulty brought into the lobby to support even the formal stage
of first reading. In Ireland there was fierce denunciation. A Convention
was called for May 21st. The crowd was so great that many of us could
not make our way into the Mansion House; and Redmond opened the
proceedings by moving the rejection of the Bill. In the interval since
the debate he had been confronted with a definite refusal to concede the
amendments for which he asked.

These were mainly two, of principle: for the objection taken to the
finance of the Bill was a detail, though of the first importance. The
Bill proposed to hand over the five great departments of Irish
administration to the control of an Irish Council. The decisions of that
Council were to be subject to the veto of the Lord-Lieutenant, as are
the decisions of Parliament to the veto of the Crown. But the Bill
proposed not merely to give to the Viceroy the power of vetoing proposed
action but of instituting other action on his own initiative. Secondly,
the Council was to exercise its control through Committees, each of
which was to have a paid chairman, nominated by the Crown.

"It would be far better," Redmond had said in the House of Commons, "to
have one man selected as the chairmen of these committees are to be
selected, to have charge, so far as the Council is concerned, of the
working of the Department, and then a