se in the British constituencies proved
very ineffectual. For one thing, the lesson of South Africa had gone
home. For another, and perhaps a greater, no cause ever had a missionary
better adapted to the temperament of the British democracy. The dignity
and beauty of Redmond's eloquence, the weight which he could give to an
argument, his extraordinary gift for simplifying an issue and grouping
thoughts in large bold masses--all these things carried audiences with
them.

III

Between 1908 and 1910 we were still, though with rapidly increasing
success, trying to get a hearing for the Irish question--trying to push
it once more to the front. The change of leadership from Sir Henry
Campbell-Bannerman to Mr. Asquith had damped Liberal enthusiasm. We got
solid work done for Ireland in the University Act of 1908, though
Redmond would have preferred a university of the residential type, like
that in which he had himself been an undergraduate. A highly contentious
measure was also carried in the Land Act of 1909. But a new power was
coming to the front, at once assisting and thwarting our efforts. Mr.
Lloyd George put a new fighting spirit into Liberalism: but the objects
which he had at heart could only be achieved by a great expenditure of
electoral power, and among those objects Irish self-government found
only a secondary place. When Mr. Gladstone spoke of liberty he thought
of what he had helped to bring to Greece, Italy, Bulgaria and
Montenegro--what he had tried to bring to Ireland. When Mr. Lloyd George
spoke of liberty, he thought of what he wanted to bring to England
first, and to Ireland by the way; his conviction that Ireland needed
self-government was not so deeply rooted as his conviction that the poor
throughout the United Kingdom needed help.

Old Age Pensions had been popular, but had not been a fighting issue.
Mr. Lloyd George provided the fighting issue with a vengeance when he
set himself to pay for them. Unfortunately, Nationalist Ireland had no
enthusiasm for the Budget which English Radicalism made its flag. A
country of peasant proprietors was easily scared by the very name of
land taxes. But above all the Finance Bill dealt drastically, and many
thought unfairly, with the powerful liquor trade, which in its branches
of brewing and distilling included the main manufacturing interest of
southern Ireland, and on its retail side was incredibly diffused through
the whole shopkeeping community.

The dis