sident Nationalists saw their chance. Mr. O'Brien emerged from
one of his periodic retirements to lead a whirlwind campaign against the
"robber Budget." Redmond and our party were obliged to oppose a measure
which pressed so hard as this undoubtedly did on Ireland. Our opposition
to the land taxes was withdrawn when valuable concessions had been made,
but no such compromise was considered possible on the liquor taxes. On
the other hand, it grew clear that the measure was likely to produce a
conflict in which the power of the House of Lords might be challenged on
the most favourable ground: and for that reason, when the third reading
was reached, the Irish party abstained from voting against it. This
course, while it facilitated close co-operation with Liberalism in the
general election which followed, weakened us in Ireland; and eleven out
of the eighty-three Nationalist members returned in January 1910 ranked
themselves as outside the party; though Mr. O'Brien's actual following
was limited to seven Cork members and Mr. Healy.

IV

The action of the Lords in rejecting the Budget of 1909 had an important
personal result. It placed Mr. Asquith in a role which no one was ever
better qualified to fill--that of a Liberal statesman defending
principles of democratic control menaced after a long period of
security. The Prime Minister, not the Chancellor of the Exchequer, now
became the protagonist; and this was to Redmond's liking, for he felt
that Mr. Asquith was more concerned with the problems which had occupied
Gladstone's closing years and Mr. Lloyd George with those of a later
day.

Yet in the first grave encounter after the rejection of the Budget,
Redmond and the leader of the Liberal party came to sharp differences.
The general election had amply justified the advice which was urged by
him on Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman when the House of Lords rejected the
Education Bill in 1906--namely, that the Liberal party should take up at
once the inevitable fight before their enormous strength had been
frittered away in a series of disappointments. The majority of 1906 was
too swollen to be healthy: owing to the ruling out of Home Rule, it
included a number of men only partial adherents of the full Liberal
programme; and a diminution of its proportions owing to the traditional
swing of the pendulum was certain. But in January 1910 the losses were
more than even sanguine Tory prophets predicted. Tories came back equal
in