definitely, and before it could be resumed
the whole situation was rendered still more grave by the events to be
narrated in the next chapter, and by a menacing speech delivered by Mr.
Churchill at Bradford on the 14th of March. He hinted that, if Ulster
persisted in refusing the offer made by the Prime Minister, which was
the Government's last word, the forces of the Crown would have to be
employed against her; there were, he said, "worse things than bloodshed
even on an extended scale"; and he ended by saying, "Let us go forward
together and put these grave matters to the proof."[63] Two days later
Mr. Asquith, in answer to questions in the House of Commons, announced
that no particulars of the Government scheme would be given unless the
principle of the proposals were accepted as a basis of agreement.

The leader of the Unionist Party replied by moving a vote of censure on
the Government on the 19th of March. Mr. Churchill's Bradford speech,
and one no less defiant by Mr. Devlin the day following it, had charged
with inflammable material the atmosphere in which the debate was
conducted. Sir Edward Carson began his speech by saying that, after
these recent events, "I feel that I ought not to be here, but in
Belfast." There were some sharp passages between him and Churchill, whom
he accused of being anxious to provoke the Ulster people to make an
attack on the soldiers. A highly provocative speech by Mr. Devlin
followed, at the end of which Carson rose and left the House, saying
audibly, "I am off to Belfast." He was accompanied out of the Chamber by
eight Ulster members, and was followed by ringing and sustained cheers
of encouragement and approval from the crowded Unionist benches. It was
a scene which those who witnessed it are not likely to forget.

The idea of accommodation between the combatant parties was at an end.

FOOTNOTES:

[56] _The Yorkshire Post_, September 22nd, 1913.

[57] _The Liverpool Daily Courier_, September 29th, 1913.

[58] _Annual Register_, 1914, p. 6.

[59] _Annual Register_, 1914, p. 12.

[60] Ibid., p. 1.

[61] _The Annual Register_, 1914, p. 33.

[62] _Annual Register_, 1914, pp. 51-2.

[63] _The Times_, March 16th, 1914.

CHAPTER XVI

THE CURRAGH INCIDENT

When Mr. Bonar Law moved the vote of censure on the Government on the
19th of March he had no idea that the Cabinet had secretly taken in hand
an enterprise which, had it been known, would have furnished infinit