mism
that was to be woefully falsified in a not-distant future, he declared
his confidence that the action his Ministry was taking would bring "for
the first time for a hundred years Irish opinion, Irish sentiment, Irish
loyalty, flowing with a strong and a continuous and ever-increasing
stream into the great reservoir of Imperial resources and Imperial
unity." He acknowledged, however, that the Government had pledged itself
not to put the Home Rule Bill on the Statute-book until the Amending
Bill had been disposed of. That promise was not now to be kept; instead
he gave another, which, when the time came, was equally violated,
namely, to introduce the Amending Bill "in the next session of
Parliament, before the Irish Government Bill can possibly come into
operation." Meantime, there was to be a Suspensory Bill to provide that
the Home Rule Bill should remain in abeyance till the end of the war,
and he gave an assurance "which would be in spirit and in substance
completely fulfilled, that the Home Rule Bill will not and cannot come
into operation until Parliament has had the fullest opportunity, by an
Amending Bill, of altering, modifying, or qualifying its provisions in
such a way as to secure the general consent both of Ireland and of the
United Kingdom." The Prime Minister, further, paid a tribute to "the
patriotic and public spirit which had been shown by the Ulster
Volunteers," whose conduct has made "the employment of force, any kind
of force, for what you call the coercion of Ulster, an absolutely
unthinkable thing."

But a verbal acknowledgment of the public spirit shown by the U.V.F. in
the first month of the war was a paltry recompense for the Government's
breach of faith, as Mr. Bonar Law immediately pointed out in a stinging
rejoinder. The leader of the Opposition concluded his powerful
indictment by saying that such conduct by the Government could not be
allowed to pass without protest, but that at such a moment of national
danger debate in Parliament on this domestic quarrel, forced upon them
by Ministers, was indecent; and that, having made his protest, neither
he nor his party would take further part in that indecency. Thereupon
the whole Unionist Party followed Mr. Bonar Law out of the Chamber.

But that was not the end of the incident. It had been decided, with Sir
Edward Carson's approval, that "Ulster Day," the second anniversary of
the Covenant, should be celebrated in Ulster by special religious