on, who afterwards proved himself a most valuable member of the
Ulster Parliamentary Party, and eventually became the first Speaker of
the Ulster Parliament created by the Act of 1920.

Notwithstanding the bitter outbreak of party passion caused by the
Government's action in putting the Home Rule Bill on the Statute-book in
September, the party truce was well maintained throughout the autumn and
winter. And the most striking proof of the transformation wrought by the
war was seen when Mr. Asquith, when constrained to form a truly national
Administration in May 1915, included Sir Edward Carson in his Cabinet
with the office of Attorney-General. Mr. Redmond was at the same time
invited to join the Government, and his refusal to do so when the
British Unionists, the Labour leaders, and the Ulster leaders all
responded to the Prime Minister's appeal to their patriotism, did not
appear in the eyes of Ulstermen to confirm the Nationalist leader's
profession of loyalty to the Empire; though they did him the justice of
believing that he would have accepted office if he had felt free to
follow his own inclination. His inability to do so, and the complaints
of his followers, including Mr. Dillon, at the admission of Carson to
the Cabinet, revealed the incapacity of the Nationalists to rise to a
level above party.

Carson, however, did not remain very long in the Government.
Disapproving of the policy pursued in relation to our Allies in the
Balkans, he resigned on the 20th of October, 1915. But he had remained
long enough to prove his value in council to the most energetic of his
colleagues in the Cabinet. Men like Mr. Churchill and Mr. Lloyd George,
although they had been the bitterest of Carson's opponents eighteen
months previously, seldom omitted from this time forward to seek his
advice in times of difficulty; and the latter of these two, when things
were going badly with the Allies more than a year later, endeavoured to
persuade Mr. Asquith to include Carson in a Committee of four to be
charged with the entire conduct of the war.

It was, perhaps, fortunate that the Ulster leader was not a member of
the Government when the rebellion broke out in the South of Ireland at
Easter 1916. For this event suddenly brought to the front again the
whole Home Rule question, which everybody had hoped might be allowed to
sleep till the end of the war; and it would have been a misfortune if
Carson had not then been in a position of indep