tion or otherwise, this being a duty reserved, as in
every federal or quasi-federal constitution, for the central
legislative authority alone.

But it was useless to point this out to the infuriated Nationalist
members. Mr. William O'Brien denounced the idea of compelling Irishmen
to bear the same burden as their British fellow-subjects as "a
declaration of war against Ireland"; and he and Mr. Healy joined Mr.
Dillon and his followers in opposing with all their parliamentary skill,
and all their voting power, the extension to Ireland of compulsory
service. Mr. Healy, whose vindictive memory had not forgotten the
Curragh Incident before the war, could not forbear from having an
ungenerous fling at General Gough, who had just been driven back by the
overwhelming numerical superiority of the German attack, and who, at the
moment when Mr. Healy was taunting him in the House of Commons, was
re-forming his gallant 5th Army to resist the enemy's further advance.

In comparison with this Mr. Healy's stale gibe at "Carson's Army,"
however inappropriate to the occasion, was a venial offence. Carson
himself replied in a gentle and conciliatory tone to Mr. Healy's coarse
diatribe.

"My honourable friend," he said, "talked of Carson's Army. You may,
if you like, call it with contempt Carson's Army. But it has just
gone into action for the fourth time, and many of them have paid
the supreme sacrifice. They have covered themselves with glory,
and, what is more, they have covered Ireland with glory, and they
have left behind sad homes throughout the small hamlets of Ulster,
as I well know, losing three or four sons in many a home."

On behalf of Ulster Carson gave unhesitating support to the Government.
He and his colleagues from Ulster had always voted against the exemption
of Ireland from the Military Service Acts. It was true, no doubt, as the
Nationalists jeeringly maintained, that conscription was no more desired
in Ulster than in any other part of the United Kingdom. Of course it was
not; it was liked nowhere. But Carson declared that "equality of
sacrifice" was the principle to be acted upon, and Ulster accepted it.
He "would go about hanging his head in shame," if his own part of the
United Kingdom were absolved from sacrifice which the national necessity
imposed on the inhabitants of Great Britain.

The Bill was carried through by the 16th of April in the teeth of
Nationalist opposition