members—Liberal, Labour and Irish—united by a common desire to destroy the domination of the Peers, contended against the Cabinet's policy of attempting not merely to limit the power of veto but to reconstitute the Upper House. In such a process men saw that the driving force of the majority would waste away and that the composite character of their alliance would lead to certain disruption.
Before the debate on the Address concluded it was plain that Redmond had won. From that period onwards his popularity, and, through him, the popularity of the party which he led, was immensely increased in Great Britain. He was regarded as one of the men who had rendered best service to democracy against privilege. He himself believed that in this first contest Ireland had decided the victory—had decided the overthrow of the House which had so long opposed its liberties. Labour had then neither the essential leader nor the necessary parliamentary strength: Liberalism was confused and uncertain at the critical moment.
Yet in the very process of achieving this success Redmond laid himself open to attack. The Budget was regarded with dislike by a very large section of Irishmen, and apart from considerations of political strategy the Irish members would certainly have voted against it. Now, the power was in their hands to defeat it finally. By so doing they would, of course, justify to some degree the unconstitutional action of the Lords; but this consideration did not weigh with Mr. O'Brien and Mr. Healy. They accused Redmond of selling the real interests of Ireland to keep a Government in office which could offer nothing in return but a gambling chance of limiting the veto of the Lords. Mr. O'Brien was firmly confident that no such measure would ever pass. He denounced the bargain, not merely because it was a bargain in which Redmond accepted what was in his view a ruinous injustice to Ireland, but because it was a bargain in which the Irish had been outwitted. This line of argument was to be dinned into the ears of Ireland during all the remaining years of Redmond's life. The only conclusive answer to it was to gain Home Rule. If, in the long run, it came to appear that the attackers had been right in their contention, and that Ireland had never received the expected return, the fault for that result lay with Ireland itself no less than with England; it most assuredly did not lie with John Redmond. A great weight of responsibility rests on those who from the first hour of Ireland's opportunity ingeminated distrust to an over-suspicious people.
For the moment, however, the attack made no headway. Irishmen have a shrewd political sense, and they felt that in the struggle to pin Liberal Ministers to the true fighting objective Redmond had won. They were also delighted to see the Irish party openly exert its power—not quite realizing that such exhibitions were against the interest of the democratic alliance, which had to undergo a grave test. The Government's vacillation had rendered another general election necessary if the Veto question were to be fought out.
On April 29th the House adjourned for the Whitsuntide recess, after which the crisis was to come with the decision of the House of Lords whether to accept or reject the Veto Resolution, which had then passed the Commons. On May 7th, after a short and sudden illness, King Edward died. Both the great English parties were unwilling to renew the most acute political struggle of modern times at the opening of a new reign, and means of accommodation was sought through a Conference which sat first on June 16th and held twenty-one meetings. No representative of Ireland was on this body. On November 10th it reported that no result had come of its efforts, and a new general election was fixed for December 1st.
When the Conference finally broke down Redmond was on his way back from America, whither he had gone accompanied by Mr. Devlin. Mr. T.P. O'Connor at the same time undertook a tour in Canada. The success of these missions showed that the interest and the confidence of the Irish race were higher than at any previous period: the ambassadors brought back a contribution of one hundred thousand dollars to the election funds, and the ship on which they came was saluted by bonfires all along the coast of Cork. Ireland, too, was subscribing as Ireland had not subscribed since Parnell's zenith: and this was an Ireland in which the land-hunger had been largely appeased. The theory that Ireland's demand for self-government was merely generated by Ireland's poverty began to look ridiculous.
It was the cue of the Tory Press at this moment to excite prejudice against the Liberals by representing them as the bondslaves of the "dollar dictator"—ordered about by an Irish autocrat with swollen money-bags from New York. This line of argument did us little harm in Great Britain; in Ireland it improved Redmond's position, for it was a useful answer to Mr. O'Brien's representation of him as the abject tool of Liberal politicians. The election, on the whole, strengthened our party. Mr. Healy was thrown out; and Mr. O'Brien, though he retained the seven seats held by his adherents in Cork, failed in two out of three personal candidatures.
In Great Britain the second election of the year 1910 had the surprising result of reproducing almost exactly the same division of parties: and this added greatly to the strength of the Government. The Tory leaders now, instead of insisting on a maintenance of the old Constitution, went into alternative proposals—including the adoption of the Referendum. This was their constructive line; the destructive resolved itself largely into an endeavour to focus resistance on the question of Ireland—the purpose for which alone, they said, abolition of the veto was demanded. As has often happened, action taken by the Vatican gave the opponents of Home Rule a useful weapon. The Ne Temere decree, promulgated in the year 1908, laid down that any marriage to which a Roman Catholic was a party, if not solemnized according to the rites of the Church of Rome, should be treated as invalid from a canonical point of view. Although legally binding, it should be regarded as no marriage in the eyes of an orthodox Roman Catholic until it was regularized in the manner provided by the Church, The case of an unhappy mixed marriage in Belfast was exploited with fury on a thousand platforms. Another decree, the Motu Proprio, was construed as seeking to establish immunity for the clergy from proceedings in civil courts. This, however, was of less platform value, because no instance could be found of a practical application; whereas the McCann case unquestionably gave Tory disputants a formidable instrument for evoking the ancient distrust of Roman Catholicism which is so deeply ingrained in the Protestant mind.
In spite of all, the English democracy remained steady in its purpose. Party feeling, however, ran to heights not known in living memory. In July 1911 the Parliament Bill went to the Lords, where it was altered out of all recognition. On July 20th Mr. Asquith sent a letter to Mr. Balfour stating that the King had guaranteed that he would exercise his prerogative to secure that the Bill should be passed substantially as it left the Commons. On the 24th the extreme section of the Tory party, headed by Lord Hugh Cecil, refused to allow the Prime Minister a hearing in the House of Commons.
From an Irish point of view the episode was noteworthy. At the outset of this critical session Redmond had cautioned his party to abstain from giving provocation and from allowing themselves to be provoked. The counsel was the harder to follow because some of the most vehement of the younger Tories sat below the gangway, almost in physical contact with Irish members, and hot words passed. Still, it was grounded into all that we should not allow the great issue then at trial to be represented as an Irish quarrel. Our cause was linked with the whole cause of democracy as against privilege: it was an issue for the whole United Kingdom; and that was never plainer than on this day of July. English, Scottish and Welsh members hurled interruptions and taunts at each other across the floor of the House, while Irish members sat watching. Something older and more far-reaching than the opposition to Ireland's demand now was felt itself assailed; and a force in which the Irish movement was only one stream of many swept against it. Anger in the Tory party was not directed against Ireland's representatives; and an odd chance made this plain. The fierce scene in the House reached its culmination when Ministers withdrew in a body from the Treasury Bench and the two sides of the House stood up, one cheering, the other hooting, in opposite ranks. For a moment it seemed as if the affair would come to blows, till Mr. Will Crooks, with a genial inspiration, uplifted his voice in song: "Should auld acquaintance be forgot?" The tension was relaxed and members moved out in groups—we Irishmen necessarily among the Tories. In the movement I saw Willie Redmond go up to one of the fiercest among the Ulstermen, whose face was dark with passion. Colloquy began: "Isn't it a hard thing that you wouldn't let us speak?" The Ulsterman turned: "Not
