“Next year we must pay our debt to the Nationalist Members,
    who were good enough to vote for a Budget which they detested
    and knew would be an injury to their country.”

But the people of England still had to be hood-winked.  It was hardly likely that they would consent to their representatives voting for the separation of Ireland from Great Britain; so the Nationalists and their Radical allies went about England declaring that they had no wish for such a thing; that all they desired was a subordinate Parliament leaving the Imperial Parliament supreme.  Thus Mr. Redmond suggested at one meeting that Ireland should be conceded the right of managing her own purely local affairs for herself in a subordinate Parliament, subject to the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament; and at another meeting said: 

“We are not asking for a Repeal of the Union.  We are not asking for the restoration of a co-ordinate Parliament such as Ireland had before the Union.  We are only asking that there should be given to Ireland a subordinate Parliament.  We therefore admit the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament.  That means that after this subordinate Parliament is created in Ireland, if the Parliament is foolish enough, rash enough, as it never will be, but if it were foolish enough and criminal enough to use the powers given to it for injustice or oppression of any class or creed, the Imperial Parliament would have the power to stretch forth the arm of its authority and to say ‘you shall not do that.’”

Of course it may be argued that they had changed their minds; that in former times they worked for separation, but now realised that a subordinate Parliament was all that Ireland required.  But unfortunately for this theory, they have themselves repudiated it; when Mr. Redmond was accused of speaking with two voices, one in America and one in Great Britain, he passionately replied:—­

“I indignantly deny that accusation.  I have never in my life said one word on a platform in America one whit stronger than I had said in my place on the floor of the House of Commons.  I have never in America or anywhere else, advocated the separation of Ireland from Great Britain.”

How far this is true, the quotations from his speeches which have already been given, will have shown.  But the Government have kept up the farce; Mr. Winston Churchill said during the debate on the Bill of 1912:—­

“The Home Rule movement has never been a separatist movement.  In the whole course of its career it has been a moderating, modifying movement, designed to secure the recognition of Irish claims within the circuit of the British Empire.”

But not even the immediate prospect of Home Rule can be said to have made those parts of Ireland where the League is supreme a happy place of residence to any but advanced Nationalists.  The following report of a case in the Magistrate’s Court at Ennis in November 1912 will speak for the condition of the County Clare:—­