The Government were at their wits’ end what to do.  Mr Birrell, the amiable and inefficient Chief Secretary, had to go.  Mr Asquith went over to Ireland on a tour of investigation and returned to Westminster with two dominant impressions:  (1) the breakdown of the existing machinery of Irish Government; (2) the strength and depth, almost the universality, of the feeling in Ireland that there was a unique opportunity for the settlement of outstanding problems and for a combined effort to obtain an agreement as to the way in which the government of Ireland was to be carried on for the future.  He announced that Mr Lloyd George had undertaken, at the request of his colleagues, to devote his time and energy to the promotion of an Irish settlement.

Undoubtedly “the machinery of Government had broken down.”  But the Government of England had taken no account of what was happening in Ireland—­of the veritable wave of passion that swept the country after, the “executions” of the Rebel leaders, of the manner in which this passion was fanned and flamed by the arrest and deportation of thousands of young men all over the country, who were believed to be prominently identified with the Volunteer Movement, of the unrest that was caused by the reports that a number of the peaceable citizens of Dublin were deliberately shot without cause by the troops during the military occupation of the city.  What wonder that there was a strong and even fierce revulsion of feeling!  And this was not reserved altogether for the Government.  The Irish Parliamentarians had their own fair share of it.  The process of disillusionment now rapidly set in.  That portion of the country that had not already completely lost faith in the Party and in Parliamentary methods was fast losing it.  It only required that the Party should once again give its unqualified assent, as it did, to Mr Lloyd George’s “Headings of Agreement,” which provided for the partition of Ireland and the definite exclusion of the six counties of Down, Antrim, Londonderry, Armagh, Monaghan and Tyrone, to send it down into the nethermost depths of popular favour and the whole-hearted contempt of every self-respecting man of the Irish race.  The collapse of Parliamentarianism was now complete.  There was no Nationalist of independent spirit left in Ireland who would even yield it lip service.  Irish public bodies which a year or two previously were the obedient vehicles of Party manipulation were now unanimous in denouncing any form of partition.  The proposals for settlement definitely failed, and the machinery of Irish Government which had “broken down” was set up afresh and the discredited administration of Dublin Castle fully restored by the appointment of Mr Duke, a Unionist, as Chief Secretary for Ireland.

The war was not going at all well for the Allies.  America was still hesitating on the brink as to whether she would come in or remain steadfastly aloof.  The Asquithian Ministry had been manoeuvred out of office under circumstances which it will be the joy of the historian to deal with when all the documents and facts are available.  That interesting and candid diarist, Colonel Repington, under date 3rd December 1916, writes: