in front of Amiens “proves that the enemy has definitely decided to seek a military decision this year, whatever the consequences to himself.”  The Germans had just called up a fresh class of recruits calculated to place more than half a million of efficient young men in the line.  The collapse of Russia had released the vast German armies of the East for use against England and France.  It was under such circumstances that the Prime Minister proposed

“to submit to Parliament to-day certain recommendations in order to assist this country and the Allies to weather the storm.  They will involve,” continued Mr. Lloyd George, “extreme sacrifices on the part of large classes of the population, and nothing would justify them but the most extreme necessity, and the fact that we are fighting for all that is essential and most sacred in the national life.”

The age limit for compulsory military service was to be raised from forty-two to fifty, and Ireland was to be included under the new Military Service Bill now introduced.  England, Scotland, and Wales had cheerfully submitted to conscription when first enacted by Mr. Asquith in 1916, and to all the additional combings of industry and extension of obligation that had been required in the past two years.  Agriculture and other essential industries were being starved for want of labour, and men had actually been brought back from the sorely pressed armies to produce supplies imperatively needed at home.

But from all this Ireland had hitherto been exempt.  To escape the call of the country a man had only to prove that he was “ordinarily resident in Ireland”; for conscription did not cross the Irish Sea.  From most of the privations cheerfully borne in Great Britain the Irishman had been equally free.  Food rationing did not trouble him, and, lest he should go short of accustomed plenty, it was even forbidden to carry a parcel of butter across the Channel from Ireland.  Horse-racing went on as usual.  Emigration had been suspended during the war, so that Ireland was unusually full of young men who, owing to the unwonted prosperity of the country resulting from war prices for its produce, were “having the time of their lives.”  Mr. Bonar Law, in the debates on the Military Service Bill, gave reasons for the calculation that there were not far short of 400,000 young men of military age, and of “Al” physique, in Ireland available for the Army.

No wonder that Mr. Lloyd George said it would be impossible to leave this reservoir of man-power untouched when men of fifty, whose sons were already with the colours, were to be called up in Great Britain!  But the bare suggestion of doing such a thing raised a hurricane of angry vituperation and menace from the Nationalists in the House of Commons.  When Mr. Lloyd George, in conciliatory accents, observed that he had no wish to raise unnecessary controversy, as Heaven knew they had trouble enough already, “You will get more