“I tell the Prime Minister he will get here plenty of recruits and of the best material.  We will maintain here in Ireland intact and inviolate our Irish National Volunteers, and in my judgment that body of Volunteers will prove to be an inexhaustible source of strength to the new army corps and the new army that is being created.”

Then, with disdainful reference to the “little handful of pro-Germans” who had “raised their voices in Ireland,” he declared that it would be no less absurd to consider them representative than to take General Beyers and not General Botha as expressing the sentiments of South Africa.

Yet, as we know, the danger in South Africa was serious, and South Africa possessed freedom, not the promise of freedom.  General Botha had what Redmond was denied—­power to act and act promptly.  In Ireland the menace was far less grave at this moment, but it was destined to become overpowering because Redmond lacked the power to deal with the situation in his own way.  Already much had been lost.  Between the declaration of war and the passage of the Home Rule Bill more than six weeks had been allowed to elapse in which nothing was done in response to Redmond’s proposal, except the purely negative decision that Territorials should not be sent to garrison Ireland.  This inevitably strengthened the hand of those who never liked the offer he had made.  From the first an accent of dissent from the new policy was plainly distinguishable in what came from the Committee of the Volunteers.  Mr. Bulmer Hobson says of the famous speech of August 4th: 

“This statement amounted to an unconditional offer of the services of the Irish Volunteers to the English Government, and was made without any consultation with the Volunteers themselves.  The first that members of the Provisional Committee heard of their being offered to the Government was when they read it in the newspapers, and Mr. Redmond’s nominees on the Committee were as much surprised as the older members.  At the next meeting of the Standing Committee, held a couple of days later, the nominated members strove hard to induce us to endorse Redmond’s offer.  The utmost they could get, however, notwithstanding their clear party majority, was a statement of ’the complete readiness of the Irish Volunteers to take joint action with the Ulster Volunteer Force for the defence of Ireland.’  Further than that the older members of the Committee declined to go.  This statement in reality committed, and was meant to commit, the Volunteers to nothing, though it was interpreted by the Press as a complete endorsement of Mr. Redmond’s policy.”

At the beginning of the war, there were two strong currents of desire in the Volunteer body and its backers.  One sought that the Volunteers should retain complete freedom of action and in no way be brought under the War Office.  The other craved to see them trained and armed with the least possible delay.  Colonel