are too old, in the training of the recruits, but which would be quite suitable for making a beginning at any rate in the drilling of the Volunteers.  It might be stated that they would be replaced by better weapons gradually, as soon as the rush was over.

     A few instructors should be placed at the disposal of the
     Volunteers.[6]

If this is done, intense satisfaction will be given all through the country, and the pride and sentiment of the Volunteers will be touched, and the appeal for recruits generally through the country, and even in the ranks of the Volunteers themselves, will, I am confident, be responded to.

     But, as I have said, if this course is not taken, inevitably
     recruiting will flag.

     I would earnestly beg of you to take this matter vigorously in
     hand, so that some satisfactory announcement may be made before I
     return to Ireland next week.

     Very truly yours,

     RIGHT HON.  A. BIRRELL, M.P.  J.E.  REDMOND.

Mr. Asquith’s speech on September 24th was at least an indication that the Prime Minister desired to act in the spirit of Redmond’s suggestions.  The Chief Secretary was of the same disposition.  But neither of them was able to control the imperious colleague who now had taken charge of the Army, and who in the most critical moment thwarted effectually the designs of Liberal statesmanship in Ireland.

After Redmond’s death an “Appreciation” published in The Times (with the signature “A.B.,”) by Mr. Birrell, contained this passage: 

“He felt to the very end, bitterly and intensely, the stupidity of the War Office.  Had he been allowed to deflect the routine indifference and suspicion of the War Office from its old ruts into the deep-cut channels of Irish feelings and sentiments, he might have carried his countrymen with him, but he jumped first and tried to make his bargain afterwards and failed accordingly.  English people, as their wont is, gushed over him as an Irish patriot and flouted him as an Irish statesman.  Had he and his brother been put in charge of the Irish Nationalist contingents, and an Ulster man, or men, been put in a corresponding position over the Irish Protestant contingents, all might have gone well.  Lord Kitchener, who was under the delusion that he was an Irishman no less than Redmond, was the main, though not the only obstacle in the path of good sense and good feeling.”

Yet it is, to say the least, not clear why Lord Kitchener should have been allowed to be an obstacle.  Redmond was not fortunate in his allies.  He had set an example of generous courage; it was not followed by British statesmen.