was willing to give?  Redmond was warned in those days by an influential correspondent in England that a deliberate policy was being pursued by the opponents of Home Rule, who undoubtedly had strong backing in the War Office.  The National Volunteers were to become the objects of derision and contempt, which would extend to himself.  By keeping the Volunteers out of active participation in war service, it could be proved that Redmond did not speak for Ireland or represent Ireland; that the Irish were raising unreal objections so as to keep an excuse for avoiding danger.  It was urged on him that he should press for the extension of the Territorial Act to Ireland and endeavour to bring his men in on this footing.

There were two difficulties in the way of this scheme which nevertheless attracted him strongly.  The first was that enlistment in the Territorials for home service had been stopped—­so that the proposal had little advantage, if any, over enlistment in the Irish brigades.  The second was due to the Volunteers themselves, many of whom, though willing to serve in the war, were unwilling to take the oath of allegiance.

There were limits to the length to which Redmond felt himself able to go, and he never dealt with this objection by argument.  The example which he set was plain to all.  He joined in singing “God save the King,” in drinking the King’s health, and at Aughavanagh now he flew the Union Jack beside the Green flag.  He was willing to take part in any demonstration which implied that Nationalist Ireland under its new legal status accepted its lot in the British Empire fully and without reserve.  It was superfluous for him to argue that Nationalists might consistently take the oath of allegiance when Nationalists were pledging their lives in the King’s service beside every other kind of citizen in the British Empire.  Over and above his own example was the example of his brother and his son.  On November 23rd Willie Redmond addressed a great meeting in Cork and told them, “I won’t say to you go, but come with me.”  He was then fifty-three—­and for most men it would have been “too late a week.”  But no man was ever more instinctively a soldier, and to soldiering he had gone by instinct as a boy.  He was an officer in the Wexford Militia for a year or two, till politics drove him out of that service and drew him into another.  Now he went to the war gravely but joyfully.  I think those days did not bring into relief any more picturesque or sympathetic figure.

One thing ought to be said.  Mr. Devlin wished to join also, but Redmond held that he could not be spared from Ireland, where his influence was enormous; and he was placed in a somewhat unfair position, even though everyone who knew him knew that his chief attribute was personal courage.  But he was indispensable for the work which had to be done, of helping at this strange crisis to keep Ireland peaceful and united at a time when Government was at its lowest ebb of authority.