I have never seen the House of Commons so thoroughly discontented and disgusted.  There was much genuine sympathy with Redmond.  Sir Edward Carson evidently shared it, and he made a conciliatory speech in which he proposed that he and the Nationalist leader should shake hands on the floor of the House.  That is a gesture which comes better from the loser than from the winner, and there was no doubt that Sir Edward Carson had won.  But he knew Ireland well enough to realize the meaning of his victory, and his speech indicated disquiet and even horror at the prospect before us.  He was quite avowedly anxious to see a start made with Home Rule, Ulster standing apart.  In a later debate, when the Government announced its intention to fill again the vacant Irish offices (appointing Mr. Duke as Chief Secretary), Redmond referred hopefully to this utterance of the Ulster leader and generally to “the new and improved atmosphere which has surrounded this Irish question quite recently.”

The end of this speech dealt with one of the elements which had contributed most to the improvement.  In the great battle of the Somme, which opened on July 1st, the Ulster Division went for the first time into general action, and their achievement was the most glorious and the most unlucky of that day.  They carried their assault through five lines of trenches, and, because a division on their flank was not equally successful, were obliged to fall back, adding terribly in this withdrawal to the desperate losses of their advance.  Side by side with them on the other flank was the Fourth Division, containing two battalions of Dublin Fusiliers, in one of which John Redmond’s son commanded a company; so that he and the Ulstermen went over shoulder to shoulder.  He came back unwounded; all other company commanders in the battalion were killed.  The only thing in which Redmond was entirely fortunate during these last years of his life was in his son’s record during the war.

Another Nationalist well known to the House of Commons served also in the Dublin Fusiliers on the Somme, with a different fortune.  Professor Kettle, owing to conditions of health, had been unable to come to France with the Sixteenth Division, and had been mainly employed in recruiting.  Now in these summer months he pushed hard to get out to France, though he was not physically fit for the line.  He got to France, and, as was easy to foresee, broke down and was sent to work at the base on records:  but before he left his regiment he knew that it was under orders for a general action, and he insisted that he should have leave to rejoin for that day.  He came back accordingly, found himself called on to take command of a company, and led it with great gallantry, and on the second day of action was shot dead.  It was the fate that he expected; he, like so many, had a forerunning assurance of his end.  So was lost to Ireland the most variously-gifted intelligence that I have ever known.