“I have never in all the long years that I have been in this House spoken under such a heavy sense of responsibility as I am speaking on this measure this afternoon.  Ever since Mr. Gladstone’s Bill of 1886 Ireland has been waiting for some scheme to settle the problem—­waiting sometimes in hope, sometimes almost in despair; but the horrible thing is this, that all the time that Ireland has been so waiting there has been a gaping wound in her side, and her sons have had to stand by helpless while they saw her very life-blood flowing out.  Who can say that is an exaggeration?  Twenty years of resolute government by the party above the gangway have diminished the population of Ireland by a million.  No man in any position of influence can take upon himself the awful responsibility of despising and putting upon one side any device that may arrest that hemorrhage, even although he believed, as I do, that far different remedies must be applied before Ireland can stand upon her feet in vigorous strength.  We are determined, as far as we are concerned, that these other remedies shall be applied; but in the meantime we should shrink from the responsibility of rejecting anything which, after that full consideration which the Bill will receive, seems to our deliberate judgment calculated to relieve the sufferings of Ireland and hasten the day of her full national convalescence.”

There is no doubt that the element in him which urged him to welcome anything that could set Irishmen working together on Irish problems made it almost impossible for him to throw aside this chance.  It was clear to me also that by long months of work in secret deliberation the proposals originally set out had been greatly altered, so much so that in surveying the Bill he was conscious mainly of the improvements in it; and that in this process his mind had lost perception of how the measure was likely to affect Irish opinion—­especially in view of his own hopeful prognostications.  At all events, the reception of Mr. Birrell’s speech, even by Redmond’s own colleagues, marked a sudden change in the atmosphere.  Some desired to vote at once against the measure; many were with difficulty brought into the lobby to support even the formal stage of first reading.  In Ireland there was fierce denunciation.  A Convention was called for May 21st.  The crowd was so great that many of us could not make our way into the Mansion House; and Redmond opened the proceedings by moving the rejection of the Bill.  In the interval since the debate he had been confronted with a definite refusal to concede the amendments for which he asked.

These were mainly two, of principle:  for the objection taken to the finance of the Bill was a detail, though of the first importance.  The Bill proposed to hand over the five great departments of Irish administration to the control of an Irish Council.  The decisions of that Council were to be subject to the veto of the Lord-Lieutenant, as are the decisions of Parliament to the veto of the Crown.  But the Bill proposed not merely to give to the Viceroy the power of vetoing proposed action but of instituting other action on his own initiative.  Secondly, the Council was to exercise its control through Committees, each of which was to have a paid chairman, nominated by the Crown.