drop the Bill temporarily and refer it to a Committee of Enquiry.  Mr. Lloyd George was convinced that this would be fatal to his measure, concerning which he was possessed by a missionary zeal.  Probably when his career comes under the study of impartial history it will be perceived that never at any moment was he so passionately and so honestly in earnest as upon this quest.  But it is certain that by pursuit of it he created enormous difficulties in the way of those reforms which the democratic alliance at large most desired to achieve.  He carried his point; an autumn session followed, in which the mind of the electorate was diverted from the Irish question and all other questions except that of Insurance, and Parliament itself was jaded to the brink of exhaustion.

The matter was difficult for us in Ireland because, owing to the different system of Public Health Administration, many of the most important provisions could not apply, and because the Bill as a whole was framed to meet the needs of a highly industrialized and crowded community.  Broadly speaking, it was less desired in Ireland than in Great Britain; and even for Great Britain Mr. Lloyd George was legislating in advance of public opinion rather than in response to it.  Mr. O’Brien and his following vehemently opposed the application of the Bill to Ireland; and the Irish Catholic Bishops, by a special resolution, expressed their view to the same effect.  The Bill, however, had a powerful advocate in Mr. Devlin, and the Irish party decided to support its extension to Ireland, subject to certain modifications which they obtained.

Apart from the new unsettlement of public opinion which it created both in Great Britain and in Ireland, the Insurance Act added to our difficulties on the Home Rule question.  It was clear already that the question of finance lay like a rock ahead.  Up to 1908 the proceeds of Irish revenue had always given a margin over the cost of all Irish services, though that margin had dwindled almost to vanishing-point.  Old Age Pensions completely turned the beam and left us in the position of costing more than we contributed.  Now the outlay on Insurance added half a million a year to the balance against us.

Still, difficulties and perplexities were not limited to one side.  The Tory party were much divided since the crisis on the Parliament Act.  A section, and the most active section, had been violently opposed to the surrender on the critical division, and these men were profoundly discontented with Mr. Balfour’s leadership; so Mr. Balfour, yielding to intimations, suddenly resigned.  Somewhat unexpectedly, Mr. Bonar Law was chosen to succeed him, Mr. Long and Mr. Chamberlain waiving their respective claims.

This choice was of sinister augury.  Mr. Law did not know Ireland.  But, Canadian-born, he came from a country in which the Irish factions and theological enmities had always had their counterpart; his father, a Presbyterian Minister, came of Ulster stock.  All the blood in him instinctively responded to the tap of the Orange drum.  As far back as January 27, 1911, he had urged armed resistance to Home Rule.