But Redmond never attempted to conceal the existence of this element in Ireland.  Speaking on the introduction of the Home Rule Bill on April 11th, he dealt at the very opening with the charge that the Irish people wanted separation and that the Irish leaders were separatists in disguise: 

“I will be perfectly frank on this matter.  There always has been, and there is to-day, a certain section of Irishmen who would like to see separation from this country.  They are a small, a very small section.  They were once a very large section.  They are a very small section, but the men who hold, these views at this moment only desire separation as an alternative to the present system, and if you change the present system and give into the hands of Irishmen the management of purely Irish affairs, even that small feeling in favour of separation will disappear; and if it survives at all, I would like to know how under those circumstances it could be stronger or more powerful for mischief than at the present moment.”

Sincerer words were never spoken, nor, I think, a better justified forecast.  Where Redmond and all of us were wrong was that we underestimated the possibility of accomplishing what Pearse ultimately accomplished, even when assisted by the widespread disillusionment and sense of betrayal which was the atmosphere of 1916.

But no one in Ireland in 1912 thought of a separatist rebellion.  What was on all tongues was the possibility of physical resistance to Home Rule.  The debate on the first reading went by with little reference to this contingency, but Mr. Bonar Law closed his speech on that note.  He had attended the great counter-demonstration in Belfast which followed ours in Dublin and had seen in it “the expression of the soul of a people.”

“These people look upon their being subject to an executive Government taken out of the Parliament in Dublin with as much horror, I believe with more horror, than the people of Poland ever regarded their being put under subjection by Russia; they say they will not submit except by force to such government.  These people in Ulster are under no illusion.  They know they cannot fight the British Army.  But these men are ready, in what they believe to be the cause of justice and liberty, to lay down their lives.”

Bloodshed, if bloodshed there was to be, was anticipated in Ulster only, and the resistance indicated at this point was purely passive.  But even after the Bill had been introduced, Tories entertained the hope that a Nationalist Convention might save them trouble and reject what the Government offered.  Even Mr. O’Brien, however, had given the Bill a lukewarm approval, and at this moment Redmond’s prestige stood very high.  When the Convention assembled, he utilized that advantage to the full.  These assemblies presented a problem which might intimidate the most capable chairman.  Theoretically deliberative, they had at least a representative character; all