“Believe me,” Sir Edward Carson said, “whatever way you settle the Irish question” (and that phrase threw over the cry of “No Home Rule"), “there are only two ways to deal with Ulster.  It is for statesmen to say which is the best and right one.  She is not a part of the community which can be bought.  She will not allow herself to be sold.  You must therefore either coerce her if you go on, or you must in the long run, by showing that good government can come under the Home Rule Bill, try and win her over to the case of the rest of Ireland.  You probably can coerce her—­though I doubt it.  If you do, what will be the disastrous consequences not only to Ulster, but to this country and the Empire?  Will my fellow-countryman”—­and at this emphatic word, which jettisoned absolutely the theory of two nations, the speaker turned to his left, where Redmond sat in his accustomed place below the gangway—­“will my fellow-countryman, the leader of the Nationalist Party, have gained anything?  I will agree with him—­I do not believe he wants to triumph any more than I do.  But will he have gained anything if he takes over these people and then applies for what he used to call—­at all events his party used to call—­the enemies of the people to come in and coerce them into obedience?  No, sir; one false step taken in relation to Ulster will, in my opinion, render for ever impossible a solution of the Irish question.  I say this to my Nationalist fellow-countrymen, and, indeed, also to the Government:  you have never tried to win over Ulster.  You have never tried to understand her position.  You have never alleged, and can never allege, that this Bill gives her one atom of advantage.”

Then, carried away by the course of his argument, an angry note came into his voice, and before a minute had passed we were back in the old atmosphere.  He accused us of wanting “not Ulster’s affections but her taxes.”

Well might Redmond say when he rose that Sir Edward Carson had been heard by all of us with very mixed feelings.  “I care not about the assent of Englishmen,” he said; “I am fighting this matter out between a fellow-countryman and myself, and I say that it was an unworthy thing for him to say that I am animated by these base motives, especially after he had lectured the House on the undesirability of imputing motives.”

On the personal note Redmond was to the full as effective as his opponent, and his speech of that day was memorable.  It was also very much more to the taste of the Liberal rank and file than what came from their own front bench.  “We do not by any means take the tragic view of the probabilities or even the possibilities of what is called civil war in Ulster,” he said; and added that the House of Commons ought, in his opinion, “to resent as an affront these threats of civil war.”  Yet in the end he promised, for the sake of peace, “consideration in the friendliest spirit” (not very different from acceptance) of any proposals that the Government might feel called upon to put forward.