The policy which was adopted in Mr. Asquith’s proposal of March 9th was the policy which Mr. Churchill had pushed from the first introduction of the Home Rule Bill, even when it was formally disavowed by the Prime Minister.  Contemptuous rejection of it by the Ulstermen when it was proposed was not calculated to strengthen Mr. Churchill’s personal position, or to soothe his temper, and on March 14th he made a speech at Bradford which very greatly stirred public feeling.  If Ulster really rejects the offer, said Mr. Churchill, “it can only be because they prefer shooting to voting and the bullet to the ballot.”  Should civil war break out in Ulster, the issue would not be confined to Ireland:  the issue would be whether civil and parliamentary government in these realms was to be beaten down by the menace of armed force.  Bloodshed was lamentable, but there were worse things.  If the law could not prevail, if the veto of violence was to replace the veto of privilege, then, said the orator, “let us go forward and put these grave matters to a proof.”

When Mr. Churchill next appeared in the House of Commons, a great outburst of cheering showed what a volume of feeling had found expression in his speech.  Redmond came to the St. Patrick’s Day banquet under the impression of that scene, and he spoke with a confidence which gives to his words a tragic irony to-day.  He cited “the superb speech of Mr. Churchill” as evidence that “what is our last word is also the last word of the Government.”

“If the Opposition have spoken their last word,” he said, “the Bill will now proceed upon its natural course.  It will proceed rapidly and irresistibly, and in a few short weeks become the law of the land.”

The weeks have lengthened into years, and so much has happened in them that I keep no clear memory of that evening, though I was present.  But it represented the temper of the time, among Home Rulers, and more particularly among Irish Nationalists, who generally held the opinion that the military preparations in Ulster were, as Mr. Devlin called them, “a hollow masquerade.”

We saw the other side of the picture on Thursday, March 19th, when a Vote of Censure was moved.  Mr. Bonar Law launched on the House of Commons a new and sinister suggestion.

“What about the Army?  If it is only a question of disorder, the Army I am sure will obey you, and I am sure that it ought to obey you; but if it really is a question of civil war, soldiers are citizens like the rest of us.”

Sir Edward rose immediately the Prime Minister had replied to Mr. Bonar Law, and his speech was furious.  “In consequence of the trifling with this subject by the Prime Minister and the provocation, which he has endorsed, by the First Lord of the Admiralty last Saturday, I feel I ought not to be here but in Belfast,” he said; and he indicated his intention of proceeding there as soon as he had spoken.  What he had to say chiefly concerned the Army, and the preparations which were being made at the War Office for the despatch of troops to Ulster.  He suggested that there was the intention to provoke an attack so that there might be “pretext for putting them down.”