i9!4] Colonel Seeley and General Gougli 423 



made up their minds to deal drastically with the Ulster Volunteers, and 

 arranged a combined movement of sea and land forces to put them 

 down. Of course, it ought to have been done a year ago, but Redmond 

 persuaded Birrell that the Ulster movement was all bounce and it was 

 allowed to go on. Now it has got beyond them and has been taken up 

 on a large scale by English Unionists, and worked up by the London 

 press and in the army by old Lord Roberts, and at last they got King 

 George to approve, so it came to pass that the garrison at the Curragh 

 refused to move when ordered to Belfast without a guarantee thalt 

 they should not be used against the Orange volunteers. This fright- 

 ened the two Ministers. Seely patched up things by giving the assur- 

 ance wanted, and Winston counter-ordered the warships he was sending 

 to Belfast, whereupon a hullabaloo in the House of Commons and a 

 Cabinet crisis with the usual lying and denying, which ended in Seely's 

 offering to resign as scape-goat for the rest, and Asquith refusing to 

 accept his resignation, a little comedy played on much the same lines 

 as that used in the Marconi crisis, Seely admitting an error of judg- 

 ment and Winston using swear words to cover their retreat. 



"31st March. — Asquith appoints himself War Minister in Seely's 

 place. 



" $th April. — Belloc was here to dinner. Baker, one of Asquith's 

 private secretaries, has just explained to him the recent Ulster crisis. 

 The resolution to send troops in force to Belfast was agreed to by the 

 whole Cabinet, who also agreed to the letter which was to be written to 

 General Gough, and they had just dispersed, leaving Seely behind 

 them with Morley, when Gough's letter arrived. Seely saw at once 

 that it meant that something more than the draft agreed to would be 

 needed to get Gough's assent, and he added some words, pledging the 

 Government not to employ the troops actively against Ulster, and 

 Morley only half understanding what it was all about, agreed to the 

 addition. All then would have gone well but for Gough's boasting of 

 having coerced the Government. Belloc's view is that Asquith allowed 

 the arming in Ulster to go on as a way of putting pressure on Redmond 

 to give in politically and allow a separate Ulster while for the same 

 reason he won't allow Catholic Ireland to be armed. 



" yth April. — The Irish Home Rule Bill has passed its second and 

 final reading by a majority of eighty. This is due to Redmond's in- 

 sistence, for Asquith, Grey, Haldane and the rest of the Whigs in the 

 Cabinet have been quite ready to throw the Bill over in favour of 

 some scheme of all-round Devolution, any time since they came into 

 office. 



"26th April (Sunday). — I am writing a letter in answer to one 

 sent me from Dublin by Mrs. Colum, asking me to say a word in favour 

 of a plan of arming Catholic Ireland as a counter demonstration against 



