426 Irish Home Rule Voted [ I 9 I 4 



with a Parliament and an executive of their own, ' like the Isle of 

 Man,' I suggested. That perhaps would be best. In the meanwhile 

 he was emphatic on the evil being done to the Catholic Irish by the 

 English garrison. He says that it is no longer the case that the women 

 refuse to have to do with the English soldiers. On the contrary, it is 

 becoming as bad in Ireland and worse than in English garrison towns, 

 corruptio optimi pessima, the whole country is being demoralized, es- 

 pecially by the cheap English papers, with their indecent illustrations. 

 These the country girls get hold of, for they are sold at every railway 

 station, and read in secret, sitting under hedges, in spite of the prohibi- 

 tion of the priests, and so go the way of prostitution. He says it is 

 worse in Dublin far than in London, girls beginning there at fifteen and 

 sixteen in the streets. Drink and gambling are destroying the country 

 side. We talked about the O'Shea revelations. Everybody is reading 

 them all over Ireland. 



" Vjih May (Sunday). — Belloc to dinner. He tells me it is now 

 certain that Asquith connived all through at the arming of the Ulster 

 Protestants in order to get out of his agreement with Redmond for 

 National Home Rule. Asquith has always been in favour of Federal 

 Devolution for Scotland and Wales as well as Ireland. Now he will 

 deprive the Home Rule Bill of what little autonomy it gives by an 

 amending Bill voted in conjunction with the Tories. 



" 22nd May. — Dillon writes asking my opinion of Mrs. O'Shea's 

 book. He says about the situation in Ireland : 'I am strongly in 

 favour of the Volunteer movement, but it is playing with fire, and un- 

 less it is kept under reliable control it might at any moment utterly ruin 

 the national movement and repeat the disasters of 1798. We are get- 

 ting a very exciting, strenuous time here (the House of Commons), 

 but I think we shall pull through successfully. The forces against us 

 are terrible, and a Radical Government is always weak and timorous.' 



" 26th May. — The Irish Home Rule Bill has passed its final reading 

 in the House of Commons by a majority of seventy-seven, but without 

 enthusiasm, as it is threatened with an amending Bill depriving it of its 

 entire efficacy by giving a full status to the Protestant counties of Ulster, 

 and so nobody is pleased. 



" 28U1 May. — Mrs. Padriac Colum writes me a long letter about the 

 Volunteer movement in Ireland and upon the great effect my letter has 

 had on it. Casement also writes at great length, and the movement, 

 according to both, is assuming large dimensions. 



" nth June. — About the Volunteer business, which has taken a 

 prodigious start since I first heard of it a month ago, Dillon says: 

 ' The Volunteer business is a very serious one. Sir Roger Casement 

 is, I have no doubt, an excellent and able man, but he knows no more 



