S o6 ENGLISH POLITICAL HISTORY 



and boycotting, the " plan of campaign," the Phoenix Park murders and dynamiting 

 outrages, the downfall of Parnell and the split in the Nationalist ranks. A new genera- 

 . tion had grown up, to whom all this was ancient history, with no special 

 application to the existing conditions. Ireland for years had been peaceful 

 and growing in prosperity; the Unionist Government had given her both local govern- 

 ment and the Land Purchase Act; and the idea of Home Rule (as apart from the for- 

 gotten Home Rule Bills) was now familiar, simply as one of the standing issues of party 

 politics. Lord Rosebery's defection had not prevented Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman 

 from inscribing it again in 1905 on the banner of the Liberal Party; and though the Lib- 

 erals then came into power, independently of the Nationalist vote, under a pledge not 

 to introduce a Home Rule Bill during the 1905-1910 Parliament, Mr. Asquith had been 

 quite explicit in saying, when the elections of January 1910 were taken, that if he got 

 a majority this self-denying ordinance would be at an end. On the Unionist side the 

 attitude of the Liberal party in this respect was indeed severely criticised; and it was 

 true that at the elections of December 1910 neither Mr. Asquith nor his colleagues in 

 the Cabinet made Home Rule a direct issue either in their election addresses or in their 

 speeches. On the contrary ^ when the Unionists warned the electorate that in voting 

 for the Parliament Bill they were voting also for Home Rule, they were constantly told 

 that this was only a " bogey." But the fact remained that, in spite of Unionist efforts 

 and in conformity with what, from a Liberal point of view, was quite sufficient intima- 

 tion that Home Rule was an integral part of the Liberal programme, a majority for the 

 Parliament Bill had been returned; and within the coalition majority the Irish Nation- 

 alists held the balance of power. The Unionists taunted Mr. Asquith with being in 

 office simply by the will of Mr. Redmond, and continued throughout the controversy 

 to deny any Liberal mandate for Home Rule at all; but the parliamentary majority was 

 the solid fact of the situation. Mr. Redmond, for his part, had been perfectly frank 

 about the conditions of his support; on September 27, 1910, for example (to give only one 

 instance out of many), at a moment when it was still uncertain to what lengths the 

 Liberal Cabinet would go in framing a Home Rule Bill, he was reported as saying in a 

 speech at Buffalo, U.S.A., " I believe the leaders of the Liberals are sincerely friendly to 

 Home Rule, but, sincere or not, we have the power and will make them toe the line." 

 Undoubtedly the Nationalists could have turned the Government out if it did not " : toe 

 the line;" but this would have done their cause no good. The strength of their position, 

 for making a good bargain over the terms of the Bill, was really based on the willingness 

 of the Liberal and Labour parties to concede, in all essentials, the Nationalist demand, 

 representing as it did not only a solid vote from three-quarters of Ireland but also an 

 important body of Irish opinion in America and the British Colonies. Apart altogether 

 from the older arguments for Home Rule, the Liberals justified their policy by the 

 success attending their grant of self-government to the Transvaal, and by the congestion 

 of business in the Imperial Parliament, which in any case made it desirable to move 

 in the direction of devolution. An Irish Parliament and executive of the colonial type 

 for purely Irish affairs, subordinate to the Imperial Parliament, would not only satisfy 

 the Irish claim but might be the beginning of a federal scheme for the whole of the 

 United Kingdom. Arguing on these lines, >and Mr. Redmond carefully put the Irish 

 case no higher in his speeches before British audiences it was much easier in 1910 and 

 1911 for supporters of the Government than it was in 1886 and 1893 to scout Unionist 

 objections to the principle of Home Rule; they could even appeal to Unionist argu- 

 ments in favour of an Imperial federal constitution. Whether the Bill to be introduced 

 would reconcile Imperial interests and those of the United Kingdom with its proposals 

 for Irish government had still to be seen; but meanwhile its consideration was approached 

 this time under conditions more favourable than formerly. English Liberal Nonconform- 

 ists were not now so much agitated about Home Rule meaning Rome Rule; and public 

 opinion in Great Britain generally had become rather apathetic about Ireland altogether, 

 being to a large extent out of touch with its problems. It was only in Ulster that the 

 passionate resistance of a generation before was as yet reawakened. 



