"Moreover, a military organization is of its very nature so grave and
serious an undertaking that every responsible Nationalist in the country
who supports it is entitled to the most substantial guarantees against
any possible imprudence. The best guarantee to be found is clearly the
presence on the Governing Body of men of proved judgment and
steadiness."

As a last word he renewed his threat of calling on his supporters to
organize separate county committees independent of the Dublin centre.
This was carrying matters with a high hand, and the fact that he
succeeded proves the greatness of his prestige at the moment. The
Committee in a published manifesto accepted his terms, but accepted them
with declared regret, and eight of the original members seceded. Among
them was Patrick Pearse, with whom went three others who suffered death
in Easter week two years later.

All this was a disastrous business, and the worst part of it lay in the
public avowal of divided councils. Moreover, a committee so constituted
could not, and did not, operate efficiently. The original members were
primarily interested in the Volunteer Force; the added ones primarily in
the parliamentary movement. Nearly all of the latter--selected for their
"proved judgment and steadiness"--were men past middle age; and of the
whole twenty-five Willie Redmond alone subsequently bore arms.

There was indeed an underlying difference of principle. Redmond knew
well, and all parliamentarians with him, that under the terms of the
Home Rule Bill no army could be raised or maintained in Ireland without
the consent of the Imperial Parliament. The original Volunteer Committee
laid it down as an axiom that the Volunteer Force should be permanent;
they were, as Casement put it, "the beginning of an Irish army." Sir