the veto of the House of Lords, nor again did the resistance to a new
Franchise Act, or even to Welsh Disestablishment, promise to be
desperate. In one part only of these islands was there material for a
form of struggle in which the ballot-box and the division lobby might be
supplemented, if not replaced, by quite other methods of political war.
The Tory party saw in Ulster their best fighting chance. There was no
use in telling them that they jeopardized the British Constitution; from
their point of view the British Constitution--as they had known it--was
already gone; it was destroyed in principle and must be either restored
or refashioned according to their mind.

This temper, with the attitude towards parliamentary tradition which it
produced, rendered the political history of the next two and a half
years unlike any other in the history of these countries. The main
purpose of this book is to record and illustrate Redmond's action during
the period which began with the opening of the Great War. But since that
action was conditioned by the circumstances preceding the war--since in
two notable ways it aimed at a solution of the fierce political struggle
which the war interrupted--the political history connected with the
passage of the Home Rule Bill through Parliament must be outlined in
detail, with avoidance, so far as may be, of a controversial tone.


V

It is however necessary, before closing this preliminary review, to take
some account of Redmond's relation to his party, and, in general, of the
working of the parliamentary machine. Difficulties were imposed on him
and on the party from 1910 onwards by our very success.