in my opinion, is because the spokesmen of parties are under the
illusion that they should never indicate in public that they might
possibly abate one jot of the claims of their party. A crowd or
organization is often more extreme than its individual members. I
have spoken to Unionists and Sinn Feiners and find them as reasonable
in private as they are unreasonable in public. I am convinced that
an immense relief would be felt by all Irishmen if a real settlement
of the Irish question could be arrived at, a compromise which would
reconcile them to living under one government, and would at the
same time enable us to live at peace with our neighbors. The
suggestions which follow were the result of discussions between a
group of Unionists, Nationalists and Sinn Feiners, and as they
found it possible to agree upon a compromise it is hoped that the
policy which harmonized their diversities may help to bring about
a similar result in Ireland.

12. I may now turn to consider the Anglo-Irish problem and to make
specific suggestions for its solution and the character of the
government to be established in Ireland. The factors are triple.
There is first the desire many centuries old of Irish nationalists
for self-government and the political unity of the people: secondly,
there is the problem of the Unionists who require that the self-
governing Ireland they enter shall be friendly to the imperial
connection, and that their religious and economic interests shall
be safeguarded by real and not merely by verbal guarantees; and,
thirdly, there is the position of Great Britain which requires,
reasonably enough, that any self-governing dominion set up alongside
it shall be friendly to the Empire. In this matter Great Britain
has priority of claim to consideration, for it has first proposed
a solution, the Home Rule Act which is on the Statute Book, though