[ 23 ] 
cession of Home Rule that provoked the rising, it 
was the extreme severity of the punishment inflicted 
on the rebels who surrendered that excited sympathy 
for the victims. The further delay of Home Rule 
and the continuance of martial law cannot fail to 
promote disaffection. 
Out of evil good comes, and there can be no doubt 
that the disaster of the Sinn Fein rising has been a 
lesson and a warning to the contingent rebels of 
Ulster. They must realise the danger of playing 
with fire; they must picture to themselves their 
beloved Belfast devastated as Dublin has been 
devastated by conflict with the irresistible forces of 
the Empire. With the suppression of the Sinn Fein 
rising the last was heard of an Ulster rebellion ; that 
cry will never be raised again. 
‘These considerations greatly helped Mr. Lloyd 
George when, just after the Dublin rising, he, with 
characteristic courage, at the unanimous request of 
the Cabinet, tackled the task in which His Majesty 
had failed, of effecting a compromise which might 
be even reluctantly accepted by Irish Nationalists 
and Ulster Unionists. 
Sir Edward Carson was no doubt in a chastened 
frame of mind at the moment, realising that the 
rebellion preached in Belfast had been practised in 
Dublin. 
I have known Sir Edward Carson for many years 
at the Irish Bar and in Parliament, and I have no 
doubt of the absolute good faith with which he 
accepted Mr. Lloyd George's proposals, inspired by 
devotion to the Empire, the hope of enlisting Ireland’s 
cordial sympathy and support in the conduct of the 
War. But realising that the acceptance was, above 
all and beyond all, a Unionist confession that Home 
Rule was inevitable, Sir Edward Carson may also 
have reasonably hoped that Ulster, when the choice 
was allowed her, would voluntarily have joined hands