[ 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