The promoters of the Volunteer movement had not contemplated insurrection, nor had they identified themselves with any extreme or physical force policy. They were not committed to Separation, to Sinn Fein, or to Parliamentarianism, but to the defence of Irish rights, and to the obtaining of arms and ammunition for that purpose. Each of them had his own idea of what exactly the movement stood for, as had the rank and file, but all were content to sink differences and subscribe to the simple formula of defending Irish rights, which embraced them all and embraced all their policies. Upon that basis they carried Ireland with them, united, despite political machines and jealousies, for the first time for generations. The outbreak of war however changed that, and made it imperative on every section to reconsider the position, and to revise policy. The Parliamentarians and the Fenians were the first to make up their minds, the one to work for an insurrection and the other not alone to suspend Ireland's claims but actively to support England. The resultant split left Mr. Redmond with an imposing organisation, on paper, but left only one genuine body of Nationalist Volunteers in Ireland--the original Irish Volunteers. But its membership was now reduced to the extreme men--using the term to denote every school of Nationalist thought which went beyond Parliamentarianism. And that inevitably ensured the controlling influence to the Fenians, the only men who were out with a definite policy. The campaign which, immediately after the expulsion of Mr. Redmond and his followers, was carried on against the Volunteers by the united forces of the Government and of the Parliamentary Party hardened them and inclined the whole body towards the policy on which the Fenians were building, and although there were to the end two sections in the Volunteers, one which wanted an insurrection and one which only contemplated it in the event of Partition or Conscription and desired to keep the organisation intact with a view to its weight being used in any post-bellum attempt at settlement, yet the temper of the whole body was such that the Fenian element dominated it for all practical purposes. The self-denying ordinance under which they had at the beginning refrained from being prominently identified with the movement had no further justification, and they controlled the Executive, as representing the majority opinion of the organisation. The result we know.