The Lord Chancellor, speaking at Hoxton on January 15, advised his hearers not to be pessimistic about the discussions between the leaders; but at Bristol on the same evening Mr. Bonar Law gave no hope of a successful outcome. The country, he said, was rapidly and inevitably drifting to civil war. The conversations so far had been without result, and he expected that there would be none. It was not for the Unionists to make proposals, and, anxious as they were to avoid a terrible upheaval, they would accept no proposal which did not meet the just claims of Ulster. He had thought from the speeches of Mr. Churchill, Sir E. Grey, and even the Prime Minister at Ladybank, that the Government were prepared to face the facts, but the Nationalist leaders had claimed the right to govern Ulster, which they could not govern by their own strength. The Government knew that if they appealed to the people and were defeated their whole work of the last two years would be lost; and they had also incurred obligations to the Nationalists, and were resolved to carry their policy through. If they were right, the Ulstermen and the Unionists, who meant to assist them, were traitors; if the Unionists were right, the Government were acting as tyrants, and had lost the right to obedience. He argued once more that Home Rule was not before the electorate at the election of 1910, and pointed out that the American colonies in 1776, though their cause for revolt was trivial as compared with that of Ulster, had revolted on a question of principle while suffering was still distant. He contrasted the apathy in Dublin with the determination in Ulster, daily becoming more immovable, and interpreted Sir Edward Grey's statement at Bradford (A.R., 1913, p. 250) that the Government would put down an outbreak in Ulster as signifying that the Government hoped that Ulster would give occasion to put its existence down by force. That was gambling in human life. The position in Ulster was no longer in doubt. The people in Ulster, and the Unionist party, had no alternative. The Unionist leaders fully recognised their responsibility, past and future; but the path of duty was that of national safety, for, if the Government once realised that the Unionist party was in earnest, they would see that they must appeal to the people.