Mr. Long, at Nottingham (Jan. 28), denounced the obscurity of this speech, and hinted at a suspicion that the Government were trying to force Ulster to prejudice its case by committing some act of violence; and Mr. Austen Chamberlain also replied to the Chief Secretary for Ireland at Skipton (Jan. 30), denouncing the Government for forcing on, during a time of turmoil abroad and at home, the Welsh Church, Home Rule, and Plural Voting Bills. They had found Ireland at peace, and brought it to the verge of civil war. Their methods had destroyed the moral basis of their authority. No concession worth speaking of would avert the dangers then threatening, unless it provided for the exclusion of Ulster from the sphere of a Union Parliament. The Chief Secretary's paper safeguards were of no value. The Lord-Lieutenant would be distracted between the advice of his Ministers and of the Imperial Government. He could not trust the Nationalists, nor, judging by the provisions in the Bill, could the Government. England was to conquer a province and hold it down at the expense of her friends and for the benefit of her enemies. Against this Ulster appealed to the nation, and the Unionist party would stand by them. The Nationalist comment was expressed by Mr. Devlin at Moate, Westmeath (Feb. 1). After saying that, without compulsion, which was one of the vital provisions of the pending Land Bill, the land problem would not be solved either in this generation or the next, he declared that the only obstacle in the way of Home Rule was the threat of civil war in Ulster, which had failed to convince or intimidate anybody, not least in Ulster itself. The so-called Volunteer movement and the Provisional Government had been reduced to a miserable fiasco, and the whole thing was a gigantic game of bluff. Among business men in favour of Home Rule he cited Lord Pirrie, Sir Hugh Mack, Mr. Glendinning, and Mr. Thomas Shillington, "out of a host of others."