Mr. Bonar Law declared regretfully that the Government had taken advantage of the patriotism of the Unionists to betray them. As to the Welsh Bill there was no breach of faith, though the time-limit was inadequate, and it would have been better to await the report of the Select Committee (p. 136), but it was wrong to shock the consciences of its opponents at such a time. But the Government held that the Home Rule Bill and the Amending Bill hung together, and they were breaking solemn pledges in dealing with the former alone. On the morning of August 4 he and Sir Edward Carson had suggested to the Prime Minister that an acrimonious debate should be avoided, and the Prime Minister had promised that until the discussion of the Amending Bill was resumed, no controversial legislation should be taken--on which the Ulster Unionists drew up a resolution agreeing to the adjournment of that Bill--and also that by the postponement of controversial legislation no party to the controversy should be placed in a worse position. The Prime Minister had also told the House that the Home Rule Bill would not be presented for the King's assent till the Amending Bill had been disposed of in the Commons. He had said that circumstances made it inconvenient to fulfil this pledge, but was his new pledge stronger? Amid protests from the Ministerialists, some of whom, headed by the First Lord of the Admiralty, ostentatiously left the House, Mr. Bonar Law likened it to the German promise which the Prime Minister had contemptuously dismissed as valueless (p. 179). He stated that in the negotiations of some ten days earlier the Prime Minister offered the Unionists two alternatives: (1) his present course, which they refused to consider; (2) another suggestion which they accepted. [What this was did not transpire, but the Prime Minister, intervening, made clear that it was put forward only as a basis for criticism and further suggestion by the Opposition.] The Unionists, Mr. Bonar Law continued, had been prepared to agree to a Bill extending the operation of the Parliament Act to the succeeding session, and to the postponement of a general election till after Home Rule was settled. Mr. Redmond's speech (p. 172) was a promise of conditional loyalty; but he blamed him less than the Government. Ulster and the Unionists, in spite of all, would help the Government to preserve the country till the war was over; but they would withdraw from a debate which, under present circumstances, was indecent.