The motion for the third reading of the Consolidated Fund Bill, which at once followed, provided another opportunity for reviewing the crisis. Mr. F. E. Smith (U.) endeavoured to establish the existence of the alleged plot, and asked how Lord Morley could remain in the Government if Colonel Seely had left it. The First Lord of the Admiralty, in a long speech defending the Government, said that the letter from the Army Council did not arrive in time to be read to the Cabinet, but that the Prime Minister, who knew the mind of the Cabinet, cut it down to the first three paragraphs. Lord Morley copied the two appended paragraphs merely for his coming statement in the House of Lords. Reviewing the controversy, Mr. Churchill argued that after the Prime Minister's offer of March 9 the question was not of the coercion of Ulster, but of Ulster's barring the way to the rest of Ireland. In January the War Secretary had asked for naval protection for Carrickfergus Castle, but he refused it till after the offer of March 9 had been made. The military advisers of the Government had counselled withdrawing the stores and troops to Dublin; the Cabinet decided to reinforce the depots so that they could only be captured by a serious military attack. Sir A. Paget thought that the movement would be provocative, the Chief Secretary that it would not, though interference with the drill of the Volunteers or arrest of their leaders might be so. Sir A. Paget received no orders for any movement of troops beyond these precautionary movements, but he had full discretionary power in case of resistance. The Secretary of War gave him oral instructions, but he was not asked to put, nor did he put, a hypothetical question, and he was determined to take every conceivable precaution to prevent a collision. A deliberate and unprovoked attack by the Ulster forces on British troops would have made all the contingent measures absolutely necessary, but he and the Government had not expected it, and were right. Suppose a Nationalist Army taking the same course as the Ulster Volunteers, would not the Government be compelled to take similar steps? As to the political issues, he withdrew the word that he spoke at Bradford. What of the provocation from the other side? He charged the Opposition leaders in both Houses with attempting to seduce the Army, quoting a number of speeches, a letter from Earl Roberts, and a circular sent out on House of Commons notepaper by Mr. Hunt (U., _Shropshire, Ludlow_). They had been trying to force an election by creating a rebellion and paralysing the use of the Army to deal with it, and their followers were boasting that the Army had killed the Home Rule Bill.