At the time of the Rising Ireland was still far from being either Sinn Fein or Republican. The prestige of parliamentarianism had been shaken and its strength impaired: expectations had been disappointed, but the reasons for the failure were still the subject of keen discussion, and the Sinn Fein explanation was by no means universally accepted. Convinced Republicans were a minority, insignificant except for their ability and fervour. The mass of Nationalists felt disturbed and uneasy. It was plain that their cause was losing ground, and that mere pre-occupation with the war was not the sole reason for the growing indifference of England to the government of Ireland. Nationalist Ireland was represented (by people who affected to speak more in sorrow than in anger) as having disowned the patriotic lead of Mr. Redmond and as failing in its duty, and this view was clearly becoming the prevalent view in England. The policy pursued by the War Office towards Nationalist recruits (a policy described by a member of the War Cabinet as "malignant") was slowly killing recruiting, and the decline of recruiting was claimed to be a justification of the policy that produced it, and that by people perfectly well aware of the facts. The favour shown to the Ulster Volunteers had not induced them to go in a body to the war: but while they were reported to have done magnificently, the National Volunteers were held to have done little and to have done it with a bad grace. The advent of the Coalition Government, which included some of the bitterest enemies of Irish Nationalism, did not mend matters. Mr. Redmond, it is true, was offered a seat in the Coalition Cabinet and declined the offer. It seemed to many Irishmen at the time that Mr. Redmond might very well have accepted it: that having stretched a point in promising Irish assistance in the war out of gratitude for a coming recognition of Irish claims, it was a mere standing upon ceremony to refuse to stretch another point and enter an English Ministry. But Mr. Redmond decided in view of the state of feeling in Ireland that he had gone as far as was prudent. His generous enthusiasm had received a shock, first in the hints of Irish disapproval at his failure to take full advantage of his opportunity, secondly when he came into contact with the cold hostility of the War Office. His slowly waning influence in Ireland might have vanished if he had advanced farther on the path of unconditional co-operation. It had been for years a maxim--the maxim--of the Nationalist Party to accept no office under the Union Constitution, and no office under the Crown until the claims of Ireland had been conceded. These claims had not been conceded, and the prospect that they would ever be conceded was growing fainter. Had he represented Ireland under an Irish Constitution, even a Provisional Constitution, the case would have been different: Nationalist Ireland would have followed him, as England then followed Mr.