Asquith: but to enter the Cabinet under the circumstances as the representative of Ireland seemed to be merely to forfeit by his entry the only ground upon which he had a claim to enter it. His decision left the way open to the almost unfettered activities of the opponents of his policy both in England and in Ireland. The strength of England in time of war, the readiness of her public men to subordinate, within limits, the strife of parties to the interests of the Commonwealth, meant the weakness of Ireland in the end. It was loudly proclaimed in England that the happy co-operation of days of stress must not be allowed to be broken up when peace dawned: that the strife of parties must be mitigated when war was over: but Ireland knew that she had been in later years their chief battleground, and that any mitigation of their quarrel, while it might be to the advantage of English public life, could only be brought about at the expense of her national hopes. And in Ireland the Executive, pursuing a fixed anti-national policy, tempered only by the prudence, the theoretical liberalism, or the bland indifference of successive Chief Secretaries, could henceforth count on the steady backing of friends in power over the water. The Rising came like a flash of lightning in an evening twilight, illuminating and terrifying. It was not entirely unexpected: those whose duty and those whose pleasure it is to suspect everything had been uneasy for some time. The few people who were in touch with the inner circles of the Irish Volunteers had long known that something was in progress. But the authorities had nothing definite to go upon, and the majority of Irishmen knew nothing definite about it. When news came that Dublin had been seized, that an Irish Republic had been proclaimed, and that troops were hurrying across from England, the prevailing feeling was one of stupefaction. Even the Unionist newspapers, never at a loss before in pointing the Irish moral, were stunned for the moment. When the facts began to be realized, Unionist and Nationalist joined in a common condemnation of the Rising, which, unable to accomplish its professed aim, could have no real effect beyond that of hampering the Allied cause. Later on Nationalists began to fear and Unionists to hope that it meant the death of Home Rule, or at least its postponement to an indefinite future.