Redmond appealed to America for money to "strengthen" the Volunteers it pointed out that if he had been in earnest he would have asked not for money but for arms, and would have had the Arms Proclamation withdrawn by the Government. It printed a series of letters to the Volunteers, of which the first contained the words: "The object [_i.e._ of the Volunteers] is obtaining and maintaining the independence of Ireland. Those who are in earnest should have their own committee, independent of Redmond and Co." _Irish Freedom_ headed its leader on the transaction "The Kiss of Judas," and declared that "after the British Government the Irish Parliamentary Party in its later years has been the most evil force in Ireland." The original members of the Volunteer Committee were clearly uneasy and tried to put the best face they could upon the matter. In their official organ; _The Irish Volunteer_, they informed the public "The control of the committee by Mr. John Redmond does not matter, provided his nominees represent the feelings of the Volunteers: if they do the Irish Party will see to the withdrawing of the Arms Proclamation and proceed to arm the Volunteers at once." But the Irish Party did neither; and if Mr. Redmond was expected to share the feelings of the Volunteers, the Volunteers cannot have shared the feelings of the committee. A month before this the _Irish Volunteer_ had printed the following: "For over a generation Ireland has taken her national views from men whose whole lives were bound up with the preservation of the peace. Suddenly, in a day, in an hour, the whole situation has undergone a change. Force has reappeared as a factor in Irish political life.... It is to be hoped that men are not joining the national army from any motives but those which actuated the founders. The object of the Volunteers is to maintain and preserve the rights and liberties common to the whole people of Ireland. There is no question of preserving merely the 'legal' rights graciously permitted us by a foreign power." If the original committee seriously expected Mr. Redmond and his nominees to acquiesce in the views expressed in the last sentence they must have been simple to a degree. They were admittedly in a difficult position; but they knew what they meant and they knew what Mr. Redmond meant; and the sequel might have been foreseen.