These shocking events caused an explosion of unparalleled fury in Parliament and shook the State to its foundations. The Conservatives accused the Government of having plotted the massacre of the loyalists of Ulster, in which design they had been frustrated only by the patriotism of the Army. The Liberals replied that the Opposition were seeking to subvert the Constitution by openly committing themselves to preparations for rebellion, and had seduced not the Army but its officers from their allegiance by propaganda. We cannot read the debates that continued at intervals through April, May and June, without wondering that our Parliamentary institutions were strong enough to survive the passions by which they were convulsed. Was it astonishing that German agents reported and German statesmen believed that England was paralysed by faction and drifting into civil war, and need not be taken into account as a factor in the European situation? How could they discern or measure the deep unspoken understandings which lay far beneath the froth and foam and fury of the storm? In all these scenes I played a prominent and a vehement part, but I never doubted for a moment the strength of the foundation on which we rested. I felt sure in my own mind that, now that the sting was out of the Home Rule Bill, nothing in the nature of civil war would arise. On the contrary I hoped for a settlement with the Conservative Party not only upon the Home Rule Bill with Ulster excluded, but also on other topics which ever since 1909 had been common ground between some of those who were disputing so angrily. I felt, however, that the Irish crisis must move forward to its climax, and that a reasonable settlement could only be reached in the recoil. On the 28th April I closed a partisan reply to a violent attack with the following direct appeal to Sir Edward Carson:— ‘I adhere to my Bradford speech ... but I will venture to ask the House once more at this moment in our differences and quarrels to consider whither it is we may find ourselves going.... Apart from the dangers which this controversy and this Debate clearly show exist at home, look at the consequences abroad. ‘Anxiety is caused in every friendly country by the belief that for the time being Great Britain cannot act. The high mission of this country is thought to be in abeyance, and the balance of Europe appears in many quarters for the time being to be deranged. Of course, foreign countries never really understand us in these islands. They do not know what we know, that at a touch of external difficulties or menace all these fierce internal controversies would disappear for the time being, and we should be brought into line and into tune. But why is it that men are so constituted that they can only lay aside their own domestic quarrels under the impulse of what I will call a higher principle of hatred?...