Fourthly, the word of a British minister could no longer be accepted. A political bargain is as binding as any other; and since 1910 the government had depended on nationalist support of which the price was the home rule bill. When pressure was applied, the government refused to honour its bargain; payment was to be made on new conditions and in debased coinage. It is instructive to read the list of those who acquiesced in this surrender, for the dishonour of the prime minister was shared by all of his colleagues and supporters who consented to the act of betrayal: they are English, Irish, Scotch, Welsh, Jewish and hybrid, so that the disgrace is not confined to a single nationality; they are men who probably pay their tradesmen, certainly their opponents at bridge. And many of them made eloquent speeches of righteous indignation when the Imperial German government abrogated the Belgian and Luxemburg treaties. In Ireland to this day and for many years to come there is not a man, woman or child who will take the British government seriously. For defence it is urged that, if the home rule act had been enforced in 1914, there would have been civil war in Ulster; temporary peace was bought at the price of civil war throughout the rest of Ireland from the Easter rising onwards, as the rest of Ireland learned from British ministers and from Sir Edward Carson that "the great questions of the time are to be decided not by speeches and votes of majorities but by blood and iron." Faced with this choice of evils, it was unfortunate that ministers selected the alternative which carried with it the repudiation of their own bond.