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?...
‘Why cannot the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir Edward Carson) say boldly, “Give me the Amendments to this Home Rule Bill which I ask for, to safeguard the dignity and the interests of Protestant Ulster, and I in return will use all my influence and goodwill to make Ireland an integral unit in a federal system”?’
These words gave the debate an entirely new turn. The Prime Minister said the next day, ‘The First Lord’s proposal was made on his own account, but I am heartily in sympathy with it.’ Mr. Balfour declared that it had ‘the promise and the potency of a settlement which would avoid this final and irreparable catastrophe of civil war.’ Later, Sir Edward Carson, after laying stress on the gravity of the crisis and the weakening it entailed on the position of Great Britain abroad, declared that he would not quarrel with the matter or the manner of my proposal, and that ‘he was not very far from the First Lord.’ If Home Rule passed, his most earnest hope would be that it might be such a success that Ulster might come under it, and that mutual confidence and good will might arise in Ireland, rendering Ulster a stronger unit in the federal scheme. These potent indications were not comprehended on the Continent.
During the whole of May and June the party warfare proceeded in its most strident form, but underneath the surface negotiations for a settlement between the two great parties were steadily persisted in. These eventuated on the 20th July in a summons by the King to the leaders of the Conservative, Liberal and Irish parties to meet in conference at Buckingham Palace. When this conference was in its most critical stage I wrote the following letter to Sir Edward Grey: the wording is curious in view of the fact that I had then no idea of what the next forty-eight hours was to produce. On this I am content to rest so far as the Irish question before the war is concerned.
Mr. Churchill to Sir Edward Grey
July 22, 1914.