Three great difficulties had been national defence, the National Debt
and the religious differences in Ireland. Happily, there had been a complete acceptance of allegiance to the British Empire. The pledges to Ulster had been kept, but those pledges did not preclude the Government from trying to persuade Ulster to come into an All-Ireland Parliament. As for the argument that peace should not be negotiated with rebels, ho would ask the House to remember that its greatest rights and privileges, gained in the past, were concessions to rebels. In
his peroration Mr. Lloyd George declared his belief that freedom for Ireland meant new strength to the Empire. " By this agreement we win a deep, abiding and passionate loyalty. Our peril will be Ireland's danger, our fears will be her anxiety, our victory will be her joy." All this was over-coloured, but Mr. Lloyd George could hardly have been expected to speak other- wise.
