Mr. Asquith was received with enormous enthusiasm by an audience
of some three thousand Home Rulers at the Dublin Theatre Royal on Friday week. The meeting had been organized with all the skill for which Mr. Devlin is now re- nowned. After saying something about the financial objections to the Home Rule Bill, Mr. Asquith dealt at greater length with the questions whether the Bill would satisfy the " nationality " of Ireland, and whether Ulster would resist. The answer to the first question was, of course, " Yes," and to the second " No." Mr. Asquith confessed that the attitude of North-East Ulster might be summed up as follows:— "We will not have Home Rule on any terms, though three- fourths or four-fifths of our countrymen are asking for it." That being so, we doubt whether Mr. Asquith is really so little embarrassed by the prospect of civil war as he professed to be. " I am not," he said, " in the least embarrassed when I am asked, as I constantly am : What are you going to do in the event of civil war ?' I tell you quite frankly I do not believe in the prospect of civil war." We fear that if Mr. Asquith acts on that assumption he will have a most unpleas- ant awakening.
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