The Prime Minister, continued Mr. Redmond, bad spoken of certain
proposals leading up to Home-rule. When produced, the Irish Party would consider them, and submit them to the judgment of the Irish people in a National Convention. He would urge his countrymen to reject any proposal, no matter how plausible, which tended in his judgment to endanger the prestige and power of the Irish Nationalist Party and to weaken or disrupt the national movement. His first and greatest policy was to preserve the union of the Nationalist 'Party in Ireland until they had achieved a full measure of national freedom. Some one said there was a half-way house. But his policy, above all, was to preserve those great weapons of unity unblunted, and therefore his advice would be to reject it. Mr. Redmond went on to talk about the land question, and declared that "a little taste of determined agitation would soon have its effect," upon which a voice declared, "Some of the old metal ! "—a very sinister and significant interjection.
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