Protestants and Catholics in Ireland have, especially in Northern
Ireland . . . a spirit of collective antagonism, not personal hatred
to one another. There is no danger of religious persecution.
There are little weaknesses in human nature, which we must be
prepared for in all countries but they do not amount to oppression
or persecution.

Lord Bryce, Hansard, lxiv. 551, 1 July 1914

Unionists are bound to respect, even to the extent of scrupulosity,
freedom of speech and freedom of meeting. Many English
Unionists will feel that a blunder was committed in raising any
difficulty about holding an Assembly of Home Rulers even in
Ulster Hall . . . a Home Ruler has as good a right to advocate
home rule at Belfast as a Unionist has to advocate Unionism in
Dublin . . . I dread the violence of Unionists, who, in crushing
freedom of debate, strike at the strongest reasons for the
maintenance of the Union . . . Let no one urge in reply to my
strenuous denunciation of lawless violence that I maintain the
doctrine that no circumstance whatever can justify rebellion
against a Sovereign Parliament. I am too sound a Whig to
maintain any such absurd dogma of servitude. What I do assert is
that at the present moment no circumstances have arisen which
go near to the justification of rebellion or lawlessness.

A. V. Dicey, The Times, 27 Jan. 1912

The Home Rule Bill was introduced in the House of Commons on 11
April 1912. The government remained formally committed to the
principle of Irish unity. Over the next few weeks, however, some
ministers--in particular Winston Churchill--sent out conciliatory
signals in the direction of the Ulster unionists. The background is of
some interest. On 3 October 1911 Churchill had referred contemptu-
ously to the 'frothings of Sir Edward Carson'. He offered to address a
pro-home rule demonstration in the Ulster Hall in Belfast on 8

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