“What is it that stands in the way of Ireland taking her place as a self-governing part of this Empire?  Ireland is the only portion of the Empire now fighting which is not self-governing.  The Australians whom I meet from time to time point to their government being free; the Canadians and the New Zealanders do the same, and we Irishmen are the only units in France to-day taking our part in the war who are obliged to admit that the country we come from is denied those privileges which have made the Empire the strong organization which it is to-day.  If safeguards are necessary—­I speak only for myself, and I do not speak for anybody else on these benches, because I have been away from this House so long that I have almost lost touch with things—­as far as my own personal opinion goes, there is nothing I would not do, and there is no length to which I would not go, in order to meet the real objections or to secure the real confidence, friendship and affection of my countrymen in the North of Ireland.

“For my own part, I would gladly, if it would ease the situation, agree to an arrangement whereby it might be possible for His Majesty the King, if he so desired, to call in someone at the starting of a new Irish government, a gentleman representing the portion of the country and the section of the community which the First Lord represents; and if a representative of that kind were placed with his hand upon the helm of the first Irish Parliament, I, at any rate, as far as I am concerned, would give him the loyal and the strong support which I have given to every leader I have supported in this House.  After all, these are times of sacrifice, and every man is called upon to make some sacrifices.  Men and women and children alike have to do something in these days, and is it too much to appeal to the right honourable gentleman and his friends to sacrifice some part of their position in order to lead the majority of their countrymen and to bring about that which the whole English-speaking world desires, namely, a real reconciliation of Ireland?  I apologize for having detained the House so long, but this is a matter upon which I feel strongly, and I feel all the more strongly about it because I know that I am trying altogether too feebly, but as strongly as I can, to represent what I know to be the wishes nearest to the hearts of tens of thousands of Irishmen who went with me and their colleagues to France, many of whom will never return, all of whom are suffering the privations and the hardship and the risk and the wellnigh intolerable circumstances of life in France.  I want to speak for these men, and if they could all speak with one voice and with one accord, they would say to this House, to men in every part of it, to Conservatives, Liberals and Labour men, to their Nationalist countrymen and to their countrymen from the North of Ireland:  In the name of God, we here who are about to die, perhaps, ask you to do that which largely induced us to leave our homes; to do that which our fathers and mothers taught us to long for; to do that which is all we desire:  make our country happy and contented, and enable us, when we meet the Canadians and the Australians and the New Zealanders side by side in the common cause and the common field, to say to them, ’Our country, just as yours, has self-government within the Empire.’”