Mr. Redmond ended by making the following demands (surely a
fine example of the contempt with which the Irish Nationalists treat their patrons) :—
" That Sir John Ross be suspended and put upon his trial.
That an immediate inquiry be held by impartial persons into the facts.
That full judicial and military inquiry should be held into the action of the troops, and that proper punishment should be inflicted upon them if they are found guilty. That the Scottish Borderers should be removed from Ireland. That the Arms Proclamation should be revoked."
Mr. Birrell, with a sickening alacrity in throwing over his subordinates, attributed all the trouble to Mr. Harrel's " breach of discretion and lack of insight." As for Sir John Ross, Mr. Birrell proposed to ask him whether he associated himself with Mr. Harrel's action. If Sir John Ross did associate himself with it, he also ought to be suspended. Mr. Birrell ended with a half-hearted defence of the soldiers, which was scarcely more edifying than his desertion of his officials. Mr. Bonar Law pointed out that Mr. Birrell should at least have refrained from abusing Mr. Harrel till an inquiry had been held. Mr. Asquith also defended the troops in a half-measure that could not possibly compensate them for the practical injustice with which they have been treated, and developed a strange argument that the Arms Proclama- tion had exhausted itself when once arms had been landed— when they had, as Mr. Healy put it, crossed "the line of the seaweed and the cockles." Mr. Redmond's motion was eventually talked out, but the Government only defeated Lord Robert Cecil's motion for the Closure by 32 votes (249 to 217).
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