Intentional  disorder  prevented  the  Prime  Minister
from  making  a  statement  in  defence  of  advice  he  had


HOW  THE  WAR  FOUND   PARLIAMENT       17

given  to  the  Sovereign,  protracted  disturbances
were  frequent,  and  after  a  defeat  of  the  Government
Unionists  tried  to  stop  the  ParUamentary  machine
with  the  view  to  an  appeal  to  the  country.  Allega-
tions of  corruption,  rare  in  modern  annals,  were
brought  against  ministers.  For  Mr.  Asquith  him-
self a  violent  fate  on  a  lamp -post  was  predicted
in  the  event  of  blood  being  shed  in  Ulster.
Towards  the  precipice  of  civil  war  the  country
plunged  rapidly  in  1914.  Unionists  cheered  their
leader  when  he  declared  that  if  ever  any  people  in
the  history  of  the  world  had  a  right  to  resist  by
force,  the  men  of  Ulster  in  refusing  to  submit  to  an
Irish  Parliament  would  have  that  right ;  Army
officers  in  the  Irish  Command  accepted  the  option
to  resign  rather  than  risk  the  receipt  of  orders  to
take  part  in  operations  against  the  northern
province ;  the  cry  of  Parliament  and  People
versus  Aristocracy  and  Army  was  raised  by  Radicals
and  the  name  of  the  Sovereign,  although  Mr.
Asquith  bore  testimony  to  his  constitutional  correct-
ness, was  dragged  into  the  quarrel.  It  was  in  this
state  of  feeling,  while  Irish  Home  Rule  and  Welsh
Disestablishment  were  being  carried  through  their
final  stages  over  the  head  of  the  peers,  that  the
supreme  call  came  to  the  country.
