In the same way, the Government had not, indeed,
entered into a compact with the honourable gentlemen
behind them (Irish members); they had only given
those honourable gentlemen something they very much
desired, and the honourable gentlemen, on their part,
had given the Gt>vemment something they very much
desired. Each party before the transaction took place
knew perfectly well what they were going to give
and what they were going to receive. The Govern-
ment were going to give honourable gentlemen their
liberty, and a Bill with regard to arrears ; the honour-
able gentlemen were going to give the Government

41



ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR

peace in Ireland and support in Parliament. This, he
believed, was the cause of Mr Forster's resignation,
because, though Parliamentary support and temporary
peace in Ireland would be gained, the honourable
gentlemen would, by asking the organisation which
produced the outrages to stop them, be weakening
the powers of this Gk>vemment and every successive
Government by dealing with Irish disloyalty and Irish
disaffection. He did not think that any such trans-
action could be quoted from the annals of our
political or Parliamentary history. It stood alone —
he did not wish to use strong language, but he was
going to say — it stood alone in its infamy. He
believed that the executive Government of this
country had been degraded by treating on equal
terms with men whose guilt they so fervently
believed in, that they felt themselves justified in
imprisoning them for months without trial, by nego-
tiating with men who they had asserted in the past
were steeped to the lips in treason, by negotiating with
men who had used their organisation for illegal
purposes, and to prevent men doing not only what
they had a right but what they were in duty bound
to do. 