"I do not say," he added, "that it is insuperable." The first part was the voice of Lord Kitchener; the second, the voice of the Government which had sent the telegram of August 8th.
In the War Office the desire to give the National Volunteers as far as possible what they wanted did not exist, and the Government, who had that desire, had not the determination to enforce it.

Such a position can never be for long concealed.

Let it be remembered, too, that all through these days there was proceeding in Dublin a public inquiry into the events of the Howth gun-running and the affray at Bachelor's Walk, and some measure of Redmond's difficulties may be obtained.
Nevertheless, his policy was winning: and when Parliament rose for an adjournment, he spent his first Sunday in Ireland motoring to Maryborough, where he inspected a great muster of Volunteers, and was able to speak to them with gladness of the response to his appeal.
"From every part of Ireland I have had assurances from the Irish Volunteers that they are ready to fulfil this duty: and from every part--perhaps better and happier still--evidences of a desire on the part of men who in the past have been divided from us to come in at this hour of danger." He told his audience how a battalion of that famous regiment, the Inniskilling Fusiliers, had been escorted through the town of Enniskillen, in which Orange and Green have always been equally and sharply divided, by combined bodies of the Irish and Ulster Volunteer Forces.

Then turning to the question of equipment, and reminding them that the proclamation against importing arms had been withdrawn, he announced that he had secured several thousand rifles to distribute.[4] He went on then to pledge himself--it must be said with characteristic overconfidence--as to the intentions of the Government: "The Government--which has withdrawn its troops from Ireland and which has refused to send English Territorials to take their place--is about to arm, equip and drill a large number of Irish Volunteers." Very soon, he told them, every man in the force would have a rifle--and this involved a grave responsibility, and the need for discipline in the work which was laid upon them.
"I wish them God-speed with their work.

It is the holiest work that men can undertake, to maintain the freedom and the rights and to uphold the peace, the order and safety of their own nation.