Here again, however, Redmond's representations were in vain.

When the heavy extra tax on beer and spirits was levied by the first supplementary Budget, he opposed it angrily: "You are doing some shipbuilding at Belfast, you are making a few explosives at Arklow, you are buying some woollen goods from some of the smaller manufacturers, but apart from that, the bulk of the hundreds of millions of borrowed money which you are spending on the war is being spent in England and in increasing the income of your country." This tax on alcohol would curtail the most important urban industry of the South and West of Ireland, and he feared that it was the old story of crushing Ireland's trade under the wheel of British interests.
Here again Redmond could only plead with the Irish Government that they, in their turn, should plead with the Imperial authorities.

He should have been able to act in his own right as the head of an Irish Ministry, knowing the importance of providing employment at such a time.

He saw the need and how to meet it; but he had none of the resources of power.
As compared with the other men who occupied, in the public eye, a rank equivalent to his--with General Botha, for instance--he was like a commander of those Russian armies which had to take the field against Germans with sticks and pikes.
Yet power he had--power over the heart and mind of Ireland--the power which was given him by the response to his appeal.

From January onwards the Sixteenth Division grew steadily and strongly.