What matters it, if he was Ireland's friend? There are but two great parties in the end.
The Prime Minister, less than a month after the Rising, spent a week in Ireland prosecuting enquiries: they resulted in two conclusions, one that "the existing machinery of Irish government" had broken down, the other that a unique opportunity had offered itself for a settlement. Negotiations for the desired settlement were, on the Prime Minister's invitation, begun by Mr. Lloyd George. He contented himself with taking up the first settlement that came to hand, the old proposal for partition; but during the negotiations he left the idea in the mind of the Nationalist leader that the partition proposed was only temporary and in the mind of the Unionist leader that it was to be permanent. Each asserted that Mr. Lloyd George had been explicit in his statement, and the unexplained discrepancy wrecked the negotiations. Even had they succeeded between the parties principally concerned, they would never have led to anything; for the Unionist members of the Coalition when there seemed to be a risk of agreement, declared that they would have no settlement at all. The Prime Minister and his deputy yielded and reconstituted "the existing machinery of Irish government" by reappointing the former Viceroy and replacing the Liberal Chief Secretary by a Unionist. Apparently their chief object was not so much to make the Government in Ireland acceptable to Irishmen as to make it less objectionable to Unionists. The result in Ireland was what might have been foreseen. Any idea there may have been that the English Government was really desirous of establishing peace and justice in Ireland vanished like smoke. Mr. Redmond warned the Government of the consequences of their "inaction" (if any policy which was steadily producing the most profound revulsion in Irish feeling could be described by that word) but the Government was obdurate. It refused to release the interned suspects, it refused to treat them as political prisoners, it refused to mitigate the application of martial law: and gave as its reason the fact that the state of the country still "gave cause for anxiety." The only party that had no cause for "anxiety" as to its future was Sinn Fein.