1 Strictly private & confidential
30th June, 1916.
My dear Rubert, In answer to your note of yesterday; Apparently the object of Asquith's & LLoyd George's,
apparently foolish, & certainly dangerous, contrivance was
the production of eye-wash to enable Redmond to keep a sufficient
following together in Ireland & in America in support of his
professed policy of loyalty to the Empire during the war, so as to
persuade our Allies & neutral nations that we were a United
Kingdom for the purposes of the war — more eye-wash — This
being so, the best thing to do now, I suppose, is to conduct
the negotiations so as to produce the maximum of eye-wash with
the minimum of mischief & danger. There must be some reason
for supposing that tolerably thin eye-wash will serve the purpose;
otherwise even Asquith & LLoyd George would hardly have conceived
the project. Let enough be done to enable it to be said that
Redmond received an offer to bring the Home Rule Act into
immediate operation. This in itself is clearly mischievous,
but that particular mischief has already been done and cannot
be made much worse by going a step further. The negotiations
are obviously capable of being almost endlessly protracted:
meanwhile full powers should be restored to Sir John Maxwell —
I say restored, because it is clear that his action has latterly
been hampered, and it should be made quite clear that he is to
remain Military Governor of Ireland with full power over the
Army and the Police till the new form of Government is fully 2 -2-
fledged. Devlin & Co. have induced their followers to accept the
LLoyd George basis of negotiation by holding out to them that to do
so would bring with it an immediate avolition of Military Rule, &
also an amnesty for the imprisoned rebels. If he is allowed
to go on making play with these forms of eye-wash there must be
an absolute determination not to allow any such concession to take
actual shape till the distant day when the Home Rule Government is
in a position to rule, as neither the Ulster Unionist Council,
nor Carson, nor the Nationalist Convention have accepted any complete
porposal; but only authorised the continuation of negotiation on
the general basis of the exclusion of six Ulster counties, & the
bringing of the Home Rule Act into operation during the war. There
is no reason why the negotiations should not be protracted till
after the presidential election, or the conclusion of peace: or
if such very protracted negotiations would make the eye-wash too
thin the negotiations might be brought to an apparent conclusion,
and Redmond allowed to begin making preparations for getting his
new machine ready for work. This might take him almost any length
of time, and I do not suppose that he himself would be in any
desperate hurry actually to assume the Government of Ireland, as
with such assumption his real difficulties would be only beginning.
This scheme is an odious one in any shape; but you asked me what I
think would be the least disastrous mode of issue, and this is the
best that occurs to me at present. 3 -3- Note that all the Ulster Unionist Council at Carson's
suggestion resolved was, to authorise Sir Edward Carson to
continue the negotiations on the basis of the suggestion explained
to this meeting, and to complete them if the details are arranged
to his satisfaction. I take it that part of the Asquith Lloyd
George scheme was to put Carson & the Ulster Unionists into a
difficulty, and to crown their efforts to say that the true authors
of the Rebellion were Carson & the Ulster Volunteers by holding
them up to odium as preventing a possible friendly settlement
of the Government of this country. Carson having induced his
followers here to make the right tactical move in the game
from this point of view may, I think, be trusted so to conduct
the negotiations as to gain further points in the manoeuvring
for position, and to put our opponents in the wrong if the
negotiations breakdown. Probably the most satisfactory way out
of the imbroglie would be for the negotiations to breakdown in
such a manner as would enable us to persuade the British Elector
that the breakdown was due to the unreasonable nature of the
Nationalist demands. The forces now arrayed against Redmond
in this country may very likely oblige him to make unreasonable
demands. With regard to these details which under the Ulster
resolution must be arranged to Sir Edward Carson's satisfaction.

Yours affectionately,