It is
noteworthy, however, in view of the importance which the question
afterwards attained, that so early as January 1912 Sir Edward Carson,
speaking in Manchester, maintained that without fiscal autonomy Home
Rule was impossible,[25] and that some months later Mr. Bonar Law, in a
speech at Glasgow on the 21st of May, said that if the Unionist Party
were in a position where they had to concede Home Rule to Ireland they
would include fiscal autonomy in the grant.[26] These leaders, who,
unlike the Liberal Ministers, had some knowledge of the Irish
temperament, realised from the first the absurdity of Mr. Asquith's
attempt to satisfy the demands of "the rebel party" by offering
something very different from what that party demanded. The Ulster
leader and the leader of the Unionist Party knew as well as anybody that
fiscal autonomy meant "virtual separation between Ireland and Great
Britain," but they also knew that separation was the ultimate aim of
Nationalist policy, and that there could be no finality in the Liberal
compromise; and they no doubt agreed with the forcible language used by
Mr.
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