To return to domestic politics, the friction set up by the Insurance Act seemed to be gradually abating; and the results of the Act were set forth by the Chancellor of the Exchequer at a complimentary non-political dinner to Dr. Addison, Liberal M. P. for Hoxton, organised by members of the medical profession, at the Hotel Metropole on February 6. After eulogising Dr. Addison's services in effecting, with Sir George Newnes, the medical treatment of school-children and State provision for medical research, he laid stress on Dr. Addison's aid, coupled with absolute loyalty to his profession, during the struggle with the medical men (A. R., 1913, pp. 2, 49). There were now, including doctors on more than one panel under the same Insurance Committee, over 20,000 general practitioners on the panels out of 22,500 in Great Britain; nearly 4,500,000_l._ had been distributed among them, and the average for each was 230_l._, rising in London to 330_l._ and in Birmingham to 380_l._ Besides this there was 933,000_l._ for drugs, and a balance of 310,000_l._ unallotted as between doctors and chemists. That was for only one-third of the population. Millions of people must before the Act have been without medical attendance. A _locum tenens_ had previously received two guineas a week, now he received eight, nine, or even twelve. Assistants had received 120_l._ with board and lodging, or 180_l._ without them, now they got 200_l._ and 250_l._ respectively, or even more. That was the settlement which was to ruin the profession. They were at last getting a survey of the health of the nation such as they had never had before.
But the supreme problem was still Home Rule; and the Nationalist position had again been emphasised by Mr. John Redmond at a dinner given him by the National Liberal Club on February 6, the first time the club had officially entertained a leader of the Nationalist party in Parliament. He declared that the Unionist opposition to the Home Rule Bill was essentially directed against the Parliament Act: the Unionists, he believed, would be Home Rulers to-morrow if it suited their party interests, and he referred to Lord Carnarvon's historic interview with Mr. Parnell in 1885, and to the Constitutional Conference of 1910. Even in 1911 a Tory paper had stated that there was much to be said for the principle of Home Rule under the name of federation, devolution, and self-government. The Unionists, however, had to fall back on Ireland for a policy and a party cry, though the principle of self-government had been bitterly opposed by their predecessors for Canada and for South Africa, and they disliked it for Ireland, having an ingrained belief in the inferiority of the Irish race. But the Irish would no longer submit to be made the pawns and playthings of British parties. Were the Home Rule Bill killed, Ireland would be absolutely ungovernable under the old regime. The issue was whether the will of Parliament, of Ireland, and of the Empire, was to be overborne by a threat of civil war from a minority in one province. As Mr. Balfour had said in 1902, civilised government on such terms was impossible. But the Nationalists were passionately desirous to avoid conflict with any section of their own countrymen; they wanted Ireland to be one nation; and, consistently with an Irish Parliament with an Executive responsible to it, and consistently with the integrity of Ireland, he could conceive of no reasonable length to which he would not be prepared to go to meet even the unreasonable fears of a section of his countrymen for the sake of an agreement. But any concession must be as the price to be paid for consent to an agreement; if no agreement was come to, the Bill must go through as it stood.