The militant suffragists, meanwhile, had not been inactive. A conservatory in the Glasgow Winter Garden had been damaged, and an unoccupied house near Lanark fired, on January 24; and two days later a deputation from the militant organisation submitted to the Bishop of London a statement (based wholly on inference) from Miss Ansell, a prisoner in Holloway Jail, to the effect that a fellow-prisoner, Rachel Peace, was being forcibly fed and brutally treated by the jail authorities. The Bishop, however, after personally investigating the matter and talking to Miss Peace, satisfied himself that the statement was unfounded. The Home Secretary was willing to advise Miss Peace's absolute release if she would undertake to abstain from crime; this she was conscientiously unable to promise, and, though the Bishop had pleaded that she might be released on licence, and she had agreed to abide by its terms, this course was impracticable under the Act. The Bishop's letter stating these facts was published January 31; the militants met it by interrupting the service while he was consecrating a church at Golder's Green next day, and on the day following another militant deputation asked him to visit two other women prisoners in Holloway, and state his experiences at a meeting of the Women's Social and Political Union. This last invitation he declined, but he visited the prison, talked to the two women, Miss Marian and Miss Brady, and found that while forcible feeding made one of them sick and gave the other indigestion, no harshness was shown them by the officials, and they complained of no personal unkindness. He told the militants, in conclusion, that their action was not only wrong, but impolitic. The militants were furious at this reply, and the Bishop's house was picketed by their emissaries, who were, however, unable to see him.
But none of these disturbing questions could interrupt the Home Rule controversy for long. Speaking at a Home Rule meeting of some 15,000 persons in Waterford on Sunday, January 25, Mr. John Redmond said that the British people remained absolutely unshaken in their support of Home Rule, and that, putting aside two unlikely contingencies, the Bill would in the current year automatically become law. The Prime Minister would not be intimidated into dropping it; he was the strongest and sanest Englishman of the day in British politics. Alarmist shrieks were filling the air, but business in Belfast and Ulster was booming, and the great body of the people of Great Britain remained unmoved. There could not be a war without two contending parties; and the Ulster "army" was for defence only, and would not be attacked. He saw no prospect of Ulster goodwill being purchased by any concession, but it was almost a blasphemy to say that "the Nationalists could do without them." Long ago he had said that there were no lengths, short of the abandonment of the principle of nationalism, to which he would not go, no safeguards to which he would object, which would satisfy the fears of Ulstermen for their religious interests. Subject to the limits recently laid down by the Premier (A. R. 1913, p. 220) he said the same that day, and was prepared to pay a big price for settlement by consent. The Nationalists of Ulster had shown admirable loyalty and self-restraint, and those of North Cork "magnificent discipline" in refusing a contest which, whatever its result, would greatly injure their cause (p. 6). Ireland's travail was almost ended, and they were about to witness the rebirth of Irish freedom, prosperity, and happiness. Before the meeting Mr. Redmond had been presented with a number of addresses from public bodies, and had said that under Home Rule there would be a need for practical business men; politics would disappear, and their task would be to apply themselves to practical problems, and to lift Ireland from the slough of despond in which it had been for the past thirty years.