hopes and the proposal angered the existing administrators at Dublin Castle. The body provided useful advice on commercial and industrial questions, and advised that Home Rule could work as a federation of separate assemblies in Belfast and Dublin (also French's view), but ceased to meet regularly after April 1919. French was convinced that the Sinn Féin leaders had little support amongst the majority of the Irish people. He wanted Home Rule to be implemented, provided the violence was stopped first. In July 1917 he had been pleased to be given a "vociferous" welcome by the women of Cork, but less so in Dublin and Galway. In 1917 he had bought a country house at Drumdoe in Frenchpark, County Roscommon, but in practice was seldom able to visit the place as the situation in Ireland deteriorated. On the night of 17/18 May 1918 French had Sinn Féin leaders arrested and documents were seized, but even supporters like Repington and Macready were disappointed at the lack of clear evidence of collaboration with the Germans and the flimsy legal grounds for the arrests, which caused endless legal wrangles. Michael Collins and Cathal Brugha escaped arrest and increased their own power in the vacuum created by the arrest of more moderate leaders. The Irish Volunteers and Sinn Féin were proclaimed "dangerous organisations" in certain areas (3 July 1918), with meetings banned except under permit, and West Cork was declared a Special Military Area in late September. French obtained a cash bonus for Irish policemen, and pressed for them to receive decorations. He also came down hard on senior Irish police officers whom he thought useless, threatening resignation unless the Inspector-General of the RIC, Brigadier-General Joseph Byrne, was removed. French, who like many generals of his generation believed that the government owed a moral duty to those who had served, urged that a "Comrades of the Great War (Ireland)" be set up to prevent returning Irish war veterans joining the Sinn Féin-dominated "Soldiers' Federation"; he also recommended that soldiers be given cash and land grants, perhaps in "Soldiers' Colonies". This plan was stymied by cash shortage and inter-departmental infighting. 1919 French clashed with the Chief Secretary Edward Shortt over his insistence that he exercise executive authority in Dublin, and when Lloyd George formed a new government in January 1919 Shortt was replaced by the more pliable Ian Macpherson. French was appointed to the British Cabinet