The Convention could by no possibility succeed, and my belief is it was never intended to succeed.  It was numerically unwieldy.  Nine-tenths of its representation was drawn from the Ulster Party’s and the Irish Party’s supporters, both of whom were pledged in advance to the Partition settlement, and as far as the Irish Party representation was concerned the last thing that could be said of it was that it was representative.  Of the seventy-five Redmondites who composed three-fourths of the Convention only one escaped rejection by his constituents as soon as the electors had their say!  The Convention laboured under the still further disadvantage of being at the mercy of an Orange veto, which makes one wonder how it was that Mr Redmond or his party ever submitted to it.  The Ulster delegates to the Convention were under the control of an outside body—­the Ulster Orange Council.  They could decide nothing without reference to this body, and hence the Convention was in the perfectly humiliating position of carrying on its proceedings subject to an outside Orange veto.

Neither the All-for-Ireland Party nor Sinn Fein was represented at the Convention, although Mr Lloyd George made a second appeal to Mr O’Brien to assist in its deliberations.  It says something for the wisdom of Mr O’Brien’s proposal for a small Conference that after debating the matter for months the Convention decided to transmit their powers to a Committee of Nine to draw up terms of agreement.  This Committee did actually reach agreement, only to have it squelched instantly by the veto of the Ulster Council when the Ulster nominees reported the terms of it to them.  Lord MacDonnell, in a letter to The Times, dated 2nd November 1919, makes the following disclosure regarding Mr Redmond’s view of this matter:—­

“In regard to this episode I well remember the late Mr Redmond saying in conversation that if he had foreseen the possibility of a proposal made there being submitted for judgment to men who had not participated in the Convention’s proceedings, and were removed from its pervading atmosphere of good will, he would never have consented to enter it.”

Mr O’Brien, however, saw this danger in advance and drew public attention to it.  In a speech in the House of Commons he also foretold what the failure of the Convention meant:  the destruction of the constitutional movement and the setting up of “the right of rebellion, whether from the Covenanters or Sinn Feiners as the only arbiter left in Irish affairs.  You will justly make Parliamentary methods more despised and detested than they are at the present moment by the young men of Ireland.”