But this decision of the people, constitutionally and legitimately expressed, was not long to remain unchallenged.  Immediately after the Convention Mr Davitt waited upon Mr Redmond, at the Gresham Hotel, Dublin, and blandly told him:  “I have had a wire from Dillon to-day from the Piraeus, to say he is starting by the first boat for home and from this day forth O’Brien and yourself will have Dillon, T.P. and myself on your track.”  Thus was set on foot what, with engaging candour, Mr Davitt himself later described in an article he contributed to The Independent Review as “a determined campaign” against the national policy which had been authoritatively endorsed and approved by every organisation in the country entitled to speak on the subject.  The country has had to pay much in misery, in the postponement of its most cherished hopes and in the holding up of land purchase over great areas owing to the folly, the madness and the treachery of this “determined campaign.”  Mr Dillon, at a later stage, with a certain Machiavellian cunning, raised the cry of “Unity” from every platform in the country against those who had never acted a disloyal part in all their lives, whilst his own political conscience never seemed to trouble him when he was flagrantly and foully defying that very principle of unity which he had pledged himself to maintain and uphold “in or out of Parliament.”

The National Convention was followed by an event which might easily have been made a turning point in Ireland’s good fortune had it been properly availed of.  Lord Dunraven and his landlord Conciliation Committee met the day after the Land Convention and resolved to support sixteen out of the seventeen Nationalist amendments.  They furthermore sent a message to Mr Redmond offering to co-operate actively with the members of the Irish Party throughout the Committee stage of the Wyndham Bill.  Every consideration of national policy and prudence would seem to urge the acceptance of this generous offer.  It would, if accepted, be the outward and visible sign of that new spirit of grace that had entered into Irish relations with the foregathering of the Land Conference.  But fear of what Mr Dillon and the Freeman might do if this open association with a landlord—­even if a friendly landlord—­interest took place apparently operated on Mr Redmond’s judgment.  Although urged by Mr O’Brien, who made the utmost allowance for the leader’s difficulties, to accept the offer of Lord Dunraven and his friends for continued co-operation, Mr Redmond temporised, and the opportunity passed into the limbo of golden possibilities gone wrong.