The procedure actually followed was ludicrously different.  The object, as stated by the chairman, was “to avoid raising contentious issues in such a way as to divide the Convention on party lines,"[96] which, to say the least, was a curious method of handling the most contentious problem in British politics.  A fine opportunity was offered to amateur constitution-mongers.  Anyone was allowed to propound a scheme for the future government of Ireland, which, of course, was an encouragement to endless wide-ranging debate, with the least conceivable likelihood of arriving at definite decisions.  Neither of the leaders of the two parties whose agreement was essential if the Convention was to have any result took the initiative in bringing forward proposals.  Mr. Redmond was invited to do so, but declined.  Mr. Barrie had no reason to do so, because the Ulster scheme for the government of Ireland was the legislative union.  So it was left to individuals with no official responsibility to set forth their ideas, which became the subject of protracted debates of a general character.

It was further arranged that while contentious issues—­the only ones that mattered—­should be avoided, any conclusions reached on minor matters should be purely provisional, and contingent on agreement being come to ultimately on fundamentals.  Month after month was spent in thus discussing such questions as the powers which an Irish Parliament ought to wield, while the question whether Ulster was to come into that Parliament was left to stand over.  Committees and sub-committees were appointed to thresh out these details, and some of them relieved the tedium by wandering into such interesting by-ways of irrelevancy as housing and land purchase, all of which, in Gilbertian phrase, “had nothing to do with the case.”

The Ulster group raised no objection to all this expenditure of time and energy.  For they saw that it was not time wasted.  From the standpoint of the highest national interest it was, indeed, more useful than anything the Convention could have accomplished by business-like methods.  The summer and autumn of 1917, and the early months of 1918, covered a terribly critical period of the war.  The country was never in greater peril, and the attitude of the Nationalists in the House of Commons added to the difficulties of the Government, as Mr. Bonar Law had complained in March.  It was to placate them that the Convention had been summoned.  It was a bone thrown to a snarling dog, and the longer there was anything to gnaw the longer would the dog keep quiet.  The Ulster delegates understood this perfectly, and, as their chief desire was to help the Government to get on with the war, they had no wish to curtail the proceedings of the Convention, although they were never under the delusion that it could lead to anything in Ireland.