Among his papers is a very full note of what passed on this occasion.  It is confidential, but one may note the extreme friendliness of attitude as between Redmond and the Ulster representatives, and also the fact that the operative suggestions agreed on were proposed first by Redmond himself.  They were the result of his interview with Lord Kitchener.  Recruiting in Ireland should no longer be left to voluntary effort, but a Department should be formed corresponding to that over which Lord Derby had been appointed to preside in Great Britain; and the Lord-Lieutenant himself should accept the position of its official head, and should appoint or nominate some man of known business capacity to preside over the detail of organization.  Redmond pressed also that the country should be told definitely what Lord Wimborne had told the conference, that the need was for a total of about 1,100 recruits per week.

He insisted also very strongly on the publication of a letter which Lord Kitchener at his instance had written to the conference.  Its last paragraph read: 

“The Irish are entitled to their full share of the compliments paid to the rest of the United Kingdom for their hitherto magnificent response to the appeal for men:  but if that response is to reap its due and only reward in victory, the supply must be continued.”

Over 81,000 recruits had been raised in Ireland since the war started—­a period of eighty-two weeks.  Viewed in comparison with Lord Kitchener’s original anticipations, the result might well be called “magnificent.”  But it was necessary to maintain the same weekly average, and for four months the figure had been much below this.  The result of the new campaign was to raise nearly 7,500 men in seven weeks.

In the campaign thus launched, as Redmond so keenly desired, under the joint auspices of Ulstermen, Southern Unionists and Nationalists, one circumstance attracted attention.  It was proposed to hold a great meeting at Newry, the frontier town where Ulster marches with the South—­a centre in which recruiting had been singularly keen and successful.  The scheme was to unite on one platform the Lord-Lieutenant, Redmond and Sir Edward Carson.  Sir Edward Carson, however, “did not think the proposal would serve any useful purpose,” and the meeting was held without him, in December 1915.

By this time the Sixteenth Division was under orders for France.  We had been since September in training at Blackdown, near Aldershot; and here Redmond was one of several distinguished visitors who came to see us and address the troops.  He came down also unofficially more than once, for his brother had a pleasant house among the pine-trees—­where he guarded, or was guarded by, the brigade’s mascot, the largest of three enormous wolfhounds which, through John Redmond, were presented to the Irish Division.