The Longford election had in reality been not merely a symptom, but an event of great importance.  It was a notice of dismissal to the Parliamentary party.  There was no reason to suppose anything specially unfavourable to us in the local conditions.  Neither candidate made a special appeal to the electors; nor was the constituency in any sense a stronghold of Sinn Fein.  The fact was that the country as a whole had ceased to believe in the Parliamentary party as an efficient machine for obtaining the national ends.  The organization of the United Irish League had lost touch with the young; the main support we had lay in the Ancient Order of Hibernians, which many Nationalists disliked on principle because it was limited to Catholics.  What had riot yet disappeared up till July 1916, though it was threatened, was belief in the principle of constitutional action as against revolutionary methods.

Willie Redmond, who never lacked instinct, and whose separation from party politics by conditions of service gave him a vantage-ground of detachment, reached a shrewd view of the position before the Longford vacancy occurred.  He pressed upon his brother that we should all retire, saying plainly that we had been too long in possession, and should hand over the task of representing Ireland at Westminster to younger men.  His association with the Volunteer Committee, brief though it was, had made him more aware than most of our colleagues how wide was the estrangement between us and the new Ireland; but it also taught him to believe that many of the men whom he had met there would be willing to take up the task on constitutional lines.

This proposal never came before the party.  But after Longford had given its decision, it was proposed that we should accept the verdict in general and resign in a body.  Those who put forward the suggestion felt that some drastic action was needed to force upon Ireland the responsibility for a clear choice between the two courses, constitutional and unconstitutional.  Redmond, as Chairman, advised strongly against this.  He said that it would be a lack of courage:  that one defeat or two defeats should not turn us from our course.  But it is clear to me that he welcomed the Convention as another and a better means of effecting the same end—­of replacing the existing Parliamentary party by another body of men.

On May 21st Mr. Lloyd George’s speech gave the go-by completely to the detailed proposal for a settlement on the basis of partition to which the Cabinet—­including Sir Edward Carson—­had consented.  It dealt only with the alternative plan suggested in the conclusion of the published letter.  The Government had decided to invite Irishmen to put forward their own proposals for the government of their country, he said.  This invitation was directed to a Convention not merely of political parties, although they must all be represented—­the followers of Redmond, of Mr. O’Brien, the Ulster Unionists, the Southern