ty of the
delegates that he offered, after some parley, to withdraw his motion,
and thus this great and authoritative assembly pledged the faith of
the Irish nation to the policy of national reconciliation and gave its
loyal adhesion to the authors of that policy.

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 an