onal energies
and that, for his part, he would hold himself at our disposal.

What followed is so faithfully and impartially related in Mr O'Brien's
book, _An Olive Branch in Ireland,_ that I reproduce it:

"One of our first cares on my return to Cork was to restore vitality
to the labourer's cause, and formulate for the first time a precise
legislative scheme on which they might take their stand as their
charter. This scheme was placed before the country at a memorable
meeting in Macroom on December 10, 1904, and whoever will take the
trouble of reading it will find therein all the main principles and
even details of the great measure subsequently carried into law in
1906. The Irish Land and Labour Association, which was the
organisation of the labourers, unanimously adopted the scheme, and
commissioned their Secretary, Mr J.J. Shee, M.P., in their name, to
solicit the co-operation of the Directory of the United Irish League
in convening a friendly Conference of all Irish parties and sections
for the purpose of securing the enactment of a Labourers' Bill on
these lines as a non-contentious measure. If common ground was to be
found anywhere on which all Irishmen, or at the worst all
Nationalists, might safely grasp hands, and with a most noble aim, it
was surely here. But once more Mr Dillon scented some new plot against
the unity and authority of the Irish Party, and at the Directory
meeting of the secretary of the Land and Labour Association was
induced without any authority from his principals to abandon their
invitation, and thus take the first step to the disruption of his own
association.

"I bowed and held my peace, to see what another year might bring forth
through the efforts of those who had made a national agreement upon the
subject impracticable. Another year dragged along without a Labourers'
Bill, or any effort of the Irish Party to bring it within the domain of
practical politics. The Land and Labour Association determined to rouse
the Government and the country to the urgency of the question by an
agitation of an unmistakable character. Mr Redmond, Mr Dillon and all
their chief supporters were invariably invited to these demonstrations;
but the moment they learned that Mr Harrington, Mr Healy and myself had
been invited as well, a rigorous decree of boycott went forth against
the Labour demonstrations, and as a matter of fact no representative of
the Irish Party figured on the Labourers' platform thro