ty and the present one did their part to secure an agreement.

In the other list, the Archbishop of Armagh and the Moderator were
grouped with the Archbishop of Cashel and the Bishops of Raphoe and Down
and Connor; the Lord Mayor of Cork and Lord Mayor of Belfast were
together; Mr. Devlin was with Mr. Barrie. This list represented no unity
except a common refusal to agree to any compromise. Those who voted in
it followed one or other of two trains of cogent reasoning; but the
reasonings led to opposite conclusions. These men were beyond doubt as
honest in their convictions as those who went the other way; but they
took the easier course, whether they were Nationalist or Unionist: they
swam with the tide.

The troubles which Nationalists brought on themselves by supporting Lord
Midleton were answered by the troubles which his group met for
supporting Nationalist demands. The men who refused to make the
compromise possible have the laugh of us. Neither section of us who
voted for agreement achieved anything by facing the risk of
unpopularity. We had followed Redmond's policy and we shared Redmond's
fate. We had done our best to help the British Government and that
Government itself defeated us.

By the Prime Minister's letter Government was pledged to legislate for
the better government of Ireland, not upon condition of our reaching
substantial agreement, but in any event. Yet the letter emphasized the
"urgent importance of getting a settlement in and through the
Convention." We had secured a report for a scheme in which sixty-six out
of eighty-seven concurred in the broad lines; and of the twenty-one
dissentients, nineteen were a group sent to the assembly with a pledge
which they construed as giving them a special position, in that no
legislation affecting them was to be passed without their concurrence.
The agreement which we had reached enabled the Government, when it
undertook legislation, to quote Unionist authority on the one hand and
Nationalist authority on the other for many wise provisions which
otherwise a Coalition Ministry might have found it most difficult to
propose.

But no legislation followed. Once more an Irish issue became involved in
the wheels of the English political machine.

We have ourselves in part to thank for it. We might in January have
taken Redmond's advice, and Lord Midleton's declared view that
legislation would follow might have proved correct. Yet, what use are
might-have-beens?