en, he condemned this
proposal as coming six or seven years too late, and as defective in its
machinery, in that it proposed a large body of men: "A dozen Irishmen of
the right stamp" would be the proper Conference; and the proposal of
partition should be barred out in advance. If the experiment were tried
now and failed, the failure would "kill any reasonable hope in our time
of reconstructing the constitutional movement upon honest lines."
Ireland is always fruitful in Cassandras who do not lack power to assist
in the fulfilment, of their ill-bodings, and this speech foreshadowed
Mr. O'Brien's intention to abstain. Sir Edward Carson and Mr. Devlin
gave the debate a more promising tone: but it was difficult for anybody
to be sanguine.

Preparation, discussion, went on in private and in public. It was soon
indicated that Sinn Fein would take no part, on the double ground,
first, that the Convention was not elective in any democratic sense, for
all the representatives of local bodies had been elected before the
war, before the rebellion, before the new movement took hold in Ireland;
and secondly, that it was committed in advance to a settlement within
the Empire. On the other hand, Redmond was flooded with correspondence
concerning candidates for membership of the new body. There was also the
question of a meeting-place. The Royal College of Surgeons offered its
building with its theatre, possessing admirable facilities. But Trinity
College offered the Regent House. The conveniences here were in all ways
inferior; but Trinity was the nearest place to the old Parliament House;
much more than that, it was the most historic institution in Ireland.
Its political associations of the past and the present were strangely
blended and Redmond liked it none the less for that. He decided to press
for acceptance of this offer.

Then across the current of all our thought came the news of the Battle
of Messines. Troops had been massing for some time on the sector of line
which the Irish Divisions had now held since the previous October; and
the day was plainly in sight which had been expected since spring, when
they were to try and carry positions in front of which so much blood had
been vainly shed. On June 7th, at the clearing of light, all was in
readiness: the Ulstermen and ours still in the centre of the attack from
Spanbroekmolen to Wytschaete. Just before the moment fixed, men could
see clearly: in half a minute all was blotted