on easier terms than at any time in her history; that to settle
at once would be highly profitable; and more particularly, that we could
probably secure the completion of land purchase as part of the bargain.
It was thought that this argument would appeal to the commercial sense
of Ulster. We were met by a resolute reiteration that Ulster considered
it Ulster's duty and Ireland's duty to take a full share, equally with
the rest of the United Kingdom, in all the consequences of the war--even
if it cost them their last shilling; and Ulster speakers denounced our
argument as a bribe. Some Nationalists were inclined to discount these
protestations, yet I see no reason to doubt their sincerity. At all
events, no one disputed that it was to Ireland's interest financially
that a settlement should be made.

It is quite unnecessary to summarize here in any detail the course of
these general discussions in full Convention, which began on August
21st. One thing, however, resulted from them on which too much emphasis
cannot be laid. In the process of "exploring each other's minds," as the
phrase went, we came to know and to like one another. Later in the year,
a friend of mine, high placed in the Ulster Division, but not an
Ulsterman by upbringing or sympathy, came home from France. He told me
that the main impression on the minds of Ulster delegates had been made
by the Nationalist County Councillors. They had expected noisy
demagogues; they had found solid, substantial business men, many of them
with large and prosperous concerns, all of them rather too silent than
too vocal, and all of them most good-humoured in their tolerance of
dissent. What Willie Redmond had foretold in his last speech was coming
true: Irishmen brought into contact with one another in the Convention,
as other Irishmen had been brought into contact in the trenches, and no
longer kept apart by those unhappy severances which run through ordinary
Irish life, came under the influence of that fundamental fellowship,
deeper than all divergence of politics or creed, which draws our people
into a sense of a common bond.

The desire to bring delegates together in friendly social intercourse
had shown itself in many quarters. The Viceregal Lodge pressed
invitations on us, and Redmond, though in the circumstances he himself
would go to no entertainment anywhere, expressed his wish that
Nationalists should alter their traditional attitude and accept what was
offered i