The six of us who rejoined the Party under the foregoing peace treaty were sincerely anxious that the reunion should be cordial and thorough.  We saw, however, no manifestations of a similar spirit on the part of Mr Dillon or his special coterie of friends.  Mr O’Brien published in his own paper, The Irish People, a communique in which he said: 

“I am certain the universal Irish instinct will be, frankly and completely, to drop all disputes as to the past and have no rivalries except as to who shall do most to create good will and a common patriotism among Irishmen of all shades and schools of thought.  Let us turn with high hearts from the tragedies of the past to the glorious possibilities of the future.”

Our optimism was sadly disappointed when the first occasion came for testing the sincerity of the reunion.  A Treasury Report was issued containing proposals for lessening the landlords’ bonus under the Purchase Act of 1903 and for increasing the tenants’ annuities. (These proposals were later embodied in Mr Birrell’s Land Act of 1909 and practically put an end to land purchase and to the beneficent operations of the Act of 1903.) A meeting of the reunited Party was summoned for the Mansion House, Dublin (29th April 1908), to deal with this grave situation, rendered all the more serious by reason of the fact that the Treasury proposals were openly advocated by The Freeman’s Journal. One of the clauses of the articles of reunion declared that the co-operation of Irishmen of all classes and creeds willing to aid in the attainment of, among other things, “the completion of the abolition of landlordism” is cordially welcomed.  When Mr O’Brien moved, in order that the demands of the Treasury should be met with a united and resolute Irish front, that the Party was prepared to appoint representatives to confer with representatives of the landlords, Mr Dillon at once showed that on no account would be agree to any Conference, and he proposed an amendment that the whole matter should be referred to a Committee of the Irish Party exclusively.  This was a fatal blow at the principle on which the Party had been reunited.  Whilst the controversy raged around the Conference idea, Mr Redmond spoke never a word, though he saw that “the short-sighted and unwise policy” was again getting the upper hand.  Mr Dillon carried his amendment by 45 votes to 15, and thus the treaty on which the Party was reunited was practically torn to pieces before the ink was scarce dry on it.

One further effort was made to try to preserve the Act of 1903 from being ham-strung by the Treasury.  A short time previously a deputation of the foremost landed men and representative bodies of Cork had saved Ireland from the importation of Canadian cattle into Britain.  It was decided to organise now a still more powerful deputation from the province of Munster to warn the Government of the fatal effects of the proposed Birrell Bill.  I had a great deal to do