“The Archbishop spoke of Mr. Lysaght’s speech as a threat.  No one here will be moved by threats, but let us not be mad enough to shut our eyes to the facts.  Is there a man in this room who can contemplate without horror the immediate future of Ireland if this Convention fails?  For my part, I see clearly a future following on our failure in which on one side there will be an angered, if you like, a maddened people, with no responsible control, and on the other, Government ruling by the point of the bayonet.  Between these two forces there will be no place for a Constitutional party or for men like myself.

“That would be the effect in Ireland.  What would be the effect throughout the Empire?

“I have close relations with statesmen of all parties in all the Dominions, and I am informed that twenty-five per cent, of their troops are of Irish birth or of Irish parents, and that they have practically joined because they believed the Irish problem was as good as settled.

“What has happened about Ireland has caused untold difficulties in every Dominion.  Mr. Holman, the Prime Minister of New South Wales, said that conscription was defeated by the Irish vote.  Mr. Hughes said the same.  Two hundred thousand troops have been lost to the Empire by the feeling of disgust at the failure to settle the Irish question.  It has been the same in Canada.  Everywhere a breakdown will be regarded with dismay.

“What will be the effect in America?  The position of America is grave and dangerous.  I have close relations with many Americans of high position and influence, and they all tell me the same.  This is a secret session, and I can repeat what they say.  There is little or no enthusiasm for the war.  Mind, I am speaking of Americans, not Irish Americans.  The apathy is largely due to distrust of England.  They distrust her posing as the champion of small nations while here at her doors the Irish question is unsettled.  Lord Midleton says the Americans are uninformed.  Perhaps so as to details.  Perhaps they only see the broad effect.  But how does that help us?  The fact remains.  Ireland is the only, or the chief, cause of American apathy to-day.  This is of vital importance.  Could we hope to win the war if America dropped out?  Russia has gone.  The President of the United States has many pacifist men around him.  Their movement is strong.  Germany is abstaining from outrages that would raise American feeling.  I say, the danger of peace proposals which we could not accept being offered to America and accepted by her is a real and a very serious one.

“Hence it is that the Government, the diplomatic service, and all connected with our foreign affairs are feverishly anxious as to the result of our deliberations.  If we break down in despair and helplessness, God only knows how terrible and far-reaching may be the consequence.

“Far better for us and for the Empire never to have met than to have met and failed of an agreement.