Page:The Irish Cause and "The Irish Convention".djvu/22

 to the Unionists of Ulster and of the South as well in the government of our common native land; such agreement, if arrived at, to be submitted to a vote of the people of Ireland by way of Referendum.

Recent experience has convinced me more deeply than ever that it is to a small Round Table Conference of thoughtful and competent Irishmen, and not to a heterogeneous assembly, mostly composed of pre-committed partisan politicians, we must look for the materials on which the country might with confidence be called upon for a judgment, and that a Referendum, giving the whole mass of the population a direct and influential voice, would be the only means of eliciting a decision so overpowering as to put an end to all further controversy among rational men.

It is because I am driven to the conclusion that the Government scheme, while making a specious appearance of adopting the Conference method, in reality adopts it only to destroy its efficacy—because it forbids all reasonable hope of any agreement other than one which could only inflame and intensify Irish discontent, and because it would most unjustly cast upon the Irish people the blame for a failure of the Government's own producing—that I have made up my mind, with reluctance, and, indeed, with poignant personal sorrow, that I must decline to undertake any responsibility in connection with a Convention so constituted. Yours very truly, WILLIAM O'BRIEN. , M.P., Prime Minister. 22