We found unanimously that if an Irish Parliament existed, whatever might be the claims of the Imperial authority, it would be impracticable to impose conscription without the Irish Parliament's consent.

This unanimous finding was bound to influence the view of any Ministry, no matter how hard pressed.

But, as debate revealed, Mr.Lloyd George had never heard of it.
I believe that Redmond could have persuaded Mr.Lloyd George to adopt in April the course on which--but after the harm was done--he fell back in June, when Lord French asked for a large, but limited, number of recruits to refill the Irish Divisions within a specified time--at the end of which time, failing the production of the volunteers, other measures must be taken.

Here, however, we are back in the region of speculation.

Conscription was proposed and anarchy let loose in Ireland.
Redmond's words, "Better for us never to have met than to have met and failed," stand as the final sentence on this notable episode in Irish history.
That is the Convention's epitaph as, I think, he would have written it.
How shall we write his own?
No attempt has been made in this book, and none shall be made, to represent him as a hero.