THE CONVENTION AND THE END I The Longford election had in reality been not merely a symptom, but an event of great importance.

It was a notice of dismissal to the Parliamentary party.

There was no reason to suppose anything specially unfavourable to us in the local conditions.

Neither candidate made a special appeal to the electors; nor was the constituency in any sense a stronghold of Sinn Fein.

The fact was that the country as a whole had ceased to believe in the Parliamentary party as an efficient machine for obtaining the national ends.