Had he called the group together, had he spoken his mind to them collectively, in confidence, things would in all ways have been better.

But there was ingrained in him a sort of shyness, a repugnance to force his view on others by argument, an indisposition to controversy, which was his limitation; and all this was at this time accentuated by the hurt sense that there would be always in men's minds a memory, not of the hundred times when his wisdom had amply justified itself, but of recent occasions when he had advised them and the result was not what he foretold.
To sum up, then, this criticism--what he said and did publicly in the Convention could hardly by stretch of imagination have been bettered.
But outside its sessions he did not handle his team.

On the balance, probably, he thought it better to leave them to their own devices; but his temperament weighed in that decision.

As a result, the County Councillors and other local representatives used to hold meetings of their own.

They were shrewd and capable men; but in the matters with which we had to deal the most skilled direction was necessary; and there was never a man more capable of giving them guidance out of a lifetime's experience than was Redmond, nor one from whom they would have more willingly accepted instruction.
Discussion in the Convention itself was not of great value for the education of opinion, because men naturally were reluctant to get up and state precisely their individual difficulties, which in a confidential interchange of views might have been shown to proceed from some defect in comprehension.