in turn, provided the basis for the future land act. It seemed for a scant moment that both the historic land dispute had been resolved and the style of national politics had been redefined along new, conciliatory lines. The Land Conference Report was praised by O'Brien as such, not merely its commitment to legislation, but also the new form of Irish politics it embodied, O'Brien's 'conference plus business'. The attention of Ireland was now riveted on the developments around the Conference Report, for what was to become the most revolutionary piece of legislation in Irish history, the Land Act of 1903. Before the Land Conference Redmond and O'Brien had preached "unity" and "conciliation". Nationalists, O'Brien foremost, believed that the destruction of landlordism could only hasten Home Rule. The calm was first ruffled by Archbishop Walsh of Dublin, who, although the Bishop's Standing Committee expressed approval of the Report, in letters to the Freeman's Journal he challenged the accuracy of certain figures. O'Brien in turn retaliated with an exchange of letters which only ended by mid-March when it became clear that the government would enact on the Land Conference proposal. There was to be no quiet revolution in Irish national politics. The omens were initially good: on 16 February the leadership of the League blessed the Conference (and the later Act), as did Redmond and the Irish Parliamentary Party. But these prospects were soon to be dashed by the chief adversary of the Conference, Redmond's deputy John Dillon MP. His detestation of landlords was well known, having publicly expressed his familiar view that the best way to deal with landlords was not to confer with them, rather to make life uncomfortable for them. Dillon regarded O'Brien's enthusiasm for the Conference policy with deepening suspicion and had begun to diverge from the line taken by his friends, with consequences which in the long term were to be momentous. Act brings fortune and dissention Wyndham introduced his long-awaited bill on 25 March. Compared with all previous attempts to solve the intractable land question, this was daring, generous and ingenious. The prices to be paid would range from 18½ years' purchase up to 24½ years' purchase on first term rents (that is, rents settled by the Land Courts under the Act of 1881), or 21½ to 27½ years' purchase on second-term rents. The money was to be advanced by the State and repaid over