if the landlords had to get better terms than they deserved from their history. After publication of the Shawe-Taylor letter which proposed O'Brien, Redmond, Timothy Harrington MP and Russell as the tenant representative, there was enough conciliation in the air to generate a scheme that would bring the parties together. Shawe-Taylor corresponded with both O'Brien and Redmond on his initial difficulty in having the landlords take up the conference idea. However, by 19 September both agreed to throw in their support. Shawe-Taylot had chosen his men well. There was now no turning back, the landlord deliberations having agreed on four delegates to meet the tenant representatives. Dunraven and Redmond as leaders of their respective delegation drew up a scheme that would be fair to landlord and tenant alike. There was confidence that victory and new possibilities would result from such cooperation, Redmond reporting to O'Brien that Dunraven himself had further ideas as to some kind of Home Rule afterwards. O'Brien outlined his views on the terms to be discussed at the Conference in a long letter to Redmond, advising against any elaborate agenda. Dunraven's and O'Brien's views coincided, the latter outlining details of an agreement with a formula which would regulate what amounts tenants should pay in annuities and what the landlord should receive in payment, the government to pay a gap-bridging bonus to the landlord for the shortfall, O'Brien confident that a golden age of social peace was dawning. Swift agreement reached The eight delegates finally met on 20 December 1902 with Dunraven as chairman and Shawe-Taylor as secretary, in a conference publicly hailed by Redmond as "the most significant episode in the public life of Ireland for the last century". After only six sittings, a unanimously agreed conference report proposing a vast purchase scheme along the lines framed by O'Brien, seven of the eight of the tenant's requirements were conceded outright, the eight covered by a compromise, was published 4 January 1903. The Land Conference reached an amiable solution differing from the purchase schemes and provisions of previous land acts in one essential aspect, that sale was to be irresistibly attractive to both parties. The State should supply 'any reasonable difference arising between the sum advanced by the State and ultimately repaid to it'. This contribution was to be justified by the desirability of giving the occupier a favourable start on their new career as owner'. The report,