The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1907-06-15

The following dispatch from Lon
don to the New York Sun, evidently
from a Unionist source, pictures the
position of the Campbell -Bannerman
forces as more serious even than was
generally understood:
The increasing discontinue and inn
potence of the present government
numerically the strongest Great Brit
ain has ever known in point of major
ity in the House of Commons, con-
tinue to furnish the most significant
spectacle of the day. It's ambitious
program, announced when it came into
power, was in great part abandoned
in the revised plan which Prime Min
lister Zimmerman indicated
this week. The bills which the gov
ernment will endeavor to pass at the
present session are unimportant from
the contentious point of view and the
chief interest centers in it's plans for
the next year.
The only possible inference from the
Premier's declarations is that it is the
intention to dissolve Parliament if the
House of Lords rejects the new edu-
cation and the old age pension bills.
AS the upper house is certain to do
this it is at least encouraging, for few
doubt that the country will return a
safe Unionist majority at the earliest
possible opportunity it gets to turn out
the present nondescript combination of
allied Liberal and radical Socialist leg
islators.
1t cannot be denied that they have
accomplished considerable mischief in
destroying commercial and financial
confidence in the country, aside from
actual legislation: but they have been
pityingly described as a blank cart
ridge government. Their choice of an
issue in deciding to ride for a fall is
on the whole satisfactory. 1t is to be
a reform House Of Lords now.
The hereditary branch of the Legis-
lature has never been a popular insti-
tuition in the ordinary sense Of the
word, but never before in many years
observation has the present writer
heard Englishmen exclaim: "Thank
God for the House of Lords!" so often
as since the present government came
into power.
The complaint of the Liberal party
against the upper house is from an
academic point of view legitimate and
justified. They say their party Is
never really in power, no matter how
great the popular majority behind it,
80 long as this hereditary obstacle to
the popular will exists. But everybody
knows now that the present govern
ment no longer possesses the support
and confidence of the country. Even
the man in the street is able to see
that it is only the House of Lords that
averts the most appalling collapse of
Great Britain's prosperity, which
would quickly befall if there was i'm
minent danger of Premier Campbell
1~eAAAiiSA iieAii . SOSloiStlC measures De.
coming the law Of the land
Hence it happens that the govern
ment has greatly strengthened in pop
ular esteem the very institution which
It now proposes to attack. The awk-
wardness of Mr.. Bannerman's position
is likely to increase as time goes on.
Things are getting pretty warm in
Ireland and there is no longer any
doubt that the government will soon
be confronted with an agitation so vio-
lent that ordinary police measures will
be quite inadequate to control the sit
uation. Then the Prime Minister must
decide whether to allow a reign Of
lawlessnss in a large part of Ireland
or face an opposition stronger than
any other in Parliament-that of his
former Irish allies.
This opposition is already develop
ing in Ireland itself. The Sligo County
Council has let itself go against the