The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1909-12-25
AsQuITH on
y THE IRISH QUESTION

When He Was Standing
For Manchester--Defeat of
Lords Gives Erin Freedom.
In his weekly letter to the Chicago
Tribune of last Sunday, Mr.. T. P.
O'Connor, M. p, refers to Premier AS
quith's declaration on Irish Home
Rule, which appears in another col
umn,j and says in part:
And now has come the parting of
the ways. Home rule has all at once
rushed to, the front again, and in the
old Gladstonian shape, and not in, the
5bit-by-bit or iastalimentf' form wien
5hass haunted the stage Of the Fish
tragedy for the years since the death
.pf Gladstone and Parnell. This was a
ssstremendous~ step, and it was made. the
more monentous by the fact that this
step was taken by Asquith.
From Churchill. a declaration such
as: that. Of Aaauith's would not have
been surprising. Churchill said the
| same. thing, as sAsquith when he was
standing for Manchester and for Dun
dee
" :. His mind sAlso has been enormously
|sl7s the success of the homo
rule constitution in South. Africa, and
from my private conversation with
isqI tsassd shs sEeMth sn Bis mind
.thAyswer7s from. the day when Botha
and the other Boer leaders proved the
magnificent harvest that comes to n
nation which dares to be just. generous
and faithful to Its own traditions OF
free and representative government
But in the case Of Asquith you had
to deal with a man who had been a
friend and follower of Roseberry for
years. who had been one of the lead
ers in the movement that transformed
the policy of Gladstone and full. home
rule to the policy Of bit-by-bit home
rule. and who, above all things. in the
general election of 1905 had shackled
his own hands and the hands of his
party by the pledge that during that
parliament no measure. would be intro
duced which could be called home rule.
1t is palpable that Asquith now sees
that the old policy of complete home
rule has become popular and practi-
cable
mained before the struggle for ireland
in this election could be fought with
every advantage on its side. That was
that there should be thorough un-
derstanding between the Liberal and
the Irish party. 1t all depended on
Asquith. Declarations by every single
one of the other ministers, from the
highest to the smallest, in favor OF
home rule would not have sufficed.
Asquith as prime minister, as lead
er Of his party, as the man mainly re-
sponsible for the bit-by-bit policy OF
home rule-he was the man who real
ly counted. With him the whole sit
uation was clear, without him the
situation remained obscure. Which
in it's turn, meant that the Irish lead
ers would also have found their sit
uation obscure-even impossible. They
could not have asked the Irish voters
in the British constituencies to vote
for the Tory-the Irish wouldn't have
of lords and of tie Tories is almost
as fierce as, perhaps even fiercer than
that Of the English-they have suf-
fered more.
On the other hand, the Irish lead.
ers could not ask the Irish in Grea
Britain to have voted Liberal if tho
Liberal leader had been hostile, ever
if he had been ambiguous. And sc
the Irish would have been asked t.
abstain, impotent position always, bu
more impotent than ever when grea
battle is raging on which depend sucf
mighty issues as those involved in thu
present great struggle.
Negotiations, I know, have been go
Ing on for some time, and these ne
gotlarlons I1-1=a watched with poig
the immense issues that turned o1
their result Naturally, I was one o
those most anxious. for would regar,
L