The Irish standard., 1910-07-30
| Burns (the Righ, Honorable John

Burns. (the Righ, Honorable John
Burns now), had the greatest chance
of any man in England. The work.
ing men believed; in him and he had
the full force of the peoples move
Republican in those days. and he usc.l
to talk very violently OF what he
would do if he got the chance. Now
he is one of the weakest members of
the Cabinet, and he hangs round roy
atty so much at public functions that
YOU would think he was always cheek
by jowl with them.
There was time when Ker
Hardie was almost the only rcprcsen-
tative of labor in the House, and then
he used to make more stir than the
total party does nov. Some of US
thought that when VIC got some fifty
representatives of labor in the House
we would be able to do something,
and that the movement would go on
more and more. But most of our men
afraid of offending the Liberals, and
they are afraid of losing their seats
so they have no pluck TO take an in
dependent stand"
Government In Intrigue.
| give my friends ideas as he eX-
pressed them, and although the tone
is rather pessimistic, his words help
us to understand the way things hang
together in English politics and the
difficulty of making progress. The
Government is in fact at the present
moment engaged in a little intrigue,
of which the only valid object can
be to Join with its avowed opponents
in order to dish" its own more rad
ical supporters, the Irish and the La
Dor party. That is what will happen
if the veto conference comes to a.
working agreement Any compromise
with the Lords. even such so-called
reform as to have half the members
elective, would be really to strengthen
the actual power Of the second cham
ber.
In such case the Irish would be
in full hostility against the Govern
ment. They would moreover, have
a chance OF showing their power in
November, for the second reading of
the budget is postponed to that ses-
sion. And that is why the Govern
ment thought Of keeping in reserve
till that period it's royal declaration
bill. If the Tories vpted against the
budget and the Irish wished to throw
| in their weight with them, the Cow
ernment would be defeated and the
royal declaration bill would go by the
board. In that case It would be pos
sible in some quarters to make d great
outcry agains, the Irish party for
! having sacrificed this measure of reli
gious liberty. That was the neat plan
now abandoned for other tactics, in
Guiding the grant to Irish cottage i'm
provement.
The strange thing in all this is that
If the Government had set boldly to
work from the beginning to carry out
their own prr@ram, they would have
had a majority Of the English people
at their backs enthusiastically cheer
ing them on To victory. They have
chosen the c"wardly part and have
landed themselves into endless trouble
, whole system that what broke tho
back of the Liberal party and took
all the steam out Of their movement
, was the simple accident of the death
8 of the King. The power of royalty
must be great when even the demise
of member of it can alter the dircc-
ton of our civilization.
Even Budget Sounded Tame.
The Budget itself sounded tnmcJ,
this year, although il was the sam,
Budget which lad convulscd all Eng
} land last year 1t is remarkable tina
7. measures which arc secuted as revo
: lutionary and the beginning of tn,
: end Of all thing seem, once they have
passed into law. to be quite in thu
normal way Of business.
This fact enabled Lloyd George t,
fire off all cpigram which had a grca
success and which will probably be
come famous. n expounding his Bud
get he showed that the prosperity o
this country, and it's power OF payin,
its debts, compared favorabIy with
that of any other great power. TheI
the Chancellor, who is dappcr little
man, with fluent but mild utterance
paused and b. Il gesture drew atten
ton to himself and to the statemen
he was about to let fall.
And so,'' he continued, pointing t
the Tories, there has been no occa