Kentucky Irish American. (Louisville, Ky.) 1898-1968, 1911-01-14
IrIsh VIII Safeguard Religious
Liberty Under Home
Rule.
May Be an Early and Easy
Settlement of the Veto
Question.
REDaoNDs USEFUL SERVICE

Though there are indications,
cables T. P. O'Connor to the Chicago
Tribune, OF the coming fierce politi-
cal struggle when Parliament re-
opens in the end OF January, all
topics for the moment are sub
merged by the recent battle in
Stepney, in which all of the military
forces in London were called out to
capture a house held by two bandits.
Turning to the political situation.
the Liberal and Irish prospects are
even brighter by the renewed and
even fiercer hostilities between the
different sections OF the Tories. A. j.
Balfour's sidetracking of tariff re-
form is bringing daily an increased
division and personal unpopularlty
in his own party. The Liberals now
calculate that there are five differ
ent sections in the Tory ranks. The
confusion is made worse by the Incl
dents at the by-elections in Lincoln
shire, caused by the death of a Peer
and the removal of his heir in the
House of Lords. The Tory candi-
date opened the campaign by an
nouncing he was not fighting the
election or the tariff, but on the
constitutional issue. In other words,
this candidate adopted the policy OF
Balfour and tried to sidetrack the
tariff. A storm of reputation burst
upon his head from the tariff camp,
and though the unfortun$e candi-
date attempted to withdraw his un-
happy manifesto the storm still
RACES.
The Morning Post, as usual, leads
thhe anti-Balfour campaign and II
prints a letter from Edward Gould
ing, the young energetic Irishman,
who Is the real head OF the rabid
protectionist section of the Tories,
In which Balfour's policy is indirectly
denounced as cowardly and as reduc-
ing the Tories to jugglers and
tricksters.
Jesse Ceilings, Austen. Chamber
1ain's most devoted lieutenant, joins
the fray by denouncing the Free
Trade Unionists, particularly LORD
George Hamilton, who resigned a
high office in the Balfour Ministry
as a protest against the adoption by
Balfour of Chamberlain's protec-
ZIONIST policy. Hamilton retorts by
a vicious fling at the Chamberlain
section as of no Importance.
These discordant voices will
weaken the Tories in the approach
ing fight over the veto, and may
lead to an early and easy settlement
of that controversy. While the fiery
backwoodsmen still call out mo
surrender" and invite Premier AS
quith to create his 500 new Peers
cooler heads among the Tories per-
ceive that such desperate measure
if forced on Asquith, will confer on
him a final weapon for destroying
the present House of Lords and car
rying home rule and all the Other
Liberal reforms. 1t would give him
a House of Lords where the Liberals
would hold, for the first time in his.
tory, an overwhelming majority. MY
present forecast is that all of these
events are forcing Balfour to rally
his party, by abandoning tariff re-
form, putting up sham fight on the
House of Lords veto, and finally
concentrating on the fight against
home rule.
This anti-Irish cry plays the part
in English politics of the bloody
shirt cry in the years after the civil
war in America, and already the
Irish Toryism is fiercely active, be-
cause II is seriously alarmed at the
prophesying of civil war and the ap'
pearing of the mo Popery" senti'
ment. Redmond does useful service
this week by the article showing how
nearly half of Ulster is Catholic and
home rule, and by renewing his
pledge, often given before, that the
Irish party will welcome every safe
guard asked for the protection OF
religious liberty and absolute
equality of all creeds under home
rule