The Irish standard., 1911-01-14
Political Factions Quarrel About
the Lax Legislation Against
Foreigners.
Dissension Among Tories Helps
Liberals in the Approach
ing Fight.
Balfour Forced to Rally His Party
to Make Sham Resistance to
Veto Measure.

Though there are indications of the
coming fierce political struggle when
parliament reopens in the end of JAM
uary, all topics for the moment are
submerged by the recent battle in
Stenney, in which all the military
, forces in London were called out to
capture house held by two bandits,
, says T. p. O'Connor in his London let
ter cabled to the Chicago Tribune
Jan. s.
Public opinion, on the whole, justi-
f1es the tactics of Winston Churchill,
the home secretary, and the police.
The British approval Is made the more
certain by the self-complacent criti-
cisms Of the German press.
Politics Plays Part.
Party politics Of course enters into
the controversy. The Tories are ac-
cusing the Liberals of reducing the
acts of parliament against aliens to
nothing, while the Liberals retort that
| AhC NClSNC ilCO III IhC dSIo LuCIuoCANC6S
which were clumsily contrived by the
Tories when they were in power.
There is Il general call for a great
or restriction of alien immigration, but
few will attempt to answer the unan-
swerable objections to any possibility
Of such code of restrictions as could
keep out any but an infinitesimal
, number of real criminals without in
Guiding a great mass of deserving
ones and destroying England's trad!-
tional policy of Offering an asylum to
refugees from oppression.
| Another proposal is to make more
difficult the right to carry arms. and
finally it is proposed to arm the po.
lice.
Chances of Liberals Brighter.
! Turning to the political situation,
the Liberal and Irish prospects are
even brighter bv the renewed and
even fiercer hostilities between the
different sections of the Tories. A. j.
I'alfour's sidetracking Of tariff re-
form is bringing daily an increased
division and personal unpopularity in
his own party.
The Liberals now calculate that
! there are five different sections in the
Tory ranks. The confusion is made
worse by the incidents at the by
election in Lincolnshire, caused by
the death OF peer and the removal
Of his heir in the House of Lords.
| The Tory candidate opened the
campaign by announcing he was not
=, fighting the election on the tariff, but
on the constitutional issue. In other
words, this candidate adopted the pol
icy Of Balfour and tried to sidetrack
the tariff.
A storm of reputation burst upon
his head from the tariff camp. and
though the unfortunate candidate at
tempted to withdraw his unhappy
manifesto the storm still RACES.
The Morning Post, rs usual, leads
the anti-Balfour campaign and it
prints letter from Edward Goulding,
the young energetic Irishman, who ls
the real head of the rabid protection
list section of the Tories, in which
Ealfour's policy is indirectly de-
nounced as cowardly and as reduc-
ing the Tories to jugglers and trick
sters.
I. Veto Contest Near End.
These discordant voices will weak
en- the Tories in the approaching fight
over the veto, and may lead to an
early and easy settlement Of that con-
troversy.
While the fiery backwoodsmen still
call out "No surrender" and invite
Premier Asquith to create his 500
new peers, cooler heads among the
Tories perceive that such desperate
measure, if forced on Asquith, will
confer on him final weapon for de-
stroying the present House Of Lords
and carrying home rule and all the
j other Liberal reforms. A sisfS Asss9
i It would give him a House Of Lords
where the Liberals would hold, for
the first time In history, an over.