Kentucky Irish American. (Louisville, Ky.) 1898-1968, 1911-04-08
Referendum Met Fierce Oppo-
sition Where Least
Expected.
T. p. "O'ConROr Pays Tribute to
Sir Edward Grey For
Speech.
LIBERALS ARE WELL SATISFIED

According to T. p. o'Connor,
NJ. p, there is every probability
that the veto bill will go to the
House of Lords before the corona
ton of King George. There are
also many reasons to believe that
the bill will be rejected by the Lords
and that Asquith, the Premier, will
have to call on the King to create
the number of new Peers necessary
to override the Lords. Meanwhile
confusion is worse confounded in
the Tory party. The referendum.
which has figured for several weeks
as the Tory panacea for all existing
troubles and future contingencies.
died rapid death.
1t was one of Lord Lansdowne's
pet policies, but in the debate in
the House of Lords Lord Morley
"aked it fore and aft. He was fol-
lowed by the so-called Tory back
woodsmen, who We're equally as
vehement against it. They openly
declared that they preferred AS
quith's veto bill to Lord Lans-
downe's referendum measure. Lord
Lansdowne saw its doom and
fastened its end by having its further
consideration postponed sine die.
Since then Lord Lansdowne has
confessed that the Tory party was
all wrong in proposing the bill for
the House of Lords without first
getting permission from the King,
whose pregrogative they, the Tories,
desired to eurtail. Lord Lans-
downe did not discover the error OF
his proposal until Swift McNeill, an
Irish member of Parliament, made
the exposure in the House of Com
mons. Ill-health is. now pleaded by
Lord Lansdowne as an excuse Tor.
delay in appealing to the King in the
matter. Premier Asquith will
probably let him have his own time
as to what the Tories intend to de-
mand. What the Liberals want the
King already knows.
Mr.. O'Connor, IN speaking of the
speech of Sir Edward Grey on the
proposed Anglo-American peace en-
tente, declares that the art of the
speaker was so perfect as to conceal
art. When it was all over and when
the speaker, who had begun with an
audience cold and even hostile, sat
down amid a wild chorus of cheers,
one realized what great per-
formance the speech really had been.
This cold, unimpassioned, detached
man had reached the deepest emo
tions and the highest enthusiasms
of those whom he had addressed,
had created what might have been
a Ministerial disaster into a Minis
terial triumph, and had delivered a
speech the effects of which went far
important as that was, but
to every government and to every
people in the world; nay, it might
without exaggeration be said, had
marked an epoch in the develop
ment of all future generations to-
ward a higher civilization in which
war would have no place. This man
who achieved such a triumph is
man to be counted with. And yet
there is no man in the House of
Commons who seems more detached
from It's ordinary life. When Sir
Edward Grey comes into the lime
light he comes from circumambient
darkness. He is never on the treas
ury bench except when he has ques-
lions to answer or his department
TO defend. He is never seen in any
OF the ordinary resorts of members,
never in the dining rooms, never in
the smoke rooms-though he loves
when duty compels him
to enter the division lobby he passes
1t rapidly, almost like an
uneasy ghost, anxious to avoid OBJ
servation, intimacy and even conver-
Bation with his fellow men.