The Irish standard., 1912-10-26
Land Reform, not Irish Bills, Is
Real Basis of Battle, Writes
T. P. O'Connor.
Terrible Outburst of Bad Feeling
by Tories Against Chancellor
Lloyd George.
Proposed Transfer of Postoffice to
Irish Parliament is Cause
of Believing.

In his special cable to the Chicago
Sunday Tribune of Oct. 20, T. p.
O'Connor graphically says:
war in the Balkans is, we in England
during the week have been absorbed
with our own tremendous conflict.
This conflict received additional i'm
petus and enormously increased bit
terness owing to the violent scene be-
tween Chancellor Lloyd-George and
the Tory landlords in the House of
Commons Tuesday night.
Challenged as to the private COM
mittee which was appointed and fin
anced by Lloyd-George and the other
advanced land reformers to inquire
into land conditions in England,
1loyd-George refused peremptorily to
promise that the name of witnesses
should be revealed to the landlords.
The obvious reason for this refusal
is that the inquiry deals largely with
the wholesale intimidation exercised
by the landlords over all the rural
1andholders, and that unless the wit
nesses to this tyranny are protected
from the landlords every one would
refuse information lest asa marked
man he could be ruined by the land
lords party.
Tories Hiss Lloyd George.
When the Tories discovered that
Lloyd-George would not thus play
into their hands they burst into a
tornado of kissing, yelled continu-
ously for minutes at a time, threw
ferocious insults at Lloyd-George,
drowned his voice every time he at
tempted to speak and, when he had
defied and beaten them after a quar-
ter of an hours fierce struggle, took
their revenge by kissing and hooting
him as he left the chamber, an un-
precedented form of outburst in the
annals of the House of Commons.
This terrible outburst took place too
late at night to receive full record in
the next morning London papers, but
the story gradually reached them and
the public, and the scene now is real
lied as the great turning point in
history both in the immediate and
remote future of English politics.
Land Bill Real Issue.
The Liberal papers first noted the
remarkable contrast between the
comparative tranquility of the Tories
in fighting Home Rule and their un-
bridled passion when they were as
the inevitable conclusion that what
really interests and excites the Eng
1ish Tories is not Home Rule for Ire
land but their own threatened monop-
oily of land in England and their CEN
tury old domination of all rural Eng
The scene also justifies Lloyd
land.
The scene also justiies Lloyd
Georges skillful strategy which, by
the starting of the land campaign
gives the British Radicals a new and
great program which may sweep the
country with the next election and
submerge in interest all the other
topics, including the Home Rule bill
This week has been comparatively
smooth, even the Orangemen fighting
with a strange lack of spirit, and
scarcely whisper is heard of those
blood-curdling menaces with which
Carson's campaign was SO lavishly
supplied during the vacation.
Closure Rule Stops Debate.
Another reason for the lowering OF
the temperature of the Home Rule de-
bates is the steady, automatic, and
merciless working of the drastic clos
ure rule known as the guilIotine
Brought face to face at last with this
steam roller, the Orangemen realize
the game is up.
Another disturbing factor to them
Is their discovery that all hopes OF
Liberal dissensions must vanish. Lib.
erals troop patiently and silently intc
divisions night after night even to
the advanced hours of the morning
and have evidently set their teeth fol