The Irish standard., 1912-06-22
Tories Making Best of Opportun-
tiles for Free Discussion in
the Commons.
Ulster Question Being Fought Out
Early to the Satisfaction of the
Home Rulers.
Appeal to Religious Bigotry Proves
Vain-Tories Admit the Bill
Must Pass.

We have been at it hammer and
tongs in the house of commons this
week. The tories, driven almost crazy
by the refusal of Home Secretary
McKenna to bring a hired body of
strike breakers into the docks of Lon
don, and thus provoke bloodshed, de-
nounced him first in violent language
and then got special day to propose
q vote of censure upon him, says Z.
P. O'Connor in a special London cable
OF June Is to the Chicago Tribune.
This motion was introduced with
great flourish of trumpets and was
advocated with strong speeches, but
it ended in q disastrous fizzle when
McKenna made this speech of his life
and turned the tables completely on
his assailants. He stands today for
career among the powerful politicians
of his party.
IN the meantime the strike gradu-
ally is dying down owing to the want
of funds and the failure of other cit
les to obey the call Of the London
strikers for q national strike. Nc
Kenna was fortunate in being able
TO carry the strike through without
disorder, without shedding one drop of
blood and without exasperating the
working classes.
The political consequences were i'm
portant, as all such labor struggles.
Involving the possibility of a. sanguin-
ary collision between the strikers and
the authorities, might bring such a
violent collision between the liberal
and labor parties as would threaten
the present coalition in the house of
commons.
Serious Home Rule Crisis.
The home rule bill has entered the
most serious epoch in it's passage into
q law. The tories are making full
use of the ample time given for dis
cussion in the commons before they
make a closure poll inevitable by their
obvious obstruction tactics.
The home rulers regard it as for
tunate that the question Of Ulster is
being fought out in the first hours of
the bill, as this is the only real peril
to this bill; not so much from the
inherent difficulty as from the frantic
campaign in England and Scotland by
the Ulster orangemen to provoke an
anti-Catholic feeling among the pro-
testants.
The amendment excluding Ulster
from home rule, founded entirely on
religious bigotry, up to the present has
found favor with only three or four
of the ultra Scotch protestants on the
liberal side.
The discussion has developed two
facts clearly The first is that the
proposal is not made in good faith
by the tories who proclaim that it
will not abate one bit or curtail for
one hour their hostility to home rule
and secondly, that the scheme is quite
impracticable and inconsistent with
either the idea or working of genuine
home rule.
Tories Admit Bill Must Pass.
Chancellor Lloyd George made a
crushing exposure of the whole scheme
and when the division comes mex,
Tuesday q big liberal majority will
finally dispose of this one serious
peril in the whole home rule fight
of dividing the liberal ranks and OF
making a successful appeal to religious
bigotry.
Another remarkable fact which was
revealed in the debate was the openly
avowed expectation of even the Ulster
men that the home rule bill must pass
into law and they now fall back on
the empty threats of armed or pas
sive resistance when the home rule
parliament is established.
It is uncertain when the ministry
: will be compelled to apply a drastic
closure but the Irish members are
quite tranquil on this subject, in the
knowledge that the ministry is fully
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