The Washington times., 1914-05-26
HOME RULES VICTORY.

| IL iSHdHS OIly LOT lHe pdTlldIneI-
tary formalities to be concluded and
the royal assent to be certified, to
make the home rule measure the law
and to re-estabhsh Ireland as a self
governing country. 1t will not en-
| joy quite so complete autonomy as
Canada and Australia possess, but
on the other hand, considering its
closeness to Great Britain, and the
/ intimate character of its economic
and social relationship, it will have
rather a larger control of its own
affairs than an American State en-
joys. In a time when our own ten
| dencies are rather in the opposite di-
rection, that is, toward lessening the
Importance of the State, and subordi-
mating it more and more to the Fed
eral Administration, the experiment
in ireland will be watched with in
terest entirely aside from its rela-
tionship to the peculiar set of prob
lens that have involved Ireland and
the United Kingdom ever since the
conquest of the Emerald Isle.
1t would be a mistake to assume
that the passage of the present
measure brings in sight an end
to the menacing conditions that have
hung over Britain for the last two
or three years. There has been an
increasing disposition among the ex-
tremists of all parties, since it be-
came assured that the home rule
measure would pass, to make this
the occasion, the pretext, for precipi-
tating the ultimate trouble that all
Britishers seem to regard as newt
able.
For it is the testimony of recent
travellers in the tight little island
that almost everybody there talks
constantly of the probability of civil
war in the near future. By common
consent, this kind of talk is not much
reflected in the British press. Not
very much of it gets into the news
that is sent abroad. But the thing
that nobody prints, everybody talks.
Mr.. Asquith has demonstrated
himself a leader of steady grip and
unyielding determination. Where
Gladstone accepted the lords rejec-
tion of home rule as the end, for the
time being, and resigned himself to
the necessity of waiting and trying |
to educate national opinion into a |
more reasonable attitude, Asquith |
decided that the lords must be re-
formed, not educated. He forced !
passage of the parliamentary reform
which deprives the lords of their
right of veto, and which practically |
makes the British legislature body
Of one chamber. True, the machinery
is slow and cumbersome; but to have
even so much as Mr.. |
has done, is parliamentary
revolution, worth vastly more to the
nation than a revolution in force
could probably have accomplished.
1t is against this shearing away of
Samsons' locks that toryism is pro-
testing; against the Lloyd George
taxation program, against the large
projects of humanitarian reforms.
Under earlier liberal governments,
there was too often some ground for
the tory complaint that not enough
was given to the question
If national and imperial safety. The
LIBERALS were honestly disinclined to
;pend more money on army and navy
han seemed absolutely necessary,
because the money came from the
.lasseS least able to bear the burden.
So the liberals came to be known as
title Englanders, and that re-
reach was always one of the
of Gladstone in his con-
ests with Disraeli.
Lut the Asouith regime has found
. way to be liberal, almost profig
tie, with the public revenues, and
'et not TO incense the electorate. 1t
vas Il great achievement, that by ;
which Mr.. Lloyd George unlocked I
he reservoir of privileges resources
md drew upon it for maintenance of
he national establishment. Did
Oryism demand two battleships {
where but one had grown before? A
milling and complaisant liberal gov
'rnment hoists the income tax rate ]
md provides three, not paltry two :
and toryism pays the bills. Do the
,ig-navy elements insist that battle j
hips of only 10000 tons are too (
mall, and protest that they must be .
# 2G,000 tons, and cost a few hun
red thousand pun more per ship. in
rider to keep Britannia secure in her
of the wave? Nothing
ssier; the chauvinistic young Mr.. {
Winston Churchill. from the admin