Kentucky Irish American. (Louisville, Ky.) 1898-1968, 1914-01-03
Home Rule and Freedom Prac-
tically Assured For
Ireland.
Nothing More Serious Than Mere
Formal Protest From
Tories.
The KINGS ASSENT ASSURED

Philip Everett. the well known
London correspondent, cables that
in the second month of the year the
House of Commons will formally
decide the fate of Ireland, which in
the future is to be free to settle it's
own internal affairs. Nobody ex-
poets anything more serious than a
mere formal protest on the part of
the Tory party in the House of
Commons, If indeed a compromise
shall not have been arranged be-
fore that time in order to save the
honor Of the Conservatives. The
Kings assent to the bill is already
assured, for King George, though by
no means a brilliant statesman, has
at least sense enough to know bet
ter than spurn the advice of his
responsible Ministers and revive the
royal prerogative, which though
formally still in existence has not
been used for so many years that it
may be considered dead.
The petition started by one of
the most sensational of the London
Conservative papers for the pur-
pose of proving to the King that the
Government was out of touch with
public opinion, has been shelved
some time and nothing will be heard
of it again. AS for Ulster, no one
ever really thought that Ulster
would fight, and everybody knows
that Sir Edward Carson, in spite of
all his fierce utterances, is more
than ready to come to some ar
rangement which will save his
reputation before the time comes
when he will be compelled to sur
render Internationally or run the
actual risk of arrest. =. -. q.
With home rule ou gay
the. present Lihexa
Will inaugurate in real earnesR tne
new policy of land reform, as
planned by the genius of Lloyd
George, which IL carried through
will peacefully revolutionize Eng
land and to a certain extent make it
able TO provide its own food and
provide employment for every
worker in the country willing to
leave the crowded city to go to
work on what, thanks to our pres
ent system, is practically virgin
soil, untouched by the plow for
many generations. When this meas
ure comes up it will be seen that
the whole fight against home rule
has been a sham, a mere skirmish,
and that only now is the whole
strength of the Tory party brought
forth to defend the privilege of the
few against the just claims of the
long-suffering masses. The battle
for the ownership of land will make
or break the Liberal party.
The royal proclamation prohibit
ing the introduction of arms into
Ireland is regarded in London as a
wise precaution that need not be
taken as more than a warning. The
view has always been
that the drilling in Ulster is in the
main spectacular, and that the
Italian rifles, Of which consignments
are occasionally detected, are of a
type so obsolete that ammunition
for the same is not now procurable.
Sir Edward Carson has often de-
clared that II his army were con-
fronted by regular troops 1t would
be speedily suppressed, and his cal
culation throughout has been not
that "civil war" would seriously in
commode the army, but that the
Cabinet, or certain Ministers in the
Cabinet, would refuse TO send
troops Premier Asquith's declara-
tions have dispelled this illusion and
a great change has at once come
over the Unionist attitude, both as
to home rule and as to the wisdom
of "tampering" with the army.
The Government has proceeded
under the Conservative act of 1879,
but ii is remarkable that another
statute-the peace preservation act
of 1SS1-which might have been
evry useful at this period, was
dropped out of the expiring laws
continuance bill in 1906. This act
enabled any Constable to arrest
without a warrant any person sus-
pected of carrying arms or ammuni-
tion, and II authorized the right OF
search into private houses where
the presence Of arms was suspected.
The dropping of this act was op-
posed or criticized by Capt. Craig,
Balfour, Walter Long, T. L. Corbett.
Lord Clambrook. Lord Ashbourne
and the Orange party as a whole,
the Tory theory then being that the
measure was necessary for the
maintenance Of law and order in the
South and West. II was John Red
mond who pleaded that the act was
obsolete.
We are therefore faced by the
curious position that Carsonism In
Belfast can flourish arms. ancient
and modern. by virtue of the lapse
OF a statute which was secured by
the Parliamentary pressure of the
Nationalist party. with Bryce as