Kentucky Irish American. (Louisville, Ky.) 1898-1968, 1914-05-02
Tory Leader Calls Prime Minis
ter, Liar i'm the House of
Commons.
Home Rule Bill Marches Stead
fly Toward the Statute
Book.
CHURCHILL TO ATTACK TORIES

IN the prolonged nome rule liSnt, Dy
reason of violence, temper and bad
language, says Hon. t. p. o Con-
nor's weekly cablegram. Even
private social relations bet seen
members of Parliament have been
interrupted. When Bonar Law. Tory
leader, calls Asquith, leader of the
House of Commons and Prime MtC-
lister, a liar it is obvious that things
have reached the abyss of passion
and recrimination. But a good deal
of all this apparently uncontrolllble
passion is fictitious and stase thun
der.
Every day during the week AS
quith, in his new character of Min
lister of War, has been cross exam
ined with, ferocity and with insult,
as to dates and as to alleged contra
dictions in his answers. Everything
possible is done to excite passion In
Parliament and lend color to the
plot legend. Asquith has preser Jcd
great dignity throughout this try
ing ordeal and only lost his temper
when he, who is universally ack-
nowledged to be almost brusquely
charged with lying.
Asquith met this insult by an i'm
mediate challenge to Bonar Law to
submit the whole issue to the House
of Commons. Law fenced with this
challenge for several days, demand
ing instead a judicial inquiry-in
other words some tribunal which
would fish for all kinds of improb-
able stories due to the excited and
not very clear minds of mutinous
Orange officers of the Cough type,
but ultimately the Tory leader was
forced to accept the challenge and
two days next week will subject the
whole story to a searching examina-
ton. Publication of Gen. Daget's
letter and his documents has already
exploded the whole story, except of
course in the minds of partisans too
excited to discriminate between truth
and fable or too dishonest to sur
render a useful appeal to Orange
fanaticism and ignorance. These
movements meantime have an i'm
mense effect on the morals of the
Liberal party in the House Of Com
mons and the country. That party,
which seemed somewhat listless and
tired at the beginning of the session,
owing to the tremendous strain of
the last three years, is now fiercely
vital, angry and aflame with eager
ness to accept the challenge of the
Tories.
This spirit is due to resentment
of Carson's bullying and of Bonar
Laws insults and, above all, to the
feeling that the issue of the army
against Parliament is once more
coming to the surface. On that is
sue the Liberals calculate they would
get from their constituencies almost
as big a majority as in the tidal
wave election of 1906. Though
everything thus seems to favor the
Liberal fortunes the situation re-
mains somewhat difficult, for the
state of the army and navy still is
unsatisfactory and Asquith has
many troubles still to face. If II
should become necessary to take
active measures against Carson's
volunteers the chief safeguard for
preservation against any collision
between the British army and the
Orange volunteers is that the volun-
teers we're never meant to fight the
army, and we're only the show part
of the plot to produce such a mutiny
in the army as would paralyze the
Government in any attempt to sup
press the rebellion, but in the pres
ent temper of the Liberals any such
mutinous movement by the army
would have to be sternly met with
wholesale dismissals and with such
resolute action as would disperse
ell attempt at disorder.
Everybody on the Liberal side has
great confidence in Asquith's clear
headedness and equability of tenn
per, and nobody fears any show OF
weakness on his part. Indeed In
the present temper of the Liberals
and Laborites any weakness on any
Liberal leaders part would mean his
own and his party's ruin. Tory
wrath is concentrating at the mo-
ment on Churchill, who is dreaded
as the most formidable and fearless
opponent in the Ministry and whose
orders for big movements of the
fleet, now published officially. reveal
his readiness to put everything 10
proof and not TO hesitate at any
steps necessary to proclaim the
supremacy OF the executive over
either army mutiny or Orange re-
bellion. Churchill rises TO the occa-
sion by fiercer defiance to the Tories
during the sittings OF the House OF
Commons than ever, and in nexi
weeks debate he will probably bs
chosen to give the crushing answer
TO all Tory attacks and to frame
again his terrific indictment of tive
weeks ago of the Tory party for III
campaign TO seduce the army from
it's allegiance. Meantime the imme
diate effect OF recent proceedings
and especially of Tory outbursts. Il
to harden and unite the Libera
ranks and to make II as impossible
to get them as TO get the Nation