Kentucky Irish American. (Louisville, Ky.) 1898-1968, 1914-04-18
Has Majority That Insures Sue
cess In the House of
Commons.
Whole Debate Shows That the
Bill Can Not Now Be
Defeated.
Asquith Will Not Consent to Any
thing Inimical to Irish
Interest.
SOON UP To The HOUSE OF LORDS

Cabling the American press last
Sunday, Hon. T. p. O'Connor, M. p,
declared that home rule has passed
another milestone on its road to the
statute book.
On the second reading debate,
considering that nine 0'Brienites
abstained from voting and that some
four or five Liberals and Irish were
absent through illness, the majority
of eighty is magnificent. 1t may
go up few figures more at subse-
quent stages, but eighty majority is
quite big enough to carry the bill
to a successful end in the House of
Commons. The whole debate also
shows the inner sense of everybody
that the bill can not now be defeated
and that the only question that re-
mains is whether it shall go on the
statute book with or without
Asquiths concessions to Ulster.
with a view of saving his party
from recommitment to the impos-
sible policy of protection, Balfour
ranged himself Unexpectedly in the
ranks of the die-hards and made the
most irreconcilable speech from the
Tory benches, but his Influence does
not keep silent the large section OF
unofficial Tory members who are de-
termined to have a settlement II
possible. On the Liberal side the
determination to pass the bill and to
resist any further concession has
been much strengthened by the ex-
posure of the conspiracy to seduce
the army and by the premature out
break of the army mutiny. Carson
seeing that this arm is paralyzed, be-
gins at last to perceive that his
ridiculous, spectacular and unreal
movement of rebellion has ceased to
impress and still more has ceased to
frighten the members of Asquith's
Cabinet. Winston Churchill's bold
announcement that Ministers We're
not to be bullied and the movement
of troops to Ulster have brought even
the blindest Orangemen to realiza-
tion of the Governments determine
tion to stand no nonsense.
Accordingly the whole temper of
the debate was much more con-
ciliatory and subdued than at any
previous epoch. Tory after Tory ad-
mitted that the Irish question must
be settled here and now, and from
several Tories came strong condem-
nation of any new election as only
calculated to exasperate and COM
plicate the situation. Carson him
self took care to make none of the
violent threats of Ulster rebellion
which figured so largely in all his
rff and amid a
cloud of words and of perfunctory
ness for settlement.
There was another danger during
this debate which is now gone.
Some soft-headed and good-hearted
Liberals, amounting to but a half
dozen, were feared as likely to make
demands on the Irish members to
make further concessions. 1t was
suggested that Ulster should remain
out until the federal scheme OF
giving home rule all round was com
pleted. This solution was riddled
in argument by Liberal as much as
by Irish spokesman. The sugges-
tion on which Carson and other
Tories still insist Is that exclusion
should continue Indefinitely, that is
to say, until another act of Parlia-
ment brought 1t to an end. AS
this would mean that no Tory Gov
ernment would include Ulster, and
that the Liberal Government could
only do II under the cumbrous
machinery and long delay of the
Parliament act, II the House OF
Lords still held out, this suggestion
also was riddled and destroyed. Thus
the net result of the debate is that
the Government stands rigidly by its
concessions as the last word on
Ulster.
It is not likely that any further
development will take place until
the bill reaches the House of Lords.
The Government will not insist on
its concessions In the House of Com
mons In the face of the Tory refusal
to consider them and as they offer
no promise of peace. The next word
will then come in the House OF
Lords. Some people still think the
House of Lords may reject the bill,
in which case II would go through
without any amendment under the
Parliament act. My own strong con-
viction remains that the House OF
Lords will give a second reading
and send down the bill with some
impossible Carson amendments.
These amendments will OF course be
rejected by the Liberals and Irish In
the House OF Commons. and the
House of Lords will be once more
confronted with the alternative OF
the bill with or without concessions,
and l believe the Lords will accept
the concessions rather than allow
the bill TO go on the statute book
without them.
There rs talk of some renewal OF
conversations between Liberal and
Tory spokesmen. do not see much
utility at the present moment IN
such conversations. for the Tories
must be left still further to stew N
their own juice before they ars
brought TO the full light Of reason