Atlanta Georgian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, 1914-04-12
ASQUITH FACES
BITTER BATTLE
FOR REELECTION
Labor Leader and MiIitants Fight
Hard to Defeat Premier
at the Polls.
EYES OF WORLD WATCH
Outcome of Struggle Holds Great
Signifcance-May Mean
Fall Of Grown.

Special Gable to The American.
LONDON, April lin the little
Scotch district of East Fife next
Wednesday a by-election will take
place which is bound to have it's
niche in history. Prime Minister AS
quith, leader of the coalition and foe
of the House Of Lords. will stand
again in the territory which has kept
him member of the Commons
steadily since 1885 The whole world
will have its eyes fixed on East Fife
1t has been taken for granted that
Mr. Asquith will be returned, as the
Unionists did not nominate a candi-
date. But he had scarcely announced
in Parliament his decision to assume
the Secretaryship for War in addition
to his place at the head of the Cabi-
net and resigned his Commons seat
to put himself before the peoples
tribunal again when James Larkin
the famous labor leader, long a thorn
in Mr.. Asquith's side, announced he
would oppose the Premier at the polls
Larkin, contrary to the general i'm
preston, is not an lrisman He went
over to Dublin from Manchester to
head the dissa tisfied transport work
ers
Women Fight Asquith.
The militant suffragettes proceeded
posthaste TO the scene. Led by Cen
eral" Mrs. Flora Drummond they
began a continuation of their long
campaign against the man whom they
believe to be the worst enemy Of their
cause.
A new era of English constitutional
history may begin when MIR, Asquith
returns to London after this election
he faIa
ton like the United States; IL may be
further Socialist measures along the
line of national insurance and old age
pensions; it may be the final down
fall OF the Houes of Lords and the
Crown At the worst, It may be
armed civil war, aristocrat against
commoner, army against people
Catholic against Protestant. or the
renewal of'the old conflict of Round
head and Cavalier. The United King
dom is seething with discordant ele-
ments Berlin looks on and smiles.
Government Well Manned.
In this strait. the English Govern
ment has a strong man at it's head.
Recent events-the apparent totter-
ing Of the Cabinet-haVe only served
to show the greatness of Asquith. For
eight years he has guided the desu-
MES Of the empire.
Mr. Asquith is now Ga years old, a
stalWart Yorkshireman with crown
of snow white hair. He was a pro-
tege of William E. Gladstone, whose
attention was attracted to him by a
speech made at a dinner II Will
probably prove, indeed, that the pro-
teee Will put through the very meas
ure home rule, which suit the pat
rons party asunder and proved ms
undoing. He is considered the keen
est debater since Gladstone,
There is the greatest contrast be-
tween the Premier and Jim Larkin
Where Mr.. Asquith is the prince OF
logic, LarSin hurls his arguments al
his audience without any sequence or
cohesion The latter is prophet
crying in the wilderness. full or
rough, unCouth force. His sincerity
is undoubted.
Larkin's Rise Fast
T,arkin's strike of the Dublin trans
port workers came near TO Wrecklns
home rule He was a figure i'm the
labor world which almost In an IN r
slant eclipsed all other leaders, While
Sir Edward Carson was quietly drilt-
IL his men, Larkin was leading IN
real civic strike, with a long casualty
list.
Larkin's position is scarcely more
curious than that of the Laborltes as
a whole. If there is a Parliament at
Dublin the Irish Cabinet may find ITS
chiefest nroplem not Ulster, but thu
great mass Of Impoverished Irish raj
WING around the standard OF this
rough workman.