Mr. John Redmond, addressing a Nationalist meeting at Kilkenny on
Sunday, discussed the policy of -his party towards Home-rule, the Conference, and the Budget. Never in their lifetime did the cause of Home-rule stand in so favourable a position as it did at this moment, and this great advance had been due to the policy and action of the Irish Party. Although distrustful of every English statesman, he thought it scarcely possible that Mr. Asquith could go back on his Albert Hall declaration. But if, when the Veto of the Lords was abolished, the Liberal Party then attempted to go back on their pledges to Ireland, the Irish Party would be strong and united enough to hurl them from office. The Irish Party had looked on the Conference with suspicion, but had no power to stop it. Only two results were possible. The first, which was by no means improbable, was an arrangement Ey which the extravagant powers of the Lords were amicably surrendered, and such an arrangement meant "without doubt or question the almost immediate concession of Home-rule by the first friendly House of Commons." The other was a complete breakdown of the Conference. They would then simply revert to the position in which they stood before the King's death, and would have a General Election in January, followed by a victory of the democratic forces and a much more radical reform of the House of Lords. As for the Budget, Ireland would have been disgraced before the whole world if they had jeopardised the chances of Home-rule for the sake of saving a penny a glass on Irish whisky.
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