NEWS OF THE WEEK.
rilHE most important event of the week is undoubtedly the gg speech made by Mr. John Redmond on Thursday night. Mr. Redmond insisted, amid cheers, that Home-rule was once more the dominant issue of the Imperial Parliament. Mr. Asquith had declared that full self-government for Ireland " was the policy of the Liberal Government and Cabinet and of the Liberal Party." The Liberal Party had come back to the standard of Gladstonian Home-rule. But that was not enough. The "pledge that decided the Irish Party to support the Liberal Party was the Prime Minister's pledge that neither he nor his colleagues would ever assume or retain office again unless they were given assurances that they would be able to curb and limit the veto of the Lords." Mr. Asquith was a man of his word, and there was not the slightest reason to believe that he would not stand by his word. "I say," continued Mr. Redmond, "it is inconceivable that in this matter he should now waver in his purpose. To palter with his pledges—to do so would in my judgment be to wreck the Liberal Party and to drive them for the next twenty years into the wilderness, and I won't insult him by suggesting that he has any such intention."
