On Monday afternoon in the House of Commons Mr. Lloyd
George spoke briefly about Ireland. He said enough, however, to make it plain that the new Home Rule Bill would not be introduced till next Session. At present it is not even to be printed. Details—finance, for example—have evidently not yet been settled. The gist of the Irish argument in the dis- cussion was that if the Government really meant busi- ness with the Bill they would not have asked the House to debate an Irish Education Bill during this week. Another Irish argument was that the Government were deliberately delaying the peace settlement in order to prevent the old Home Rule Act from automatically becoming law. The best thing which Mr. Lloyd George said was that the maintenance of law and order in Ireland was an indispensable condition of reform, and that law and order the Government therefore intended to maintain.
