The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATION The Evening News, Morning News. and Echo. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1893.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIV, Issue 209, 4 September 1893, Page 2

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATION The Evening News, Morning News. and Echo.

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1893.

_-_,'th. causo that laoks a.sistanc., For the wrong-that needs resiutance, Fortthe future In the distance, An. the good that we can do.

The Home Rule Bill has passed its final stage in the House of Common* 3 by a majority of 34 votes. Never, perhaps, in the Parliamentary histor"? of the United Kingdom has so much skill been displayed in navigating a great measure through the reefs and shoals of Parliament under circumstances of such unparalled difficulty. One is struck with admiration by the wonderful vitality and resource of the aged statesman upon whose shoulders the whole burden of this onerous duty fell. Ever alert, ready and sagacious, Mr Gladstone, despite his extreme age, sustained physical fatigues in leading the House that would have severely taxed the energies of a young man. His unfailing patience, coupled with judicious firmness in controlling his own often disunited following ; his brilliant sorties upon the enemy * his sound judgment in resisting the clamours of ardent supporters of the Bill and allowing the debate to run on until criticism had ended in manifest obstruction, and then firmly asserting the right of the majority to rule ; are all features of the struggle which his bitterest enemies regard with amazement, and his friends with an enthusiasm that is akin to worship. The impossible of six months ago is the accomplished fact of to day, obstacles that appeared insuperable have been surmounted, and the greatest representative body in the Empire, if not on the face of the earth, has placed upon record its matured conviction that the remedy for discontent in Ireland, as elsewhere, is not coercion but conciliation, confidence in the peopie, and a generous enlargement of their political privileges. Of course, we know that the Bill is foredoomed to rejection by the House lof Lords. " The Daily News ; " a well-1

informed and friendly authority, doubts whether more than forty out of the hereditary Chamber and custodians of class privileges will be found to confront a compact 400 banded together against the Bill. Nevertheless, the granting of Home Rule to Ireland will only have been delayed, not vetoed for ever. In some form it must and will come, and that quickly. This became more and more evident with every advance of the Bill through Committee of the Commons. The painstaking care bestowed upon the measure by opponents as well as friends, the many useful amendments introduced, notwithstanding the knowledge which all possessed of the inevitable fate oi the Bill in the House of Lords, betokened a conviction that the last would not have been heard of it, with its rejection by the Peers. The tone of the speeches of Mr Balfour and othe* leaders of the Conservative party latterly was significant of a disposition to " climb down " from the attitude of violent unyielding opposition, and prepare the way for modified proposals if the voice of the country should prove adverse to the constitution now formulated, and we are convinced that if the Tories got into power to-morrow a Bill extending self-government to Ireland in some substantial form would be among the first measures submitted. It might not go quite as far as the Gladstonian Bill, but the probabilities are that it would go further, for the political distinctions between the two great political parties of England since Sir Robert Peel's time have lost their clearly marked characteristics, and the chief duty of a Conservative leader in the estimation of his most energetic supporters to-day is to " dish the Whigs."

The crucial point in the passage of the Bill through Committee of the House of Commons, occurred on clause 9, relating to the retention of the Irish members at Westminster. In the original Bill it was provided that the number of Irish representatives should be 8o instead of 103, the former figure representing the number to which Ireland is entitled on a populalionbasis, inproportion to the numerical strength of the English and Scotch members. It was also provided that the Irish representatives should only vote on Imperial questions and matters relating to Irish affairs,

To these provisions two objections were taken. First of all it was maintained that the " in and out" proviso, as it was termed would be utterly unworkable, both on account of the difficuly of determining what were Imperial questions, and because responsible government would be reduced to an absurdity—a Ministry might have a majority in a full House, and be in a minority when the Irish members were withdrawn. Mr Gladstone yielded to these considerations, and moved the amendment of. the clause to give Irisli representatives full membership, a step which alienated Mr Rathbone and a number of other Liberals who were of opinion that Ireland having received Home Rule should not inter-meddle in the concerns of the other two kingdoms.

The Irish members, on the other hand, opposed the reduction of the members to 80, on the ground that the Bill of 1885 retained the old number and the present measure has reserved from the Irish Parliament control of the land, the police and taxation for a period of six years.

Messrs Chamberlain and Balfour took advantage of these differences to embarrass the Government, and although the latter had declared for total exclusion of the Irish members, voted in favour of an amendment by Mr Redmond for the retention of the number as io£ The division was the narrowest the Government experienced on a crucial issue, their majority falling to 14. The "in and out" proviso was struck out on Mr Gladstone's motion by a majority of 31. The representation of Ireland by 80 members with full voice and vote in all debates is embodied in the measure.

By this decision Parliament has struck away the only solid ground lor treating the Home Rule Bill as a step towards total separation, and has placed it in its true position as a first instalment of enlarged local government for England and Scotland, with a supreme Federal Parliament sitting at Westminster.