HOME RULE BILL

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 277, 20 November 1913, Page 5

HOME RULE BILL

WILL NOT BE PASSED

IN ITS PRESENT FORM. LORD LANSDOWWB'S CLAIM. (By Cable.—Press Association.— Copyright.,) LONDON", November 19. Lord Lansdowne, Leader of the Unionist party in th« House of Lords, in his speech at Brighton yesterday advocating a general election before the Home Rule Bill is further pu>ceeded with, said that the I !ov«niment*vaß doing its best to parade its nebulous land policy in order to distract attention from Ulster. The land question was not the preserve of any party. Agriculture bad been neglected. All should hold out a helping hand to the. farmers and give the labourers better housing, with r. prospect of owning land. A Royal Commission should be appointed instead of a partisan land committee.

The speeches of the iiinister showed that whatever Homo Rule Bill was passed it would not he the one known to-day. If lister were to be excluded, the bill must lie revised and take a shape suited to the alteration ill its framework.

This revision might render the measure applicable to other parts of the United Kingdom. Before the. Conservatives could express any opinion on these points they must have the Government's proposals in clear and unambiguous lan

guajie. If there were no changes and no general election, the. Unionists would give Ulster all encouragement in their resistance, and hold the Government responsible for any disaster resulting from its conduct.

Mr. John Redmond. M.P.. epeakinjr at Ca.hircive.en, <■ o. Kerry. recently, said: ■ ••Our altitude, of pence, order and s-elf-restraint iis born not of apathy, but of eon licence in the justice and certain triumph of out cause." Their opponents' attitude of truculent.-*-, of blaster, of lawlessness and of reekileoenexi3 was born of despair. Kveryonc must a-t least lx" convinced of th? true character or the mi-called Ulster opposition. "It is imr>lacai>!', it is irreconcilable, it is l«icifd ou no reason or argument, its root ie the old tN-pirit of ascendancy, ii i* simply a brutal ;m.l arrogant determination to override the will of ParUa-meni. and ot the country at any risk and at any cost. "A 'Provisional , *->overrun in which

Sir Edward Carson amd h&!f-a-do;:cn eminently xcspectaljlo. quiet persons are. ] suddenly turned into so many Pooh Babe, charged c;u;h of them with the dii-U-eo of half-a-dozen different departmentsa 'Provisional' Government in a province in which at least half of t'uj population arc HoO!« Rulers, and where an actual majority of the Parliamentary reprnsenI tativit, at th:.- moment are Home I Rulero. They rjy they require a guarantee fund to run their 'Provisional' Government of onr million pounds. A capital Mm of one million! Why. it a rrovioitimii' '.Jovcminejit < oirld lie really foriced. il %v.->uJd require- ti«u-prai millions a year to run a Provisional" Government in Ulster! Whet would a -ProvwiouaJ' Government mean? A 'Provieionsil' Government -would cut iieelf off fn>:n xhe Imperial Ck»v-errcment at Westminster, and from the Irish Govcrraneut at Golkrqe Green. It would cut itself off from the old age pensions, and from the benefits of the Insurance Act; all the money pakl under the Insurance Act up to the present would be wasted, and they wouH have to start a. new Insurance Kill of their own. It would be cot oil abeolnicly from all the. Imperial grants, whether for education, agriculture, pnblic works, labourers' cottages, or housing- in the towns; it wonid I*- cut oil from the. operation of the Land Purchaer Acts, and from the post office. Xow. consider for a nrcment what that roenjw. There ie not a merchant in Belfast who i-o-uld give a.- legal receipt! for money received; there is not a mcrclianl in Belfaet who cchiU post a letter m.-tsi-de tlie lrmita of the 'Provßional , (H)vprnnw>nt: there is not a merchant in Belfast -who could recover a debit outside l.lster: and -they would have to have tlwjr own jodicia-ry, their own Lord Chancellor and AttorneN-<;ene ra J. their crrrn couAs. but the decisions of their courts Tronlr! not ho. valid outside of Ulster. They wonld ha-« their own polioe, army, and poor Jaw eystcm. We .ai know that this is not made for consumption in Ireland. It is meant for fcnplwli consjinrption, and they are count- ' ing too -mneh upon Jobn Ball's alle-ed absence <il humour and imagination ""