HOME RULE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 16, 20 January 1910, Page 7

HOME RULE.

■ ♦ .WILL IT BE GIVEN TO IRELAND? A PLEDGE DENIED. .WHAT THE ALBERT HALL SPEECH MEANT. By Telegraph.— Press Association.— Copyright. (Received January 20, 8.5 a.m.) LONDON, 19th January. The Right Hon. J. A. Pease, Secretary to «the Treasury, and Chief Lioeral Whip, in a further speech to the electons of Saffron Waldon.said that Mr. A.squith, in his Albert Hall speech, gave no pledge that Home Rule would be given to Ireland. .What the Prime Minister said was that the ban which the Liberals had imposed upon themselves at the last elec"tioa was' removed, and that Liberals were free, if they so desired, to extend self-government to Ireland; but every one in the Government was pledged nofc to give the Irish an independent Parliament, but self-government, consistent with union. • SCATHING COMMENT. GROUND SHIFTED WITH ELECTION RESULTS. ANGLING FOR THE RURAL VOTE. (Received January 20, 8.15 a.m.) LONDON, i9th January. .The Dublin correspondent of The Times says that Mr. Pease's statements have created consternation among the Nationalists. The election is being fought in Ireland on the question of Home Rale. ylt is assumed that Mr. Asquith, after Saturday's pollings, expected i a majority independent of the Nationalists' vote, and directed his Whip to disown the Albert Hall undertaking. The Times adds: — "Mr. Pease explains, but only when the borough elections are nearly over, that Mr. Asquith really meant nothing particular at the Albert Hall. The county elections in which the Irish vote is insignificant, are beginning, and the Liberals hope to profit by repudiation of an intention upon which they have hitherto been trading. "'The late Sir William Harcourt'a expression, 'A dirty trick,' fittingly describes the manoeuvre. What is now meant is that a Home Rule Bill vrill only be introduced if it serves the party purpose." It was cabled yesterday that Mr. Pease had pledged himself to "vote against Home Rule with an independent execui tive. Mr. lAsquith's reference to Irish af« fairs in his Albert Hall speech in December last was as follows: — "Ireland is still the one great failure of British statesmanship. Speaking on behalf of my colleagues, I now say the only solution is that to be found in a system of self-government in purely Irish affairs — a systera which shall explicitly safe-, guard the supreme authority of the Imperial Parliament. The present Government has been unable to adventure on proposing this solution ; but the Liberals' hands in the new Parliament will be perfectly free."