WHERE MR. GLADSTONE FINISHED.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 88, 13 April 1912, Page 5

WHERE MR. GLADSTONE FINISHED.

INSISTENT IRISH DEMANDS. IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT AND LOCAL BURDENS. Jp explaining the provisions of the Bui, the Prime Minister first paid a tribute to the speech made by the late Mr. W. E. Gladstone in introducing his second Home Rule Bill in 1893. B5 said that that speech was "a perfect exposition of the historic case between Great Britain and Ireland. He would take up the case where Mr. Gladstone finished. He asked how far the cas« for and against Home Rule was affected by subsequent events. Eight general elections had occurred since 1894: The party fortunes had ebbed and flowed, Governments had come and gone, yet through shifting issues and changing policies the constant insistence and persistence of the Irish demands had remained. He glanced at Ireland's preponderant vote tor Home Rule. "Look at Ulster,", he said — (Unionist cheers) — "where there are seventeen Unionists and sixteen Home Rulers." (Ministerial cheers.) He had spoken not disrespectfully of the hostility to Home Rule by a majority in the north-eastern counties. It was a factor that could not be ignored in the present Bill, "but he was not able to admit that minority's right to veto the verdict of the majority of their countrymen. Improved conditions in the social order had removed one argument formerly used against Homo Rule. Other factors were the Local Government Act, the Land Purchase by Labourers Act, the University Ac>, the Old Age Pensions Act, and the National Insurance Act. These constituted a tardy and inadequate set-off against evils which Irishmen believed were due to over-taxation and depopulation. THE SPIRIT AND PURPOSE OF HOME RULE. Dealing with the question from the standpoint of the United Kingdom and of the Empire, Mr. Asquith emphasised the imperative need for emancipating the Imperial Parliament from local burdens. They would never get local concerns treated timeously or sympathetically until they had the wisdom and courage to transfer them to representatives of the people affected. He emphasised . the congestion of business in the House of Commons under the existing system of centralised impotence, and asked how it was posible to discharge their duty to the Empire under present conditions. He referred to the grant of autonomy to Australia and South Africa, and of self-government to the Transvaal as beiqg strictly analogous to Home Rule for Ireland. It | would be a bold man who would assert that Ulster presented more difficulties than the Boers and Britons living side by side in a territory just recovering from an internecine war. In the case I of Australia and South Africa the object was to provide a central legislative and administrative authority to deal with matters of common interest to separate adjacent States, while main- } taming the utmost individual autonomy for local purposes. "We start, * said the Prime Minister, "wiih a congested centre which, if it is intended to cairy out efficiently the common interests of the whole, must delegate local interests to local management. The great Dominions, although starting from opposite poles, ' are all animated with the same spirit, and are seeking to attain the same goal. I am sure that they are all in hearty sympathy with the spirit and purpose of Home Rule."