PARLIAMENT'S RECEPTION

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 138, 8 December 1921, Page 5

PARLIAMENT'S RECEPTION

HOPE FOR FINAL SETTLEMENT.

In the House of Representatives last night the Prime Minister read extracts from a message received from Mr. Lloyd George, giving a resume of the terms of settlement.

■ " I look upon this," Mr. Massey added, " as very much better than the news which reached us by cable. We are a long way from the heart of the Empire, and there is not much we can do, but what little we can do we should do as peacemakers, and as keepers of the peace. I hope with all my heart that the people who have been opposing the Government of the Empire and the Government of the United Kingdom will, if; these proposals are given effect to (and I have no doubt they will; but they have vto go before three Parliaments) that these people will 'become loyal citizens of the new Dominion that, is being set up, for that is what it ia, loyal citizens of the Empire, and loyal subjects of the King."

The Leaders of the Opposition (Mr. T. M. Wilford) said that the Opposition, with the Government, wished that this peace should be a lasting one, and one made in a spirit of friendship and goodwill. The peace now established, and the peace resulting from the Washington Conference, if it were successful, w,ould be two great Christmai boxes for-the world.

Mr. H. E. Holland (Leader c»f the Labour Party) said there w&b no section of the House that would rejoice more sincerely than the Labour Party when the age-long struggle seemed to have been settled for the time being at any rate. They sincerely hoped that the Irish and the English people, whose interests were inseparable, would find those interests more closely linked, and that the people of Ireland would find it possible to work out their own destiny in the way they wished.