GREAT UNIONIST RALLY.

Evening Star, Issue 15075, 6 January 1913, Page 5

GREAT UNIONIST RALLY.

CONFIDENT LEADERS. A great mass meeting in connection with the annual conference of the National Conservative and Liberal Unionist organisation was held in the Albert Hall. London, on November 14. Crowds of ticket-holders collected around the hall an hour and a-half before the time appointed for the commencement of proceedings, and as soon as the doors were opened there was a rush to secure seats. In a very short time 10,000 people had been provided with accommodation. There were about 50 or 60 members of the House of Lords and 200 members of the Lower House on the platform. All the boxes were occupied, and crowds could be seen far away in the top gallery. The interval prior to the arrival of the speakers was beguiled with patriotic songs, interspersed with political cries, conspicuous amongst tliem being “We will not have Home Rule. Lord Farquhar (president of the Nationol Unionist Association of Conservative and Liberal Unionist Associations) occupied the chair, and among those supporting him were Lord Londonderry, Sir Edward Carson, Mr Austen Chamberlain, Sir W. J. Crump, Air Walter Long, Lord Curzon, Mr Chaplin. Mr A. D' Steele Maitland, M.P., the Duke of Devonshire, the Duke of Rutland. Earl of Selborne, the Marquis of Salisbury, Lord Faber, L or ? Kenyon, Viscount' Churchill, the Earl of Plymouth, the Earl of Londesborough, Lord Willoughby de Broke Sir William Bull, M.P., Mr F'. E. Smith, M.P., Hr W - Hayes Fisher, M.P., Viscount Ohilston, Sir Saviilp Grossley, Sir Har r y s Samuel, M.P., Viscount Ridley, Mr J. H. Campbell, M.P., Lord Farnham, Mr p, ko Pease. M.P., Sir George Younger, M.P., Mr L. Worthington Evans, M P Lord Charles Beresford, Lord Wolmer, Robert Cecil. Viscount Valentia, Mr r’ Lt e 1 t U nan - M - p -. Mr Jesse Ceilings, Lord Wolyerton, Lord Claud Hamilton, Mr Seville Chamberlain, the Earl of Ronaldshay, Earl Winterton, Captain Craig, M.P., Sir Joseph Lawrence, Mr W. Ormsby Gore. M.P., Lord Ninian Cnchton-Stuart, Viscount Castlereagh. Sir Gilbert Parker.

The arrival of Mr Bonar Law. Lord Lansdowne, Sir Edward Carson, and other leaders m the hall gave rise to a scene of gicat enthusiasm. As they were escorted up to the platform by stewards bearing white wands the whole audience rose, waved hats and handkerchiefs, and' cheered Then Miss Alice Lakin saim ‘God Save the King,’ at the close of which a mightly Union Jack flag was unfolded and amid cheers stretched across the platform.

.Lord Lansdowne, in the course of a vigorous speech, said r - There never was a moment in the history of Great Britain wnen freedom of speech in Parliament was more ruthlessly restricted than at tho present time. Not a day passes without important provisions—not small or trivial matters, as the Prime Minister said the other day, Jmt matters of capital importance arc either not discussed at all or are passed with wholly inadequate discussion. Tinance, the special prvinoce of the House of Commons, is neglected, and our credit never stood lower_ than it does at this moment. . Mo hold very strong opinions about the three great measures now aw i!i? I 1 ™ llnh '. v - Wo know that the V\eli>h Bill is a very ignoble attempt to dismember and despoil a Church which has done admirable, work where admirable work iias most needed. Me know that the I‘ianchiso Bill is a barefaced attempt to jerrymander the electorate in the interest of the Radical party. We all know what ire think of tho Homo Rule Bill. But this point I wish to put to you : It is not so much the enormity of these Bills taken as individual measures; it is tho crowning enoimity of attempting to pass these measures through Parliament in a moment when the Constitution has been broken down—that is the real crime which we have to lay at the door of His Majesty's Government, What relief do you expect from an Irish Parliament driving its own coach at its own sweet will in Dublin, while there will be 42 Irish members at Westminster to upset your coach? A measure of this kind would not work without friction even with a homogeneous and angelic Ireland.” Haring refuted the statement that the Unionists were weakening on Tariff Reform. his lordship said; “In the future we arc at liberty to decide what place we shall give to Tariff Reform in any scheme of Constitutional Reform which we may have to submit to the country. We shall be prepared to give a twofold undertaking, so that there may be no doubt in the minds of tiie people as to our meaning and intentions. In the first place, we are ready to undertake that we will specify precisely and exactly the amount—the units within which we propose to resort to taxation of this kind—and we will undertake that we will not exceed those limits without further authorisation from tho people of this country. That is one undertaking wo arc prepared to give. (Prolonged cheers.) The other is that we will undertake that ;mv revenue raised from taxes of this kind shall not be treated as ordinary revenue, but shall be used for tho purpose of alleviating other burdens falling upon the shoulders of the working classes. In that way we arc confident that we shall be able to make good tho assurance given long ago by Mr Balfour that colonial Reciprocity should not involve any increase in the cost of living for the working classes of Great Britain.” (Cheers.) Mr Bonar Law, in the- course of a rousing speech, said : “ From the first day on which this Government assumed office to this present hour they have not been national statesmen. They have been the wire-pullers of a political caucus. Their own idea of statesmanship has been, and is, to use, the influence and the patronage which Government gives them in order to strengthen their parliamentary ties, and to do the one thing which they understand—and they do understand it—(laughter) —to use the power nf the country which is placed in their hands to strengthen their party, and to win elections. ]f you wish proof of this take their latest "escapade to which Lord Lansdowne has referred—their land inquiry. It is not the inquiry of a Government. They have not even the courage to be responsible for it. It is conducted in secret by backstairs arrangements. and in such a wav that ererv honest man in their own party must be ashamed of it. If there is need for land legislation—and I think there is—and if there is necessity for previous inquiry if the object of that inquiry is to legislate for a nation, .surely any honest, decent Government- would have had an op-en Commission which would have given a. means of making changes in the interests, not of a party, but of the whole people! But that is not their object. They do not wish legislation for the nation : they wish a party cry for a political party. " Thev wish to find some- means by which they can preach again in a now sermon the old gospel of class hatred on which they have unfortunately thriven. But for the "chaime in the procedure of the House of Commons which has taken place to-day they would have been engaged to-morrow in "destroy - I ing or fixing to destroy a great, Church—a branch of a great Church—which is doing a great work under circumstances of great difficulty. They are trying to take a war from that poor Church its poor endow’ments, all 100 small for the noble, work which is being done by them. They are trying to take them away not because those endowments arc not well used, but because they are too well used, and are exciting the worst passions of envy and of malice. In regard to the Home Rule Bill, the Conservative Leader roused his great audience to a pitch of enthusiasm when he declared that his party meant to leave no stone unturned to prevent the Rill from reaching the Statute Book until the people of three kingdoms have an opportunity of expressing their opinions on that- vital issue. Ho continued : “ It is not a case of a Government dealing with the people of Ulster alone ; they will have to deal with the overwhelming majority of the people of Great Britain as well. We shall continue to try to wreck tin’s Bill in the House of Commons. But if—hut that “if” will never corns—it becomes law we shall not try—we shall wreck it then. The thing is impossible, because Ulster will not submit, and because Great Britain will not permit Ulster to be coerced. Under these circumstances we make the claim—and by every means in our power we shall press tho claim—that they had no

right to carry through a programme like that without the consent of the people. They are bound to let the people decide between them and ns. Till they do that wo shall respect the traditions of the House of Commons, but we shall also try to avert a calamity greater even than the degradation of the House of Commons—we shall try to prevent civil war within the United Kingdom. I shall now say a. few sentences on our fiscal proposals. In submitting these to the people of this country we have behind ns the experience of the whole civilised world. There are people ignorant themselves, or who trade upon the ignorance of others, who tell you that there is a. movement in other countries towards what they call Frcetradc. I was told when I was a boy at school, a. long time ago, that America was on the point of adopting Frcetradc. She was nearer it then than she is now. At this moment in the whole world there is not a single Government and, what is stranger, there is not a single Opposition which proposes to return to the system which i<? still good enough for the United Kingdom. They have all abandoned it, and it is the working classes who are responsible for its abandonment, because they have realised the obvious truth that you cannot raise the standard of living, 'that you - cannot protect Labor, without also protecting the products of labor. There is one other general observation I should like to make. I am, and have been for many years, a Tariff Reformer. I can assure you of this : that any change for which we' are responsible will not be a revolutionary change—will cause, the smallest possible dislocation of the ordinary business arrangement compatible with making the necessary change. As Lord La.nsdowne. lias pointed out, our object is to give to our own people a Preference on die oversea markets of the British Empire.” On the motion of Air Hayes Fisher, seconded by Sir Harry Saunter, the meeting adopted with enthniasm a resolution expressing unabated confidence in Lord I,ansdowne and Mr Bonar Law, and recording appreciation of their services to the Unionist cause.

_ The motion, was supported by Sir William Bull, who w r ae given a most cordial reception in recognition of the scene in the House in which he figured. Lord ' Lansdowne and Sir Bonar Lawmade. brief responses, the latter saying, amidst cheers : “ If this meeting does not mean victory I am a poor judge.”