CARSON DEFIANT

Greymouth Evening Star, 30 May 1914, Page 5

CARSON DEFIANT

LATEST CABLES

LATEST OUTBURST ON HOME RULE. [PER PEES 3 'ASSOCIATION —COPYRIGHT.] LONDON, May 29. Mr. T. P. O'Connor states that the Nationalists aro willing to give Ulster such strong political power as will make them musters of their own fate, and armed against oppression in every form. Sir Edward Carson, speaking at Mountain Ash, admitted that within five hours they had landed 35,000 rifles, and three million rounds of ammunition into Ulster, but the Government had not dared to punish them.' The Home Rule Bill may become te law of the land, but it will never become law in Ulster. If the Government imagined that the third reading was the last act of the drama, he would tell them that it was only the first act of a gruesome tragedy. The Daily Telegraph states that the Government contemplate fixing the Ulster boundaries by the religious census instead of by county boundaries in the exclusion from Home Rule. POSITION OF THE PARTIES.

By bringuig the by-election statistics recently miblished by the London Times up-to-date, the Dominion finds that since the general election in 1910 the Unionists have won 16 seats from the Coalition, in addition to Exeter, awarded to them yn a scrutiny. The following are the seßts gained : *, Cheltenham v Bow and Bramley Oldham Newmarket Sth. Somerset Reading Nth. Ayrshire South Lanark » Sth. Manchester Bethnal Green Crewe Leith Burghs N.W. Manchester N. E. Derby Mid Lothian Ipswich The only seat lost is Londonderry, and the net gain on a division is therefore 32 votes. The seats at Bow and Bromley and North East Derby were won by the Unionists from the Labour Party. The Liberals won a seat from Labour at Hanley. The state of parties in the House of Commons is now as follows : Unionists 228 Liberals 260) Labour 38 Nationalists 76 • ... '.;.. Coalition M?;ority 94 The Coalition majority when Parliament met after the last general election was 126. THE THREE BILLS. It is just over.2B years since Mr. Glad stone introduced his first Home Ride Bill into Parliament. On April Bth, 1886, he introduced a measure which was described by Lord Randolph Churchill as ."a complicated, inextricable, and multitudinous mass of contradictions and absurd ities."

On May 10th the Bill came on for sec ond reading, and" its rejection was moved by the Marquis of Hartington. A division was taken on June 7th, and the Bill was thrown out by 343 votes to 313. 93 Liberals voting against the measure, while flight more absented themselves from the division. Under this measure the Irish Parliament was to be a single legislative body composed of two "Orders," the first consisting of seventy-five ' members elected for ten years by electoral districts, and twenty-eight peers holding office for thirty years; and the second of 204 members returned by existing constituencies. This Parliament was to have the right of imposing taxes other than Customs and excise duties, and the Royal Irish Constabulary and the Dublin Metropolitan Police were to be paid for by the Imperial Government, with a contribution from Ireland of a million a year. Ireland was to have no representation whatever in the Imperial Parliament, either in the Lords Hf Commons. At the general election of 1892 there were returned 273 Liberals, 81 Nationalists, and 315 Unionists, the separatist coalition thus having a. majority of 40. On February 13th, 1893, the second Homn Rule Bill, was introduced by Mr. Gladstone. Under this measure the Irish Legislature was to be composed of two separate Houses, first, a Legislative Council of forty-eight members, elected for eight years on a special register; and secondly, a Legislative Assembly of 103 members returned by the existing constituencies. Eighty Irish members were to be retained in the Imperial Parliament. Under the Bill as introduced they were to vote only when matters in which Ireland was concerned were under discussion, though in 1836 Mr Gladstone had declared that it "passed the wit of man" to devise a scheme in which such a distinction could be carried out. • While the Bill was in committee, however, the Government abandoned (the "in-and-\put" principle, and an amendment was carried by whico. the eighty Irish members were left fre< to vote on all questions- For six years taxes were to be imposed and regulated by the Imperial Parliament, after that the rights "of taxation, with certain exceptions as to Customs and excise, were to bo transferred to the Irish Parliament, and the contribution of Ireland to the Imperial Exchequer was then to be re vised. On April -22 the second reading was carried by 347 votes to 304, and the committee, having been got through by the use.of the "guillotine," the Bill passed the Commons on September 1 by a majority of .34. .... ' On tlie same day the measure was taken up to the House of Lords, and on September 8,- on the motion of the Duke of Devonshire, it was thrown put, by 419 votes'to 41. The third Home Rule measure—the Bill now before Parliament—was introduced into the Commons by Mr. Asquith on April 11; 1912, when the first reading was "challenged by the Unionists, and carried bv 360 votes to 266. It was read a second "time on May 9 by 372 votes to 271, and finally passed the Commons on January 16, 1913, by 367 votes to 257. On January 30 it was rejected by the House of Lords by 326 votes against 69.

In the session of 1913 the measure was re-introduced ' under the Parliament Act, carried through the House of Commons without even the change of a comma, am! again thrown out by the House of Lords," this time by 302 votes to 64. Under this measure the Irish Parliament is to consist of two Houses: (1) A Senate of forty members, in the first instance nominated by the Imperial Government for five years, and afterwards selected by u system of proportional representation, and (2 1 A House of Commons of 164 members'', elected, first, by the constituencies named in a schedule to the Bill, and afterwards as the Irish Parliament may provide, having due regard to the population of the constituencies. Forty-twb representatives of are to "be retained in the Imperial Parliament. Under this, as under both the previous Home Pule Bills, Ireland is to have a Ministry of its own, on whose, advice the Lord Lieutenant, as representing the Crown will act. The Irish Parliament may increase or reduce the taxes imposed by the Imperial Parliament (except certain stamp duties), and may levy any newtax excent Customs. Under the financial provisions it is .estimated that it the Bill had been passed by the Lords m January 1913, the taxpayers of Great Britain'would last year have had to make good to the Irish Exchequer a deficit ot nearly £2,000,000. Early in the present session the Bill was brought in for the third time, and under the operation of the Parliament Act it will now become law, even it rei jected by the House of Lords.