IMPERIAL POLITICS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXXII, Issue 15557, 6 March 1911, Page 7

IMPERIAL POLITICS.

UNIONIST REFERENDUM BILL. Unit fed Pross A'-.iociation —By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. LONDON, March 3. Lord Balfour of Burleigh’s Referendum Bill has been introduced in-tho House of Lords and read the first time. Lord Crowe. Secretary of State for India, incidentally described one of the clauses ns similar to the Queensland measure of 1907, the only Act in the world applying the referendum to a deadlock between the two Houses. Earl Solborne and Lord Tennyson supported the Bill. Lord Loreburn, Lord Chancellor, contended that the measure would bo unworkable in a large busy population, which would prefer to trust its competent, chosen representatives. HOME RULE. A SPEECH BY MR BIRRELL. LONDON, March 4. Mr Birrcll, addressing the Oxford Union Society, said that whether or not, after Horne Rule was granted, the Irish would be represented at "Westminster was a conundrum that was easily answered if regarded as the precursor of Home Rule for Scotland, Wales and England. It was the crux of Home Rule that they should be able to make financial proposals enabling the Irish to support the new system oi government with some measure of success. The Government was engaged in actuarial inquiry, with a view to finance on a rational basis. He thought it quite practicable to make financial proposals which would not be open to the charge of being impossible or absurd. The Home Rule Bill would possibly resemble the Bill of 1893, subject to alterations and modifications which the interval had suggested as wise.