HOME RULE CRISIS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXV, Issue 16492, 6 March 1914, Page 7

HOME RULE CRISIS.

THE APPEAL. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. LONDON, March 4. The number of signatories to the Ulster appeal is increasing daily. MR ASQUITH’S PROPOSALS. APPROVED BY MR REDMOND. (Received March 5, 11 p.m.) LONDON, March 5. There is little doubt that Mr Asquith’s proposals will have Mr Redmond’s concurrence, though some Ministerialists fear the attitude of the Nationalist Convention, if called on to sanction tho changes. SUGGESTED CONFERENCE. CONFLICTING VIEWS. LORD HUGH CECIL’S ANALOGY. (Received March 6, 12.10 a.m.) LONDON, March 5. Lord Dunravon, in a letter to the newspapers, says that a fair chance of settlement will be obtainable only by referring Mr Asquith’s proposal to a conference on the lines of Lord Loreburn’s. Coercion, is impossible, exclusion unthinkabje and a general election useless as a solution.

Lord Hugh Cecil, in a letter, says that the difficulty in the way of a conference is insuperable. He draws an analogy between General Botha’s action in South Africa and possible happenings in Ireland as creating two centres of sovereignty. Nobody can deny that the deportations were, altogether indefensible. Nobody can be blind to the outrage and’ scandal of an infliction of perpetual exile by a retrospective enactment. It was true that sovereignty lay with the South African Parliament and General Botha, not with the British Crown. Such were the consequences of Home Rule.