THE HOME RULE QUESTION.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXIX, Issue 86, 14 April 1893, Page 3

THE HOME RULE QUESTION.

♦ MB GLADSTONE'S NEW ZEALAND CORRESPONDENT. (Evening Post.) Tes cable nsws the other day mentioned that m his speech on the second reading of the Home Bale Bill Mr Gladstone read a letter from Mr " Fitzgeiald of Canterbury," upon the result of Home Rule m the colonies. It is interesting to know that Ihia letter Trent from Wellington, and was from Mr J. E. Fitzgerald, C.M.G., Auditor and Coatroller General. Mr Fitzgerald was, before tearing England, a personal friend of Mr Gladstone and of the present Lord Norton, formsrly Sir Charlsa Adderley, both then lights of the Tory Party. Mr Fitzgerald had formed a soheme for the colonisation ol Vancouver Island, which was very strongly opposed by tha then supremely powerful -Hudson Bay Co., of which the Messr3 Ellis were the champions m the House. A Whig Ministry was m power, and Mr Gladstone > fought the battle of the young colonists, and brought about one of the closest divisions the Commons of those days had seen— tha final vote on the application for a charter befog defeated by seven vote 3. That was about 1846-7, and since then the eloquent young Tory has become Liberal leader and Premier of England, Lord Norton retaining tt eooa bis mild Toryism and his friendship for Mr Gladstone, while holding office under various Tory Governments— under both Peel and Disraeli. He was Undersecretary for tbo Colonies m 1886-8, President of the Board of Trade 1874-8. He is & Privy Councillor, and was raised to the Peerage" m 1878 as Lord Norton. Mr FjtzGerald, m the ooursa of a private letter, recently gave his views on ths Irish question and Home Bule generally, from s colonial standpoint, pointing out that the history of ths colonies, from the time of the Canadian outbreak downwards, showed that a state of normal and unirersal discontent bad been succeeded by a condition of extreme loyalty, and that the one feature of tha treatment which had brought about this state of things had been Home Bule. Mr FitzGerald pointed out that during the past fifty years two experiments had been going on iida by sifis In tno SmpSxe— one, singularly aucceßSful; the other, as angularly unsuccessful. Hems Bale and Responsible Government was the successful experiment, the Crown Colony was the unsuccessful element. Everywhere the Crown system has been extremely unpopular, as the risings at the Cape and m Canada, and the universal hatred of the system m Australia, showed. Lord Norton, on reserving this letter from Mr FitzGerald, evidently noted its interest to his friend, and forwarded it on to Mr Gladstone, Mr FitzGerald'a first intimation of the fact being m the form of a cable message from Mr Gladstone, asking if ha would have any objection to his reading it to the House of Commons m connection with his Home Bule speech. Tc this Mr FitzGerald cabled the desired consent, with the result recorded m our recent English telegrams.