THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, APRIL 28, 1894.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 9497, 28 April 1894, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, APRIL 28, 1894.

Lord Rosebery, since he became Premier of Great Britain, has not been very fortunate or happy in his utterances. He is very different from his predecessor, Mr. Gladstone, in one respect. The grand old man had a faculty for speaking in a tone of fury, and apparently of impulse, but when what he had said came to be calmly looked at it was generally found to be guarded in a way suggestive of not a little caution and cunning. Lord Rosebery, it is found, is guilty, in a most cautious and guarded speech, of saying something exceedingly damaging to his own side, and which he has subsequently to employ himself in explaining away. In his first speech as Premier in the House of Lords, in reply to Lord Salisbury, he expressed his "entire accord " with the statement of the leader of the Opposition, that " before Irish Home Rule is conceded by the Imperial Parliament, England, as the predominant member of the partnership of the three kingdoms, will have to be convinced of its justice." This statement was immediately seized on by Lord Rosebery's opponents. It was the very argument that had been scouted by the Gladstonians ; it was a condemnation of the party who had forced the Bill through the House of Commons by virtue of the help of the Irish members. An agitation has been got up to destroy the House of Lords because it would not agree to a bill which Lord Rosebery admits has no justification at present. Lord Rosebery's statement horrified his Irish allies and caused consternation amongst those of his followers who aro sincere in their belief in Home Rule. His Lordship's explanation at Edinburgh is that he did not mean precisely what he said. At present there is a majority of some seventy English votes against him, and he says that the party mean to go on reducing that majority. He admits that the reason why the country did not rise as

one man on the summary rejection of the Home Rule Bill fey the Lords was becaUsie ; they Were backed up fey the English majority. Lord Rosebery has really touched the kernel of the whole matter. It is quite impossible to secure so radical a change as the grunting of Home Rule involves without a preponderating consent on behalf of all parties concerned. As we have said, the present English majority against is seventy, and it is quite certain that the next election will not reduce this by one.

With the other items of Lord Rosebery's programme we are not so much concerned. He talks vaguely about giving greater power of self-govern-ment to Scotland. If his party would merge Home Rule into a scheme for conferring extended powers of selfgovernment to the principal divisions of the United Kingdom, there would be a general consent. The Premier pledged himself definitely to the disestablishment of the Church of Scotlaud, and stated that a majority of two to one of the Scotch representatives were in favour of Disestablishment. The Scottish Established Church has endowments, but they are small indeed compared T/ith the endowments of the English Church. If the Established Church is swept away in one country, it will soon go in the other. Whether the destruction of these Churches will be for the benefit of religion, or will tend to any benefit, remains to be seen. Probably it will be a considerable time before the spectacle will be visible. The English Church has of late years seen that it must justify its existence. It is not the same Church as was thundered against by Dissenters fifty years ago. The bench of bishops comprises some most pious and earnest men, and is not filled by mere sinecurists and placehunters. As respects reform of the House of Lords, Lord Rosebery frankly confesses that he does not know how it is to be brought about, "for the simple reason that a Bill to be legal, whether as modifying or as going further, with the House of Lords, must be passed through both Houses of Parliament before it constitutionally becomes law." Lord Rosebery does not even mention the idea of "swamping" the House of Lords, as our Liberals are fond of doing in respect of the Legislative Council. But indeed, that would be absurd with the House standing at 400 to 40 against him on the Home Rule question, and with only a narrow majority in the Commons. But he might derive some instruction from the fact that a very serious change in the constitution of the second Chamber in New Zealand was effected by the aid of the Chamber itself, by getting passed a law making all future appointments for a term only.

Lord Rosebery has not been successful in his second speech in pleasing a section at least of his Irish allies, or getting quit of the disagreeable impression he raised by his first. The Irish Times says:—"The distinction attempted to be set up between positively waiting to gain an English majority oefore reviving the Home Rule Bill, or otherwise carrying on Homo Rule as a sentiment without a Bill until the conscience of England has • been so educated or controlled as to overcome the opposition of the Lords, represents no tangible idea or design. If Ireland was told in Speech No. 1 to bury its aspirations till the English electorate was satisfied to grant Home Rule, and if that was an intimation which struck the Irish party with paralysis, the utterance of Speech No. •1 is worse, as it places Home Rule under the feet not only of the English electors, but of Scotch and Welsh ecclesiastical and other interests and struggles that may last out several Parliaments." Altogether, it would seem that the new Prime Minister of England is not likely to make any rapid progress in the direction in which he wants to go, while he is likely to be driven by sections of his present supporters in directions in which he has no desire to travel. He is really in the position of a man who has to fear his friends rather than his opponents.