THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES MONDAY, APRIL 6, 1914. THE HOME RULE DIFFICULTY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16041, 6 April 1914, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES MONDAY, APRIL 6, 1914. THE HOME RULE DIFFICULTY.

The prospects that a settlement of the Home. Rule problem may be effected by consent are unquestionably brighter than they were a week ago. Among all sections of the community the sane conviction is apparently spreading that any issue is preferable to civil war. The surprising thing is really that a great political party should ever have given any serious countenance to a suggestion so extreme as that "Ulster should take up arms in expression of her objection to be brought under the jurisdiction of an Irish Parliament. Out of this evil movement,. however, good has unquestionably come. The intensity of the opposition of Ulster to the Home Rule scheme and her dread of the consequences of the establishment of a Parliament in Dublin have impressed themselves very powerfully upon the imagination of the people of Great Britain and of the Empire. They have rivetted public attention upon the fact, which may not previously have been sufficiently appreciated, that religious differences of a rcost profound character survive in Ireland, and that they establish a distinct line of cleavage between two elements in the population, the one the roore numerous in the north-east and the other the more numerous in the other portions of the island. " The Roman Catholicc of tbf south and west," Mr Balfour

writes in a pamphlet 'upon. Nationality and Home Rule which has recently been, issued, " certainly would not have considered themselves secure if, under whatever paper safeguards, they were placed in the power of the Ulster Protestants. Why should the Ulster Protestants be content to be placed in the power of Leinster, Mnnster, and Connaught?" It has been made plain that the spirit of narrow sectarianism 'which Tenders such a question possible cannot be ignored in any settlement of the Irish question. Its existence has forced itself so prominently upon the notice of the public as to lead to a growing recognition of the need for taking it into consideration in the settlement of the Irish question. It is unquestionably to the religious difficulty that the proposal that the problem of Home Rule should be solved by the adoption of the federal plan of self-government is attributable. This is not a proposal with which any one party in the United Kingdom has identified itself. It has been advocated by statesmen of standing in both, the Liberal and the Unionist parties. Therein lies one of of its signal advantages., it is impossible to be certain upon the point, but this proposal should ultimately take the Home Rule question out of the sphere of ordinary party issues. It should lift it into an atmosphere in which, so fat as this particular aspect of it is concerned, it may be discussed upon lines that free it from the influences of party discipline. The federal formula is, of course, not incompatible with the principle of Ho,mc Rule. It is simply a development ■ and expansion of that principle. It implies that the system of decentralisation of government shall be extended to limits beyond those contemplated in the bestowal of Home Rule upon Ireland. Its design is the establishment of a system of Home Rule within Home Rule. An analogous case is supplied in Australia in the existence of six States, with prescribed powers of self-government conferred upon them in the Constitution which established the Commonwealth as a political organisation and brought the Federal Parliament into being. There are advocates of the federal system who would give it the fullest possible application within the Empire'. With the enjoyment of self-government by the scattered pprtions of the Empire, they would associate the right of each to representation in a Parliament of the Empire. The Earl of Dunraven, who is one of the foremost advocates of this system, welcomes the growth of a feeling in favour of federal Home Rule in Ireland as indicative of a spreading desire for the establishment of an Imperial federation. It may be arguable whether this conclusion rests on any very solid basis. But the speeches in the House of Commons during the past week do ?uggest that' the minds of members of both parties are turning towards a system of federal Home Rule as a suitable compromise between the Government's proposals and the Unionists' policy which represents a direct negation of those proposals. The addption of this system, as we have said, is not inconsistent with the enactment of the Bill providing foT the establishment of Home Rule. l<.

was declared, indeed, by Mr Samuel last week, that the passage of this Bill—subject to a provision, which will be apparently included in a separate amending Bill, for the temporary exclusion of Ulster—must precede the consideration of a scheme for the creation of a system of federalism. Nor can it be disputed that this contention carries a great deal id force.