Irish Affairs.

Opunake Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 2052, 3 April 1914, Page 2

Irish Affairs.

Loudon, April 1.

Sir Edward Grey’s allusion to a federal solution is regarded in th» lobbies as an improved prospect of settlement by consent. Unionist papers note the changed temperature indicated in the speech, A meeting of fifty Unionist Commoners favored a settlement on federal lines

It is understood that an amendment on the subject wifi be tabl°d in the debate on the second reading of the Home Rule Bill.

The Archbishop of Canterbury in his Easter letter to the diocese suggests that the clergy should on Palm Saturday invite the congregation to remember in prayer the perplexities and anx’eties of Ireland.

Sir Edward Grey, speaking as the leader of the House, said he did not know that the las ■ word had absolutely been said by the Government, but beyond the sexennium it was not prepared to go to the oonntry. They most settle the question at the end of the sexennium. They would agree to any settlement that would place the Bill on the Statute Book. Force bad not provided a solution in the past, and he looked on it with the gravest reluctance and almost despair of any solution of the Ulster problem by force. The embarkation on a policy of ao'ual coercion to make Ulster submit to an authority when it was determined to resist that force W»S a grave, serious, and ominous thing. Me had never contemplated the use of force until after an election, and could not conceive any Government enbarking on such a policy without first consulting the country. If a provisional Government were established in Ulster, or if a disturbance pcourre! before the Irish Parliament was inaugurated, the Army must upho’d the authority of the Crown. If ever the Army, or a large section of the Army, took active sides between po'bioal parties, the country would be faced with a m%re serious and a graver question than had been in three centuries.