THE HOME RULE BILL.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 28, 1 February 1913, Page 5

THE HOME RULE BILL.

DEBATE IN THE LORDS

(By Electric Telegrapu.—Copyright.)

(United Press Association.)

London, January 31. In the House of Lords the galleries

were crowded. Lord Curzon said that the finances

would crate endless fiction. For e/ery light the Bill effected it perpetuated

a score of wrongs. The Government had chosen coercion for Ulster instead of conciliation.

Lord Halsbury said that he felt humiliated at discussing the measure when everybody knew the whole thing was a farce.

The Marquis of Lansdowne said that the whole scheme was a misfit. What was Irish opinion on which the Government laid such stress? Who were the Irish Party? Lawyers of no particular eminence, journalists of no distinction, and farmers who were not authorities on agriculture. The Irish peasant would sooner have a reduction of rent than a share in self-govern-ment. The colonial antilogy was absolutely worthless and inapplicable. Britain could not allow Ireland to break away while she had a battalion, a battery or a gunboat left. No amendment could convert the ’•ill into a measure worthy of the Statute Book. Viscount Morley closed the debate. He derided the idea of a plebiscite on Home Rule as impracticable. Nothing could bo worse than the irresponsible power permeating the Irish administrative system. The Government believed that the Bill, if worked in good faith, would strengthen the sense of responsibility which was the salt of freedom.