SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS.

Colonist, Volume LXII, Issue 15317, 4 March 1920, Page 5

SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS.

A NORTHERN PARLIAMENT,

{Australian and N.Z. Cable Association*

London, March 1. The.new Home Rule Hill is published. It provides for a Council of Ireland, to consist of a president appointed by the King, and 20 members each from the Northern and Southern Ireland Houses of Commons. Both the latter are prohibited from interfering with religious equality. The number of Irish members to the Imperial Parliament is laid down at

. Of the £18,000,000 fixed in the first instance as tne Irish contribution to Imperial expenditure, 56 per cent, will be apportioned to Southern, and- 44 per cent., to Northern Ireland.

The legal system provides a Court of Appeal for each division and a superior Court of Appeal, embracing the whole of Ireland, from which there is appeal to the House of Lords.

A special provision protects from Parliamentary action the rights of Dublin University, Trinity College (Dublin) and Queen's College (Belfast) unless the college authorities approve. A clause lays it down that existing enactments relative to unlawful oaths and assemblies in Ireland shall not aPply to Irish Freemasonry, whoso privileges are protected from' Parliamentary action.

The Bill confirms the previous forecast that a clean cut is made of the Northern counties for the Northern Parliament, which is described as consisting of the Parliamentary counties of Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry and Tyrone, with the Parliamentary boroughs of Belfast and Londonderry.