HOME RULE.

Timaru Herald, Volume XCVIII, Issue 15160, 2 October 1913, Page 7

HOME RULE.

,' LIBERAL OPINION.

CABINET IN NO HURRY. '"Times"—Sydney "Sun" Special Cables Press Association—By Tel. —Copyright. Received 6.40 p.m., Oct. Ist. LONDON, Sept. 30. No decision on the Home Rule question is likely until the Cabinet meets in the middle of the month. Liberal circles in London believe that the Government does not contemplate making any approaches to the Opposition, and there is a strong current of opinion in the Liberal party averse to a conference, i

Press Association —By Toil. —Copyright. Received 9.35 p.m., Oct. Ist. LONDON, Oct. 1. Lord St. Aldwyn in a letter to the Press states that he had a personal bias towards settlement, by consent, instancing the Irish Church Act ot 1869, and the Reform Act of 1885. In these cases however both parties agreed on a principle, but no such accepted basis existed for a conference on Home Rule. He asks, "How could the Government depart from the principle of V? autonomous Ireland, or the Unionists accept a principle which they have opposed for twenty-seven years?" Evaa if the Nationalists agreed to the exclusion of Ulster he felt sure that Ulster Protestants would never yield <. their weak scattered co-religionists to a domination which they dreaded for themselves. Therefore he could not anticipate any useful result from a conference. There was room to find .'an escape from the mischief going "oh in Ulster, and both parties oughu to discuss that possibility and elicit the country's judgment, with a guarantee that if the judgment is favourable the Lords will not impose amy obstacle to the passing of the Bill into law in 1914. This would obviate the passing of the Bill under the Parliament Act, which is odious to Unionists and largely the cause of the present trouble:. Disestablishment "could be similarly treated. No responsible Minister would contend that Home Rule should become law if a majority of the people are opposed to it.

[Viscount St. Aldwyn was' formerly Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, who has bean a Chief Secretary for Ireland (1874-78) Secretary for the Colonies, and twice' Chancellor of the Exchequer.]