LORD ROSEBERY AND THE GOVERNMENT.

Thames Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 10565, 11 June 1907, Page 2

LORD ROSEBERY AND THE GOVERNMENT.

TA OANDID CRITIC.

lib.is interesting to note the attitude adopted by Lord Rosebery, the Liberal, with respect to. the administration of the Liberal Government. He is continually adopting the'role" of the ■ candid critic, if not outspoken, friend, and his little pih-p,viakiiigs .niust be annoying; to the occupiers of the Ministerial Ifenchea. "Recently before the Council of the Liberal League Lord Kiosebery in referring; to the British . Government said that he had no apprehension regarding! its past or its composition, l?ut lest, it should make too many promises' impossible of performance. The fcrovenwnent, he said. had pledged itself to the impossible in proposing this year to do something terrible with the House of Lords*, and to deal with Temperance Reform, the Land question, Army Iteorganisationi and with Ireland. Sis second &pprehensioni, he proceeds to remark, was lest the^ Party, through some of its'members, would be per- •*■ manently- conneoted with a spirit, of hostility to property in all its form*,, for if so^.lie Party would, ere long!, foe squeezed out between, Socialism, and • ConßeryaiismL . Lord Rosebery criticised, the. introduction! into- Britain of the Irish, system of dual Ministerial - utterances with'-regard to Home Rule, inferring: that the Government considered this an 'open question, and in that connection he observed that "open questions-were dangerous, and were . apt to produce formidable breaches." He said that there were two things which Britaim would never tolerate— a. tax on foodstuffs, amd. a/ separate Parliament for* Ireland. The Tory Party was almost entirely identified with! the one, and the Liberal Party w.as too largely identified with the other. Referring to the then promised Irish Bill, he said he anticipated that it would do. no extreme violence, amd would probably be chiefly administrative. This the Liberal League might be" able to support., bait if an independent/ Parliament was.'tnie ultimate goal—whereas we were delighted to -see. the self-government of colonies ■thati-Avere united to • the- Motherland only by the <3rown, aei in Australia . and 1 Canada—<it wns a very different - : matter- when it wa? in a, contiguous island: pridm? 1 itself on the disloyalty - of its pulbJtci decla.ra.t.ions. It. will thus -be seeni that! on questions of vital inir porteinc© Lord Rosebtsry and the present administration, n,n<! the Liberal League, musti agreei to differ.. Ai reconciliation, between the tihiree parties appears tb.ua to be. further off than ever, if ever it did come within 'tine bonds, of possibility.