THE HOME RULE BILL

New Zealand Tablet, 24 July 1913, Page 35

THE HOME RULE BILL

REJECTED BY THE HOUSE OF LORDS. The House of Lords rejected the Home Rule Bill by 302 to 64. Lord Morley said that the Government had been asked during the debate what it would do in the event of violent disorder in Belfast, but he declined to say what it would do in a purely hypothetical contingency. In the course of the debate Lord Curzon said the Opposition wanted an election because it wanted to avert civil war.

Lord Morley, in winding up the debate, was repeatedly pressed by the Opposition to say whether the troops would be ordered to fire on loyalists. He refused to answer, but said he was confident that in the difficulty of a dangerous crisis the authorities would do all the public duty imposed on them for the maintenance of order. He contended that a referendum or a dissolution before the Bill was passed would be a far greater blow to Parliamentary authority than anything in , the Parliament Act. He was sure that when the Irish Party had a Parliament of its own it would show the same statesmanlike spirit as it had shown hitherto and make it a success. Lord Loreburn again appealed for a comprehensive settlement by consent, consultation, and goodwill. If the effort failed there would then be time for a genera] election.

■■.:• Speaking, at Birkenhead, Mr. John Dillon said that the majority in -Ireland would not submit to insult and tyranny from a fraction of the Ulster .people., They had won their victory by constitutional means, and they did not import arms, nor abuse the King, nor threaten to shoot soldiers. '• -""• '"''!"•

At Ballymena, Sir E. Carson, K.C., M.P., was asked whether in the event of a general election favoring Home Rule Ulster would accept it. In reply he said he would enter into no bargain. denied the right of any Parliament before or after twenty elections to deprive Ulstermen of the position they had inherited.