STRIKE VIEWS IN WELLINGTON

New Zealand Tablet, 27 November 1913, Page 17

STRIKE VIEWS IN WELLINGTON

for fixing fair rents; the administration of the ordinary law; the work discharged by County Councils, District Councils, and Boards of Guardians, so far as it is paid for by grants in aid; and local loans. The throwing away of the Agricultural Grant, which for all Ireland amounts to something between £700,000 and £BOO,OOO a year, and of which Ulster gets, and would in the ordinary course continue to get its share, will not be a negligible loss, for it would mean an increase in the rates in the area of the 4 Provisional Government’ of several shillings in the pound—

visional Government ’ it would cease to be payable, unless the Irish Government were recognisedwhich, of course, will not be the case. Old-age Pensions and the Imperial grant towards National Insurance, as has already been stated, would also cease to be paid. , And not a shot need be fired to bring about all ; those results ‘Taking Over the Government of the Province.’ A good many departments or committees, as they are called, have been formed for the Government of

is, if any rates at all are raised there. But this is not all. The Imperial contributions just referred to are for Ihe cost of Irish services which, under the Home Rule Bill, are to be transferred at once to the new Irish Government. In addition, there are the Irish services which are reservedsome permanently, others for a period. Amongst the latter are— purchase; Police; Old-age Pensions; and National Insurance. Under Home Rule the statutory payments or advances in respect of all those reserved services would

‘ Ulster,’ but a good many more must be formed before the Government can be taken over’ and carried on with any approach to completeness. At present, Ireland is governedlegislated for and administered—a whole; and this has always been the case in modern times. All the executive departments which deal with Irish affairs arejsituated in Dublin, and their authority extends to every part of Ireland. If their authority is repudiated in ‘Ulster,’ it follows that separate authorities dealing with the same matters must be

substituted for them in that region, unless local government there is allowed to get into a state of chaos. : ‘ Taking over the Government ’ of Carsonia is thus no simple matter, and it is obvious that it would be much more costly than even the present system of, governing Ulster as a part of Ireland. But, if Carsonia refuses to recognise an Irish Parliament f .and Government, then all this new administration must be set up and the necessary funds obtained from Carsonian pockets . alone. ' ,

next sessions a scheme be submitted, changing at one stroke the names of all the streets still called' after saints, for such was preferable to changing one every day. A new party has been started whose programme includes as its dhief aim, the extinction of the regime of private property and the. substitution therefor of the regime of collective property. / The Spanish papers give vivid descriptions of the hopeless pass to which the hapless country is drifting, and the Catholic press does not fail to point the lesson

Under the ‘Provisional Government/ indeed, the fate of ‘ Ulster ’ would be tragic, that is, if that ‘ Government ' were able to make good its boasts and threats. Its trade and commerce would be destroyed • its social system would be rent in pieces; its existing local Government would disappear ; bankruptcy would be universal. And, as has been said, all this would happen without even a shot being fired at the grim, dour, determined ’ Covenanters. The ‘ Provisional Government ’ and its supporters would be simply committing suicide.

for Spain. Here is the picture painted by El Universe : ‘No personal security exists nor,is property respected. People live under a reign of terror, without Parliament or press. The army is insubordinate, and the soldiers career through the streets singing the “Internationale” ; every day a new disorder or seditious movement breaks out in which dynamite bombs sow death and • panic ; the people emigrate, flying from the country, now to save themselves from savagery, now to gain a means of livelihood, for agriculture, industry, commerce all suffer from the profound crisis, following the state', of . mis-