IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1825, 26 April 1888, Page 2

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.

(P3R PRESS ASSOCIATION.)

London, April 24. Mr Gladstone, in moving his amendment to the Budget Bill, equalising the charges on real and personal estate, challenged the Union party to support the proposal, as its adoption would not affect the Unionists' arrangement with the Government. Sir Michael HicksBeach considered the invitation merely an attempt to overthrow the Government, and the Unionists should regard it as such. Lord Hartington, in reply to the challenge, said the Unionists were consistent in opposing such abstract resolutions as that proposed by Mr Gladstone, and that they intended to support the financial policy of the Government, which had been generally approved. The second reading of the Budget Bill was agreed to upon Mr Goschen promising a modification of the proposed wheel tax, to which much opposition had been shown. London, April 25. In the House of Commons Mr Justin McCarthy, M.P. for Londonderry, tabled a motion condemning the increase of the sentences recently imposed by the Appeal Court on Irish subjects. Sir W. V. Harcourt, speaking on the question, said that the machinery of the Appeal Court was simply an engine of brutal and furious oppression, and it was useless for the Government to assume ignorance of what was takftigplace in connection with affairs in Ireland. Mr Balfour, Secretary for Ireland, denied that there had been any interference by the Executive Council with th'e administration. Mr Ciadstone said the Government were responsible for the introduction of the foul and odious inequality injthe enforcement of law in Ireland, for which there was no precedent, and he asserted that the Appeal Courts had been cruelly and wantonly used against those in custody. The motion was negatived. In the House of Commons, the motion of Mr A. C. McArthur, that the Government be requested to support the efforts taken by colonial Governments to suppress the sale of alcoholic liquors to the Natives in the Pacific Islands, was adopted.