NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1410, 10 April 1912, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY.

It was to be expected that quotations from Burke would figure in the Home Rule controversy, and it is not surprising that both sides should claim for their opinions the authority of his name. The Rev. Dn. Horton bqgan it by citing in a letter to the Times some sentences from the Speech on Conciliation with the Colonies in which Burke referred to the then flourishing condition of Ireland, and said: "Ireland has ever had from the beginning a separate, but not an independent, Legislature, which, far from distracting, promoted the union of the whole." Dr. Horton appeared to have scored, until another writer to the Times pointed out that in 1782, seven years after Burke uttered the words quoted, this subordinate Irish Parliament raised the volunteers and achieved under Ghattan absolute independence from English dominion, compelling the British Parliament to renounce all claim to supremacy Another correspondent followed this, up by quoting what Burke said about Ireland several years after these events. The passages are too long to be reproduced here in full, but a few sentences will show their drift:

For, in the name of God, what grievance has Ireland as Ireland to complain of with regard to Great Britain; unless the protection of the most powerful country upon earth—giving ail her privileges, without exception, in common to Ireland, and reserving to herself only the painful pre-eminenca of tenfold burdens, bo a matter of complaint? The subject, as a subject, is as free in Ireland as ho is in England. As a member of the Empire, an Irishman has every privilege of a natural-born Englishman, in every part of it, in every occupation, ami in every branch of commerce. (May 19, 1705.) .

My poor opinion is that the closest connection between Great Britain and Ireland is essential to the well-being, I had almost said to the very being of the two kingdoms. ... I think, indeed, that Great Britain and Ireland would be ruined by the separation of Ireland; but as there are degrees even in ruin, it' would fall most heavily on Ireland. (1797.)

The Unionists certainly have the best of the battle of quotations.

The public ought to-day to be supplied with something definite respecting the attitude of the new Government towards the Defence Act, for the deputation from the Citizens' Defence League, which is to wait on the Minister to-day, is very unlikely to allow itself to be put off with equivocations and ambiguities. Nobody can possibly say what is the attitude of the new Ministry, which has certainly made a rather worse beginning than anybody could have expected. First of all it commuted the sentences of certain young men who had been imprisoned for contempt of Court in not paying the fines inflicted upon them for their breaches of the Act. The Hon. G. Laurenson then stated publicly, when questioned as to the Government's intentions that "Cabinet had come to no decision. In fact," he continued, "they were powerless to do so. The law was there, and the Cabinet could do nothing until Parliament met." This was the Cabinet that had already repealed the law by an Executive edict. As for the Minister for Defence, he said that "the Government is determined to see that the law is vindicated," but he went on to explain that the Government was "considering the remission of the sentences now being , served by those who had refused to pay the fines inflicted for breaches of the Act." It is possible that by some feat of sophistry Mr. Myers may demonstrate the perfect harmony between his statement, his colleague's statement, the Act itself, and the Government's interference with the working of the Act. It is hardly possible, however,' for Mr. Myers or anybody else to hide the fact that the new Ministry has begun its career by a painful exhibition of vacillation and disingenuousness.

It is a pity that the new Phime Minister has adopted his predecessor's methods of "replying" to the critics of "Liberal" finance. We had hoped that Mr. Mackenzie would be kept by his new responsibility within the limits of fair statement on points of fact. Unfortunately, he does not seem able to avoid the same cloudy verbosity, the same violent rhetoric, the same old insinuations.. At Stratford he made a long speech displaying all these authentic signs of vVardist finance, and the value of it all may be judged from the one point upon which we wish to take him just now. According to the report in the local Ministerialist organ, he saidj referring to the five million loan:

It seemed that party prejudice had 60 blinded the Leader of tlie Opposition and eome of his followers that they determined to destroy the credit of New Zealand nnd fhe reputation of its public men in order to clamber into power. It was well known what the Opposition had done to injure the flotation of the loan—tha wail of despair that was sent Homo by the Conservatives to leading financial* jonrnnls before- the flotation. The financiers, however, would not allow themselves to bo misled, and the loan, considering all its surroundings, was a success.

Here there is a positive assertion which is either true or false. Wo invite Mr. Mackenzie to name the "Conservatives" who sent Home "wails of despair" before the flotation, and to name the ''leading financial journals" to which they were sent. If, as he states, the fact is well known, lie should have no difficulty in producing his proofs and exposing the offenders.