HOME RULE BILL.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1518, 14 August 1912, Page 7

HOME RULE BILL.

4 A SPIRITED REPLY. UNIONIST LEADER CALLS FOR AN ELECTION. ULSTER AND CIVIL WAR. Uy Telcsraph—Press Association—Copyricht (licc. August 13, 10.10 p.m.) London, August 13. Mr. Hfluar Law, (Leader of the Opposition, has issued a letter in reply to what ho as Mr. Churchill's rhetorical contribution of yesterday. Tho Government, Mr. lionar Law declares, won tho last election by parading the preamble to the Parliament Bill, and pledging itself to reform tho Second Chamber. That pledgo tho Prime Minister had declared n debt of honour. Tho Government now repudiated it. Why?. Because no Second Chamber, however constituted, would permit a great cliango like Homo Rulo unless it wero submitted to the electors; and because the Government know that if it were submitted, it would bo emphatically and finally condemned. All tho lending members of tho Government, including Mr. Birrell, lu\d omitted any reference to tliis in their election, addresses. Could anyone doubt that the omission was deliberate? Tho Government had thus established a dictatorship, but only a paper dictatorship, which would fall in pieces when it was resisted. Mv, Churchill had been quite right in thinking tho Unionists would anticipate civil war. There would havo been a real danger of civil war if .tho Government had been allowed to move blindly towards a i>recipico without a elcarwarning of the dangers confronting it. ' They knew now that if they attempted to carry Home. Rule without first obtaining tho sanction of the electors they would drivo Ulster out of tho Union. Any such attempt would bo resisted, not only by the loyalists in Ireland, but by an overwhelming majority of., j>eop!o in Britain; and the attempt would not bo made.