Second Edition Home Rule Crisis

Horowhenua Chronicle, 30 March 1914, Page 3

Second Edition Home Rule Crisis

ELECTItIC TELEGRAPH —COPYIUGIIT. {.PER PRESS ASSOCIATION.] (.Received This Day, 0.45 a.m.) HOME RULE. London, March 2 ( J. The Right Hon. W. Runciman President of the Board of Agriculture, speaking at Cambridge, said that had the Government given way to the army officers dictation, they would have abandoned the cause of democracy, more basely than if they assumed tho cloak of autocracy. Those who politically engineered Jthe trouble would be first to regret it, if it taught the people to examine the whole army organisation. _ Mr William Redmond, in a letter to the Westminster Gazette, says that, the vast majority of Australians. New Zealanders and Canadians favour Home Rule. If Parliament will sot it at naught it will cause the utmost indignation overseas. Mr Redmond asks how many officers resigned rather than aid in the Irish evictions. Mr F. Smith, junr., speaking at the Imperial League, said that a supreme crisis had arisen in which they were justified in appealing from the despotism of a corrupt Parliament to the arbitrament of the sword. That alone justified the steps taken by Ulster, for which the Unionist party and more than half the representatives of England were responsible. He scornfully repudiated the suggestion that the Unionists tampered with' the army.

(Received This Day, 0.20 a.m.) London, March 29.

Mr Harold Spender, journalist, speaking at Cambridge, said he believed that the German Government kept the British Government informed regarding- the orders for ammunition and rifles sent by German firms to the rebels in "Ulster, thus Germany was a better friend to Britain than those so-called patriots. The Union Defence League fund now amounts to £70,01)0. Mr Walter Morrison, ex-mem-ber of the House of Commons, has offered £10,000 towards the fund for officers deprived of their pensions. The Sunday Times states after the King conferred with Lord Roberts, the latter, acting at the King's request, laid his views on the army difficulty before "Colonel Seelv and General French. The King, while maintaining a strictIv constitutional attitude, made it clear to Ministers that with him lav the final appeal, and counselled moderation without resort Ito desperate measures. The Kino; [took eounsl with the moderates of [both parties.