The Home Rule Bill.

Manawatu Herald, 18 February 1893, Page 2

The Home Rule Bill.

In his speech, Mr Gladstone said it was past the wit of man to dis cover a plan for the retention of the Irish members in the House of Commons that would be free from objection. He desired to relieve England of dishonour, and would do so with his last breath. He entreated members to let the dead past bury its dead and not bequeath a heritage of discord. At the conclusion of the Premier's speech an unexampled scene occurred. Members rushed into the lobby yellitig and shouting. Some fell near the entrance to the door of the Chamber, and were trampled on. Mr Caleb Wright was one of those who fell, but was rescued by Mr Burns.

The followers of Mr McCarthy approve the Bill, but the support of the Parnellites is doubtful.

Mr Gladstone, in replying to Mr Balfonr, declined to introduce the Land Bill until the Home Rule Bill was passed.

In the meantime the land laws would follow the present course.

Customs dues would be levied and collected by the Imperial officials, excise duties by the Irish officials.

Mr Balfour contended that the reasons assigned for the necessity of Home Rule when the Bill was brought forward in 1886 had. disappeared since social order had been restored in Ireland. It would be criminal to create a Home Rule Parliament until the agrarian question was settled. The Bill was a strange and complicated abortion. There was no protection for the landowner, and it was certain to produce a deadlock, either in the English or the Irish Government. He objected to the Irish members having a deciding voice in the formation of the British Cabinet, and also to their deciding upon measures submitted to the ImperiaParliament.

The Daily Chronicle 9ays the retention ot the Irish members at Westminster is a great and acceptable feature, and should Mr Gladstone waver on this point the Bill will be killed. The logical outcome of the Bill will, it considers, b? that Home Rule will be demanded for Wales and Scotland.

The Daily News says the measure is more worthy of acceptance by Irishmen, and more likely to command the sympathy and adhesion of the British people, than the Bill brought down in 1886.

The Daily Telegraph says the Bill is not statesmanship or any* thing approaching that name. The total omission of the land question it regards as an indication of the spirit in which the Bill is conceived.

The Standard be'ieves that the Bill i* impracticable and impossible and if passed would never work satisfactorily.

The provincial Unionist presß regards the Bill «s worse than that of 1886. The papers state that it is the 6ld Bill thinly disguised, with the redeeming "features eliminated for the too timid among the Liberals and it does not go far enough for Irishmen.

The Home Rule press refers to the proposals with guarded approval.

The Nationalist feeling in Dublin resents the sateguards as being too stringent.

The Belfast press attacks the

The Freeman's Journal echoes Mr Sexton's views.

Irishmen generally approve the Home Rule Bill, while objecting to some of the details, especially in the finance section.

The Radicals object to the retention of Irish members in the Imperial Parliament. , It is believed that Mr Gladstone is prepared to consider that point

The Unionists consider tlio proposals confused and impracticable, and denounce the futility ot the veto.

There is a lack of enthusiasm over the measure among the Liberals.

The Opposition will not call for a

division od the motion to introduce

Many members of ihe Radical Party distrust Mr Gladstone's luke* warmness, and are not in favour of the retention of Irish members.

The Unionists consider that the stsps taken to maintain the Imperial supremacy are utterly inadequate, and that the double veto is delusive. The Times says the Bill is profoundly disappointing, and that there are no real safeguards for minorities. The veto it regards as illusory, and it considers that the proposals for retaining the Irish members at Westminster and leaving the country to mercenaries whose vote would be at the command of the highest bidder are highly dangerous. Foreign. A severe earthquake has visited the island of Samothraki, in the north of the Mgean Sea. All the buildings were destroyed, and many residents killed*