"WHOLE THING A FARCE”

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8343, 1 February 1913, Page 6

"WHOLE THING A FARCE”

4! SCORE OF WRONGS PERPETRATED. TALK ABOUT BATTALIONS, BATTERIES, AND GUNBOATS. LOED MORLEY CLOSES DEBATE. (Received January 31, 11-45 p.m.) LONDON, January 31. In ihe Houso of Lords, the galleries. wore crowded during discussion of the Homo Rule Bill. Lord Curaon declared that the finances of tho Bill would create endless friction. „,■,-!. For every right tho Bill effected it berpetrated a score of wrongs. Tho Government had chosen coercion for Ulster instead of conciliation Lord Halsbury said ho felt humiliated in- discussing tho measuro when everybody know that tho whole thing was a. Lord Lansdowno said that tho whole Bohema was a misfit. What was the Irish opinion whereon the Government laid such stress? Who were the Irish party? Lawyers of no particular eminence; journalists of no distinction; farmers who were no authorities on Bgricnlture. The Irish peasant would Boonor have a reduction- m his rent than a share in self-government. The colonial analogy was absolutely worthless and inapplicable. Great Britain could not allow Ireland to break away ■while she had a battalion, a battery, or a gunboat left. No amendment could Convert the Bill into, a, measure worthy <xf the statute book. ; Lord Morley closed the debate. He derided the idea of a plebiscite on Home Rule as impracticable. Nothing could bo worse, he said, than the irresponsible power permeating the present Irish administrative system. _ The Government believed that the Bill, if ■worked in good faith, would strengthen' the .sense of responsibility, which was the salt of freedom. The Parliament Act, 1911, stipulates that if any public Bill (other than a money Bill, or a Bill containing any provision to extend the maximum duration! of Parliament beyond five years) is passed by the House of Commons in three 6uc- : cessive sessions (whether of the same Parliament or not), and, having been sent to the House of Lords at least ono month before the end of the session, is rejected by the House of Lords in each of those sessions, that Bill shall, on its rejection for the third time by the House of Lords, unless tho House of Commons direct to the contrary, bo presented to his Majesty and become an Act of Parliament on the Royal assent being signified thereto, notwithstanding that the House of Lords have not consented to tho Bill: Provided that this provision shall not take effect unless two years havo elapsed between the date of tho second reading in the first of those sessions of tho Bill in the of Commons and the date on which it passes the House of Commons in tho third of those sessions.