IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 7070, 16 February 1893, Page 1

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.

(Per Electric Telegraph —Copyright.) (Per Press Association.) (Received 7,50 p.m,, Feb. 15th.) London, Feb. 16. Mr Gladstone, in reply to Mr Balfour, declined to introduce the Land Bill until the Home Rule Bill was passed. In the meantime the land laws would follow their present course. Customs duties would be levied and collected by Imperial officials, and excise duties by Irish officials. (Received 1 a.m., Feb. 15th.) Mr Balfour contended that the reasons assigned for the necessity of Home Rule when the Bill was brought forward in 188 C, 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 land-owner, and it was certain to produce a deadlock either in the English or 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 the measures which were to be submitted to the Imperial Parliament. (Special to Press Association.) (Received noon, February 15th.) London, Feb. 14 In his speech Mr Gladstone said that it was past the wit of man to discover a plan for the retention of Irish members in the House of Commons free of objection. He desired to relieve England of dishonour, and he would do so with his last breath. He entreated the House to let the dead past bury its dead, and not bequeath a heritage of discord to their successors.