THE HOME RULE BILL.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 16, 17 January 1913, Page 2

THE HOME RULE BILL.

THE CLOSING SCENES

TWO BRILLIANT SPEECHES

London, January 16

In the House of Commons the closing scenes of the battle over the Home Rule Bill were marked by characteristic speeches by Mr Balfour and Mr Asquith.

Mr Balfour confessed that the Government was supported by substantial majorities, hut said that the discussion had been carried on in a manner making the value of that support worthless, reminding one of the old comedies, where the chief schemer invited his subordinates to carry out his policy by giving them different versions of his objects. The Irish had been given a dangerous weapon wherewith they might secure their real ambition of full-fledged nationality. Friction and strife would result from their getting too much or too little. He derided the constitutional architects who had searched the world to create an abortive federalism. He sketched Ulster’s reasons for opposition. History showed that a mixture of religion and politics would prove injurious to the minority, while none believed in a recrudescence of the old style of persecution. Yet each age possessed its own methods of persecution. Ulster knew the crime-stain-ed record of the men who would hi' masters, and it was not unreasonable for -her to refuse to be placed under, these men. The fact that the Bill needed safeguards justified Ulster’s attitude.

Mr Asquith had an ovation- on rising. He lectured Mr Balfour for taking the Act of Union as a starting point. He must look further back and understand the genesis of the Irish question and the demand for selfgovernment. That demand was an organised, articulate and permanent expression of the vast majority of the Irish people. He twitted Mr Balfour, as a master of art, for manufacturing false dilemmas. He was not troubled by the criticism that the constitution was neither “fish, flesh, fowl or good red herring.” If they could meet Ulster’s claim, whether found-, ed on justice or even on misapprehension, without inflicting an injustice on the whole of Ireland, they would gladly do so; but it was absolutely fatal to democratic government to concede the claim, because if a minority claim were conceded the Bill would end in a secular quarrel. Fie concluded in a peroration declaring that tire Bill would exorcist? baneful influences. The House listened in hushed silence until Mr Asquith reseated himself amid Liberal and Irish cheers. Mr W. O’Brien declared that the financial clauses left the Irish Parliament with shadowy taxation powers, but the measure, was regarded as a sincere and courageous message of peace.

Sir E. Carson was absent, owing to his wife’s illness.

IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS

London, January 16.

The Duke of Devonshire, in the House of Lords, will move the rejection of the Home Rule Bill.