A Clean Cut.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 42, 19 February 1914, Page 5

A Clean Cut.

HOME RULE FOR IRELAND. BALFOUR AND CARSON. (By Eleotrio Teleguaph—Copyright] [United Press Association.] (Received 11.40 a.m.) London, February 18. Mr Balfour, at a City Unionist meeting, said if he were an Ulsterman, he would do as the Ulstermen are doing. The Government's tinkering was useless. A clean-cut alone would avoid war. They must tell the Government; that this Bill, whether good or bad, cannot pass. Sir Edward Carson announced that he had authorised a further £70,000 for the expected defence measures. OPEN LETTER TO THE PREMIER. London, February 18. As a stout supporter of the Irish cause for 47 years, Mr Frederic Harrison, in an open letter to Mr Asquith, describes the-Irish sanation as the most formidable crisis that has ever beset a Ministry of living mem-

ory. They were face to face with a. struggle, as bloody and obstinate as the Boer war. "Its gravity lies,'' 'he says "in the fact that lor the first time in modern history violent but disciplined and premediated defiance of the statute has been supported by the whole weight of the Parliamentary Opposition. That fact separates the Lister movement from any other insurrection within memory. The movement is a kind of religious fanaticism, as hopeless to reason with and is stubborn to crush as the English ironsides, the Scotch Covenanters or the Ayrshire Cameronians. If you jo fuli speed ahead, you go to destruction." Mr Harrison states that le suggested that Mr Asquith in the mtumn should add a clause to the Home Rule Bill constituting the members elected for Ulster an independent committee to govern the province tor an agreed period. The general •lection, with its varied programme, vould not solve the question, but a •eferendnm of the entire eonstituen■ies in the kingdom would settle both lie suffrage and Irish questions."