The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. SATURDAY, MARCH 28, 1914. HOME RULE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 83, 28 March 1914, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. SATURDAY, MARCH 28, 1914. HOME RULE.

An able statement in favor of a federation scheme which its authors think should settle the Home Rule question is made in a recently published book by Mr Murray Macdonald and Lord Charnwood who suggest that separate Parliaments be set up for England, Scotland and Ireland, while for the time being at least Wales continues a part of England, or rather is not provided. with a separate legislature. The authors go on to propose that the powers of these subordinate bodies are to be defined as they are defined in the separate English, Scottish, and Irish Estimates now annually submitted to Parliament. There might bo a few additions, but these would be their essential powers. The Imperial Parliament would retain exclusive power to impose and collect all existing taxes, subject to the obligation to hand over to the subordinate Legislatures the cost, at the date of trans- I fer, of the services actually committed to their control. This is the prin- I ciple of the Irish Bill; and it is neces- j sary ultimately to accept it because j while the Imperial Parliament must; depend to some extent on 'the proceeds of direct taxation, the Irish Parliament would have to depend for some portion of its revenue on indirect taxation. This is fatal to the simpler plan of marking over indirect taxation to the Imperial Parliament and direct to the local Legislatures. Mr Macdonald suggests that the land tax., the inhabited house duty, estate duties on real property, and one or two other taxes might profitably be taken out of general taxation and handed over to the local bodies. The constitution of the new bodies—whether they are to bo unicameral or bicameral—is left to the eelctorates to decide. There is no reason at all why they should all be alike. Finally, Mr Macdonald holds that in a federal scheme of this kind is to be found a solution for the vexed question of the reform of the

House of Lords. Apart from finance and the Constitution, quarrels between the Houses have hitherto arisen in connection with lour main subjects —land, the liquor trade, education, and the Church. The control of all ■ these would pass automatically to the' local Legislatures. The control of; finance would be finally vested in the Commons as it‘is hy the Parliament. Act; and the constitutional question could never arise again except in a quite different form. The London j “Daily News and Leaner” considers! that a scheme so wide and so elaborate j simple as it is in its essential conceptions—is scarcely likely to pass j without challenge and criticism; but it is at least a very interesting and) carefully considered contribution to a problem which is bound to demand solution before very long; and which in the authors’ view ought not to be postponed at all. The crisis now brought about in Ireland amply confirms this view of the necessity for! an immediate solution of one of the gravest problems the British Government has ever had to face.