HOME RULE

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 10 March 1917, Page 4

HOME RULE

NATIONALIST MANIFESTO. -AReceived 9.20. ’ LONDON, March 9. The Nationalists have passed a resolution that Lloyd George’s speech, took up a position which involved a denial of self-government for Ireland,, and for ever laid dow%xie principle that the small minoflty in Ulster should vote self-government for United Ireland. That is a position to which. the representatives of Ireland can never assent. Lloyd George assertedhe never changed his opinion on thisquestion of so-called coercion in Ireland. This is ®oi true. IJe was the last party to drafting the ' original Home Rule Bill, which applied to all Ireland. He was a party to the rejee- r tion of amendments, excluding Ulster.. When under pressure Lloyd -George and his Government weakly yielded to Sir Edward Carson’s threats of rebellion; we agreed on Lloyd George’s pledge that the Government should see the settlement through at any cost. The negotiations in July referred strictly to temporary war arrangements, with the express understanding that the year after the war things would revert to their , status quo ante. Lloyd George’s speech undoubtedly tended to intensify distrust of the pledges of British Ministers now so vividly spread in Ireland, -which had a most serious effect in strengthening the power of the revolutionary movement. The situation in Ireland and the Empire created by the speech, was one of terrible seriousness, The action of the British Government since the coalition in May, 1915, made the task of carrying on the Constitutional movement in Ireland almost impossible. This can yet be saved only by the active assistance of all levelheaded Nationalists in Ireland and by the aid of the millions of the Irish race in the Dominions and the United States. To them we appeal most earnestly to aid those who rescued Ireland from being Germany’s catspaw and tool, and who are now struggling against terrible odds to keep the open road to Irish liberty through peaceful constitutional means, a struggle wherein ,we are hampered by the British Government, which places into the hands of Irish pro-German Revolutionaries with stupid perversity worthy of the worst reactionaries. Received 11.15. ; - LONDON, 9. The Daily Chronicle states^the Nationalists will adopt' active opposition, and demand two days" on the Irish estimates, and oppose theextension of the life of Parliament.