HOME RULE FOR IRELAND

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 241, 17 February 1911, Page 5

HOME RULE FOR IRELAND

DISCUSSION IX THE COMMONS. THE QUESTION OF IMPERIAL , SUPREMACY. By Cable —Press Association—Copyright. London, February 15. Mr. Lan ' Malcolm moved his amendment to the Address that effective debate on the veto question is hampered by the obscure and conflicting declarations by Ministers regarding Home Rule. Mr. Asquith stated that after the veto question was settled the Government would propose that an Irish Parliament be constituted, with an Irish executive, subject to the maintenance of the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament. Received 16,10 p.m. London, February 16. Mrw Malcolm, speaking to his amendment, criticised the Ministers for their TOTying viewe. Lord Hugh Cecil} who seconded the motion, said that many of the Liberals were not in favor of the Home Rule that Mr. Redmond wanted. Unless Imperial supremacy meant interference with decisions about which the Irish people held strong convictions, it was a matter mainly of words. Ireland, by representation in the House of Commons, had self-government. Therefore, the analogy with the colonies was destroyed. Home Rule was a retrograde movement.

SPEECH BY THE PRIME MINISTER

GOVERNMENT POLICY DEFINED.

"A CASE OF PARAMOUNT URGENCY."

Received 16, 10 p.m. London, February 10,

Mr. Asquith said there was nothing obscure or ambiguous about his declara-' tions from the beginning, and instanced his speech in 1893 on Mr. Gladstone's Bill. He had never regarded Home Rule as an exceptional and desperate remedy for a desperate and exceptional disease, but the case of Ireland was one of paramount and undeniable urgency. He quoted his 1901 speech in favor of granting revolutionary local powers., and said the problem would only be solved by granting self-government on purely Irish affairs, while safeguarding the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament. There could be no question of separation with these conditions. That was the Liberal policy. By his declaration in December. 1909, every voter in January, 1910, voted with a full knowledge that if the Government succeeded their first task would be Home Rule. (Ministerial and (Nationalist cheers.)The time of Parliament was being increasingly occupied t>y local questions. Received 16, 10 p.m. London, February 16. Continuing, Mr. Asquith said he agreed that Scotland and Wales suffered similarly, but Ireland's need was paramount. The policy of Home Rule had been applied throughout the Empire, and lately in South Africa. Why should not the same remedy be successful in Ireland. He believed it was strictly on the lines of Imperial development, and was the true Imperialism.

■ MR. REDMOND REPLIES. "WE ADMIT IMPERIAL SUPREMACY." Received 16, 10.40 p.m. London, February IC. Mr. Redmond said the people of Ireland had never regarded Mr. Asquith's declaration as obscure, but accepted his definition of Home Rule, which he honestly believed to be the final settlement, adding: "We admit and accept an Imperial supremacy, which ought to put down any oppression of Protestants." There might be fewer Irish representatives in the House of Commons. As a pacified South Africa was the greatest glory of the late King Edward's reign, so King George's would he more giorjous by a friendly and reconciled Ireland. RETORT BY MR. LONG. Mr. W. H. Long said it was not the first time Mr. Redmond had promised the minority fair play, but experience under the Local Government Act had not justified the trust in Home Rule. If South Africa was an example of Home Rule, then Ireland would be a separate country. The Government, he said, had furnished sufficient details to justify a determined opposition, MR. WINSTON CHURCHILL. Mr. Winston Churchill said that the events following self-government in tie Transvaal were the principal ca."se of the change of English opinion in favor of Home Rule. He admitted that there were formidable difficulties, hut if freed from prejudice and rancour, the settlement of details need not baffle honesthearted men. The old perils which beset English Ministers in the past concerning Home Rule had disappeared. The economic and financial dependence of Ireland upon England were so interwoven that divergence was a moral and fiscal impossibility.

THE AMENDMENT NEGATIVED. Received 10, 11.10 p.m. London, February lfi. Mr. O'Brien said he would do nothing to prejudice the verdict, being content to record his inability to share in the belief that following the Oovcmment blindly would make Home Rule a certainty in the present Parliament. He questioned their power to win by present methods, and suggested to Mr. Redmond that he should make Liberals and Conservatives join together and arrange a compromise between the veto and the reconciliation of Ireland. Sir Edward Carson taunted Ministers with the absence of any allusion to Home Rule in their election addresses, and their slim way of sneaking the measure through the House of Commons. Mr. Birrell said the Commons had given a liberal amount of time to Irish questions, yet it would take a Dublin Parliament five years to cope with arrears. The amendment was rejected by 320 to 213. ' J 1