The Daily News. TUESDAY, APRIL 16, 1912. THE HOME RULE BILL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 245, 16 April 1912, Page 4

The Daily News. TUESDAY, APRIL 16, 1912. THE HOME RULE BILL.

After a lapse of years which would have wearied any less inveterate or heartsouled nation, Ireland is once more within measurable distance of securing that measure of self-government for which she has been fighting so whole-heartedly and so perseveringly over more pages than her history can afford to spare. It is almost twenty years since that veteran statesman, the Hon. Wm. Ewart Gladstone, made his second futile attempt to give to Ireland that measure of justice that she demanded. Since that memoralble 189,3 a series of successive Conservative Ministeries have effectually blocked the path of Ireland's progress towards her desired goal. But the little nation has never ceased to lie' down to her work, and in season and out of season her daring little band of politicians have wrestled with the spirit of intolerance, taking overthrow with "a frolic welcome" and, like the Phoenix, rising perennially with renewed youth and vigor from the ashes of repeated failure. Their efforts have been frankly concentrated upon securing the balance of power in the Imperial Parliament; and to attain this object they have never wavered. Were a Bill introduced into Parliament to abolish dog-fighting or to spell cat with a "k," they never sought for its social or political genesis, but voted solidly with the party which was in sympathy with their own aspirations for Home Rule. The whole story is a dramatic and picturesque page in British history—a story of unwavering devotion, of freely-confessed intrigue, of passionate self-sacrifice, and of temperamental earnestness; a story that has grown familiar in our mouths as household words. With the 'downfall of the Balfour administration and the return of the Liberals to power under Mr. Asquith, Ireland's opportunity came once more, for Parliament faced the House with the Conservative and Liberal parties so evenly divided that the sturdy little band of Nationalists easily held the balance of power, and Home Rule once more leaped prominently into the forefront of the political arena. The occasion was a happy one, for by far the larger proportion of the Literal party were in sympathy with Ireland's cause, and this paved the way to a quicker recognition of the Nationalists' demands. As far back as 1908 the House of Commons, by 313 votes to 167, carried a resolution: "That the present system of government in Ireland is in opposition to the will of the Irish people, and gives them no voice in the management of their own affairs; that the system consequently is inefficient and extravagantly costly; that it does not enjoy the confidence of any section of the population; that it is.productive of universal discontent and unrest, and is incapable of satisfactorily promoting the material and intellectual progress of the people; that the reform of Irish government is a matter vital to the interests of Ireland, and calculated | greatly to promote the well-being of the I people of Great Britain; and, in the

opinion of this House, the solution of this problem can be obtained only by giving to the Irish people the legislative and executive control of all purely Irish affairs, subject to the supreme authority of the Imperial Government." Mr. Asquith requires no further justification for the introduction of his Home Rule Bill, and he has produced a measure which, at this distance, reads like an honest and a statesmanlike attempt to do justice to Ireland. In many respects the Bill is a compromise, but it is a compromise which gives more than it retains of the Irish platform, and the readiness with which the Nationalist Party have accepted it is creditable to their sense of political proportion. The main features of the Bill have been already elaborately explained in our cablegrams. It allows Ireland a full measure* of control over her local affairs, while maintaining, clearly and unmistakably, the supremacy of the British Parliament in all Imperial concerns. Roughly, it gives to the Emerald Isle very much tbe same privileges as are enjoyed by the i self-governing colonies and Dominions, I with the exception that it also provides for her direct representation in the Imperial Parliament. This particular exception was the rock upon which Gladstone's Bill of 1893 was shipwrecked, but a feeling of greater tolerance in this respect has since grown, and the present Bill is in no danger of rejection through the presence of this provision It is only right that such questions as Land Purchase, Old Age Pensions and National Insurance, involving, as they do, the financial credit of Great Britain, should remain under Imperial control, and it is equally rigbt that Ireland should be given control of her Customs and Excise. The Imperial grant of £500,000 to the Irish treasury sounds a trifle meagre, and it is open to argument, also, as to whether she might not have been given charge of her Postal and Savings Bank departments. One other clause in the Bill- which is of supreme importance, and one that will help to disarm criticism, is that which guarantees full religious liberty to all sects and expressly forbids the imposition of religious tests. The compromise has, naturally, not pleased the extremists, and the Bill has met with bitter denunciation from the Unionists

and the Conservative Press. But the Opposition is based chiefly on party grounds. Mr. Bqnar Law and Sir Edward Carson, who have had most to say upon the subject from the Unionist side, have had little but stale platitudes to offer as sauce to their reviloments, and the Conservative Press has been busier building epigrams than advancing arguments against what appears to be a singularly practicable measure. It is that same Press, by the way, that, not two years ago, when the famous conference on the Parliament Bill was sitting, and the fate of the House of Lords hung in the balance, lost no time in urging the Conservative Party in Parliament to save the Lords by an amalgamation with the Nationalists, the cost of which was to be a promise of "Home Eule all round." Criticism now from such a tainted source becomes simply contemptible. After the Bill has passed its first reading it has still to face the stormy waters of Committee, but it is doubtful if it will see any serious amendment, and we can confidently hope, with its successful passage, to see one of the most vivid debateable problems that has ever vexed the Imperial Parliament, permanently and wisely settled.