HOME RULE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 76, 16 August 1912, Page 5

HOME RULE

MR. CHURCHILL IN REPLY. A VIGOROUS LETTER. By Cable —Press Association—Copyright. Received 15, 10.45 p.m. London, August 15. Mr. Churchill, in a letter to the Dundee Advertiser, in reply to Mr. Bonar Law, says that incitements to violence and threats of armed force were stridently reiterated by Mr. Bonar Law and Mr. Carson. Tney now apparently represented these as merely solemn warnings, which were not to be translated into action. This bears a strong Tesemblanee to bluff, but the Liberals cannot accept Mr. Bonar Law's reassurances. Although he did not intend extreme consequencesl, his words and actions in his position are far more serious,than his explanations imply. After referring to the importation of arms and drilling in Ulster, quoting the Blenheim speech, he says that these are mad tactics for the leader of a great party, which hopes soon to govern the land. Mr. Bonar Law's and Mr. Carson's speeches were not a warning to the Government, but an incitement to the Orangement, and as the detestable incidents at Belfast prove, only too well interpreted by those who were addressed. If a warning was all he sought to give, was it necessary to brazenly countenance lawless doctrines He contends that the extravagance and recklessness of Mr. Bonar Law's speech and conduct, in their disproportion to circumstances and their precipitancy, are foreign to the Unionist Party's interests. He describes Mr. Bonar Law's references to certain Ministers in election addresses as miserable quibbles, whereon he seeks to justify a doctrine of rebellion. Supposing that workmen in a desperate labor dispute declared they would not recognise the laws of a Parliament wherein capitalistic influences predominated; or suppose the Nationalists refused to recognise the Act of Union because it was carried by bribery and corruption. Would not Mr. Bonar Law come hot foot to inflict the pains and penalties of the law? Mr. Churchill points out that many months will pass before Home Rule becomes law. A lengthy period will intervene before it comes into operation, and' a third lengthy and indefinite period before the slightest oppression or invidious treatment or neglect can touch the Unionists of Ulster. If the Orangemen are right —and the Liberals hold them wrong—in the evil they apprehend from the Irish Parliament, it is certain that before they are actually affected there must be a general election. Are there not then sufficient remedies within the Constitution for their specific grievance? The bad example set by Mr. Bonar Law's doctrines will be imitated beyond the immediate controversy. He has drawn a blank cheque of indefinite currency against the Unionist Party, the wholeresources of which any ruffian or lunatic may present for payment, filled in by the hand of crime.

MR. CARSON'S ATTITUDE. Received 15, 11.30 p.m. London, August 15. The Dundee Advertiser says that the Government is closely watching Mr. Bonar Law and Mr. Carson. After referring to Mr. Carson's speech on June 2fi it adds that in the event of disturbances in Ireland, the Government will act with the utmost rigor, irrespective of the offenders' position. Mr. Churchill added that Mr. Carson is the moving spirit in an organisation which openly avowed its intention to establish a provisional Government, namely a Government against the Crown Parliament, in these realms.