The Daily News. MONDAY, MARCH 30, 1914. ARMY VERSUS PARLIAMENT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 258, 30 March 1914, Page 4

The Daily News. MONDAY, MARCH 30, 1914. ARMY VERSUS PARLIAMENT.

The criminal recklessness of Sir Edward Carson and a few over-zealous Unionists has brought Great Britain perilously near—not to civil war, for that is absurd; but to a conflict between the Army and Parliament such as arose in Cromwell's time. As Mr. John Ward, a Labor member of the House of Commons, forcibly put it, the question at issue has come to be whether Parliament has the right to make laws "without interference either from the. King or the Army." This is a right that must never be surrendered, ns it lies at the very foundation of British liberty and progress. Yet this Tight has been deliberately menaced by the great Constitutional party—Uie Unionists, the ultraloyalists, the self-lauded champions of law and order. The moment that Sir Edward Carson organised an Ulster "army," with a view to coercing Parlia- | ment to reject the Home Rale Bill, he ' and the party supporting him in his incipient rebellion became traitors to the people. They also provided the Labor party and trade unionists generally with an example which may yet be used with most deplorable results to the country. Even if Sir Edward Carson and his socalled "army" never meant to light, but only organised a great and skilful "stage-managed MufV* the fact does not in the least affect this contention. The apparent partial suocess of the "bluff" will only make Labor leaders more determined to carry out the tlireats they have already made to arm thousands of strikers with rifles and ammunition with a view to enforcing whatever demands they may choose to make. Ministers have, happily, had the fortitude to resist the coercion that was implied in the wholesale resignation of Army officers; the pity is that they did not see their way to deal much more drastically with those disobedient officers who allowed themselves to be drawn from the path of duly by "party" and "class" conditions. \Yn see no reason to doubt Mr. -John Redmond's declaration that the sole object of the Ulster '•army" movement was to give Tory officers in the regular army an excuse for taking part in the fight between political parties. His all a sham and pretence that the Protestants of Ulster are in danger. The only real fight is for the continuance of aristocratic privilege in the British Legislature and Government. The Tory party would not care a fig for Ulster if it were not that the passing of the Home Rule Bill will necessarily involve the abolition of hereditary legislators, the disestablishment of the Welsh Church, along with land and electoral reform. The deluded Protestants of Ulster are mere catspaws of the Unionists, who are lightly solely for hereditary privilege, and the perpetuation of misrule in England. "Society" and Church influences are all on the side of the Unionists. Wc might cite ns an example of the clergy's attitude Ue utterances of the Rev. Francis F. Collin, or Winele, near Macclesfield. This gentleman recently declared that tho "so-call-ed Government" now in power vas ordV a '■nightmare conglomeration of pestilent microbes"—"ravening wolves" bent upon -barefaced robbery"; while he IniiY nothing but praise for the "loyal and gallant Ulstermen" and their "heroic leader. Sir Edward Carson." Arid so it is right through the Tory agitation in England to-day. The motive, forces arc the aristocracy, the clergy, and the privileged classes generally, who are In nt on defending their position against the attacks of the Liberals, who arc pledged, if Hume Rule is carried, lo pass into law large and sweeping measures of reform. The privileged classes have not hesitated to incite the Army to join the political agitation. This is the most reckless and criminal act they could have ciinimitted. and it will surely react upon them with terrible consequences if i! is pushed any further. Parliament will, we trust, firmly assert its supremacy, and crush out the tendency to lawlessness. Ministers have reached the limit of concession, in their desire to conciliate their opponents, the Tories—not the people of Ulster. Parliamentary Government must vindicate itself again it threats of force. If the laws passed are distasteful to the people, there is a ready constitutional method of repealing the laws. The Home Rule Bill is no exception to any other, and there is not Hie slightest reason why the Government should lie intimidated though all tile Army officers resigned. A threat to place "non-coms." in command, under tho direction of Ministers, might bring the officers to their senses. The Army is not a party organisation—it is a national organisation; the servant of the nation and not the master. The fact should require no emphasis, for the people -the taxpayers —won and defined Hie position once and for all time after Cromwell's exploits.