HOME RULE BILL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 28, 23 June 1914, Page 5

HOME RULE BILL.

A NEW ZEALAND RESOLUTION

By Telegraph—Press Association. , Wellington, Last Night. At a meeting held to-night in the Presbyterian schoolroom, Mr. C. B. iMorison presiding, a resolution moved by the Right Rev. Dr. Sprott, Bishop of Wellington, and seconded by the Itev. ,J. K. Elliott, was adopted, that a cable message be despatched to Sir Edward Carson, expressing sympathy with the people of Ulster in their opposition to the Home Rule Bill.

MR BALFOUR'S "MAGICAL" SPEECH. During the debate in the House of Commons on April 29, Mr Balfour made what was admittedly a great speech. We can only find room for its exordium :-I hold now, and I held nearly thirty years ago, that if Home Rule right, and Ulster would be right. But because I have never wavered from that view does anybody in this House suppose that I do not think it one of the most appalling and terrible calamities that ever happen to any great nation? I do hot merely contemplate, or even chiefly contemplate, its results in Ulster. "A REFLECTION OF HORROR."

To think of that groat industrial community devastated, perhaps ruined, perhaps permanently losing its great industrial position through civil war, is in itself a reflection of horror, hut I do not believe that even that would be the frcatest Ctii'iim ity that would ensue :ven now, at the point at which we have reached, I believe that some injuries have been done that cannot be easily repaired. I 'believe that what—though I think that you may differ from me— I think are the unscrupulous attacks made on the Army have been more disastrous to that force than the loss of a pitched battle, I fear that we are going for a long time to suffer in the councils of Europe by what has occurred. To judge by, this sort of his language which in a part of his speech the First Lord of the Admiralty indulged, and by the cheers with which those observations were heard, he contemplated the possibility of having to crush Ulster with fire and sword. I have no doubt that it is in their power, but may I ask who thinks that any cause that any of us hold at heart is going to be furthered by that transaction, which is to be done in the interests of Home Rule? Peace and good government to Ireland with Ulster devastated and trampled under foot!—the thing is an utter absurdity. It would ruin a great deal more than Ulster. Would it help Home Rule?—not a bit of it. Then let us hear no more, I beg the House, of putting tilings to the proof. . . .1 do not believe you will ever get Ulster to join the rest of Ireland in the future unless you absolutely exclude her in the present. Whether Ulster will ever be prepared to throw in her lot with Ireland, who can tell THE ONLY WAY.

Who is audacious enough to say, by the time we have matured this prospective Federal system, what the Irish Parliament will have done, or what Ulster will be feeling, or what the general views of the population of the United Kingdom may be? In my view there is nothing which this House can do which will save the liprroiß of civil war, except the total exclusion of the whole north-east of Ireland, with, of course, provisions, if you please, that when the North-east of Ireland alters its opinion its status will be altered. I have been concerned for almost the greater part of my political life in fighting the cause-of the 'Union. If anybody thinks I should regard it as a triumph that there should be put on the Statute Book anything which I regard witli such horror as a Home Rule system, even without Ulster, he little understands the ideas for which I have striven all my political life.

SHATTERED DREAMS. There was a time not so very long ago, as my life is measured, when I cherished the dream that if law was restored in the southern provinces of Ireland, if every grievance was removed, every inequality smoothed away, every encouragement given to legitimate industry, every equality,_ and more than equality, given to our Irish fellowsubjects, ancient memories would gradually soften, men would look forward as well as backward, there would grow up what there ought to be as between these two islands, a common hope, a common loyalty, confidence in a common heritage, and all this might be accomplished under one Parliament. For that—l must put it egotistically— I have striven—(Opposition cheers)—for that I have argued in the House and out of it, for that I have worked weary hours at legislative projects, striving to accommodate legislative details to the necessities of the moment. If the result of all this is that, in order that civil war be avoided, with all its incalculable horrors, that there is yet to lie established in Dublin, a separate Parliament, to the injury, as I personally think, of the Irish people, and not less, perhaps of the British people, then I, for my part, may be an object of pity to Mr Churchill.'But he need not think that I shall regard such a consummation as a triumph over my political enemies. On the contrary, it is a mark of a failure of a life's work. It is the admission which causes for which I have striven, which I have most earnestly sought to accomplish, are fated to break down, and that long labors spent in this House and outside it in political work have not borne the fruit that I once hoped they might, (Loud and prolonged cheers, in wliieh a number of Ministerialists joined).