HOME RULE BILL

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10624, 1 May 1912, Page 5

HOME RULE BILL

OPINIONS OF DOMINIONS

A COMPLICATED PROBLEM.

{Received Last Night, 9.35 o'clock.)

LONDON, April 30. "Lord Sel bourne, speaking at Aberdeen, referring to the argument that ilio weight of opinion in the self-gover-wing Dominions favoured Home Rule, said that tho Dominions did not appreciate the immenso difference between the application of the principle lo a colony 6000 miles from Britain; and an island sixty miles distant, and silso misunderstood the complicated problem caused by the Ulster antagonism. Tho opinion was more pronounced on tariff reform than •oil Home Rule. Rofughly speaking, there was no such thing as freetrader in the Dominions. Britain could not ■ronsistesntly base her Homo policy oil the opinion of tho Dominions, which were meanwhile barring _ tho -floor in the faco of their tariff reform views. TJk> Times states that the Homo Hulo Bill would inevitably bo road af- j +er a period of increasing friction and j ill-feeling. To grant full colonial in- , dependence to Ireland was impossible, j to transform tho union into a federwtioH by the stages the Bill attempts. This middle course would mean the shipwreck of the party or tho natio-i accepting it. Speaking at tho National and Liberal Club, Dr. Chappie, M.P. for Stirlingshire, suggested that after Homo Rule was granted all round, Ulster would be given the option bjkreferendum of belonging to the jurisdiction of tho Scottish Parliament.