HOME RULE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10687, 6 August 1912, Page 4

HOME RULE.

.According to the London Times, the air is* full of rumours about the Home Rule Bill. Political' gossips will have it that 'underground .negotiations aire going cut -which umty greatly surprise the world. Some say, for example, that the Unionist leaders in- the House of Lords intend to recommend, when tho Bill corn ens to the Lords, -that it <?hn;ll he- pas sod. But Ulster 'bars the way. Then comes the proposals, seriously put .forward, that Ulster should be excluded from the operation of the A: t. For one moment it seemed ; s though the Government would ac (•rt tliis suggestion;, -which actually reached the istage of a resolution in the House qf Commons'. But .neither the Unionists nor the Irish Nationalist Party would have anything to do with i.t. Yet the fact- that it was defeated by omly 69 votes came as something of a shock to the Government. The fact- is that both sides find themselevs far from happy over the Home Rule Bill. Tho Unionis't/s are disappointed at tho fact that the Bill has aroused nothing like the storm of opposition in England which overwhelmed Mr Gladstone's firet proposal. The Liberals are increasingly perplexed 'by the steady and rnswerving opposition of Northern Ireland. Thus we are at a point when many men 01111 both sides would look by no means unfavourably 011 a compromise. But it is very difficult to frame a compromise when fund anient"! I differences of princ pitseparate both sides. However, anything may hn,ppein just now. The lics.it advice tlia't cam be given to tho independent observer is to wait amd pee.