At Huddersfield, on Monday, Lord Randolph Churchill, in addressing a
crowded meeting in the Town-hall, put the point that the men who voted for Home-rule candidates in 1892 did not in the least mean to support the Bill of 1893, very happily. Did anybody know, when they voted at the General Election, that the Irish were to remain at Westminster to decide every Imperial and every British domestic question, while possess- ing a Parliament of their own in Dublin? Did any one know that the Irish would be given such enormous executive and Parliamentary powers as would enable them to govern Ireland without control and to oppress in every conceivable manner the local Protestant minority in that country P Did any one know that the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament of the United Kingdom with regard to the Irish Parliament and the Irish Government was to be turned into a sham ? Did any one know that the prerogative of the Crown was never to be exercised in Ireland with regard to the Government and the Parliament except on the advice of the Irish Ministers P Did any one know that the ultimate cost of giving Home-rule to Ireland would fall upon the British taxpayer as an additional and a very heavy burden ? Lord Randolph stated the figures of Home-rule finance in a very striking way. "Each indi- vidual in. Great Britain is to pay about 21 16s. 6d. in taxation, and every individual in Ireland is to pay by the year in taxa- tion a sum under 7s." This hammering on at the dead Bill may seem tedious, but it is the only way of preventing a resurrection.
Previous page
