The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1886-04-24 00:00:00

SATURDAY, APRIL 24, 1886.

fore in use, subject to adaptation as provided by this
Act, and there shall be summoned to the House of
Commons such one of the members of each con-
stituency, or in the case of a constituency returning
four members, such two of those members as the
Legislative body of Ireland may select, and such
peers and members shall respectively be deemed for
the purpose of passing any such Act to be members
of the said Houses respectively."
The last two clauses are merely formal.

DECLARATION BY MR. CHAMBERLAIN.
The New York Sun publishes the following interest-
ing statement on Mr. Gladstone's Irish scheme, fur-
nished by Mr. Chamberlain recently to its London
correspondent: "Mr. Gladstone's scheme for the dis-
ruption of the United Kingdom is not likely to com-
mend itself either in its principle or in its details to
democratic sentiment. Its leading idea is opposed to
the tendency of the great movement which, during
the present century, has done much to obliterate dif-
ferences and distinctions and to weld together com-
munities and nations in closer bonds of amity and
interest. United Italy and United Germany constitute
a silent protest against the attempt to split into frag-
ments the present organisaCons of the United King-
dom. Tile principle of federation, triumphantly
vindicated by the democracies of America and of the
Swiss Republic, and suocessfully imitated in the
internal government of the Dominion of Canada, hss
been recognised as the only means whereby Imperial
unity can be conciliated with local independence.
Mr. Gladstone, however, has shown on many
occasions, and conspicuously in his utterances
at the time of the American civil war, that
he is prepared to carry decentralisat:on to
extreme limits; and that he regards without
enthusiasm the idea of imperial unity, coupled as it
must always be with imperial responsibility and
obligations. But if in:this conception of:national duty he
is opposed to democratic aspirations, he is still more out
of harmony with Radical „opinion in the constructive
details of his great scheme. In order to provide the
safeguard which he recognizes as essential for the
protection of minorities, the maintenance of social
order, and the security of civil and religious liberty,
Mr. Gladstone asks English and Scotch Radicals to
consent to taxation without representation; to the
inclusion of peers as ex officio members of a repre-
sentative assembly; to a property qualification, both
for the electors and the elected; and to an elaborate
rystem of minority representation. These are the
necessary concomitants of his proposal; and the plan
must stand condemned, as much on account of the
anomalies which it brings in its train as from its own
inherent defects. The more carefully it is studied the
more probable it is that neither in the United King-
dom, nor on the Continent, nor in America will it re-
ceive the general approval of the Radical party.
" JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN."

"NOT DEMOCRATIC, BUT SEPARATIST.'
Mr. Chamberlain, acknowledging a letter inviting
him to Edinburgh, says: "I feel very much the strain
and anxiety of the present political situation. I bad
not intended to attempt any public addresses on the
Irish question except that which lam preparing to give
to my own people at Birmingham. At the same time,
if the Radicals of Edinburgh thought that it was use-
ful and desirs to have a personal expression (if mY
views, I should feel that their wishes deser. e the
most serious consideration. 'With tue deepest respect
for Mr. Gladstone, I cannot but feel that he is making
a mistake at the present time, and that he is leading
many Liberals astray. The central principle of the
bill he has just introduced is not Democratic but is
Separatist, and as such opposed to one of the strongest
of popular aspirations—namely, the desire to unite
the people of the world in closer bonds. It is a
scheme which I firmly believe would he rejected by
Scotland if proposed for that country, and in my judg-
ment it is a fatal objection to any proposal for Ireland
that it should not be equally applicable to Scotland
and other parts of the United Kingdom.

The funniest clause in the Home Rule Bill is that
in which it is duly made and provided that the door
carefully closed, locked, and sealed in section 4 may
be formally opened under section 19, subsection 2.
Claim) 4 says the Irish Parliament must not make
any law endowing religion. Clause 19 says, notwith-
standing this prohibition, the Irish Legislature may,
with the prior consent of her Majesty in Council,
appropriate any part of the Irish 'public revenue or
any tax, duty, or impost imposed by such Legislature
for the endowment of religion. In other words, after
carefully making statutory provision that the Dublin
Parliament shall never tax Protestant Ulster to
endow a Roman Catholic establishment, the bill
thoughtfully provides that her Majesty in Council
may at any 'time rescind the prohibition, and allow
the Irish Parliament to endow the Papal Church
with Orange rates and taxes.—Pall Mall Gazette.