The North-Eastern Weekly Gazette. — 1893-08-05 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

RETENTION OF THE IRISH  MEMBERS.  IMPORTANT LETTER FROM MR GLADSTONE.  The Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone has addressed a lengthy letter to a constituent on the subject of the retention of the Irish members at Westminster, in the course of which he points out that there was great difficulty in disposing of the question whether the 80 representatives to be returned to Parliament wow to come there with the full powers of their British colleagues, and to be entitled to vote not only upon Imperial questions, but also upon questions locally belonging to England, Scotland, and Wales, or whether they were to vote upon Imperial quethons alone. It WM impossible to regard Ireland as having a claim to vote upon questions of an exclusively British character while she was to be provided with a Legislature in Dublin to deal in an exclusive manner with Ireland's ordinary domestic affairs, subject only to the supremacy of Parliament. It was also plain that a perfectly clear line of separation could not he drawn between Imperial and British matters, for in that highly important class of questions which directly affect the existence of an Administration these elements may both be included, and Irish members could not be shut out from sharing in the vote. Again, if they had onoe limited powers of voting, the , equality which has heretofore subsisted among all membeis of Parliament would be infringed without perfectly obtaining the object of the infringement, and another consideration strongly felt by many members was that a Mmistry might be in a majority on one class of questions and in a minority on another, which was thought perilous to the vital principle of Ministerial responsibility to Parliament, which forms the undoubted basis of our national self-government. Unwilling, however, to admit even the semblance of a right or claim on the part of Ireland to share in the management of British affairs while charged With the separate management of her own, the Cabinet decided on proposing that the Irish representatives at Westreins:ter should vote only (so far as they could be distinguished) on Imperial subjects. The country was in favour of retention. It only remained for the Government to choose and recommend that method of retention which/ on the whole, appeared least entangled in difficulties of principle. At I the same time it was evidently their duty to ' allow to the judgment of I'arliament, as representing the people, an influence in determining the form and manner of retention, as well as the measure of retention itself. We chose and recommended to the House that method which limited the powers of Irish members, and intended to exclude them (so far as this could be done) from all voting on subjects properly British. But it gradually became known to us, by signs which could not be mistaken, thnt the unavoidable incompleteness of this plan, and the particular objections which attach to it, had so impressed the mind of the House that we were absolutely without the means of carrying it. The Tory party, silent, as a iule, during the last seven years upon the subject, offered us the alternative of total exclusion; but in the existing state of Liberal opinion to accept this method of proceeding would have been a violation of our pledges to the country. It will, therefore, be seen that the only choice open to us lay between the plan of admitting the Irish members, reduced in numbers to a due proportion, without any limitation placed on their powers of voting, and their total exclusion from the House, which was for us inadmissible.  An extraordinary murder trial has just ended at Rheims. The prisoner, ft man named Alfred Fenaux, w is des" and dumb, was charged with the murder of his mother. The young man had been constantly ill - treated by the latter, who had spent money accruing to him on a eon by a second marriage. An attempt to oat fire to a barn in which FertallX was sleeping was suppoeed to be the work of his younger brother 'instigated by his mother. In the end the dad rmutosmisrated by this continuous barbarity, was to have shut his inhuman mother, aftorw attempting to commit suicide. The prisoner's version, conveyed through an inter-IPreter, was that his mother was about to ere at him when he snatched the revolver bomber. The , jury acquitted Alfred Femur who was with dui gropisst diifioulty mods toludsestaadthatle was . . —a. ot  -7-7 r. 40 TEAT