The Home Rule Bill was passed by the House of Commons yesterday for the third and last time required under the Parliament Act. It was sent up to the House of Lords, where it was given a formal first reading.
In the division on the final third reading of the bill in the House of Commons the figures were:-
For the third reading...............351
Against.....................................274
Majority.....................................77
Mr. Redmond, in a statement issued last night, emphatically draws attention to the fact that the bill is now practically an Act of Parliament. Important passages in his statement are these:-
I take this opportunity of the third and final passage of the Home Rule Bill to express the most earnest hope that now, when everyone, in Ulster as elsewhere, in Ireland has to face the indisputable fact of Home Rule and a Home Rule Parliament, those of our fellow countrymen who are genuinely nervous as to their position will abandon unreasonable demands and enter into a conciliatory discussion with their fellow countrymen upon points of the bill upon which they would desire further safeguards.
If the ╥Amending Bill╙ does not contain an agreement, I can see no prospect of it becoming law; and in any case, failing agreement, the Irish party have made it plain that their hands are quite free to deal with any proposals that may be made.
I see no likelihood whatever of an early general election, but, general election or no general election, the Union of Pitt and Castlereagh can never be set upon its feet, and the assembly of an Irish Parliament under the provisions of the Home Rule Bill is as certain as the rising of to-morrow's sun.
