The Annual Register 1914: A Review of Public Events at Home and Abroad for the Year 1914Anonymous
History
The Annual Register 1914: A Review of Public Events at Home and Abroad for the Year 1914
Anonymous
History, Modern; History, Modern -- Periodicals; World War, 1914-1918
and an appeal to the people must follow, and then how would the people
regard them? The game was up. They must either make proposals removing
the resistance of Ulster, or submit themselves to the judgment of the
people.
The amendment was rejected by 333 to 78. There was a majority for it
among the members representing Great Britain of three, but some twenty
Liberals and Labour men were absent.
In the House of Lords, after the Address had been moved by Lord
Glenconner and seconded by the Earl of Carrick, the Opposition
amendment was moved by Viscount Midleton; but the debate added little
to that in the Commons, and only a few points can be mentioned here.
Lord Morley of Blackburn put the Government case in reply to Lord
Midleton; Earl Loreburn, while holding that the exclusion of Ulster
would not effect a settlement, thought that certain other additional
safeguards might be given it; the Marquess of Lansdowne, while
declaring himself not much enamoured of the exclusion of Ulster, said
that if its complete exclusion were accompanied by safeguards for the
Unionists outside Ulster, he was prepared to consider the proposal;
Earl Roberts said briefly that the use of the Army to coerce Ulster was
"unthinkable"; and, after three days' debate, the amendment was carried
by 243 to 55.
Meanwhile the Commons had passed to the Labour amendment moved
(Feb. 12) by Mr. Ramsay Macdonald (Lab., _Leicester_), praying that
the Governor-General of South Africa should be instructed that the
Indemnity Bill should be reserved under Clause 64 of the South Africa
Act, 1909, until after a judicial inquiry into the circumstances of
the proclamation of martial law and the scope of the Bill, especially
the provision relating to the deportation of the trade union leaders.
In moderate language, the mover contended that, on the information
available, which had been carefully sifted and contained the whole
case of the Union Government, the proclamation of martial law was not
justified. Incidentally he described the Syndicalists as the greatest
enemies of organised labour; but he said that the meeting which
resolved on the general strike was perfectly peaceful. Convictions
might have been obtained under the sedition law, but the South African
Government had no evidence, and wanted, by one comprehensive swoop of
illegality, to stamp out trade unionism. The deportation clause was
really a Bill of Attainder, and undesirable aliens should be defined by
legislation; then test cases could be raised by the deported leaders.
One did not desire to interfere with the powers of the self-governing
Dominions, but the Empire was faced with the problem of Imperial
citizenship. If British citizens were not to carry their historical
rights with them, the Empire could not retain its present place of
honour.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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