§ MR. JAMES CAMPBELL (Dublin University)I beg to ask the Prime Minister whether he has made any declaration, or authorised the President of the Board of Trade to make any declaration, to the Standing Committee of the United Irish League of Great Britain, to the effect that Home Rule, in the sense of the recent Resolution moved by the hon. and learned Member for the city of Waterford, would be put by the Government before the electors at the general election.
§ MR. ASQUITHThe only declarations of the President of the Board of Trade on this subject of which I have any cognisance are his public utterances. What my right hon. friend stated in substance, and with my approval, was this, that though it was impossible for 1668 him, or anyone else, to determine now what issue or issues would be before the electors at the next general election, the disabling pledge which he and others gave applied only to the action of the existing Parliament and that at its expiration the Liberal Party would claim and possess a perfectly free hand to deal with the whole problem of Irish Government.
§ MR. JAMES CAMPBELLIs the right hon. Gentleman aware that during the recent election in North-West Manchester a statement under the signatures of two hon. Members of this house (the Members for Waterford and for the Scotland Division of Liverpool) was published in the Press to the specific effect of the statement contained in my Question?
§ MR. ASQUITHI have seen a statement to that effect. I am not responsible in any way for any construction put upon my right hon. friend's words by others. My right hon. friend assures me that after the statement to which the right hon. Gentleman has referred was published he repeated these words; and they are the only statement for which either he or the Government is responsible; and I can only repeat what I have already said, that the statement I authorised, and which my right hon. friend made, was in the terms and sense which I have described in the House.
§ MR. LEVERTON HARRIS (Tower Hamlets, Stepney)Was it a condition of the pledges given at North-West Manchester by the President of the Board of Trade that he should have the official support of the Irish Party in that fight
§ *MR. SPEAKERHow can the Prime Minister know that?
§ MR. BYLES (Salford, N.)Is there any manner of doubt that Home Rule for Ireland is still a cardinal point in the programme of the Liberal Party?
§ MR. ASQUITHThe opinion of the Liberal Party and of the Government on this subject was, I think, sufficiently and plainly expressed in the amended Resolution to which we agreed.
§ MR. PIKE PEASE (Darlington)Can the right hon. Gentleman say anything in regard to Scotland?
§ [No Answer was returned].