The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 26, 1907. THE POWER OF THE COMMONS

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 151, 26 June 1907, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 26, 1907. THE POWER OF THE COMMONS

— « Far the cause that lack* ajstUt*xce, For the wrong that needs resistance, Far the future tit the distance. And tbe good that we can 4a. _________________

There is a great deal of truth and force in the contentions urged hy Sir Henry CampbeU-Bannerman in his speech on the necessity for reforming the House of Lords. The Premier is perfectly correct in stating that the claim of the Lords to force a resolution when they object to any measure passed by the Lower House is reaUy a usurpation of the Royal prerogative. And it is also true that the objection to any enactment on -tha ground that Government has not received a "mandate" from the people to pass it, has no real constitutional foundation. Moreover, as the Premier has asserted, the fundamental theory of the Constitution is undoubtedly the necessary supremacy of the people's wish as expressed through the House of Commons. And this is the view of the position that Sir Henry CampbeU-Bannerman has decided to uphold. There are no half measures about the Government proposals; even the suggestion for life-peers wUI not play any important part in the coming biU. Briefly pipt, the Premier intends

that if after three conferences between Lords and Commons, the Upper House stiU refuses to pass a measure on which the Lower House has agreed, the biU shall be passed "over their heads." There ia, as we have already said, nothing unconstitutional about such a measure; for the Lords, in strict theory, have no right or authority to override the will of the Commons, niore especially when there is good evidence to show that the Commons, for the time being, represent the wUI of the people. But the Premier's speech has been accepted, as it was intended, as a deliberate challenge to the Upper House, and the two branches of the legislature are now practically engaged in what promises to be "a fight to a finish."

But it is worth our while to notice that the will of the people as expressed through the House of Commons is not threatened so directly by the Lords as by a less obvious and more serious danger. Thirteen years ago Lord Salisbury said that the House of Commons was passing through a great aiid radical

transformation; because its power was being transferred into the hands of the Government for the time being. "Discussion of a measure is possible in the Cabinet, but for any effective, or useful purpose it is rapidly becoming an impossibility in the House of Commons." There is no doubt that private members of the House, of recent years, have •found their powers and opportunities constantly curtailed. Even on the Ministerial side the average member is not consulted any more than a member of the Opposition, about the form or scope of Government Bills. " He sees them only, when they come from the printer; and then he knows that whether he likes them or not, he will be expected to support them by his vote." During the debate on the Licensing Bill in 1904, Mr. Dawson Walton protested strongly against this rapid evolution of Ministerial authority. "The Constitution," he said ," has undergone a serious change. It has ceased to be Government by Parliament; it has become Government by Cabinet," and from the other side of the House we may find even more emphatic evidence to the same effect. In 1901, Lord Hugh Cecil referred triumphantly to the constant infringments by Ministers on the rights of.private members. "Why is it that nobody cares outside of these walls ahout the rights of private members? Because there is a deepseated opinion that the House is an institution that has ceased to have much authority or much repute, and that -when a better institution, the Cabinet, encroaches upon the rights of a worse one, it is a matter of small concern to the country." It is significant of the change to which we have referred, that no member of the House thought it necessary to protest against this insulting aspersion of ' the dignity .and authority of the Commons. Yet it is I true that, as. the author of "Imperium et Libertas" has said, no such language has been heard in Westminster since the days of Charles I. The power of the people is threatened far more insidiously by the growing ascendancy of the Cabinet, than by the Lords, and Sir Henry' Campbell-Bannerman's Bill, even if it were to extinguish the Upper House would not save the Commons unless something is done to limit the power of the Cabinet.