THE HOUSE OF LORDS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 153, 28 June 1907, Page 5

THE HOUSE OF LORDS.

DEBATE CONTINUED. 'WATCHDOG OR POODLE! SPEECHES BY MINISTERS. (By Cable.—Press Association.—Copyright.) (Received 8.10 a-m.) LONDON, June 27. In the continued debate on the resolution with regard to the House of Lords, Mr. Lloyd-George enumerated the ' bills which that House had obstructed or mutilated. The only instance, he said, in which it was justified by the sequel was in the rejection of Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule measure. But even this, said the President of the Board of Trade, would not have fared better had Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's present plan been in operation in 1593, inasmuch as although the Act received the Royal sanction, it would, as the result of the country's opposition, have been repealed by the new Parliament before it became operative. Mr. Lloyd-George proceeded to deride the comparison of the House of Lords to a mastiff watching the people's interests. In allusion to the Trades Disputes Bill, he said the mastiff ran away at the first snarl of the Trades Unions, and might more fitly be regarded as Mr. Balfour's poodle. Mr. F. C. Smith (Conservative) regarded the scheme of conferences as solemn mummery. Earl Percy (Conservative) thought Sir H- Campbell-Bannerman's declaration that the will of the House of Commons should prevail was intended to give a Ministry greater control over the House of Commons, and meant that in the event of a deadlock the decision should be taken from the people and transferred to the Crown. The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Asquith) urged that the House of Lords ■was the docile instrument of one party, and not a dispassionate umpire.