LORDS AND COMMONS.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 759, 7 March 1910, Page 7

LORDS AND COMMONS.

SPEECH BY BALFOUR A GLOWING PICTURE DEMOLISHED REFORM OR REVOLUTION. CANADA AND FISCAL REFORM. Uy'Teleerapb—Press Association—Copyright. (Eec. March 6, 5 p.m.) London, March 5. In the course of a speech at a banquet to himself and Sir Frederick Banbury, Mr. Balfour stated that the past Parliamentary fortnight had demolished the glowing picture painted .by the enthusiastic brush of .Radical journalists. The Government's own followers charged Ministers with every sort of tergiversation, and the breach of tho clearest pledges. ■ , ' . ' "We have seen," he continued, "weekly changes of plans of surrender. If the original pledge consisted of insisting at the very beginning of the session on. the Sovereign giving constitutional guarantees it is so scandalous that any device might be justified to enable the Government to get out of it. The constituencies have justified the Lords' action. The Ministers aro unable to pass the Budget."

He went on to say that he wanted not a better but a stronger Second Chamber; not another House of Commons, or too strong a Chamber which might arrogate to itself, as some Second Chambers did, the powers of an immediately representative Chamber. It should, however, be powerful enough to resist temporary gusts of opinion, and should represent perhaps moro accurately than the House of Commons the permanent wishes of the nation..

The Radicals did not desire social reform, but revolution. Social reforms were complicated and necessarily gradual, and conld not. possibly run side by side with revolution. ' The Government's policy involved a revolutionary, or an anti-royolutionary struggle.

Would the country sit down under the Single Chamber system? Tho Socialists, Radicals, and Nationalists were not going to be in power for ever. One revolution would breed another.

Tho abolition of the veto was said by Mr. Redmond to mean Home Rule, and Homo Rule meant Irish import duties and Customs barriers. • . .

Mr. Balfour proceeded to say that Britain's delay with fiscal reform was forcing Canada to make commercial treaties with foreign countries in ignorance as to whether Britain would adopt some possible preference system with Canada. .

He would like to seo Tariff Reform, but whether such reform would be tho future policy or otherwise, the old system waas-gono never to return, largely owing to the present Government's pressure of expenditure.

MR.. LLOYD-GEORGE'S METHODS. HOW GLADSTONE CIRCTJHVENTED ■'■.'•. THE LORDS. ■■ ■■ ■ . (Rec. March C, 5 p.m.) -. '. ' London, March 5. A Treasury Temporary Borrowing Bill has been read a third time. '' .During the dobate, Lord.Hugh Cecil, in answering Mr. Asquith's remark that a great majority of tho people regarded it as incredible that the Lords should rejwit the Budget, recalled •■Mγ. Lloyd-George's remark about the ■ "rat-trap." ■: Mr: Stanley Wilson reminded the House of Commons that Lord Ribblesdale, a Government had described Mr. Lloyd-George' as half pantaloon and half highwayman. :

The Speaker objected to such offensireness, but said he was unable to compel withdrawal because • quotations ■from speeches' in' the' other House wero frequently used'during the election. Mr. Wilson explained that he mentiuued it because Mr. Lloyd-George's methods in the House and country had produced the present situation. Mr. Lloyd-George declared that the Government would not' accept' tho responsibility of using demand notes for income tax which they were not prepared to enforce. "They were 1 prepared to receive any i income tax voluntarily. If the Government sent to the House of Lords a Bill for a single tar, the Government would surrender the right gained when Mr. Gladstone in' 1861 circumvented the House of, Lords by putting the taxes in one Bill, which the Lords must accept or' reject' as a whole. ' ;

THE MANDATE. "NO ABSOLUTE DIRECTION." (Rec. , March G, 5 p.m.) London, March 5. Lord Courtney, speaking at tho New Reform Club, stated that though the majority were returned with a mamUte to curb, restrain, and limit the power of the House of Lords, the mandate carried no absolute direction to carry through any Bill which' embodied the late Sir Henry- Campbell-Bannerman's resolution. [The principle of passing a disputed measure within the life-time of the Parliament was affirmed in the followiuir motion passed by the House of Commons on the motion of the late Prime Minister Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman :—"That in order to give effect to the will of the people, Df expressed by their elected re-' presentatives, it is necessary that the power of the other House to alter or reject Bills passed by this House should be so rostrictod by lav.- as to securo that within tho limit of a single Parliament the final decision of the Commons shall prevail.'-] THE COMING ELECTION. AN IRISH POINT OF VIEW. ( Eec. March (j, 5 p.m.) ' London, March 5. Mr. Redmond, addressing the London Irishmen, said tho last election was paid for by the American . Irish, and . the coming election must be paid for by tho Irish at homo and in Great Britain.

THE BUDGET. 'INQUIRY AS TO THE DELAY. London, March i. Lord Lansdowne, Leader of the Opposition, in the House of Lords, has given notice of motion to inquire regarding tho Government delay in tile production of the ■Budget. A CLEVER FLANK ATTACK. Jn regard to Mr. Gladstone's action in ISM, lelcrred to m tho above cablegram the following extract from an article in I ho. by Arthur H. Johnson, Fellow of All Souls, Oxford will be of interest:— ' "Tho right of tho Lords to reiect money bills without amendment had meanwhile novor been dispntcd, and when in ISCO they throw out Mr. Gladstone's Bill for tho repeal of tho Paper Duties, that great advocate of tho powers and privileges of the Commons was too good a constitutionalist to light them on the direct issue. Determined, however, to gain his end, he developed an exceedingly clever (lank attack. Hitherto, but for an isolated instance in 1787, each • tax had boon authorised by a separate Bill. Now Mr.

Gladstone, .declaring that tho repeal of Hie Paper Duties was au esseutial part of his financial scheme for the year, united all the separate taxes in ono Budget Bill. Thereby the Lords were placed in on awkward dilemma. They had either to reassert their right to amend or reject the whole Budget. Tho right to amend had boon too long abandoned for them to insist upon it, at all ovents in this instance, and had they exercised their undoubted right to reject it they would have been held responsible, not only for rejecting a popular Budget, but also for upsetting the whole of the financial arrangements for the year. The objections to the repeal of the Paper Duties were not serious enough to justify such a. course, their action would have met with little support, arid they accordingly gave way. The precedent set by Mr. Gladstone has been followed by subsequent Chancellors of the Exchequer, with the result >that the Lords have never till to-day declined to pass a Budget."