The Dominion WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1910. THE BRITISH POLITICAL SITUATION.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1010, 28 December 1910, Page 4

The Dominion WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1910. THE BRITISH POLITICAL SITUATION.

Although we kayo tad a.few very; interesting .cabio messages' upon 'one' aspect or another of tnc political crisis;in Great' Britain, the abtuaL situation has been shrouded' by the cable agent in a- mysterious darkness that not the peace of Christmastido can. explain. ..While there is ground iov complaint as to what has not been; cabled to Now Zealand, there is little to'complain of in what has been sent forward. There is nothing very surprising in Mr.LloydGeorge's astonishitig'communiea'tion with tho newspaper .L , Humoniic, the standard : bearer of' , , tho'" Socialist enemies: of order in Europe. The Chancellor's Mile-End '• and Limehouse speeches would really have been a little incomnlete without the top-dressing, of their author's appea,ranco, as tho client of the most unbridled organ of revolution in France. Much more. serious is ' his communication to the Matin, which is a paper of weight and reputation. Through the Matin he committed an offence which his own colleagues will probably be better able to measure and condemn than anybody else. For he expressed Ins "surprise that' the democrats of. France "were not sympathetic with the British Liberals," and we.nt.on to ask two perfectly amazing, Questions:' "Had Frenchmen; ho asked, forgotten the Liberal attitude in the Dreytus and. Fashoda cases 1 . Did they remember the speeches of Lord Salisbury and Mr. .Chamberlain 1" The feelings of Sir Edward Grey, and of every other responsible statesman, on both sides, on meeting with this extraordinary outbreak in their afternoon papers can only be imagined. One can. only hope that Mb. LloydGeorqe has been misrerjre.sented. In the meantime., the situation as we have it pictured in our cable messagos is not the situation that seomed to bo shaped during the week after the failure of the famous conference. Tho only touch of definiteness in the latest cable messages is in a rumour: the Morning Post says it has been credibly informed that "the Government intends to create two or three dozen Liberal peers at tho New Year, as a first warning to the House of Lords." Mr. Asquith would probably be glad to have such a surrender by the Peers as would relieve him of tho shabby task of packing a few hundred of his friends into the Uppor House, but it is quite absurd to suppose that he would begin by testing the Peers with some horrible samples to begin with. It is, of only through the. appointment of an army of new Peers that the Government can make ineffective the will of the present House of Lords, although, no doubt, a good many simde people failed to realise the absurdity of the notion, encouraged by some of Mu. Asquith's colleagues, that an Act could be passed over tho heads of tlie Lords. It will be remembered that after the January clectipn Mr. Asqtjith pledged himself not to "recommend a, dissolution except under siich circumstances as will secure that in the new Parliament the judgment of the people as expressed at the elections will be carried into law." In the week following the announcement that the conference had failed to reach a settlement, the Prime Minister called upon the King with every circumstance of publicity and solemnity, and, after one postponement, announced that ho had recommended a dissolution at the earliest possible date. This would appear to indicate that the King had" given the required guarantee's, but, if so, the course of events has been difficult to understand, since the Liberals have been displaying as much care for tactics and as much anxiety as if they had no" guarantee of aid from .the. Grown.

The mail brings us full recorde up to tho afternoon of November 18. On the lcth Parliament reassembled, but it was only in tho Lords that anything notable was said. Lord Lansdowne gave notice of motion that the House invited tho Government to submit tho Parliament Bill without delay, and incidentally destroyed the report, of which much has been made by the Radical press, that the breakdown of the conference' was due to representations made to Mr. Balfoue by the Peers. On the following day Lord Lansdowne's motion was carried after a long discussion in. which Lord Cre\ve very cleverly adhered to the . position that the Government would act without regard to. what the Peers might do in a- positive way with any Bill that might bo submitted.'- A notable feature of Lord L'ansdowne's speech was his citation of Mr. Asquith as a supporter, not only of joint sittings for tho solution of deadlocks,,but of the Referendum. Mr. Asquith, Lord Lansdowke reminded tho House, had said: "The Referendum might possibly be the least objectionable means of untying the knot in some extreme and exceptional Constitutional entanglement." The Prime Minister had, moreover, expressed the opinion that the will of. the' people was not always conclusively oxpressed by the majority of opinion in the House of Commons: "It may be 'that'representatives of the people in a particular case have mistaken the terms of their authority. It may again bo that the majority by which a narticular measure is. passed through this Holise is so small, or so obviougly casual and heterogeneous, that it really ought not to be treated as expressing the considered judgment of the nation." Me. Asquith has since, declared his abandonment of these opinions, but tho Referendum is still likely to play an important part in the settlement of the difficulty if the Irish" question cannot be got rid of through a new conference. . ■