THE REFORM OF THE LORDS.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1092, 3 April 1911, Page 5

THE REFORM OF THE LORDS.

SPEECH BY LORD ROSEBERY. By Telegraph—Press Association—Oopyriefct London, March 31. Lord Rosebery, in a speech in tho Uouso of Lords on Lord Lansdowne's resolution, said he opposed constitutional reform emanating from private sources. Reform of the Lords need ilot necessarily be revolutionay, but might be beneficent. However, tho Government's action was revolutionary in proposing to sweep away a House coeval in antiquity with the House of Commons without substituting provision for the slightest check or control of the Commons. Tho overseas delegates from the Commonwealth would have the spectacle of a Government which endowed them with the bicameral system seeking to destroy its own. Settlement of the question should be by co-operation of the great parties, not by a one-sided revolution. Lord Rosebery argued that the Government ought to introduce a Bill—it alone being able to carry such a measure —reforming tho Houso of Lords. The Government was not entitled to infer from the general election that the country approved of tho Obliteration of the Second Chamber without substituting another, and announcement of the Government's intentions CDuld not long be delayed.