PARLIAMENT BILL.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1094, 5 April 1911, Page 5

PARLIAMENT BILL.

AMENDMENT MOVED,

GOVERNMENT PLANS FOR REFORM

QUESTIONED.

REPLY BY MR. ASQUITH.

By Telegraph—Press Association-Copyricht (Rec. April 5, 0.5 a.m.) London, April 4. The House of Commons was crowded to-day, when the committee stage of tho Parliament Bill was reached, and the consideration of the 900 proposed amendments to that measure was begun. The first amendment to be taken -was that of Mr. G. Younger, Unionist member for Ayr Burghs. Mr. Younger proposed to limit the deprivation of tho power of the House of Lords to reject money Bills after three years, on the ground that tho Government should reform the House of Lords, before then. It would bo unreasonable, he contended, to deprive a reformed House of Lords of powers possessed by foreign and colonial Second Chambers. The Opposition taunted tho Government with insincerity on this point. Mr. Asquith, in reply, said that whatever tho changes in the constitution of tho House of Lords, the Commons must retain undisputed supremacy in finance. The people had assented to the Parliament Bill as a ivhole, and the Government was bound in honour to give effect to the preamble in due time. Mr. Balfom, Leader of tho Opposition, declared that ordinary financial work might be left to the House of Commons if tho reconstituted House of Lords was not entirely elective Otherwise it would be ludicrous to deny tho Upper House a voice in finance. Mr. Dalziel, Unionist member for Buxton, said he regarded the preamble to the Bill as a pious opinion. Tho Government was unauthorised, and would Iks ill-advised to make proposals to reconstitute the House of Lords. Mr. Winston Churchill, Homo Secretary, said the Government did not propose to embark on the reconstitution of the House of Lords while tho veto remained unsettled. The preamble to the Parliament Bill reads as follows:— "Whereas it is expedient that provision should be made for regulating the relations between tho two Houses of Parliament; "And whereas it is intended to substituted for tho House of Lords as it at present exists a Second Chamber constituted on a popular instead of hereditary basis, but such substitution cannot bo immediately brought into operation; "And whereas provision will require hereafter to be made by Parliament in a measure effecting such substitution for limiting and defining the powers of the now Second Chamber, but it is expedient to make such provision as in this Act appears for restricting the existing powers of the House of Lords."