500 NEW PEERS?

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1169, 3 July 1911, Page 5

500 NEW PEERS?

THE ROYAL PREROGATIVE.

;abinet threatens lords with

ITS EARLY USE,

NO DELAY ON VETO BILL.

By Telfieranh—rres9 Association-Ooßyriclit

(Roc. July 2, 5.5 p.m.)

London, July I.

The "Daily News," the most proruiuent Liberal daily, declares that it has liigli Ministerial authority for statiug that the. Cabinet has reached a united decision to employ tho Royal prerogative and create new Peers to carry tho Parliament Bill at the earliest possiblo moment unless the Peers drop their amendments to Clauso I of the Bill.

London, June 30. Tlie House of Lords discussed the quesion of "tacking" in connection with the Parliament Bill. Lord Haldane, Secretary of State for War, expounding the Government new, stated though Mr. Asquith had _ defied "tacking" as including in a financial Bill extraneous provisions directed at social and political ends, he had never suggested that a Money Bill must not bo devoted to 6iich purposes. Lord Cromer's proposed clause was finally adopted by 192 votes to IS. Tho clause empowers a joint committee of the • two Houses to sit in judgment on Finance Bills, and to set asido for tho euprcmo veto any Bill whoso governing purpose brings it within the category of general legislation. Three Conservative Peers, Lords Nelson, St. Aldwyn, and Lytton, voted with the | Government.

THE PEERS' LAST RESOURCS. A DEADLOCK WITH NO KNOWN WAY OUT.

It has 'been generally understood that in the event of the rejection or amendment of the Veto Bill by the House of Lords, the Liberals will advise the King to create a number of Peers—variously estimated at from 300 to 500-sufficient to carry the measure. Discussing the situation a month or two ago, "A Constitutional Lawyci," in the "Morning Post," pointed oul that the King's power of cicating peeiages is unlimited, but that before attaining the full legislative rights of his peerage, each new Peer must bo accepted by the House of Lords with the usual formalities. In 185G the House refused to admit Lord AVcnslcvdale, an eminent lawyer, as a life Peer, and the Government yielded. The writer suggests that if the Peers arc determined to fight to the end they may use this resource. He udds: "It is clear that il the King created five hundred Peers, each one of them would have, constitutionally, as good a right to sit and vote in the House as any Peer already there. Therefore, any such procedure as that followed in tho Wensleydale case would be 'unconstitutional. But it would be legally unassailable, and therefore there would be nothing (short ot some tricli 01 even a coup d'etat, or physical violence) to prevent the present Lords excluding the new Peers irom thenHouse. If they took this unprecedented step, no doubt they would justify themselves by saving that Mr. Asquitli s advice was unprecedented, unconstitutional, and to be resisted by all means in their Such a deadlock could not bo solved by any known constitutional method.