AN ULTIMATUM TO THE PEERS.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1187, 24 July 1911, Page 4

AN ULTIMATUM TO THE PEERS.

| To-day's cable messages bring a final announcement that the last possibility of a peaceful settlement of the great political quarrel in Britain has disappeared. Mr. Asquith lias taken the unusual course of issuing a public ultimatum to Mr. Balfour, stating that the Government will reject all the Peers' amendments and will advise, the King, who lias beforehand intimated his readiness to follow the advice, to create a sufficient l*dy of Peers to secure the passage of the Bill in its unamended form. Instead, however, of dealing with the matter at once, it seems, Mr. Asquitii has given the Peers a week in which to make up their minds. This delay is evidence enough of the unwillingness of Mr. Asquith to create his Peers, and will to that extent harden up the House of Lords. There is no certainty as to what the Peers will do, but it'will bo surprising if at this stage they surrender. _ Apparently thoy cannot avert single-Chamber government, but they can at any rale use every means of placing on record the devices to which Mr. Asquith has been forced to resort by the wretched circumstance of his dependence on the Nationalists. By creating his new Peers he can get the Bill through, but a measure that owes its existence to midwifery of that kind will remain, until it is repealed, a reproach to the party that produced it. Already the popularity of the Liberals is waning. The pendulum is swinging again, and, as the Times points out, disaster will corae to Liberalism when the attempt is made to carry out the Nationalists' demands. Surrender now on the part of the Lords will leave them discredited for the future and unable to exercise with confidence or effect the small power of delay left to them. Indeed, to surrender now will leave them unable to resist any proposal even to rob them of the power of delay.