The Dominion. THURSDAY, AUGUST 10, 1911. THE BRITISH CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1202, 10 August 1911, Page 4

The Dominion. THURSDAY, AUGUST 10, 1911. THE BRITISH CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS.

The first thing that must strike the unbiased observer in New Zealand of the latest development of the British political.situation is the strangeness of the fact that Mr. Asquith should not have announced long ago the facts that he has disclosed at this hour. There is nothing—not his advice to King Edward in April 1910, nor his advice to King George in November last, nor his Majesty's assurance of his willingness to exercise the Royal prerogative—that might not have been made public long ago. The fact that the disclosure is made now, and made at the request—evidently the original request—of the King, has therefore a special importance. His Majesty, seeing that Mr. Asquith was indisposed to ask him for authority to reveal the negotiations between them, has obviously commanded his Prime Minister to tell the whole story, or at any rate the vital outlines of the whole story. Nobody will have much doubt that his Majesty, rinding himself forced by t'he party exigencies of his Advisers into a most unfortunate position, has been actuated by a strong desire to let his people know that his action has been forcedupori him, and that all the responsibility rests upon Mr. Asquith, who must shoulder it as best he may. - The facts being what they, were— a Liberal Government dependent for office upon the Irish Nationalist vote, and a Unionist Opposition uncertain, and almost hopeless, of being able to secure a majority upon a dissolution—the advice of'the Prime Minister to the King was constitutionally correct. Constitutionally; but there tho correctness ends. Mr. Asquith was naturally interested above all things in the necessity that his Majesty's Government should be carried on (as must have been Mr. Balfour also); but he-was evidently just as deeply concerned that his party should remain in charge at whatovcr cost. His original grievance—and it is a grievance long ago recognised by the Unionists, and recognised and met by the; Lords in their treatment of the Parliament Bill—was that the permanent Unionist majority in the House of Lords was at least a permanent menace to Bills embodying Liberal "social reform." If at the present moment M'R. Asquito accepted the Lords' amendments he would be accepting a Bill that fully met the original grievance. Unfortunately for him, for his reputation, and for the nation, tho two elections of 1910 so placed the parties that Mn. Kkdmond was presented with the balance of power, There was thus reached precisely that condition of parties in which, so the late Mr. Gladstone said over and over again in 1595, a Liberal Government should not attempt to settle the Irish question if it did not wish' to expose to disaster not only Great Britain but the Empire. Had Mn. Gladstone's views guided Mr. Asquith, there is no room for dispute as to (he advice lie would have given his Majesty or as to the attitude he would have taken up. He would in such have regarded as a crime against Great Britain

'and against the Empire the engineering of the Throne into a Home Rule implement. The fact is that the older Liberals in the Cabinet have been overborne liy their demagogic colleagues. Deeply anxious for Liberalism, and deeply anxious for the success of Liberalism through constitutional means, they have yet lost their faith in patience. They have been swept, in their weakness and weariness, into the wild policy of "make or break" that Gladstone or any of the older Liberals \vould_ have repelled. At the time of writing it is impossible to say what will be the actual outcome of the crisis. A phrase in Mr. Asquith's speech suggests the possibility of some compromise even now. But Mn. Redmond still holds the key of the position, and ho dare not give it up. The Government is his puppet, and it must obey him or be ruined. Mn. Churchill has said that Home Rule will bs carried during the present Parliament. This is cither a boast or a threat. If it is only a boast it is a foolish one, for Home Rule cannot bo carried except under the conditions that-GLADSTONE declared would be so disastrous. If it is a threat, then we may expect that the Jacobinism that has replaced the old Liberalism intends to follow up the Parliament Bill with a further special measure to destroy the last barrier of delay that as yet stands in the way of any temporary majority in the House of■ Commons.