Liberal v Unionist.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 20 June 1910, Page 4

Liberal v Unionist.

A RETROGRADE LIBERAL

Sir Oliver Lodge declinled, for the firslfc time in his life, to .support the Liberal candidate for Edinlburgh South, and thus defended his action : "I hold very strongly .that neither the present House'f Lords lUoi a reformed Second Chamber cant be allowed 'the power of rejecting "en bloc" the financial proposals of itiho responsible Government, and tlnus forcing either a resignation or an immediate dissolution. To the financial veto, «s exercised in the last Parliament by the House of Lords, lam resolutely opposed. At the same time I think there must be adequate safeguards provided against the temptation to resort to tacking.' Hut the second resolution seems to me of infinitely greater importance thnit the first. It is based upon the 'often repeated formula that 'tthe will of the House of Commons shall prevail during; the lifetime of a single Parliament.' To that formula I have the mosfb heart-felt objections. To my mind it strikes ait the root of constitutional government and of naftion.a'l security. It gives to the Hou.se of Lords tho maximum power of obstruction and tlve minimum of utility. Tts acceptance as a Law would give rise to ludicrous iniconsisltence of procedure, which would make oui Constitution the laugliing-stock,. as is was once the model, of the world. And it would stand permanently in the way of any adequate reconstruction of ithe Second Chamber, because the men who should rightly find seats in it woidd refuse to take part in an assembly with such maimed and mutilated powers. I admit that even iw ordinary legislation tho 'powers of'the Second Chamber should not be equivalent to those of the House of Commons. But a.t tho very minimum those nowers must include the right, whether by rejection or by vital amendment, to postponie a in en sure over a General Election. Tin's does not, like the rejection of a Finance Bill, involve on immediate aippeal to the conn.tirv. A measure which was carried by the Commons in two successive Parliaments should, as T apprehend would be the case even .now, be accepted bv the Second Chamber as a. malbtei of course. Tam mot without hopes that ultimately a compromise on. these lines may be accepted by both ■parties.