THE BUDGET.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 605, 4 December 1909, Page 3

THE BUDGET.

REJECTED BY THE LORDS. OVERWHELMING MAJORITY. London, Dec. 1. The Budget debate came to an end to-night in the House of Lords and a vote was taken. The motions before the House were Lord Crewe’s motion for the second reading of the Finance Bill and Lord Lansdowne’s amendment : "That this House is not justified in giving its consent to the Bill until it has been submitted to the judgment of the country.” There was an overwhelming majority for the amendment, thus ensuring the rejection of the Liberal Budget. The Peers voted as follows :—For the Amendment, 350; Against, 75. The Bishops of Lincoln voted with the majority, and the Archbishop of York, the Bishops of Birmingham, Chester, and St. Asaph with the minority. The other Jiishops abstained from voting. The figures of the division were received with a slight Unionist cheer. There was a counter cheer and some faint hisses from Commoners seated in the galleries. An attempt was made to create a demonstration outside the House of Lords but it proved a fiasco. THE CONCLUDING SPEECHES. Concluding his speech, Lord Curzon said.: "I am not sure that we could count upon the people getting six or eight mouths’ experience of the Budget. Perhaps the Government is afraid of six months’ and will spring the election upon them.” The Budget, he said, created machinery, and nothing was harder than to disestablish the bureaucracy. If the Lords surrendered they would now be committed to a constitution wherein one Chamber could override the other without appeal to the people. He went further, and said the House had no right to yield to the principle that any measure, however Socialistic and subversive, must be passed if cramped within the Finance Bill. The reason no Finance Bill had been rejected since iB6O was that no Chancellor had submitted one directly challenging the prerogatives of the Lords. Some of them would warmly welcome a constitutional struggle, and he hoped that out of the struggle there would emerge a reformed House of Lords. It might not do so at this election, but be hoped that at a subsequent one the country would be given an unmistakable mandate that a Second Chamber was an essential part ot the constitution, and should continue to be independent, fearless, aud strong. Baron Courtney warned the House that the issue of the election would be wider than they imagined. Their present action would possibly imperil their present powers. The adoption of the referendum to the question of finance introduced an unworkable scheme. Lord Goschen declared there was nothing more injurious to credit than uncertainty regarding the future. The Budget established extravagant machinery to deal with objects alien to the financial needs of the year. In voting for the amendment he occupied a uowise inconsistent position for a Freetrader. Lord Stanmore, as a Freetrader, disassociated himself from Lord Cromer’s abstention policy. RIGHTS PREMIER’S REPLY TO LORDS. London, December 2. In the House of Commons the Prime Minister, Mr Asquith, was received with loud Ministerial cheers when he gave notice to move to-day: "That the action of the House of Lords in refusing to pass into law the financial provision made by the House of Commons for the service of the year was a breach of the Constitution, and an usurpation of the rights of the House of Commons.” The reading of the motion was hailed with a renewal of applause. The Unionist leaders have resolved not to propose an amendment to Mr Asquith’s motion, but to give a direct vote against it. After Mr Asquith’s speech, Mr Austen Chamberlain (formerly Unionist Chancellor of the Exchequer) will express the Opposition’s views, and Mr A, Henderson will express the Labour party’s. The Nationalists will not participate in the division on the resolution. It is generally agreed, irrespective ot party, that in a crisis of such gravity, a prolonged discussion of the constitutional issue would be out of place. Lord Lansdowne has received telegrams from many Unionist Associations throughout the country promising to support the House of Lords in its action. The prorogation of Parliament will take place to-morrow. The Government is arranging to receive, rather than to continue to collect, the new taxes, and the income tax and tea duty, until a new Parliament regularises the situation. The National Liberal Federation in its manifesto, states that the issues involved are as grave as any in the lifetime of the oldest voter. The victory of the Tory party would involve the degradation of the House of Commons, the aggrandisement of the 1 Lords, and a return to protection

with its inevitable taxes on food. The electors have to decide whether they wish to govern themselves or be governed by a few hundred hereditary Peers who have thrown the constitution into the melting pot in order to shift the burden from wealth to the land and from liquor to food necessaries. The Times declares Mr Asquith’s resolution embodies the doctrine of the last four years aud goes much beyond any previous assertion of the privileges of the Commons. By implication it denies the power or right of the Lords to have a voice in any legislation tacked to the Budget. It is only incidentally > that the Lords refused supplies this year. What really has been done is to refer to the country a quantity of legisiation involving novel principles, denying the right of appeal to the Courts of law and establishing an expensive bureaucracy with arbitrary aud inquisitorial powers. Mr Joseph Chamberlain, in a message to the tariff demonstration at Shoreditch, said he was counting on the democracy of the East End to help in the great struggle before the country.