THE HOUSE OF LORDS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 802, 22 January 1910, Page 2

THE HOUSE OF LORDS.

The British elections are the allabsorbing topic of interest throughout the Empire, and it is interesting to read English press criticisms from files just to hand of the action of the House of Lords in rejecting the Budget, which has led up to the present election. The Times’ comment on Lord Eansdowne’s motion is that “ the House of Lords is not going to dictate in any way, or .ev#n tg suggest to the

country what its financial arrangements should be. It is asked simply to decline the responsibility of passing a measure of an extraordinary kind, without an assurance which it does not now possess that the country desires its affairs to be treated in that particular way. By giving effect to Lord Lansdowue’s motion it will declare that its unwritten permanent mandate under our unwritten Constitution does not cover the emergency that has now arisen, and that it is therefore obliged to refer the matter to the ultimate authority from which both Houses of Parliament derive their powers. Its attitude is, therefore, essentially modest and democratic, while the attitude which the Liberals are now abusing it for not assuming is essentially arrogant and oligarchic.” The Daily Chronicle, however, regards it as “an act of war.” “ The House of Lords has decided to declare war on the represenattive principle,” it writes. “That is the plain meaning of the motion for the rejection of the Budget, of which Lord Lansdowne gave notice last evening. A hereditary Chamber, responsible to nobody, representing only an aristocratic caste and territorial interests, has the supreme audacity to assail the House of Commons in the very centre of its majesty 'and pride. All that is glorious in the age-long struggle for British freedom is embodied in the control which that great assembly has over the national purse. Without that control the House of Commons is shorn of all its pride. It becomes a tinkling brass and a sounding symbal. Never before, since the Revolution of 1688, has that control been even questioned. Tory and Liberal statesmen have treated it as a cardinal principle of the constitution, and, as such, inviolable. For over 300 years no Budget passed by the House of Commons has failed to be clothed with statutory form.” The Daily News declares that Lord Lansdowire's motion means rejection. It means that the House of Lords is doing in the twentieth century what no House of Lords has ever done in any other century. It means that the unbroken tradition of unnumbered generations and the declarations of Conservative leaders repeated through 200 years down to the declaration of Mr Balfour himself only last 3 r ear, are to be trodden underfoot. It means that the central principle of the Constitution, the sole control of finance by the Commons, is to become ‘legal pendantry’ and ‘futile antiquarianism.’ ”