BRITISH POLITICS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 811, 8 March 1910, Page 3

BRITISH POLITICS.

London, March 5

In the course of a speech at a banquet to himself and Sir Frederick Banbury, Mr Balfour stated that the past Parliamentary fortnight bad demolished the glowing picture painted by the enthusiastic brush of Radical journalists. The Government’s own followers charged Ministers with every sort ot tergiversation, and the breach of clearest pledges. “ We have seen,” he continued, “weekly changes of plans of surrender. If the original pledge consisted of insisting at the very beginning of the session on the Sovereign giving constitutional guarantees it is so scandalous that any device might be justified to enable the Government to get out of it. The constituencies have justified the Lords’ action. The Ministers are unable to pass the Budget.” He went on to say that he wanted not a better but a stronger Second Chamber; not another House of Commons, or too strong a Chamber which might arrogate to itself, as some Second Chambers did, the powers of an immediately representative Chamber. It should, however, be powerful enough to resist temporary gusts of opinion, and should represent perhaps more accurately than the House of Commons the permanent wishes of the nation.

The Radicals did not desire social reform, but resolution. Social reforms were complicated and necessarily gradual, and could not possibly run side by side with revolution. The Government’s policy involved a revolutionary, an anti-revolutionary struggle.

Would the country sit down under the Single Chamber system ? The Socialists, Radicals, and Nationalists were not going to be. in power for ever. One revolution would breed another. The abolition of the veto was said by Mr Redmond to mean Home Rule, and Home Rule meant Irish import duties and Customs barriers.

Mr Balfour proceeded to say that Britain’s delay with fiscal reform was forcing Canada to make commercial treaties with foreign countries in ignorance as to whether Britain would adopt some possible preference system with Canada.

He would like to see Tariff Reform, but whether such reform would be the future policy or otherwise, the old system was gone never to retuan, largely owing to the present Government’s pressure of expenditure. A Treasury Temporary Borrowing Bill has been read a third time.

During the debate, Lord Hugh Cecil, in answering Mr Asquith’s remark that a great majority of the people regarded it as incredible that the Lords should reject the Budget, recalled Mr Lloyd - George’s remark about the “rattrap.” Mr Stanley Wilson reminded the House of Commons that Lord Ribblesdale, a Government supporter, had described Mr LloydGeorge as half pantaloon and half highwayman. The Speaker objected to such offensiveness, but said he was unable to compel withdrawal because quotations from speeches in the other House were frequently used during the election. Mr Wilson explained that he mentioned it because Mr LloydGeorge’s methods in the House and country had produced the present situation.

Mr Lloyd-Georgc declared that the Government would not accept the responsibility of using demand notes fur income tax which they were not prepared toenfore. They were prepared to receive any income tax voluntarily. If the Government sent' to the Flou;e of Lords a Bill for a single tax, the Government would surrender the right gained when Mr Gladstone in 1861 circumvented the House of Lords by putting the taxes in one Bill, which the Lords must accept or reject as a whole. Lord Courtney, speaking at the New Reform Club, stated that though the , majority were returned with a mandate to curb, restrain, aud limit the power of the House of Lords, the mandate carried no absolute direction to carry through any Bill which embodied the late Sir Henry CampellBauuerman’s resolution.

[The principle of passing a disputed measure within the life-time of the Parliament was affirmed in the following motion passed by the House of Commons on the motion of the late Prime Minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman : “That in order to give effect to the will of the people, as expressed by their elected representatives, it is necessary that the power of the other House to alter or reject Bills passed by this House should be so restricted by law as to secure that within the limit of a single Parliament the final decision of the Commons shall prevail.”] Mr Redmond, addressing the London Irishmen, said the last election was paid for by the American Irish, and the coming election must be paid for by the Irish at home and in Great Britain.

Lord Lansdowne, Leader of the Opposition, in the House of Lords, has given notice ot motion to inquire regarding the Government delay in the production of the Budget.