BRITISH POLITICS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 934, 22 December 1910, Page 4

BRITISH POLITICS.

London, Dec. 19. The following are the latest election returns ; Government ... 395 Opposition ... 271 Seats not decided ... 2 Government majority 123 The Government figures are made up as follows ; Liberals ... 270 Labour ... 43 Redmondites ... 73 O’Brienites ... 9 Total ... 395 Polling takes place to-day at Wick and in two Irish constituencies, where the Redmondites are expected to be elected, and these complete the election. The Labour pat ty is disappointed at learning that the Government intends postponing legislation respecting the Osborne judgment until 1912. The party intends to proceed with its own Bill at the earliest moment, and if read a second time will insist on facilities being given to carry it through, threatening, in the event of refusal, to withhold support on the Budget. Mr Ramsay MacDonald, speaking at Leicester, said he thought it unlikely, but if Mr Asquith or any Government was induced by any of the high authorities to accept as a bargain that certain measures should be submitted to a referendum in return for the Lords’ surrendering the Veto, the Labour party would fight them tooth and nail. The referendum proposal was anti-democratic as it was impossible to submit to a referendum all details of a given measure.

Mr O’Brien, speaking at Westport, said the defeat of his party was due to most incredible ignorance and most shameless corruption. He demanded a Parliamentary enquiry revealing the whole history of corrupt relations with Dublin Castle and the whole story of Mr Dilliou’s relations with the Castle.

The Times, in an article on the Imperial Conference, states that Australia properly wishes to press the principal of international arbitration and the terms of the declaration of London. On both questions she will find Canada supporting her. They indicate the immediate necessity of devising means whereby the opinion of the Dominions may make itself ielt in conducting Imperial relations with foreign Powers. “The voice must be the Empire’s, not Britain’s.”

New Zealand, the Times continues, urges the creation ot an Imperial Council. Everything, however, depends on its form. The journal doubts whether the Council, even with purely advisory powers, would prove to be in consonance with Australian and Canadian ideas. The need is not for deliberation by a central authority, which would seem in some sense to impair the autonomy of the existing Cabinet, but rather for machinery for a thorough and rapid personal exchange.