The Daily News THURSDAY, DECEMBER 9. THE CONSTITUTION REVOLUTION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 260, 9 December 1909, Page 2

The Daily News THURSDAY, DECEMBER 9. THE CONSTITUTION REVOLUTION.

Xow that the House of Lords has foived a dissolution by rejecting the Finance Bill, observers are the better able to weight the merits of the conllictiiig 'iolitieal and constitutional interests. One thing stands out, however, above all else, and that is that the heredim>v House has usurped a function that they should never be allowed again to e.te.cise—to defy the absolute authority ot the elected representative of U'.e

people. With regard to the fiscal administration, it needs 110 political seer to see that had the taxation proposals ill Mr. Lloyd-Ueorgc's Budget not touelied so smartly the pockets of the wealthy and privileged classes, Luc Lords would never have troubled to force a revolution in the interests ol any other class. In his famous Newcastle speech, Mr. Lloyd-George declared:— "If there is oue thing more tiian another better established aoout the British Constitution it is this, th.it the House of Commons, and the Coin uioii6 alone, have the complete control of supply and ways and means. And what our fathers established through centuries of struggle and of

strile, we are not going to be traitors to. . . . They (the Lords) are fOi'Cing a revolution. Though the Lords imay decree a revolution it is the people who will direct it." And tllat revolution having been forced, the Government is leading its forces into battle armed with the most formidable and popular political ammunition—a policy pulsating with human sympathies—that has cveu been ottered ihe

electors of Great Britain. There will be two outstanding issues on which, in the main, the election .should be decided. The Liberals stand for free trade and taxation of the landlords and monopolies; the Conservatives for fiscal reform. The fate of the House of Lords also hangs in the balance, and therein lies the issue that may make the diction of 1910 a turning point in British

history. It is utterly impossible that a House of titled dignitaries, not responsible to the people for their actions, an be allowed to oppose the will of the people as expressed by the Government in power, as has ueen the ease with regard to all the main questions of Liberal policy during the last three years.

Such a position is utterly at variance with the spirit of the tunes, and tfith the true functions of a revising leg'olative chamber. The success "f ihe Liberals at the polls will almost certainly mean the revising of the Constitution, and in that, revision there is little, doubt the hereditary privileges in the Peers are doomed, fn whatever manner the House of Lords is reformed, it may be taken for granted that it will be brought into close touch with the ■people. On the other issues before the electors, it cannot be doubted that New Zealanders view with much approbati m •the preferential trade proposals of the I nioiiists, but we think our people as a whole arc broad-minded enough to .-ink their own desires in the interests of social amelioration of the masses of tile Mother Country. New Zealanders linl it difficult to follow the Unionists in their scathing denunciation of wh.it they term the socialistic features of 'lie Budget, for just such principles a* av proposed to be introduced into England by Mr. Lloyd-George's controversial measure have long been the law of the land in New Zealand, and cannot be to work otherwise than well. Take graduated taxation, for instance. On arge incomes the British Finance Bill iroposed to increase the tax slightly— 1 threepence in the pound, for exam pie, >n an income of £6OOO. In New Z.iaand the tax jumps up sixpence in l! <■ lound after the first £IOOO of taxable nconic, and the people are content, tfr. Lloyd-George proposes that on estates exceeding £SOOO death duties are o Be somewhat increased. The pres mt calc of graduated death duties in Icaland has been in force since. !8:!.i, I nd the principle is recognised as Fair' hat the larger estates should coulvi- I'

utc in greater proportion to the i-<- I enue. An innovation in the British lill is the proposed tax 011 the tineam-1 J increment of land: Of the futirel

rise ,in the value of real estate on»fifth ia to go to the State, while im]>roveinents made by the tenant mil falling to the landlord at the end of tie lease are taxed ten 'per cent. Rem,>lll- - that the Upper Chamber of Parliament is "a house of landlords," its members owning a fourth of the soil of England—the average holding of a l)ul;e ni'ing 140,00n acres, of a Marquis 47 WO '

I acres, of an Earl 311/100 acres, of a ;• Viscount nnd a Baron about 15 000 a.. r «s | —it is easv to understand the ci>n«crvativ:- furv with which I he Uiulixot has been ■issaileil. Not milv till' pockets, hut the pride is at stake. The owner "hip of land has for centuries in Kimland lieen the foundation of social standing anil Tiolitica! influence. Whatever is done,'therefore, to encounye subdivision is a blow at the aristocratic I ' lf society; hence tlic*fenr of -in entirely new civilisation if'the Win ,1-1 fieorge ideals But the people will have no fear 0" the fate of Rn"bniil under the new conditions that the 1 Jnyd-fieorgc ideals will bring to nass! An appeal, such 11s he made nt T\r»w-1 castle, must prevail, and for the '-ilti-l mate benefit of all classes. "Who, ' hj«

asked, "ordained that a few should h.ive the land of Britain flfi a perquisite, who made ten thousand people owners of tha soil, and the rest of us trespassers in the land of our birth 1 Who is it—wno is responsible—for the scheme of tilings whereby one man is engaged through life in grinding to win a hare and precarious subsistence for himself, and, when at the end of his (lays he damn

at i lie hands of the community lie sewed a poor pension of eightpcnce a day, lie can only gr t it through a revolution; I nnil another man, who does not toil, re-

ceives everv hour of the day, every ho:tr of the night whilst he slumbers, move than his poor neighbor received ill a whole year of toil? Where did the table ot the law come from? Whose finder inscribed it?" These are the questiris that will lie asked. The answers -are charged with -peril for the order of thing* the Peers represent, but they .ire fraught with rare and refreshing 'fruit for the parched lips of the people of the Old Country.

ON FIRST AND FOURTH PAGES. Sporting. Commercial. The Pianola, lhatriet News. Shipping News. Correspondence. The Land Proposals.