The Daily News. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 1.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 303, 1 February 1910, Page 4

The Daily News. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 1.

THE lIOME ELECTIONS. The results of the Home elections are now available. With only seven results to come, the Liberals lead with 273; the Unionists' strength is 271, the Nationalists' 72, Laboi's' 39, and Independent Nationalists' 8. There is a big difference between the constitution of the new Parliament and the old one. The position of the parties in the latter was —Liberals 380, Unionists 107, Nationalists 83. and Labor 34. Tire Liberals therefore had a clear hundred majority over all other parties. With the Nationalist and Labor vote they had a majority of 33G. In the present Parliament, the Government will be dependent for -its existence upon ;ho Nationalists. Without taking into consideration the seven seats the results ■ of which are not "to hand as we write, the strength of the Liberal-Labor fori.es will be 312 against the Oppositions'" 271. The Nationalists are therefore masters of the situation, and will be in a position to dictate terms upon which their support of the Government is to maintained. - " It is an inconclusive state of affaire. It would have been more satisfactory if either the Conservatives or the Liberals possessed an absolute majority. The Liberals went to the country upon the following issues:—The absolute control of the House of Commons over finance, the effective limitation and curtailment of the legislative pew«rs of the L<ords, and the maintenance of free trade. The Unonists' platform was tariff reform and anti-Budget. The Liberal policy was supported r.y the Labor Party, whilst in regard 10 the control of public finance by the Commons and the clipping of the wings of the Lords, the Liberal programme was supported by the Nationalist and Independent parties. So far as these issues are concerned, the country has emphatically declared in their favor. On the tariff question, everything depends upon the attitude of the representatives of Ireland. They are on the box seat, and can determine the question either way. The probability is that an understanding will be arrived at between the Government and the Nationalists, the effect of which will he to leave the fiscal question in abeyance or "side-track" it altogether, and proceed to give effect to the Government policy in regard 10 the Lords, Home Rule, and the social legislation as incorporated in the Budget. Judging from what the Premier said last week, no time will be lost in dealing with the powers of the Lords. Everything else is subsidiary; to that consideration.

In his famous speech at the Albert Hall just after the dissolution, the Premier gave an indication of the intentions of the Government in this respect. Said he:—"l tell you quite plainly, and I tell my fellow-country-men outside, that neither I nor any other Liberal Minister supported by a majority of . the . House of Commons are going to submit again to the rebuffs , and humiliations of the last four yea.-s. We shall not assume office, and we shall not hold office, unless we can secure the safeguards which experience shows to be necessary for the legislative utility and honor of the party of progress. You will be told, and you have been told it already."that the issue lies between government by two Chambers and government by a single Chamber. It is not the case. I myself, and I believe a large majority of the Liberal Party, are in favor of what is called the bi-cameral system. I see nothing inconsistent with democratic principle or practice in a Second Chamber as such. On the contrary, I see much practical advantage tEat might result from the existence, side by sidte with the House of Commons, of a body, not, indeed, of co-ordinate authority, but suitable in numbers and by its composition to exercise the powers of revision, amendment, fuller deliberation, and, subject to proper safeguards, of delay. Those are both useful and dignified functions. Yes, but we have got to deal with a pressing and an immediate necessity." The Premier went on to say: "Our present conditions gives us all the drawbacks, with few, if any, of the advantages, of a Second Chamber. For what is our actua.l Second Chamber? It is a body which has no pretensions or qualifications to foe the organ or jfhe interpreter of the popular will. It is a body on which one party in the State is in possession of a permanent and overwhelming majority. It is a body whic'a, as experience has shown, is in temper and action frankly, nakedly partisan. It is a body which does not attempt to ezerfiisp any kind of effective control over the legislation of the other House when its own party is in a majority there, It is g, .body which, when the conditions are reversed, however clear and em" verdict of the country has been, sets is*." inulilafre and to destroy democratic legislation, 3lltl even in these latter days it lays a usurping hand on democratic finance. That Is a plain, literal, unvarnished picture of what everyone knows to be the fact. We are not going to ask the country to give us authority to apply an effective remedy to these intolerable conditions. Here again, what is to be done will have to foe done by Act of Parliament; the timG for unwritten convention has, unhappily, gone by. We are not, as I have said, proposing the abolition of the House of Lords or setting up a single Chamber, but we are going to ask the electors that the House of Lords shall foe confined to the proper functions of a Second Chamber which I enumerated a 'few minutes ago. The absolute veto it at present possesses must go. The power that it claims from time to time of in effect compelling us to choose between a dissolution and, as far as our main projects are concerned, legislative sterility—that power must go also. The people in future when they elect a new House of Commons must foe able to feel what they cannot feel now, that they are sending to Westminster men who will hare the power not merely of proposing and debating but of making laws. The will of the people as deliberately expressed by their elected representatives must, within the limits of a life-time of a single Parliament, foe made effective." With the Government back into power, even though with a diminished following, some exciting times are in 6tore for the Old Country. It goes withont saying that the course of events will foe followed with much interest by the people of the colonies, who, happily, are in possession of the rights and privileges the Liberals are contending for. :!;111