BRITISH ELECTIONS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 215, 20 December 1910, Page 5

BRITISH ELECTIONS

LLOYD-GEORGE'S RHETORIC.

By Cable—Frees Association—Copyright. London, December 18. Mr. Ormsby Gore (Unionist), who was elected for Denbigh, protests against Mr. Lloyd-George's speech at Denbigh, in which he said it was better that a man's right arm should be paralysed than that he should vote for Mr. Gore.

PLURAL VOTING. London, December 18. The Master of Elibank declares, on ithe authority of Mr. Asquith, that the Government will propose a Bill abolishing plural voting. THE SPECTATOR'S VIEWS. j London, December 18. The Spectator considers that both parties will be disappointed at the result of the elections, but each holds an important card. It will be desirable to settle the Parliament Bill by an agreement arrived at by means of private talks, not by formal conferences. THE OSJ3QRNE JUDGMENT. ; THREAT FROM LABORITES. Received 10, 9.16 p.m. London, December 19. The Labor Party is disappointed at learning that the Government intends postponing legislation in connection with the Osborne judgment until 1312. The party intends to proceed with its own Bill at the earliest moment, and if it is read a second time, will insist on facilities to carry it through, threatening, in the event of refusal, to withhold its support on the Bndget. MR. O'BRIEN'S REVILINGS. Received 19, 10.40 p.m. London, December 19. Mr. O'Brien, at Westport, said his defeat was due to most incredible ignorance and most shameless corruption. He demanded a Parliamentary enquiry, revealing the whole history of the corrupt relations with Dublin Castle, and the whole story of Mr. Dillon's relations with the castle. LABOR AND THE REFERENDUM. Received 19, 11 p.m. London, December 19. Mr. Ramsay Macdonald, speaking at Leicester, said he thought it unlikely that sueh a thing should be, but if Mr. Aeqnith or any Government was induced by any 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 Labor Party would fight them tooth and nail. The referendum was anti-demo-cratic, for it was impossible to submit to a referendum all the details of a given measure.

THE LAST HOUSE OF COMMONS. The House of Commons, which was recently dissolved, was elected in January of the present year. The strength of parties was as under:— Ministerialists 397 Conservatives 273 Liberal majority 124 A COMING REVOLUTION. Says a writer in the Manawatu Times: I happened to be speaking this week to a man who has had much experience of English election organisation, and on asking him why Britain retained the extremely objectionable system of dragging the election struggle over three weeks to the complete upsetting of the country and the building up of terrible bitterness, instead of following the colonial method Of holding the whole of the elections on one day, he said it was in order to give men the opportunity of exercising their votes. One man may have quite a number of votes, he said, and it is the business of the party agent to see that he uses them. Say a man has seven or eight votes, he has got to get about from, electorate to electorate to use them, and if you had the election all on one day he couldn't do it—which seems to be about one of the strongest arguments for holding them all on one day I have come ' across. In Wellington also I met a wellknown merchant just back from the Old Country. He is a pretty shrewd man, and the conclusion he had come to after going about a good deal and listening to all sides, was that there will be something approaching a revolution in England before very long. "The dignity has gone out of politics,' he said. "There are very clever men in public life, but they appear to lack solidity and seriousness. Sir. Balfour is not the fighting leader that is needed on his side. The British public still loves a Lord, but the hereditary system is doomed. The Territorial volunteers are a failure, and yet the leaders are afraid to introduce conscription or compulsory general trailing. And the tremendous expense of armaments will make present methods of revenue-getting inadequate and force them to the Customs. Meantime the British constitutional machine is racked to pieces, and will have to be docked for a complete overhaul, amounting to reconstruction."