REFORM OF THE LORDS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 260, 13 March 1911, Page 5

REFORM OF THE LORDS

"THE VETO MUST GO." DECLARATION BY MR. WINSTON CHURCHILL. By Cable—Press Association —Copyright. Received 12, 5 p.m. London, March 11. Mr. Winston Churohill, speaking at the National Liberal Club, declared that the Liberals intended to subsl : rate for a lop-sided, obsolete second Chamber a more or less evenly constituted House, whose balance would be preserved and corrected from year to year by some effective perennial contract with and relation to public opinion and popular will. "Meanwhile, the veto must go; otherwise wc, the dominant party, will be compelled to plead that while the minority are able to judge we should argue and they would decide." He added: "After the veto is abolished the reform of the Lords will take its place among the most important issues of modern politics." He concluded by foreshadowing that Home Rule, Disestablishment of Wales, abolition of plural voting, settlement of the land question in England and Scotland would be realised in the lifetime of the present Parliament. THE PREMIER AND THE CROWN. A SUGGESTED STRONG HAND. Received 12, 5,5 p.m. London, March 11. Captain Norton, M.P., speaking at West Newington, referring to the Veto Bill, said that nobody was in a position to know what arrangement the Crown had made with the Premier. His firm conviction was that as the Liberal leader was not so mad as to delude liis Government followers or the country, Mr. Asquith had obtained from the Crown whatever guarantees were necessary. He thought the Crown would be loyal to the Constitution, and equal to dealing with the constitutional change demanded by the people. AN.INOCULATION PROPOSAL. AN INJECTION OF HEREDITY. Received 12, 5.5 p.m. London, March 11. Sir J. A. Simon, Solicitor-General, speaking at Wakefield, declared that tlie opponents of the proposals to the reform of the Lords were multitudinous, but all sought to eliminate as a factor of the constitution the power of the Crown to create Peers as a means of overcoming the Peers' obstinacy. The influence of a drug, lie said, was sometimes counter-acted-by the injection of a further f\mtity of the same substance, and '.he Liberals had not surrendered this method-: of neutralising the hereditary legislators by an overdose of heredity. At any rate, until the relations between the two Houses were so altered as to make the Commons effectively predominant, the veto must go first.