BRITISH POLITICS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 268, 3 April 1911, Page 5

BRITISH POLITICS

THE SHOPS BILL. By Cable—Press Association—Copyright. London, March 31. In the House of Commons the Shops Bill was read a second time. In the House of Lords, Lord Rosebery, discussing Lord Lansdowne's address to the King, argued that the Government ought to introduce it, being alone able to carry a Bill reforming the Lords. The Government was not entitled to infer from the general election that the country approved the 1 obliteration of the second chamber without substituting another, and the announcement of its intentions could net long be delayed. Lord Rosebery said he was opposed to constitutional reform emanating from private sources. He considered that the reform of the House of Lords need not necessarily be revolutionary, but might be beneficent. The Ciovernment's action was revolutionary in sweeping away a House which was coeval with the House of Commons, and not substituting the slightest check on the control of the House of Commons. He further said that overseas delegates from the Commonwealth would have the spectacle of the Government which had endowed them with the bicameral system seeking to destroy their own. The settlement of the question should be by the co-operation of the great parties, riot by a one-sided revolution. PENSIONS FOR COLONIAL GOVERNORS. London, March 31. A Bill introduced by Mr. Ilobhousc, Financial Secretary of the Treasury, to amend the Colonial Governors' Pensions Act, provides for pensions to Colonial Governors on their completing ten years' service and attaining the age of sixty, or retiring owing to ill-health, the pensions not to exceed C.1300.