BRITISH POLITICAL SITUATION

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 296, 9 May 1911, Page 5

BRITISH POLITICAL SITUATION

SrEECH BY MR. ASQUITH. By Oable--Press Association—Copyright. London, May 7. Mr. Asquith, speaking at Manchester, declared that the Government was firmly carrying out the work entrusted to it at the general election. Had the party been master of its own house primary education would ere now have rested on a genuinely national basis, and the evils of the licensing system have been removed. He hoped that Mr. LloydGeorge's great insurance scheme would be canvassed, revised and perfected jointly bv the loyal efforts of all men, of all creeds and all parties. Referring to the veto, lie declared that the Unionists had abandoned their attitude of passive resistance to all change. The Tories had, in fact, thrown the House of Commons and their records to the wolves, and, seized with revolutionary fervor, favored proposals for reducing the House of Commons to the level of a debating society. No Liberal statesman ruled out the possible use of the referendum as a conceivable instrument for solving an otherwise unsolvable situation, but were they going to make representation merely gladiatorial, saying to the House of Commons: "You are pawns on the chess board. Whatever you decide must return to us for ratification or disapproval." "If this is done," added Mr. Asquith, "von will no longer get the same men to represent you, and you will be destroying representative government." It was tolerably certain that it would be possible to get the Parliament Jill' through the House of Lords to-morrow without the least difficulty of any sort if they would agreed that it should not apply to Home Rule.