POWER OF VETO.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3069, 14 December 1908, Page 5

POWER OF VETO.

CABLE NEWS.

United Press Association—Bv Electric Telegraph Copyright.

MR ASQUITH AND THE LORDS. THE POWER OF FINANCE TO BE A LEVER. WHAT "THE TIMES" BELIEVES. A DISSOLUTION WOULD BE PRECIPITATED. Received December 13, 4.15 p.m. LONDON, December 13. Mr Asquith, addressing - the National Liberal Club, invited the Liberal Party to treat the power of veto possessed by the House of Lords as a dominating issue, but nevertheless strenously declined, except in a great constitutional emergency, to accept dictation by an irresponsible assembly regarding the proper moment to dissolve. He declared thft finance was a potent and flexible instrument, and added:—"The next Budget will stand at the very centre of our work, by wh ch, I was going to say, we shall stand or fall, and by which we siall certainly be judged and estimated by present generations and posterity. In finance wa may possibly be found partially solving in some directions what under existing cunsttutionai conditions are otherwise insoluable problems."

"The Times" infers a reservation for an emergency, and that Mr Asquith apprehends that his threatened applications of the power of finance to solve social problems are such that the Lords may possibly be driven to resist the Budget Bill itself, and that would mean a stoppage of supplies, and an inevitable dssoSuton.