THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1909. THE LORDS AND THE COMMONS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9656, 22 November 1909, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1909. THE LORDS AND THE COMMONS.

A General Election in England, at latest in January, is now generally accepted, fur it is held that the Lords will throw out the Budget. Ihey will, it is said, adopt "a reasoned amendment," declaring that the Budget is so "revolutionary in principle and intention that the House of Lords must withhold their assent, until the will of the people has been ascertained." This supreme controversy goes straight forward to the polls, says the London "Observer," and in a matter of weeks it will be decided at a General Election, the gravest and the greatest known for more than two hundred years. AH—all—that the name of England means is at stake in this argument. The mas3es are free. They have a tsrrible freedom. Nothing but their own will can bind them. They may have Socialism or anarchism if they please. They may have any "ism" they like. But let them say if they like it. Only England can work out her own salvation, but she must have the chance to do it. But let us have no illusions, adds the "Observer " The coming elections will be contested with a fierceness, a bitterness, corresponding to the unparalleled magnitude of the issue; and to meet and beat the desperate methods of the demagogues will require, as it will arouse, the utmost efforts of the nation . . . The Budget means

the suicide of Liberalism. Between the Unionists on one side and the pure Socialists on the other, what is still called Liberalism can never hope again to possess a clear majority of the House of Commons. That, as j Lnrd Rosebery sees, means its doom. Afl an independent force it is finished. "Tlae entire force of the Protectionist party has been thrown into the opposition to the land taxes, which, if they were submitted to a plebiscite |of British and Irish voters, would be carried by an overwhelming majority, including, we suspect, nine out of ten Tory workmen," writes the "Nation." "No such passionate pilgrimage has been set up in Tory politics since the Corn Laws were overthrown. It is inevitable, therefore, that when the Dukes, having destroyed the Budget, turn round to advocate Protection thiy will be met by a universal shout: 'You pretend thai jon want to tax the foreigner; now we know that it ia yo:ir own backs that you want to spare, ai.d i turs that t ou want 10 Liuden; our

food, our clothes, our savings a ici

businesses. And you have used your own voten in your own House to bring about this rtsalt, and t) put up an . everlasting barrier ngainit all fatura | schemes for taxing your rents a d \ royalties.' "lhat is a petfe.-tly j truthful issue, and it is th-3 on | which we are going to sweep the i country." Tha "Westminster G.-iz- | ette" points out what a vital Constitutional issue will be raised if the Lords reject the Bud-t-it. "An unwritten Coi.stit Hioii lias ma iy ndit aays, "si 1 <)S liu silent compact bet-re/i ,ts differt-i t parts is presetved, Bnt it has tuts great disadvantage that practically Site whole of it becomes invalid if this j truce is not observed. With there- > jection of a Bu-'get by the Lords we suffer not the slight lvaction to which ali communities are liab e, lut a return by a leap to the cotidi.tiuns of 300 years ago, when it had still to be decided who possess d the poser of the purse in this country. Suppose a Tory GovLrnment came back to power, it wouid no doubt for a short spell hold the question in abeyance by a policy congenial tj the Petrs. But the conflict would only be postponed for a brfcf space, and t..e whole community would live in the knowledge that the question was in ' suspense, and must be the subject of a shaking conflict in the near future. When the question is once raised, there is but one "way of safety which, we believe, the public I will take, and that is to decide at once and in the most decisive manner that they mean the Commons to be supreme. But let it not be forgotten that the rejection of the Budget will mean that the unwritten Constitution has broken down, and from that moment we shall have to set to work to provide ourselves with a written Constitution which will give the existing customs the force of law." Mr Frederic Harrison, in a very serious letter to "The Times," also points out the great issues. "Lord Roaebery," he writes, "said that 'the destinies of Great are in the melting pot. 1 "Be this as it may, the British Constitution as a whole would then be in the melting pot; for put a bit of it on the fire and leave, the rest quite cool outside. If by the rejection of the Finance Bill a constitutional struggle I is opened over an institution so unde- , fined, so antique, so curiously com- ■ pounded, as is our secular Palladium of'Kinsr, Lords, and Commons,' the struggle cannot be strictly limited Jto the language of any particular ! clause, nor to any one of the three great sanctioning sources of all our law. It is forgotten that the real i issue in such a crisis will be—not Mr Lloyd George's Bill, but the veto of the Peers. The Budget will become a secondary issue. The primary issue before the people will be the claim of a hereditary Chamber to decide what the nation's taxation shall be —or shall not be. That question raises acutely the whole problem of the hereditary principle in legislation. When Lords and Commons begin to fight it out in earnest, it would be a miracle if the Crown were to re- ' main unconcerned, indifferent, and unscathed. Rejecting the Finance Bill means the recasting of the Upper House; and recasting the House of Lords opens the entire problem of a Constitutional Code." It is evident j that no mean issue is before the English people.