LORDS V. COMMONS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9674, 13 December 1909, Page 5

LORDS V. COMMONS.

ELECTION CAMPAIGN. A DEMONSTRATIVE GATHERING. PRIME MINISTER AT ALBERT HALL. AN IMPORTANT SPEECH. United Vress Association—Electric Telegraph Copyright. Received December 12, 5.5 p.m.* LONDON, December 11. The majority of the members of the Cabinet, and many Liberal Peers and Commoners, supported the Hon. H. H. Asquith (Prime Minis ter), who delivered a speech on the present political situation in the Albert Hall, last night. There was[a crowded and demonstrative gathering of ten thousand, all of whom were men. In the course of his speech Mr Asquith said that at the last election the Liberals reckoned without their host, but they were not going to | make that mistake again. The Liberal Party have now laid them the single task of vindicating and establishing upon an unshakable foundation the principle of representative Government. All the causes for which they had been fighting hung on this, including Education, Welsh Dis-establishment, Licensing and Women's Suffrage. The matter would come before the House of Commons in the next Reform Bill. De spite the deplorable and suicidal excess of a small section of the advocates of women's franchisa the Government had no disposition to burke the suffrage question, .reland was still the one great failure or British statesmanship. Speaking on behalf of hie colleagues Mr Asquith said that the only solution of the matter was a system of self-govern-ment of purely Irish affairs, which would explicitly safeguard the supreme authority of the Imperial i Parliament. The present Government had been disabled in its ad- J vance in proposing this solution, but ) the Liberals' hands in tie new Parliament woulJ be perfectly free. Old pge, said the Prime Minister, was only one of thi hazards to which the industrial population was exposed. Sickness, invalidity and unemployment are spectres always hovering in the horizon "We believe the time has come for the State to lend a helping hand," said Mr Asquith. "This is one of the secrets of the 1909 Budget. It is rightly described aj a Budget which looked beyond the 31st of next March. Only once in living memory had the Lords attempted to touch a single tax imposed by the House of Commons. They had now shattered the whole fabric of the year's taxation." Mr Asquith quoted Mr Joseph Chamberlain's letter to Mr A. J. Balfour's Birmingham meeting to J prove that the Lords' manoeuvre l was to reject the Budget because it J provided an effective substitute—-a j destructive substitute —to tariff le- j form. ! "I tell you plainly," said the Prime Mini-ter, "I tell my country- j manoutsi 'e that neither I nor any | other Liberal Minister is going to submit again to the rebuffs and humiliations passed for years. I see' much practical advantage in a body impartially exercising the pow. rs of revision and amendment subject to proper safeguards, but the absolute veto must go. Tne Governm •< t demand the authority to translate the action of unwritten usage into a Parliamentrv Act'and authority to place upon the Statute Book recognition of the constitutional doctrine that it is beyond the prov ir.ee of the House of Lords to' meddle with . ationa! finance. The will of the people as deliberately expressed by the elected representatives hiust withir. the life of a single Parliament be made effective. That and the reduction of the duration of Parliaments to five years is the Liberal policy." Mr Asquith concluded: "'How do we stand? I hope and trust united ir. all sectional divisions, well fused and combined in a common campaign against a common enemy. We have behind us examples of the ertatc-fet apostles of democracy in our time— Gladstone and Bright. We have to support us memories of the past, needs of the present and hopes of the future. Quit your.-elves like m,en." Mr D. (Chancellor of the Exchequer), in a brief speech, said: —"The subtlest and most potent of human weaknesses, quackery and snobbery is arrayed against us, but we shall bpat both." Mr Winston Churchill, in the course of his speech,said" We have to smash the veto up. If we work together nothing can withstand us."'

UNIONIST MANIFESTO.

Received December 12, 5.5 p.m. LONDON, December 11. Mr A. J. Balfour, Leader of the Unionist Party, has issued a manifesto in the ceurse of which he contends that the Government are claiming that the House of Commons, no matter how elected, should have uncontrolled power over every class of the community without appeal to the community. The present question is not whether the second chamber could resist Wie peoples' declared wishes. In the United States twothirds of a majority was required for a measure like the Budget. Moreover the Senate can reject and the President veto special taxation, The

• present attack on the Lords was i the culmination of a long-drawn conspiracy. The Government from the first sought not to work tha constitution but to destroy it, making, in effect, a single charooer practically like the Greaks. The Budget gave the Government a good opportunity. It was manoeuvring the Lords so that they must abandon the functions of a second chamber or tako a step which would give new life to | the single chamber plot: but people will refuse to consider themselves insulted by being asked for their opinion" on the Budget, nor will they think the Lords had gone bevond their duty in asking it. The House of Commons already possess great powers —powers beyond those possessed by the Republics of America and France, and in some respects unexampled, but the Government desires the Commons to be independent, not only of the Lords but of the people. A House of Commons returned on the Chinese slavery cry could nol be assumed to represent the nation's mind on questions of socialism. A single chamber was impossible in the matter of finance. Tbe right to consult the people never could have been exercised if the Peers had not used on behalf of the peuple the powers entrusted to them. He did not say a change was not required by a modification of the Lords, or a referendum. The House contained men of tbe first eminence in all branches. He did not think there should be a rival House of Commons or a completely elective Commons, but the functions could be improved. 'Referring to the question of unemployment he urged the reform ot the poor law. The State methods of dealing with destitution would do little to promote labour Tariff reform would stimulate home industry. It alone contained colonial preference, and would modify comm_rcial treaties to secure the home producer against foreign competition. It was the first plank in the Unionist platform. He complained of the Government's elusory policy of back to the land. Their methods discouraged private ownerships except in Ireland by insisting that tenants should become the tsnants of a public bndy. There was no farmer, who would not prefer a tenancy under one of Mr Lloyd-George's dukes. .At present he would say nothing about the navy. The situation was grave, and he looked to the future with anxiety. He did not think the public would forget or forgive the negligence which had encouraged the present rivalry In shipbuilding, which everyone deplored.