SPEECH BY MR ASQUITH.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9999, 21 March 1910, Page 5

SPEECH BY MR ASQUITH.

WHAT THE LORDS DESIRE AN ANCIENT STRUCTURE. DISGUISED WITH DEMOCRATIC WHITEWASH.

Received March 20, 5 pm. j LONDON, March 19. | "The Times" states that the germ of the Government's Lords reform will be found in clause 63 of the South Africa Act. Mr H. H. Asquith, in a speech at Oxford, said the election created a position unforseen by all parties, and only after hesitation he and his j colleagues concluded that it was j their duty to remain in office. j The Budget must be pressed forward with promptitude and despatch in order to set right the unexampled financial confusion produced by the Lords. A rationally constituted Second Chamber was desirable, hut not a chamber overwhelmingly ard undisguisably partisan. The Lords' reform debate showed a desire that the ancient structure should be disguised with a coat of democratic whitewash. "The Liberal?," continued Mr Asquith, "demand a Second Chamber rebuilt on a democratic basis, thus preventing a chronic deadlock in legislative power. The country had declared itself predominantly for the Liberal, and the absolute veto of the Lords must go." "The Times," commenting on the speech, says that Mr Asquith and his friends meant to preserve the Second Cnamber as a sham and a screen, and that that is a new democratic conception of English constitutional government.