BRITISH POLITICS

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10187, 13 March 1911, Page 5

BRITISH POLITICS

CABLE NEWS

United Press Association—-By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.

SPEECH BY WINSTON CHURCHILL,

REFORMS FORESHADOWED

(Received Last Night, 5.5 o'clock.)

LONDON, March 11

The Right Hon. Mr Winsfccr. Churchill, speaking at the National Liberal Club, declared that the Liberals intended to substitute for the lop-sided obsolete Second Chamber, a more or less evenly constituted House, wh( se balance would be preserved and corrected from year to year by some effective perennial-contact with and relation to public opinion and popular will. "Meanwhile," ho said, "the veto must go. Otherwise, we, ar the dominant party, will be compelled to plead, while 1 the minority will be able to judge. We should argue, and they would decide." He added: "After the veto is abolished, the reform of the Lords will take its place among the most important issues of modern politics." - Mr Winston Churchill concluded by foreshadowing that Home Rule, the Disestablishment of the Church of Wales, the abolition of plural votktg, and the settlement of the land question in England and Scotland would be realised in the lifetime of the present Parliament. CROWN AND CONSTITUTION. A NEUTRALISING AGENCY. (Received Last Night, 5.5 o'clock.) LONDON, March 11. Captain C. Norton, Liberal member for West Nevvington, referring to tho Veto Bill, said that nobody was in a position to know the arrangement the Crown had made with the Prime Minister. His firm conviction was that tho Liberal leader was not the man to delude Government followers or the "country. Mr Asquith had obtained from the Crown whatever guarantees were necessary. He thought the Crown would l>e loyal to the Constitution, and equal to dealing with any Constitutional change demanded by the people.

&ir ,T. A. Simon, Solicitor-Genera l , speaking at Wakefield, declared t-li.it the opponents of the proposals for the reform of the House of Lords were multitudinous. All sought, however, to eliminate as a factor in the Constitution the power of the Crown to create Peers as a means of overpowering the Peers' obstinacy. The influence of a drug was, he said, sometimes counteracted by the infection of afurther quantity' of the same substance. The Liberals had not surrendered this method of neutralising hereditary legislators by an overdose of heredity. At any rate, until tlie relations between the two Houses were so alte: • ed as to make the House of Commons effectively predominant, the veto must go first..

THE PRICE OP HOME RULE

(Received Last Night, 5.5' o'clock.)

LONDON. March 11

Mr J. Hugh Edwards, M.P., for Glamor/ran. speaking at Pontyeyromor, declared that Mr 'Redmond had promised, in return for Welsh ;sur port of Homo Rule, that every Nationalist member of the" House of Commons would support tlrt Welsh Disestablishmerit Bill, even in the autumn session of 1912.

THE REVENUE BILL

AN OBJECTIONABLE CLAUSE

(Received Last Night, 5.5 o'clock.)

LONDON, March 11

Tbo Unionists strongly resent Clai.se 10 of the Revenue Bill, which was passed after an all-night sitting. The clause withholds from local authorities half the land taxation promised in 1910.

The Right Hon. C. Hobhouse, Liberal member for Bristol, said the arrangement was only a temporary one, until tho relations between the loc.il authorities and the Imperial Exchequer were adjusted.