BRITISH POLITICS

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10237, 13 May 1911, Page 5

BRITISH POLITICS

CABLE NEWS

United Press Association—By JSiectric Tekgraph — Copyright. ,

THE PARLIAMENT BILL.

LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION

(Received Last Night, 10.30 o'cWk.)

LONDON, May 12

The Hon. A. J. Balfour, speaking at Albert Hail, said they must have I a strong aid effective- second chamber, I able to carry out great duties, not a i pitiful, beggarly one with a modicum of responsibility given by the Parliament Bill. The Government proposed to indefinitely postpone the admittedly i refiim of the House oi Lords, au*l insisted that T .hey should meantime be governed by one chamber jalone. He called that a gro s, palpable, ail; almost criminal inoonsis teney. The Babour party were consistent. They constantly declare they see no object in having a second chamber. They can vote for this Bill with a clean conscience. The Bill gives them a single chamber. The Government in their position was unassailable, but Mr Balfour could not imagine inconsistency greater than the Government saying that future constitutions must be bicameral; yet the Parliament" framing it may be> a single ohimber ciinstitution. The on'y explanation of such humiliating straits was that able men were drawn thereto by the necessity of keeping a majority in the House of Commons. Mr Asquith, at Manchester, hid chimed that if Home Rule were relinquished the Government wovld have no din • culty in securing the assent of Parliament to *he Bill. This was an inversion of the real facts. There would have bee-i no Parliament Bill but for Home Rule.

Mr Balfx-ur continues t?nt utuoj I might havolbeen reforms in the second chamber and a change in the relations .''of the two houses, but there was never I the absurdity of suggesting a transfer to a single chamber, elected on the different issues of al' the moit fundamental, important, and invaluable elements of constitution. Whether what the Government proposes i* Home Rule or Padstonian or some other unknown mjdel, it ought never to be passed by a single chamber alone, bur, either tire subjection or revision by two dependent legally co-equal ••.hambets, or uferred to the jeople as a whole. (Cheers). It was true that the solution of the constitutional question was firstly a change in the constitution of the chamber, not an alteration in its powers. At all events,-r-ot a fundamental alteration in its powers as proposed by the Parliament Bill. Secondly deadlocks should be met bv conferences lor DoujeMiation and joii*t sittings. Thirdly; matters of grave importance and special instance - . I" referendum. (Cheers); ''\Nothing could be mcio entertaining rnd pnhetic than to see opponents who had been talking about democracy through lives of struggling to show that an appeal to the peiple on specific issues was ihe worst service renderablo to democracy.

He concluded by claiming that the Unionists were the only true democratic party in the State;