A GREAT DEBATE.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 13622, 5 January 1910, Page 8

A GREAT DEBATE.

THE LORDS AND THE BUDGET. PARLIAMENTARY TRADITION (By the London Correspondent of the "Sydney Morning Herald.") LONDON, November 26. Visitors to this country often look in at St. Stephen's once at least during their, stay by way of seeing for themselves the historic British Parliament actually at work. More often than not I they come away disappointed by tne j prosaic duinc. . of the adventure, and j they leave England persuaded ot one i n-oie disillusionment. They had expected, di.iibtless, to iree an Aswmbly. weighted with wisdom and grave with responsibility, engaged m j in.piC-.ive debate seemly to the great issu<: of good government of a nation. What they really saw was a series ol groups of more or less casual gentlemen scattered about benches winch their numbers did not nearly fill. Some o-ie of them was on his feet talking, ■ also more or less casually, and as likely as not with some difficulty of ordered speech, while the lest sprawled in easy attitudes, slumbered, ma;, be, engaged in obviously flippant conversation, aid many things, in fact, which had in them no hint oi relevancy either to the speaker or- his argument, or any suggestion other than that of a lighthearted irresponsibility curiously far removed from the cares popularly imagined to attach to the science of government. Or, if the front benchers, who are tho veritable leading spirits, happened to ha in action, again, as likely as not, the masterfulness of debate expected of a Cabinet Minister and a leader of the Opposition was seen, naked of illusion, to be but the merest conversational give-and-take— the polite and well-expressed conversation of cultivated men, no doubt, but tame, nevertheless, to the point of duliicss to any listener expectant of the oratory of Parliamentary tradition. . Happening upon these things, visitors have soon retired, and hastily, from the unedifying scene, convinced of their dis- "''■ covery of yet another undeserved reputation among tho hoary institutions of England. They were wrong. Their judgment was ill-based. They may have tried to see the British Parliament sanely, but they had r.ot seen it whole. Its reputation is founded en traditions concerned with high levels. It is not always at high levels, but it is sometimes, and when it is the British Parliament is a very great and impressive thing. Let a big issue come before either House, and at once th© attitude of airy irresponsi-

bility vanishes, and with it the inattention, and the flippancy, and the tamenesSj and the hesitant speech. All these things ar© as lax strings that have suddenly stiffened and stretched to vibratory tenseness. Men become representative. Debate rings true. Speech lifts under the quickening touch of emotion, or deepens into the gravity that befits weighty causes. That Parliament rises to these high moods effortlessly and as by prerogative, is no less a,, witness to the justness of its traditional reputation than is the attitude of the chance spectators of the scene. Caught unawares, maybe, on some night of little expectation, the public are never surprised at the "ift m mood. They are always impressed, however. An instance of the suddenness of these transitions occurred a week or two ago in the House of Commons, when th© Lord Advocate of Scotland intervened dramatically in the closing stages of the Budget debate in an impassioned protest against £ scathing attack by Mr Balfour, which had seemed to impugn his personal honour; and he -was followed at the samo high level of dignified remonstrance by nis accuser and by the Prime Minister. In but few assemblies would so personal a. discussion have been able to avoid the disaster of scurrility. Here, all was strong, indeed, tut with a strength madia up of dignity! and of reasoned conviction, firmly held and finely expressed. The House and -the spectators of the incident took delight in one more example of Parliament's capacity to maintain its ancient tradition by rising with the occasion, «asily and untroubled, to regions of high and equablo debate. And this week in the House of Lords, not suddenly, but after long and studied preparation, a great issue has been apEiched and _.andled in the best Parlentary manner. Casual visitors to don, by reason of untoward experience, fearful of the decline of Parliament as an institution, would have been heartened, whatever their personal view of the matter in question, by glimpses of tho Lords' manner of dealing with tiw Budget crisis. „_.„_ On its spectacular side, the House of Lords on Monday last waa_at its most picturesque, and we are told that not since the-night of 1393, on which the Home Rule Bill was rejected, has such » gathering of peers been soon in their legislative home. They crowded the chamber. They overflowed their appointed places. The differences of party allocation were swept away so that Unionists and Liberals and Crosslienchers were inextricably inter-n-angled. So unusually large a gathering indicated the presence of many Eire who do not, ordinarily, attend the ouse, preferring to their hereditary privilege of legislation the less exacting pursuits of their country estates. For thera, remembering why they have been rounded up, the enemy has devised the ingenious appellation ot "backwoodsmen," and so many in number are the backwoodsmen 1 bf this week that at least half the Lords present on Monday were unknown to onlookersLord Lansdowne. formidable Leader of the Opposition, the man whose word is law to the great majority of the Upper House, is anything but formidable either in appearance or manner. He is tall, and stooped, and thin, and altogether too quietly decorous-looking a person to head a revolution. Yet this hs a revolution if the Government is to be believed. But as Lord _ansdowne opens out his argument, in smooth and gentle tones, you begin to recognis© in the calmly easy flow of persuasive language 6omo hint of the strength of character and the determination of purpose which hay© placed Lord Lansdowne, ex-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and now Leader of th© Opposition in the House of Lords, in som© of the most responsible positions of publio life. He was followed by the Lord Chancellor. Lord Loreburn is a man of a dignified presence befitting his great office. He _ possessed of a fin© voice, and the grand manner, and he is the beat fighting speaker the Liberals have in the Lords. Lord Loreburn was immediately followed by Lord Halsbury, the ex-Lord Chancellor, who took an exactly opposite view, and vigorously declared the Peers' constitutional rights in the matter to he indubitable. Lord Halsbury, deSpite his 84 years, is still merrily active, and his jovial attack on his successor at the Woolsack brought to tne proceedines the relief of laughter. No less perplexing in their diametrically opposed conclusions, were tbe speeches of lord Welbv and Lord Revelstoke, two of the greatest authorities on high finance this country possesses. The f..rnier- sees nothing but advantage in the- Government's financial proposals, while the latter, who is the head of the house of Baring, sees in them the chief cause of "the steady and hopeless deprecTation" of the most chensbed icorities. Still greater perp-?x_t- /f S Snd, however, for Lo*d Bibblesdaje SfcTer*- a- speooh which showed him as

uniting in his own person the opposing views hitherto expounded by different sides of the House. On the one hand in- describe _ Mr Lloyd-George as "half pantaloon and half-highwayman," and ej.pr.ssed hi* dislike of the main provisions of the Ludget. while on tne ether hand he d.c-br _ bis intention to support it r.-.th-r than assist towards the vevoiutii!*".:y procedure proposed by Lord Lan-do\vne s amendment.