THE REFERENDUM.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 13906, 3 December 1910, Page 9

THE REFERENDUM.

MR ASQUITH CONDEMNS THE IDEA. REGARDS IT AS UNSATISFACTORY. (Received December 2nd, 10.30 p.m.) LONDON, December 2. Mr Asquith, addressing 5000 people at Wolverhampton on tariff reform, said that while the House of Lordg was being rebuilt and the mechanism of the referendum developed, tariff reform would be on the shelf. The Unionists would be totally unable to make a binding bargain with the Dominions at the coming Imperial Conference, except with tho "if" of a referendum. The Liberals objected to the referendum, and it was therefore pointless to ask whether they would submit Home Rule to a referendum. "My flirtations with the referendum were made twelve or thirteen years ago, at a time of comparative political immaturity. Since then we have had a good deal of experience of its actual working in Switzerland, some of the American States, Canada and Australia. 1 have now come to the conclusion that the referendum has proved in practice a most disappointing and unsatisfactory way of ascertaining public opinion. One proof is the very email percentage of votes polled compared with a general election." Mr Balfour, speaking at the railway sheds at Reading, said the only explanation of the incoherent fury wherewith the referendum was being received was that the majority of people were in favour of tariff reform. He reminded his critics that the referendum was part of the free representative institutions reverently given to the great Australian Commonwealth. Since the referendum was actually in operation in one of tho sister States of the Empire, lie could not conceive why it was regarded as such a stran-ge and alien j piece of machinery. The referendum! had not ruined Australia. Moreover, the trade unions used the referendum daily, and it did not ruin them. Every Radical should welcome it as fulfilling his dearest aspiration, namely, consulting the people. He was painfully disappointed that the counter challenge on Homo Rule had been treated w.*.. eilent contempt.