The Dominion. MONDAY, MAY 1, 1911. THE CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1115, 1 May 1911, Page 4

The Dominion. MONDAY, MAY 1, 1911. THE CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS.

The most definite statement we have had upon the prospects of the Parliament Bill was the Times , s forecast, cabled on Friday, that the Bill will be read a second time in the House of Lords before the Coronation, and taken in Committee afterwards, tha main purpose of the Lords being to exclude Home Rule from the operation of the Bill. When the latest mail to hand left London there was no unanimity in the Unionist ranks as to the tactics to be adopted in defence of the one thing upon which all Unionists arc agreed, namely, the maintenance of a Second Chamber of some kind to check, what is now an indisputable fact, the tendency of Governments to exceed their mandate and enact laws to which the nation as a whole is opposed. Tho proposal that the Referendum should be relied upon is distasteful to that section of the Unionist party which speaks through the Morning I'ost, but there spems to be every prospect that the idea of the. Referendum has come to stay with official Unionism. Most of the objections urged agair st the lteferendum an trivial and unsound, but the one , powerful charge that can be brought agiinst it is its destruction of tho principle oi responsible government. It is not proposed, however, that the Referendum should be resorted to as a settlement of every dispute. Lord Selborne has stated, speaking, so it is understood, for the official. Unionist'party, that the Referendum should only apply to a change in the Constitution or of the. composition of the two Houses of Parliament or of the relations of the Hoases of Parli-urent.

One view that is bcirg urged upon the Unionist leaders is that no obstacle should be placed in the way of tho Parliament Bill. The party, Lire argument runs, should make up its mind that its turn will come, and that it sh:mkl prepare for that day by perfecting a plan of Upper House reform which,, allied to a progressive policy, will make of no avail any opposition to what will be their first policy, namely, the reversal of the Parliament Bill. Against this it is urged tint in thj meantime bad and irremovable laws will have been passed, and, above all, that Homo link will have become an accomplished fact. Mα. Asquith has definitely stated that a Home Rule Bi!! will be one of tho fit st fruits of the passing of the Parliament Bill, and he has refused to give th« nation an opportunity of expressing its opinion upon the Irish tjuestion. When he takes up this attitude, it is not only necessary, but imperative, thai the Unionist party should do what it can to prevent the granting of Home lluli; under such conditions Such tniD friends of Ireland as Lord Dcxkaven on the one hand and Mr. William O'Bmen on the other have urged that Ireland's interests cannot be served by a measure passed through such tricky means, arid the great fact remains, as stated by Gladstone himself, that "it will be a vital clanger to the country and to the Empire, it at a time when a demand from Ireland for larger powers of self-government is to'be dealt with, there is not in Parliament a party totally independent of the Irish vote." (Morxey's Life.) Hence it h hoped by the Unionists that, if Home Rule is excluded from tho operation of the Veto Bill, the Government will be unable to avoid making Home Rule the single issue. A dissolution would then be a dissolution •on Home Rule. The creation of Peers would be the carrying of Home Rulo by the votes of 500 persons, who will appear as having been endowed by Me. Asquith with the power to decide a question upon which the nation is not permitted to vote. _ One thing alone seems quite certain at present, namely, that tho Lords will not meekly accept the Veto Bill. In that event it will be impossible for Mr. Asquith to refrain from advising the King to twamp the Peers,,and this certainly appears to us to be tho best solution of the problem that the Government, most unwisely, has made for itself. It is an alternative far preferable to the simple abandonment by the Second Chamber of its function of real revision, for it will force the Government to undertake tiw work of Upper House reform that, .if it could, it would bo only too pleased to evade. For Radicalism knows very well that' Jacobin ideas could not have better conditions than a helpless, hereditary Second Chamber.