VETO BILL CARRIED.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1129, 17 May 1911, Page 5

VETO BILL CARRIED.

THIRD READING IN COMMONS. PRIME MINISTER ON HEREDITARY PRINCIPLE. INTERESTiNG SPEECHES. By Telegraph-Press Association-Copyriclit (Rec. .May 17, 0.5 a.m.) London, May lfi. The. Parliament Bill completed its passage through the House of Commons today amid a scene of great excitement. An amendment moved by Mr. i". E. Smith, K.C., Unionist member for tho Walton Division of Liverpool, was defeated, and tho third reading of the Bill was carried by the following majority: For tho Bill M 2 "Against the Bill 211 Majority . 121 . On the result of the division being announced .the' Radicals and Nationalists, rose in their places and waved their handkerchiefs.

Mr. Smith taunted the Government with rejecting the only allies ablo to help them to redeem their word of honour in the matter of the Reform of the Second Chamber.

Mr. Asquith Speaks. Mr. Asquith ridiculed the idea that the people were indignant at the socalled revolution. Ho had only detected an occasional yawn of weariness over the prolonged discussion. The Opposition were profoundly mistaken in thinking that the popular hostility to the House of Lords was duo to an aversion to the hereditary principle. It was due to what the Lords had done. The Opposition nowwanted a Second Chamber working in tho same spirit, but less obtrusively onesided and with the, hereditary principle deleted. Tho Liberals wero quite, contented with the principle, when, as was the .case with tho Monarchy, it performed with efficiency its functions in tho Constitution.

The political fortunes of the ■ Liberal party had made it necessary that it should undertake, the reconstruction of the House of Lords during the present Parliament. The Opposition View. Mr. Balfour, Leader of the Opposition, Said the delay the Bill provided was feeble. A referendum without an instrument enabling tho people to express their opinions on the Bill was thoroughly undemocratic. Mr. Winston Churchill, Homo Score-' tnry, said ho was almost aghast at the Government's moderation. The House of Lords would still wield formidable and menacing powers. Nevertheless, the Bill was territory conquered by tho masses from tho classes.