IMPERIAL SENTIMENT.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1166, 29 June 1911, Page 6

IMPERIAL SENTIMENT.

THE BRITISH CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS. Replying to the toast of "The British Parliamentary Institutions," at the student accountants' dinner at the Hotel Windsor last evening. Mr. A. L. Herdman, M.P., directed the thoughts of his hearers into the channel of Imperial sentiment. The Coronation of his Majesty King Georgo.tho Filth, and tho incidental demonstrations of the splendour and magnitude of the British Empire; marked, be said, on epoch in the history of the race. Tho British Empire had now, it was abundantly manifest, reached an extraordinary stage in its career. lie spoko in no boasting spirit, but with a deep sense of thankfulness when he said that the British Empire was not only a great Empire, but the greatest Empire the world had ever seen. If this greatness were to bo maintained it was essential that all their great national institutions should be composed of men of the highest intellect and character. The British House of Commons was one of the most phenomenal the world had ever seen; no other institution of tho kind in the world, he said, had so fulfilled its appointed functions as there had been fulfilled by tho British House of Commons.

. Referring to the constitutional crisis precipitated by the agitation for the reform of tho House of Lords, .Mr. Herdman said emphatically that this grove question should bo regarded with all possible euro and consideration. They had t> remember that tho British Parliamentary system was not a structure which had boon erected according to set of well-defined ■ plans and specifications. It was a growth—an evolutionary process of centuries. Were the proposals for the substitution of a new legislative system better than that which it was sought to destroy—sounder than that under which (ho Empire had attained its high prestige among the nations? These were questions which required the most serious deliberation. Tho British legislative system was, in its present state, as perfect, as wise and just, as it was possible to be. True, no human institution could bo perfect—that was obvious. But tho British .House of Commons, ho asserted, was guided, inspired by t\vo great considerations—a high sense of honour, and a high sense of -justice—and so long as these were accepted by tho men to whom were entrusted the destinies of that .institution, they might loolc for the wisest possible legislation. Tha inoi-t extraordinary step in the development of the Empire wiis (he drafting of a system of Government of legislative in- • dependence for the oversea dominions. Events had proved that to have been a wiso slop. And though these dominions had been given the control of their own destinies, thev made laws and dispensed justice, thev had not alienated themselves from the Motherland. So long as these destinies wero controlled by men whose motives were for the benefit of their fellow-men, and not those of selfinterest —and in England, at any rate, such was the ca«e-thon the Empire would go on flourishing. (Applause.)