CABLE NEWS. [BY ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.-COPYRIGHT.] IMPERIAL POLITICS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXI, Issue 140, 14 June 1906, Page 5

CABLE NEWS. [BY ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.-COPYRIGHT.]

IMPERIAL POLITICS.

THE UNIONIST PABTY. SPEECH BY THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE. HOUSE OF LORDS AND THE EDUCATION BILL. tPRESS ASSOCIATION.] (Received June 14, 7.56 a.m.) LONDON, 13th June. The Duke of Devonshire, who resigned tho Lord Presidency of the Council and a seat in tho Balfour Cabinet as a protest against the Protectionist policy of Mr. Balfour and Mr. Chamberlain, in an address to the, Unionist Freetrade Club said that, although Freetrade was safe at present, the Unionist party was in nowise safe, inasmuch as a policy of tariff reform exposed it to serious internal danger. Mr. Chamberlain's proscription of all differing from him was the most audacious thing ever advanced. Mr. Balfour had not yet stated whether ho accepted Mr. Chamberlain's version of the concordat. Mr. Chamberlain had predicted a general 'election in 1907 after the Education Bill was rejected. By whom is it to be rejected? The Opposition in the House of Commons was powerless to reject it, and the rejection could only be by the House of Lords' opposition in resisting the Bill and in its attempts to amend it. But it would bo better to confine themselves to comment, and allow tho House of Lords to mind its own business-. Continuing his remarks, the Duke of Devonshire said the members of tho House of Lords would do well to keep their own counsel, and not announce their intentions until they saw the Bill. If they neglected or wrecked the Bill they might precipitate an election with a three-fold issue — Religious questions in schools, the constitutional rights of the House of Lords, and a constructive fiscal policy which tariffites appended to other principles of party. He incidentally warned the Opposition that it was nowise certain that the Bill was so unpopular in the country as some Unionists imagined. Freetrade, "he added, was no longer in danger. , Lord James of Hereford said the House of Lords would not be wise if it opposed the express wish of the electorates, and it would be worse if it put spiritual Peers in the van of the battle. Lord Balfour of Burleigh said the duty of the House of Lords was to distinguish between a settled policy and the passing whim of constituencies.