Evening Post. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1909. THE LORDS AND THE FINANCE BILL.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 59, 7 September 1909, Page 6

Evening Post. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1909. THE LORDS AND THE FINANCE BILL.

The reduction of the 1 Liberal majority in the House of Commons went far enough last .week to put the 'Government in serious peril. 'Many Liberals are away noliday-making ; not a few are half-hearted in their support of the Finance Bill, and some are openly hostile to one part or another of it; while the 'Unionists are kept together by their bitter antagonism to the whole -measure, and the hopes for tjhe first time of securing a victory in the popular chamber. The result of vhe general election in January, 1906, was to give Liberalism and Labour, which, for the purposes of the Finance Bill may be treated as one force, an aggregate /strength of 430 against 157 Unionists and 83 (Nationalists. The (Liberal and Labour vote had thus a majority over the Unionists of 273, and over Onionists and Nationalists combined of 190. Yet on one occasion last week the Government's majority fell to 49, and "in the early hours of Friday morning," according to a message whicn we published yesterday, "the Government escaped defeat on several divisions only by the Nationalists— whose attitude has been more than critical — abstaining from voting." As the full party vote in favour of the measure, with the Nationalists standing aside, would have been 273, and the Nationalists have on some important clauses shown a determined hostility to the Bill, the position of the Government haa thui been one of very serious peril. It is particularly on account of the license duties that the Irish members have opposed the Bill. Temperance sentiment jippears to be far more backward in Ireland than in any other division of the United Kingdom, and the whisky industry finds ohampions in 'Nationalist iM.P.'s, who have otherwise little sympathy to spare fov w«»lth or monopoly. it accordingly needed bometlung Uks a

volte face on the part of lMt. Asquith to save these clauses last week. Mr. Redmond moved the entire exclusion of Ireland from the operation of the new t licenses, and could probably have relied upon the support of the Un- ; ionists if the amendment had come to a division. It is true that Mr. Balfour subsequently contended that there was no reason why the small publican or brewer in Ireland should be treated differently from his brethren in England or Scotland, but so keen a partisan and so ! astute a dialectician would have had no difficulty in arguing, if the opportunity had arisen, that even to exempt Ireland ' from the operation of an unjust principle, which could not be entirely defeated, would be something gained. In any case a fusion of the Unionist and Nationalist forces must have been effected on the final stage of the clause which, with Ireland not excluded, would have presented an equally plain issue to both these usually irreconcilable parties. Mr. Asquith succeeded, however, in dodging i the blow. In a reply which is described as "conciliatory" and might well have been branded with a harsher epithet, he said that he could not accept so sweeping an amendment, but was "prepared to go some way towards meeting Mr. Redmond's views." He accordingly offered to reduce the minimum amount of license duty payable in respect to publichouses in areas with a given population in Ireland as compared with publichouses in areas of the same population in England or Scotland. He was also prepared to propose that the system of valuation should remain undisturbed, and to consider some concessions to small brewers. Mr. Balfour described this performance as a political bargain which it was scandalous that the Government should have made, nor can it be justified on any other ground than that there was no other way to get the Bill through. "After all you may carry these bargains too far and sacrifice too much," said Mr. Balfour, who speaks from a wide personal experience of the perplexities and anomalies of political compromise. Mr. Asquith has saved his clause, but he has administered a severe shock to the Nonconformist conscience, which his hitherto been one of his most valuable political assets. All these embarrassments of the Government will, of course, make the task of the Lords much easier if they decide that it is their painful duty to reject the Bill. The Westminster Gazette was quoted yesterday as admitting that there is "a growing assumption" that the Lords will take this extreme step, though it is convinced that "such action on their part would be a reluctant use of forces the precise strength of which cannot at present be ascertained." The question has formed the subject of eager speculation for months, and probably Mr. Balfour and Lord Lansdowne aro themselves still in doubt ? x s to the proper course to pursue. In a recent speech Lord Lansdowne suggested, albeit In vague and figurective language, that the Lords might <&iect to amend rather than to- reject, buu it seems quite clear that the Liberals will tolerate no such halfmeasu.res. "It makes no difference in this connection, " wrote the Westminster Gazette early in July, "whether we talk about amending or rejecting. The amendment of the Budget will, of course, be the rejection of the Budget. No Liberal Government could permit the House of Commons' privilege in regard t-o ilnance to be destroyed by accepting an amended Budget from the Peers. Rejection, theu, it would have to be, and rejection would mean throwing tha finance of the country into confusion, and making the House of Lords question the one and only issue of Liberal and Conservative politics until the Liberal party returned to power with a mandate from the country to destroy the of the Peers.' This is the a* u ractive programme whicn the managers of the Liberal organisation are now considering. The Times takes the same view as the Westminster Gazette on the main point. "The Holism of Lords," it says, "has practically to accept, the Finance j ' Bill as it comes from the Commons, or to reject it in toto. We are very far from saying tnat circumstanceo may not arise in whicn the latter course will be justified. But we do say that it is a very strong measure, needing very ample justification, and no 6to be regarded in the light-hearted way ih'at prevails in some quarters." The fire-eaters in the Tory party — among whom the venerable Spectator is the most conspicuous — should hesitate in the face of such a warning as this from such » quarter.