Evening Post MONDAY, APRIL 4, 1910. THE STRUGGLE AT ST. STEPHEN'S.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 78, 4 April 1910, Page 6

Evening Post MONDAY, APRIL 4, 1910. THE STRUGGLE AT ST. STEPHEN'S.

"The Government's real object," Bays Mr. F. E. Smith, the witty K.C. who represents the Walton Division of Liverpool, "is not that the will of the people, but that the will of tho Radical caucus, should prevail." This is sound party talk — so sound that it only needs the change of "Government" into "Opposition" and "Radical" into "Tory" in order to constitute an equally good argument for a speaker on the other side of the House. The hopelessness of the position is that the Unionist leaders seem to be quite unable to Bee, or, at any rate, quite unwilling to admit, that a system under which one party can always rely upon » majority of three or four *o one in one branch of the Legislature is utterly unrepresentative and unjust. To the Tories a Radical caucus and to the Badicals a Tory caucus necessarily appears a very wicked, or at least a very mischievous, thing. That is the inevitable result of the party system, the- general theory of which is that the predominance of the one party or the other, as the balance of popular sympathy inclines this way or that, but with a strong representation of tho defeated party to hold that predominance in check, is the best way of maintaining a dv« harmony between public opinion and the Government of the day. A system which gave to one party th© permanent control of one of the Legislative Chambers, irrespective altogether of any changes in public opinion, is one for which even the blindest advocates of that party would not have the audacity to ask if the Constitution were being settled de novo, as it recently was in Australia and in South Africa. Bui for a large section of opinion in the Old Country the fact that a thing exists is a sufficient proof that it is right, and so we see sensible, public-spirited, and high-minded men like Mr. Balfour and Mr. F. E. Smith arguing as though the demand of the Liberals for a constitutional change, which at the best would give them much lesa than an even chance in the political gamble, were a scandalous infringement on tho natural rights of man. The wonder is increased by the fact that the politicians who take up this position are perpetually appealing to the judgment of the colonies, which, whether they sympathise with the j t Government or tho Opposition in this or that deUjJ of Britii{b_ or Imperial policy, have at any rato the discernment to see that the game at Westminster is being played with loaded dice; and a sufficient sent* of f airplay to de- \ sire to see it altered, if not along the linea of Mr. Asquith's resolutions, at least in some thorough-going fashion. When the evil is bo deep-seated as this, it is unfortunate that Mi. Balfour's speech and Sir Robert Finlay'a amendment should b» purely negative. The amendment describes a Second Chamber as "the only safeguard against great changes being made by the Government j of tho day, not only without the consent, but against the wishes, of a majority of the electors." Yet everybody know* that the House of Lords offers no such cafe- j guard when a Conservative Government j is m power, and that during the five years of Mr. Balfour's last innings it did not display the faintest desire to consult the people even on important measures which had never been mentioned at the previous general election. The interest of our latest news centres in the determination of the Government to force the pace in a very surprising way. The veto resolutions are to bo put through, if not at the point of the bayonet, at any rate with the edge of the guillotine. Mr. Asquith proposes to allot five Parliamentary days to the resolutions, so that the third and la*t ot them may be disposed of by the evening of the 14th inst. This bold decision may be taken as indicative of growing (strength, and it is likely to stimulate the tendency of which it is the outcome. The Unionist press, of tourbe, declares that this muzzling of debate — an unfortunate exPldijnt which the Liberal* have bor-

rowed from their opponents — is "due to the Unionists' inconvenient and damaging wpeechea," and some timid Liberals are as uueany as might have been expected. But tho fighting spirit of the party ha» responded eagerly to the call, and tho Westminster Gazette, which has displayed even more than its usual caution during tho present crisis, recognises that the prospects of the Government have distinctly improved. People are actually talking of next year instead of next month as the probable date of the next general election. By that time tho Budget — with some amendments, though by no means all in Mr. W. O'Brien's modest little list, in favour of Ireland — would have become law, and other things might have happened to break the disastrous fall which the Liberals must expect from an immediate appeal to the country. Mr. Winston Churchill's speech on Mr Asquith's motion appears to have particularly excited the wrath of the Unionists. Strong protests were raised from the Opposition benches by his contention that the Conservative attempt to extend the Lords' veto over finance was tantamount to a desire to reverse the great extensions of the franchise. Whatever may be the motive, that is surely the effect of the action of the Lords. The several extensions of the franchise which were carried out in 1832, 1867, and 1884 greatly broadened the basis of democracy by progressively lowering the property qualification. If the House of Lords, which is at the absolute control not merely of wealth but of hereditary wealth, is to be allowed to reject a Money Bill which contains the whole financial provision of the year, the democratic effect of the extended franchise will be to a large extent neutralised. It is by the power of the purse that the Commons of England have substituted constitutional monarchy for despotism, and the true revolutionaries are sin'ely those who are attempting to alter the established balance of the Constitution by admitting the Lords to a share of that power. The extent to which property controls even the elections to the House of Commons is strikingly illustrated by the fact to which Mr. A. J. Sherweil has called attention in his speech on the motion for leave to introduce a Bill for the abolition of plural voting. In no less than eixty-nine constituencies at the general election the ownership vote exceeded the Unionist majority, and in forty-one of these Unionist gains were recorded. The secrecy of the ballot prevents one from saying with certainty what proportion of these sixtynine seats — count-ing as a hundred and thirty-eight on a division — the Unionists owed to the plural vote, but the party which is fighting the battle of property is bound to get a large preponderance of support from the property vote. To take all elections on the same day, as Mr. Sherweil proposes, would reduce this handicap very considerably, even if the franchise itself were left untouched. But the Unionists not unreasonably argue that neither of these reforms should be carried out without a re-distribution of seat«, from which, especially through the reduction of the present over-representatior of Ireland, they would get some compensation for the losses involved by every approximation to the goal of "one man, one vote."