THE LORDS' VETO.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 80, 6 April 1910, Page 7

THE LORDS' VETO.

o GOVERNMENT RESOLUTIONS. CARRIED BY A MAJORITY OF 106 VOTES RADICALS AND THE THRONE. 0y Telegraph. — Press Association.— Copyright. LONDON, sth April. In the House of Commons the debato was resumed on tho motion of tho Prime Minister, Mr. Acquitb — "That this Hou»e resolve iteeli into a com mi I too to consider the relations of the two Houses, and the duration of Parliament " and on the amendment thereto moved by Sir R. B. Finlay, Unionist member for Edinburgh and St. Andrew's Universities — "That this House- regards a strong, efficient Second Chamber as necessary, and is willing to consider proposals for reform, but declines proposals for destroying the usefulness of any Second Chamber, however constituted, and removing the only safeguard against great changes being made by the Government of the day, not only without the consent, but against tho wishes of a majority of the electors." A REBUKE. Mr. Alfred Lyttelton, formerly Unionist Colonial Secretary, administered- a (tinging rebuko to the Horn& Secretary, Mr. Churchill, for his ungenerous and unseemly fashion of imputing to tho King a policy that the King was unable to deny. There was not a shadow of foundation for Mr. Churchill's suggestion of an alliance between the Radicals and tho Throne. Mr. Lyttelton added that in the democratic constitution granted to Australia the rights of a Second Chamber were recognised, and only last year the Government were so conscious of its necessity that they imposed a Second Chamber, with the right to reject money Bills, upon th* Union of South Africa. COLONEL SEELY REPLIES. Replying, the Under-Secretary for tho Colonies, Lieut. Col. Seely, stated that the Government had not imposed, but South Africa herself had proposed, a Second Chamber. Had the Government attempted to set up a Second Chamber resembling the House of Lords, no selfgoverning colony would have endured it. No colony would give power to a Chamber based on the hereditary principle. If the House of Commons submitted to the House of Lords' pretensions, he was confident thmt the self-governing Dominions would think the English people unfit to manage their own affairs. OTHER SPEAKERS. Mr. T. Gibson Bowles (the ex-Unionist who was elacted- at King's Lynn labt January as Liberal) sharply criticised the Government's veto resolutions. Mr. A. Bonar Law (Unionist member for Dnlwich division oft Camberwell) made a telling summing up for the Opposition. MR. LLOYD-UEOHGE. ' The debato was concluded by the Chan* cellar of the Exchequer, Mr. LloydUeorge. He declared it was better that the Liberals should be out of office for « decade than that they should longer submit to the Lords mutilating their Bills. If the people really wished for revolutionary measures, the Lords' veto was as useless as the King's veto was during the French Revolution. Sir R. B. Finlay's amendment was rejected, and Mr. Asquith's motion was' agreed to. The- voting was as follows : — For the motion 358 Against the motion ... 252 Government majority ... 106 After moving his motion in the House of Commons, Mr. Asquith admitted thai his matured judgment had brought him the conviction that there were both room and need for a Second Chamber — (Opposition cheers)— but he denied that, except in name, wo were living under the bicameral system. He criticised the House of Lords for assuming the attitude of allowing Liberal measures to pass. He instanced tho Tiades Disputes Bill. He quoted Lord Lansdowne (Unionist Leader in the Lords) advising the Lords to move with great caution, and adding that connects were possib'.y inevitable, but that when the} joined issue their Lordships must ''choose the ground mobt favourable for themselves." Mr. Asquith interpreted this remark of Lord LanFdowne as implying the maintenance of the powers and privileges of the House of Lords. It wa« frankly the restraint of a partisan Assembly whose only consideration was that — resting as it did on a purely hereditary basis, and being in the long run devoid of authority — it must be careful not to risk its own skin. The Government desired to see tho maintenance of the House of Commons' predominance in legislation, but relatively a small Second Chamber, resting on n democratic, not an hereditary basis, might with proper safeguards usefully discharge the functions of consultation, revision, and delay. His resolutions were no final or adequate solution of the problem. The House of Lords would still retain powers which, as at present constituted, it was still qualified to discharge. It would remain an unrepresentative body, able seriously to delay the fulfilment of the expressed will of the electorate. Tho resolutions were simply the broad basis of the Bill. Mr. Asquith went on to say that some provision must be made against tho purely speculative possibility of "tacking" in financial Bills. The Crown's creation of Peers, was, in existing * circumstances, the only remedy for a deadlock, and Lord Rosebery's resolution— that the possession of a peerage per se did not entitle tha holder to sit and votc>— was a fatal blow at the Royal prerogative. The right to creato Peers should only be exer • cised in case of need, but it should then be exercised without fear. A referendum was inadmissible ; it would undermine the authority of Parliament, even if it were possible to completely segregate a particular issue. Discussing the former Royal veto, Mr Asquith emphasised that Royalty had not suffered from its abolition. King Edward held hit crown by » far securer tenure than that of the Tudors.