Evening Post. FRIDAY, AUGUST 5, 1910. TRUCE TILL NOVEMBER.

Evening Post, Volume LXXX, Issue 31, 5 August 1910, Page 6

Evening Post. FRIDAY, AUGUST 5, 1910.

TRUCE TILL NOVEMBER.

oThe bald intimation was conveyed to us by cable yesterday that the Koyal assent had been given to the Accession Declaration, Regency, and Civil List. Bills, and that the British Parliament had adjourned till the ISfch November. Six months ago such a result would have appeared to be quite beyond the range of possibility. At that time tho life of the Asquith Government -seemed to be limited to a few weeks at the. best. The extraordinary statement had just been published by Sir Edward Russell, of the Liverpool Daily Post, that the Govern/nent was committed to retiring from office unless the JKingL

.<gave an assurance that the power of-the Lords would be broken. The Budget ■was, according to the same statement, -of secondary importance, and Supply could be refused until grievances were redressed. This announcement, which -was fiercely debated bnt never withdrawn, gives us a vivid reminder of the hopes and fears which filled the brief interval between the general election and the opening of Parliament. The Radicals warmly supported tho militant policy foreshadowed by Sir Edward Russell, though from the first wwe coukd see nothing in it but the certainty of a crushing defeat for the Liberals at the general election which ■wotdd thus be precipifcafced, the confirmation of tfoe preposterous claims of the Lords to deal wffch the Budget and any other Liberal measure exactly as they pleased, and the restoration of the Unionists to power with as overwhelming a majority as they secured at the "khaki" general election of 1900. For a. considerable time, however, opinion seemed to be pretty evenly divided in the Liberal Party on the question of precedence between t&e Lords and the Budget, and Cabinet Ministers were quoted as being themselves in conflict on the point. With, a divided party •and a divided Cabinet the Liberals' -chance of making any headway at all with ono of the most arduous political enterprises that any party ever had to 'face seemed poor indeed. But the position of the Liberals was even more precarious than this statement shows. Even if there had been no division in their own ranks, they Mould still have been entirely dependent for a majority in the House of Commons upon the goodwill of their allies, the Nationalists and the Labour Party. Both these parties in turn declared theirinsistence upon the quarrel with the Lords being given precedence. A few days beiore the session opened it was announced that through the agency of Mr. Lloyd-George the Gr>vernmenf> had effected a satisfactory understanding with the Nationalists. A day or two after the session opened' it became perfectly clear that there "was no such understanding. Mr. Redmond declared that the House of Lords must be taken first^-which really meant that the Budget, which had originated the quarrel with the Lords, should not be taken at all ; and people began to count not the weeks, but the days, for which the Gov--ernment might last. But again the prophets were disappointed. Even as late, Ihowever, as the beginning of April the Unionists were complaining that Supplies had only been voted till the middle of May, by which time they expected to see Mr. Austen Chamberlain at the Exchequer instead of Mr. Lloyd George. But before Easter the Budget had passed, and the Government had successfully negotiated its first hurdle, and put itself right with the country in the event of its collapse at the second. By universal consent the second hurdle — the House of Lords' veto — was bound to prove insuperable, bub before the fatal moment King Edward had died, and the whole position had changed. A brief truce was inevitable under the shadow of such a calamity, and by the tune Parliament met again proposals for extending the truce and making a fitting memorial to the late King by arranging a permanent peace on the constitutional issue had begun to take shapes. The task has been entrusted to a conference of the leaders of the two parties, which has held several sittings already, and is believed to have a reasonable prospect of success. By the 15th November it ought to have arrived at a definite conclusion, but at the worst Mr. Asquith's Government will have accomplished tho miracle of lasting out the year.