The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 26, 1906.

Evening Star, Issue 13004, 26 December 1906, Page 4

The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 26, 1906.

Few who have intelligently followed the progress of events in tlie The Folly or Imperial Parliament in rethe Lords, lation to the Education Bill

will be surprised that the Imperial Government ami the House of Commons have angrily and indignantly rejected tho claims of the House of Lords to represent the people of England, or that they have refused to consider tbe preposterous demands of a majority of tho Hereditary Chamber. We ourselves pointed out some weeks since that the attitude and policy of the Lords under the leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury wore pure folly and a simple waste of valuable time. Mr Balfour and his party most be blind indeed to the signs of the times if they think that the England of to-day is an England that will endow and perpetuate denominationalism in the public schools of tt:e country. To tho vast majority of people at Home and abroad such an idea is so destitute of rationality that it requires an effort to place oneself in tho mental and intellectual view-point of those who honestly support it. The House of Lords v.as not only unable- to convince the Empire that it was tho sole surviving cliampion of the teaching of Christianity in the elementary schools and the guardian of the religious rights of a free people, but it was not clever enough to conceal the ; inward meaning and ultimate object of its attack on the Government Bill. The Bill as it stood made provision for instructing the children of the schools in the elements of the Christian faith, as these are, or should be, common to all denominations and churches. But this was not sufficient for the Anglican party. What they wanted and thought to secure Lthro&Sh.. lb* House .^Lojds^wasjieMjer

Bible teaching nor plain Christianity 1 shorn of itw doctrinal subtleties, but a | particular form of sectarianism that is obnoxious to the plain man and offensive to other creeds, and they were foolish enough to imagine that the present House of Commons was the sort of House to quickly acquiesce in what Sir H. Camp-boll-Bannerman, before a tremendously enthusiastic and eager House, denounced as tho " mock heroics" of the Lords. What tho latter have done by their wanton disregard of the will of tho people, as expressed through their accredited representatives, is to hasten tho curtailment of their own privileges and to evoke —as they were again and again warned they would —legislation of a more drastic and restrictive character. The House of Lords, having survived many threats, has grown rash as a result of the contemptuous immunity that has been accorded it after it has repented and swallowed its pride and perversity. To-day, however, a new spirit is abroad in England and in the world, and it is that spirit which tho Lords hoped successfully to resist. Wo think they arc wrong. The resources of the Constitution, said the Prime Minister, adapting a famous phrase of his great predecessor, are not exhausted. A way must and. would be found to give effect to tho peoplo's will. This is more emphatic, more advanced, and possibly more earnest than was a similar declaration of Mr Gladstone's under analogous circumstances. The issue which is raised between a deliberative Assembly elected by the votes of more than' 6,000,000 of people and a deliberative Assembly occupied by many men of virtue, by many men of talent, of course with considerable diversities and varieties, is a controvei'sy which, when once raised, must go forward to an issue. . . . The question will demand a settlement, and must receive at an early date that settlement from the highest authority. But Mr Gladstone had neither the temper nor the majority behind him" in the House and country that SirH. Campbell-Banner-inan has, and his veiled threat passed away with the parliamentary leadership of Us author. Much, however, lias happened in twenty years. The distance travelled has been vast —how vast may be in a measure gauged by the spectacle of the hundreds of Commoners who, flinging aside the mangled Bill the Jxuds had twice had the temerity tr> send them in place of their own, cheered to the echo the Prime Minister's defiance and appeal. The session will not have been entirely wasted if it marks the beginning of a genuine reform of the menacing powers of an Hereditary Chamber.