Attlee Indicted: Provoking Dispute In Grave Hour

Greymouth Evening Star, 23 October 1947, Page 8

Attlee Indicted: Provoking Dispute In Grave Hour

LONDON, October 22.

Attacking what it calls the Government’s “provocative and irrelevant” proposal to restrict further the powers of the House of Lords, The Times in a leading article emphasises that the new/session of Parliament which opened yesterday will be a decisive one for the nation’s future.

It says: “The country calls for rescue from the imminent menace of distress and decline. More than ever before, except, in war time, a partnership of all groups in the community will be ’ indispensable. Yet this moment is chosen by Mr Attlee, and. his colleagues, to. incite, a, bitter, constitutional’argument without need or. reason.'

“In itself, a reduction in the delaying power of the House of Lords from two years to one might well deserve consideration as part of a wider and non-partisan project of reform; but consent is the essence of effective reform. It is wholly out of accord .with, the decencies of copstitutional usage that, suddenly, without cause dr. provocation and without discussion, let alone consent, a single party should by virtue of its majority seek to diminish the remaining powers of the Lords' for the purely cynical purpose of easing the passage of a single controversial measure.

‘lt will be a tragedy if these aberrations reflect the real mood and attitude of the Labour Party as the country—and the Labour movement —face their gravest ordeal.”