BRITISH POLITICS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13369, 26 December 1906, Page 6

BRITISH POLITICS.

The prorogation of the Imperial Parliament gives the United Kingdom until the middle of February to express the opinions which will influence the decision of the Bannerman Cabinet. For the time being all Imperial business has been thrust into the background, and the three kingdoms are engrossed with their own local concerns. The throwing down of the gage of battle by the Lords to the Commons —for the practical rejection of the Education Bill was a direct challenge to a trial of strength— be a serious matter under any circumstances. In this particular case it is more than merely serious, for it is fraught with momentous possibilities." The Government can hardly do anything but appeal to the country, and if that appeal is heartily sustained by the electors the Lords must give way. Upon this there can hardly be any discussion. It is possible that the country may refuse to endorse the stand taken by the Commons, but it is not possible that, in these democratic days, the Lords should be able to do what it could not. do in the very height of its power — the determination of the people. Granted that the country sustains the Bannerman Cabinet on the Education Bill, and that the Lords are compelled to yield, with diminished prestige, what will be the effect upon Irish Home Rule* For behind the. Education

question looms the Home Rule question. Sir Antony MacDonnell, the champion of "devolution," is to take charge of the Government measure dealing with constitutional reform, and though he is reported to have opposed Mr. Brycewho has retired to the Embassy at Washington —in a plan for localising the control of the Royal Irish Constabulary, it cannot be doubted that he will go as far towards Home Rule as he thinks a majority will go with him. The House of Lords once defeated Home Rule, and recovered considerable prestige by doing so. But can it do so again '