THE BRITISH CRISIS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14235, 4 December 1909, Page 7

THE BRITISH CRISIS.

DISSOLUTION GRANTED.

RIGHTS OF THE COMMONS.

ASQUITH ON THE LORDS.

"ARROGANT USURPATION."

By Telegraph.— rress Association.—Copyright (Received December 4, 12.15 a.m.) London, December 3. The House of Commons was today thronged from floor to ceiling with rows upon rows of eager, attentive faces.

The appearance of the Prime Minister (Mr. Asquith) was the signal for deafening Ministerial cheers, his followers rising to do him honour.

Mr. Balfour (the Opposition leader), in turn, was enthusiastically acclaimed by the Unionists, his unexpected attendance, after a slight chill, stimulating them to a high pitch of excitement.

The debate was a comparatively short one, occupying only a couple of hours.

PRIME MINISTER'S SPEECH. Mr. Asquith, in accordance with notice given yesterday, moved:

That the action of the House of Lords, in refusing to pass into law the financial provision made by the House of Commons for the services of the year, is a breach of the Constitution and a usurpation of the rights of the Commons.

In a grave and earnest speech, the Prime Minister declared that the circumstances were unparalleled in the history of Parliament. He recalled with marked emphasis that the House of Commons alone was addressed in tho Speech from the Throne in February, when invited to make provision for the. heavy additional expenditure due to social reform and national defence.

It was the first time in history that the grant of the whole ways and means for the supply and services of the year had been intercepted and nullified by a body admittedly having no power to increase or diminish a single tax or substitute an alternative. A GREAT INDIGNITY. Amid a storm of Liberal and labour cheers Mr. Asquith remarked that tho House would be unworthy of its past if it allowed another day to pass without making it clear that it did not mean to brook the greatest indignicy and the most arrogant usurpation to which they had ever been asked to submit. He laid stress on the confusion, embarrassment, loss of revenue, and the increase of the country's indebtedness that would result from the House of Lords' action and the consequent necessity for restoring the borrowing powers conferred by the Appropriation Act. > 4,,; ... »',. „. *Mr. 1 Asquith expressed later on the hope" that the ultimate irrecoverable loss to the State would not be very great. He scouted the suggestion that the Commons should stoop to the humiliation of presenting an amended Budget with the Lords' criticism and sanction. ONLY ONE COURSE. " There is," he went on, " only one course open .without breaking the law or sacrificing constitutional principles, and that is to advise, as we have advised tho Crown, to dissolve at the earliest possible moment, and His Majesty has been most graciously pleased to accept that advice."

This announcement was received with prolonged cheers from both sides of the House. Continuing, Mr. Asquith said that if the Government were returned to power its first duty would be to reimpose all the taxes and duties that had been recently voted. " A QUAINT INVENTION." Dwelling upon the Constitution, he remarked that the great bulk of constitutional liberties and practice rested upon custom, usage, and convention,- not on the barren letter of the law. He brushed aside the argument that, the Bill was not really a financial one, and asserted that there was not a clause in it that was not connected with the primary purposes of revenue.

Mr. Asquith emphatically protested against the novel theory that the Bill was not being rejected, but being merely referred to the people. If such a claim and precedent were admitted, he said, no Liberal Government would be safe.

The conversion of the House of Lords into a plebiscitary organ was one of the quaintest inventions of the day. THE PEOPLE'S WILL. , The presumption always was that the House of Commons, being freely chosen by the people, represented the people's will. There was no such presumption , regarding the House of Lords. He admitted parenthetically the presumption in the case of the House of Commons that it ought to be strengthened by shortening the duration of Parliament and giving the members more frequent contact with the electorates. Mr. Asquith asked the House of Commons and the constituencies to declare both with organ and voice that a free people was to be found in the elected representatives of the nation. MR. BALFOUR'S REPLY. Mr. Balfour criticised what he called the avoidable finance arrangements which were inconveniencing trade. He taunted the Government on having a passion for abstract motions, which neither hurt nor encouraged, and certainly did not frighten anyone ; but the resolution was a gross misrepresentation.

The resolution ignored the fact that the House of Commons had, in the very original resolution, on which all its claims were based, gratuitously admitted in its terms that the House of Lords had the right to reject a Finance Bill, though not

to initiate or amend one. He hoped the House of Lords' exercise of the right would be rare, but never abandoned.

The House then divided—

For the motion... Against

... 349 ... 234

... 115

Majority

GRAVITY OF THE ISSUES.

AGGRANDISEMENT OF LORDS.

DEGRADATION OF COMMONS.

London, December 2.

The National Liberal Federation has issued a manifesto to the electors, in which it states: "The issues involved in the present crisis arc as grave as any in the lifetime of the oldest voter. The victory of the Tory party will involve the degradation of the Commons and the aggrandisement of the Lords, and a return to protection, with its inevitable taxes on food.

" The electors have to decide whether they wish to govern themselves or to be governed by a few hundred hereditary peers, who have thrown the Constitution into the melting-pot in order to- shift the burden from wealth, land, and liquor to food and necessaries."

LETTING THE PEOPLE DECIDE

WHAT THE LORDS HAVE DONE

London, December 2.

The Times declares that Mr. Asquith's resolution embodies the doctrine of the last four years, but goes much beyond any previous assertion of privileges, and by implication denies the power or right of the Lords to have a voice in any legislation tacked to the Budget. It is only incidentally that the Lords refused supplies this year. What has really been done is to refer to the country a quantity of legislation involving novel principles, denying the right of appeal to the courts of law, and establishing an expensive bureaucracy with arbitrary and inquisitorial powers.

RISE IN SECURITIES.

MR. CHAMBERLAIN'S MESSAGE

London, December 2.

Opposition newspapers comment on the rise in British investment securities consequent upon the rejection of the Budget by the House of Lords.

Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, in a message to a tariff demonstration at Shoreditch, said he was counting on the democracy of the East 'End to help in the great struggle before the country.