THE AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1910. THE KING'S SPEECH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 14302, 23 February 1910, Page 6

THE AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1910. THE KING'S SPEECH.

At last we have the King's Speech, opening the Imperial Parliament of 1910, and 'with, it Mr. , Asquitli's > definite statement that he- intends first to introduce the Budget and then to submit resolutions which will form the foundation of the proposed Veto Bill. The Veto Bill itself is not to be introduced until the middle of April, after , an extended Easter. Vacation, so that nearly eight weeks will elapse before this great constitutional question comes before Parliament in a ". definite form. That Mr. Asquith is acting wisely in his procedure will not be doubted by any moderate man; and that ho has retreated from the untenable position in which he was left by the ebb of the great Liberal majority may be counted to his credit and not to his discredit. He might, of course, have pressed forward a Veto Bill to certain defeat in the House of Lords, and then refused to hold office on the ground that he could not carry official legislative proposals. This appears to have been the : course urged : by Labour and Nationalist members, as well as by the extreme Liberals, to whose ideas Mr. Lloyd-George and Mr. Winston Churchill gave undue prominence in the last Parliament. But Mr. Asquith is an Imperial statesman as well, as a party leader, and the instincts which prevented him from becoming rabidly Pro-Boer during the South African War have Dow coniDclled him to remember

that "the King's Government must be carried on'-.however factions may strive over legislative projects. The finances must be attended to unless the most solvent nation in the world is to become administratively insolvent, unless all administration is to be crippled,, unless all constitutional precedent is to be set at nought by the raising of what are practically unauthorised loans. Confronted by this supreme question, and conscious of the weakness of his majority, Mr. Asquith has : decided' to ignore the pressure of his allies and to deal with the Budget before he enters upon a battle over constitutional points wherein defeat is practically inevitable. Wc may be assured that the great influence of the King has been exerted to obtain this decision on the part of Mr. Asquith and the Liberal leaders, for it is the only course which can place the national finances again upon a sound foundation. That the Budget will be passed evidently seems to Mr. Asquith to be reasonably certain. It will probably be modified in the Commons, and will as probably not be bitterly opposed in the Lords. There may be a tacit understanding! between the orthodox parties that this mutual accommodation shall be made in the national interests, and that the conflict between them shall not be renewed in a virulent way until financial problems have been temporarily placed on the shelf.

/It is impossible to do more than theorise at present as. to what Mr. Asquith really means by the vague terms he employs in outlining the proposals by which the undivided authority of the House of Commons over . finance and its predominance in legislation" are to be secured. The Lords and the Commons are constitutionally co-equal. To so constitute 'the Lords that they shall exercise impartially in regard to proposed legislation the functions of initiation and revision, and, subject to safeguards, of delay," is revolutionary. As this cannot possibly be effected by a majority which depends wholly upon doubtful allies and at most cannot be treated as a decisive one, we may for the time being dismiss the scheme to its proper place beyond the realms of practical politics and direct attention to a much more important and urgent matter. The/King's Speech foreshadows a substantial increase in the cost of the navy, which is the first signal • indication of the great revolt of the British electors against the Little Englanders. We pointed out during, the closing days of. the General. Election that the cutting down of the ; crushing majority previously possessed by the Government restored the influence of those loyal and Imperialist Liberals, who, whatever they might ' thinks upon taxation and however little they loved the Peers, honestly sought to make the United Kingdom safe and the Empire supreme at sea. Only a year ago the Asquith Administration, coerced by Mr. Lloyd-George and Mr. Winston Churchill—those strange ' bed-fellows of iconoclastic politics—resisted to the utmost the Admiralty demand for a stronger navy and went to the country vociferously asserting that the British Navy had nothing to fear from Germany or from any possible hostile coalition. The reply of the electors upon this point, at least, was unmistakable. Wherever a constituency was doubtful the strong navy" candidate carried the ; day, while strong Liberal seats, with patriotic traditions, refused to send to Westminster ; those who professed that all was well at sea. Whatever else has come out of the General Elections, whatever else has been left unsettled and in doubt, the determination of the United Kingdom to substantially increase the navy is so unmistakable that it is now acknowledged by a Cabinet of, which Mr. Lloyd-George is still Chancellor of the Exchequer.