FIRST POLLINGS TO-DAY

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 7301, 3 December 1910, Page 5

FIRST POLLINGS TO-DAY

MR ASQUITH’S CASE AGAINST REFERENDUM

jjy Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright (Received December 2, 10.30 p.m.) LONDON, December 2. Mr Asquith, Prime Minister, yesterday addressed a gathering of SCOO per sons at Wolverhampton. Dealing with tariff reform, Mr Asquith showed that while the House of Lords was being rebuilt and the mechanism of the referendum developed, with tariff reform on thd shelf, the Unionists would be totally unable to make a binding bargain with the Dominions at the coming Imperial Conference except with the w if" of a referendum. FAILURE OVER-SEAS, "Liberals,” said the Premier, "object to a rcferenditm;' therefore it is pointless to ask whether they will submit the question of Home Rule to a referendum. My 'flirtations' with the referendum were made twelve or thirteen years ago, in my comparative political immaturity. Since then people have had a good deal of experience of its actual working in Switzerland, in some of the American States, in Canada, and in Australia. In the light of this I have now come to the conclusion that the referendum has proved in practice to he' a most disappointing and unsatisfactory way of ascertaining public opinion. One proof of this ts thp very small percentage of votes polled compared with a general election,"