PLUTES VERSUS PEOPLE.

NZ Truth, Issue 108, 13 July 1907, Page 1

PLUTES VERSUS PEOPLE.

CAMPBELL-BANf

The English Whigs— who are the lat . ,'ter-day descendants of those who rojbi bed the poor of England of thei): s patrimony, by seizing. upon the con; A'ents and monast-eries> and. enclosi©:; .I he pub! ic co mmons — are again' a; -, Iheir old game of- gammoning (bhfe people. The so-called struggle beA tween "the Peers and the Peoplei, as the pimp-Press of Australasia deserve this stimulated -crisis, is- only so much dust thrown m the eyes of the people, whom Campball-Bannerman, Asquith, Haldane, Reid, and Co., have already betrayed. There is no more intention, or disposition on the; part of Ike present very Liberal; ]ucr3-loving Administration to deal drastically, or even democratically, with the House of Lords than there is to 'grant' Hiome Rule to Ireland m any genuine , shape or form.. Is it to be believ-ed that a Govern}ment which has 'behind it .all the Needle of ths British Empire— all the •Jig Jew financiers, monopolistic, Labor-sweattu.'g, mine-owners, ship- . •^n^rs, afld the whole horde of politMfil' parvenus Vho look to pelf to ''f&if th*l r w . a y to the House . qf Sißis— is seriously inclinedrte^radir «ijliy* araend, or, m the alternative, <.en#, the House of Peers ? On the ''la«* ' "of it the idea is preposterous seU-contradictory. ' Take the per-r .sbnne.l of the! present Administration;. "{There is Campbell-Bannerman, a; Blute of plutes— one of 'the richest of Scottish landlords, of enormous^ srwalth, made by himself and his im- ! mediate progenitors, both by money?; igfublwng and land-grabbing* Then| •'•there is Asquith, the astute,- hard.4 'faced, hard-headed lawyer— the husf ■band of ; "Dodo," -the daughter of tiwi-: millionaire cheniical manufacturer^ Sir Charles Tenant, of Glasgow. TheJ well-known and respected Social Dem-| ocrat, H. M. Hyndham, has said pfe Asquith; "When he speak® you fancj vyou hear the fees ■ rattlins m his; jaws." * • a Mr Asquith, the CHancellor of th( Exchequer of to-day r^-jdentical witl the Mr Asquith who, tu>< Home Secretary, ordered the shooting down, ant merciless murder by musketry of innocent' miners on._ strike at 'Feather stone, and who justified, and gloriei m, his act amidst ; th© plaudits of th< plutish Commons. . After, if not be -Asquith comes Haldane, . Secre Uary ior War. The height of his a 'Vowed ambition, as much as for th< ' satisfaction of tis wife's vanity, is the attainment of a Peerage- Closed treading on the Mhes of this trie of truculent, reactionary Whigs' -a: "Bob the Boodler," a cognomenj m .has aoqiuired m the corridors of \ th€ formerly kmotfn to -th< ipublic as Sir Robert Reid, (but .verj little known to "the majority of th,< public now as Lord Loredaff, Lor< High-Ch-ancellor of England, and th< Premier Peer of the Empire.* • ■ H f». « ' Forming, or associated witK, ibhe ..present Administration' are such as kbese, not to speak of Sir George Grey, who is related "by blood to,] and marriage with, some of the rich-j est and most reactionary Whi-gi families of England; Lord Elgin, Secretary of State for the Colonies, a scion of that scoundrelly looter of i Parthenon who stole the "Elgin marhies" from Greece and took them to England ,• Lord Tweedmoutfi, First L,ord of the Admiraltyi, one of the richest bankers and boodlers m the United Kingdom. And from such as these we are asked to believe that radical reform of the House of Lords will ooine ! Why, the very terms of Campbeil-Bannerman's motion, submitted m the House of Commons on Monday last, show, that the whole affair is< nothing but a "shuffle !" The precise wordiag of his precious proposal is as follows :— -That m order to give effect to the will of the people, as expressed "by their elected representatives, it As necessary that the power of the ■"' other House to alter or reject Bills should be ,so restricted by law as to secure 1 that within the, limits of a single Parliament, the finaV decision of ths .Commons üball prevail. • " • n ■ ■ Tlie" terms m whic-Ti rbMs plutisl premier and presently prospective Peet pretended to support Ms motion must also be noted. He talked :■& ■ ijout ptevious resolutions passed by ,the fe l omni»uß »e«jiyi twjp hv»&c.6O

GERMAN BUNKUM.

and fifty years • ago 1 , and as recently as fifty years ago, and indulged m the old claptrap about the Commons, alone being the reflex of the .people's will. As a matter of fact, the House of Cotnmons has often been quite other than "the reflex of the people's will;" and. whatever the House of i Lords may be to-day, it is an. historical fact, knqwn to . Lord Maccaul ay's proverbial fourtbrform school boy, that the House of Peers has often, m times recent and long past —and, no doubt,- m recent times as well— curbed what. Walt Whitman describes as "the never. endin'S audacity of elected persons." Then, m the ;cheap, stale style of the, Transpontine , melodrama, Campbell-Bannsr-man declared that "according to his proposals, if the Lords, after a conference with the House of Com.mons, failed to Pass the Bill before them, it would be . re-introduced, m the Commons, passed swiftly, andsent to the Lords, with an intimation that, unless it was accepted, it would be passed over their heads.'?* "Loud Minis>/erial cheers, 1 - says the cable.. - ' *. • .« » • • ■ -Let anyone read^ihe^J^fi"^ <^--^o^ anil compare" 'Hem w.ith the' _of this last quotation from Campbell-BaTmexman's cabled speech, and >then say if he can discover any serious- or sensible shade of the shadow of a scheme for dealing drastically with the reactionary, elements m( the House of Lords. iTben he goes on to try to 'gild his . harmless 'bread pill witli ttie stupid suggestion .of quinquennial Parliaments, conveniently ignoring- the fact that the demand of Democracy, m •England to-day is even less than the demand of the Chartists of England of' fifty years ago— namely, Triennial Parliaments. Furthermore, this cunning, crafty -~ capitalist, CampbellBannermrfn, seemed to be ignorant of the fact that it was Ms party, the Whigs, who— with a view of' curbing Democracy and, as William Cotobett says, driving the people to "eat draff and grains like hogs m servile silence"— changed the lifetime of Parliament from three to seven* years. It was Campbell-Bannerman's "own party that did this, without' any mandate from the country, arid merely to oblige that dirty, disgusting human' goat, William of Orange,, the Dutch Deliverer^ ; ' ■ , *' * * i ■ 'Ah ! if Englishmen would only at this juncture study a little the his.tory of the Whigs— if they Would only remember- that the parpy m power is tb© P ; arty of Boodle— if they would only remember tha^ the most dastardly deeds done against Democracy, m the name of Law and' Order, have been done by jthese Wihigs— they would, probably think twice before they threw up their caps m the air, and acclaimed CampbellBannerman as their saviour. There will ibe no radical reform 'of the House of Lords. There is nobody m the House of Commons outside the num-, ierically weak Labor Party who desires or demands it ; and the probability is that, if a plebiscite of ithe people of England on the question •were taken to-morrpw, they would [pronounce by an overwhelming inatjority against either ending, or even radically, amending,/ the House ; of tiords.s, ! .: «" * * i , : 'WKy 1 Simply because, reactionary is- the Peers of England may je, ihere is within their ranks a large proportion of gentlemen and men jof ionor, who are actuated! by the pr^isiples of "noblesse oblige,'' acquired lither by birth or education- On tke !bher hand, what is the House pf Jommons ? Of what, or of whom, re the members of this House ? Tig element there is i> resented by a horde of shark-las-ers, seeking their own persona!, rofessional, a*'l political agrandisf ent— boodlers and bounders m every lape and form.. Then there aife tewers, manufacturers, ship-owners; id every other type of sweater o| ie human race- Behind these agaii i >me a whole army of camp-follow^ -s made up' of men whom that can! fr'Scot, Alexander Ure, Solicitor-* leneral for Scotland, described as "a' feck of nobodies, -who carried . their Instituencies under their hats." Jib no ! . Tlia Peers of Etiglancl are iit to be put m peril by the plutish jjsb copjmaftd'sii by. PaffipbeU-Baimex-f ' . - ,' •

man m the Commons. The people of England ha v» already begun to find this out. T|ie people do not believe m them. They distrust them. And, knowing them and distrusting .them as they do, th?y would' rather keep the devil' they^npw— in the House of Peers, as at present constituted— than give theiriiserves over.'\tjo .the. devil they do nut know — m the: si-ape of the sa-called ? " reformed House of •Lords— which, untfer the present pcHtical circumstances would, and could toe rothing else than a capitalistic, chamber, the actions of which tfould be uncontrolled by any of the i.e-ient sentiments that are supposed to ' iictuate gentlemen by bii-th and patriots by conviction. ■ JOiiN NQRTON, . June 27,,' 1907.-