IMPERIAL POLITICS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2921, 9 March 1910, Page 19

IMPERIAL POLITICS.

LONDON, February 28. In the House of Commons the Speaker ruled that the amendment moved by Sir J. H. Dalziel (Liberal member for Kirkcaldy Burghs), was out of order. [The amendment was as follows: " That inasmuch as the electorates have given no madate for reform of the House of Lords, the House of Commons declines to grant facilities for tho discussion of a resolution having this object in view."] \ N, March 1. The Times' parliamentary correspondent says that the decision which aims at severing the limitation of the veto on ordinary legislation from reform of the House of Lords has appeased the Nationalists and has temporarily ended the crisis. The Government was riding for a fall. They were hopelessly discredited. Mr ! Asquith was aware that if the House of Commons adopted the resolutions there would be no more ground than before for submitting to the King the preposterous request to strain his prerogative beyond all precedent, merely to please a faction.

The Prince of Wales was again present in the House of Commons, and the gallery assigned, to members of the House of Lords was crowded.

There was a strenuous debate on Mr Asquith's motion to take all the time of the House of ' Commons, but it was agreed to without a division. Mr Asquith's and-Mr Lloyd-George's speeches showed that the Budget would not be brought forward, until the resolutions had been carried. . Mr Lloyd-George declared that unless the Government was able to ensure that its proposals would become law they would quit office. The Tall Mall Gazette (0.) declares that any real expectation that the Veto Bill will ever see the light has vanished. The anxiety -of every Liberal now is directed to saving his, seat when the catastrophe arrives. The Globe (0.) says that the Government has been reprieved until Easter. _ The Daily Mail (O.) says that the city received the decision to postpone the Budget with amazement. The income tax is already 14 millions in arrears; and the Treasury bill borrowing is costing the country between two and three 'thousand pounds daily. It is officially announced that Mr P. H. Illingworth, M.P. for the Shipley Division of Yorkshire, has been appointed a Junior Lord of the Treasury, and Mr C. P. Allen, M.P. for Stroud, Gloucester.shire, a member of the Stroud Charity Board of Commissioners. March 2. Treasury bills for £4,000..000, with a currency of six months, will be issued on Monday. The election for St. George's Resulted as follows: ; Benn ... 1598 Simmons ... ... ... ... 1089 Mr J. A. Pease, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, was elected unopposed for Rotherham. Mr John. Burns, commenting on the situation, declared that it was astounding what brotherly Jove and charitable unity can do with temporary disagreements. The Nationalist members are going to Ireland until Easter.

The Unionist papers jeeringly ask '" What lias become of the Budget? " and protest against the Government's refusal to adopt Mr Austen Chamberlain's suggestion to pass the income tax resolutions forthwith.

Speaking in the House of Commons, Mr A. Chamberlain said that it would be May or June before last year's taxes could be collected*.

Mr Lloyd-George replied that the existing chaos was due to the unprecedented action of the Lords, and the Government'6 scheme had now to be considered as a whole; therefore it was impossible to introduce its resolutions earlier.

The House of Commons empowered the Treasury to extend its borrowing from March till the end of September, and to transfer. £6,300,000 of the sinking fund to the financial service of the year. Three and a-half millions from the sinking fund actually formed part of Mr Lloyd-George's Budget. # Mr Maurice ' Healy, ) Independent Nationalist, was elected unopposed for

North-East Cork in place -of Mr W. O'Brien, who was elected, but decided to sit for Cork City, for which he was also returned.

Mr E. J. Scares was re-elected unopposed for Barnstaple on taking office as Junior Lord of the Treasury. March 3. Mr Maurice Healy, in a speech to his constituents, said Mr Redmond was armed with a cracked blunderbuss. He was ready to vote against the Government when every Tegular Opposition would refrain, but was careful under other circumstances not to fire the cracked weapon. Mr. O'Brien taunted Mr Redmond with resting upon an academical resolution which the Lords would light their pipes with. The Redmondites and Radicals would then return to the electorates 4° meet with a sounder drubbing than before.

. Mr Redmond, in acknowledging American contributions to the party fund, predicted a general election before many weeks.

The Supplemenatry Estimates to the amount of £689,100, including £45,700 for the preliminary work of four contingent Dreadnoughts, which will be laid down on the let of April, were agreed to after a short discussion between Mr A. T. C. Lee, Lord Charles Beresford, and the Right Hon. Mr M'Kenna.

The Unionist leaders in the House of Lords intend to introduce proposals regarding the reform, of the House, in the first place by declaratory resolutions. It is now stated that the Navy Estimates total £41,000,000. In the House of Commons, during an angry criticism of the Government for borrowing in order to meet the financial needs of the country, Sir. R. B. Finlay, K.C. (Unionist), accused it of, wanton perversity, and declared that only the Government's allies would oppose the income tax resolution.

Mr H. Bottomley (L.) said that borrowing from one's debtors is the apotheosis of business inaptitude. Mr M'Kenna remarked : "We are not going to adopt the course mapped out by the Lords." Lord Hugh Cecil said the Government ought not to Tefuse a resolution for the collection of the income tax out of pique and temper because the new House was against the Government on the Budget. Sir W. S. Robson (Attorney-general) denied that a resolution could compel people to pay income tax before the Budget was passed. Mr Lloyd-George thinks that the Commons will disapprove of taking the income tax apart from the other measures of the Budget. The Unionist newspapers protest against this view, and urge the Government to straighten out the disordered state of the country's finance.

GOVERNMENT TAKES FIRM STAND

LONDON, March 4

Mr Asquith, replying to numerous questions, said there would be no more ploughing of the sands. The Government would not continue in office unless it was able to ensure that the Veto Bill would become law. He announced that, subject to unforeseen contingencies, the Commons would be asked, after its adoption of the veto resolutions, to assent to the Budget before the spring recess, but he declined to state whether a dual. Budget was intended.

The Daily News says that if the Veto Bill is impossible there will be no Budget. The Telegraph states that it is understood the unforeseen) contingencies mentioned by Mr Asquith refer to Mr Redmond's determination not to allow the Budget to pass unless the Veto Bill becomes law.

The parliamentary golf tournament, which had been arranged, will occupy one day intsead of six weeks, owing to the general expectation that there will be an early dissolution.

Lord Lansdowne has given notice of motion to inquire into the causes of the Government's delay in the production of tlie Budget. Mr Haldane stated that the actual strength of the Territorials was 9701 officers and 262,036 men, being an increase of 64,105 in all ranks during 1909. Mr C. E. Mallet, M.P., has been appointed Financial Secretary to Lhe War Office.

In the House of Commons Mr Evelyn

Cecil drew attention to the ■ fact of the authorities refusing his income tax cheque, and accused the Government of adopting a fatuous policy ifl order to spite the Lords.

Mr Asquith, replying, said that the Lords were entirely responsible for the existing confusion. He refused to depart from a principle 40 years old, and to divide the Budget into two parts for the purpose of' mitigating the damaging results of the Lords' action. Mr Lloyd-George said that the demand for a separate Income Tax Bill was a piece of hypocrisy. March 6. Mr Redmond, again addressing the London Irishmen, said that the last election had been paid for by the American Irish—those who had had to leave their homes for a new land. The coming election must be paid for by the Irish at home and in Great Britain.

MR BALFOUR SPEAKS OUT. LONDON, March 6. Mr Balfour was, with Sir Frederick Banbury, banqueted by the city. Mr Balfour, in the course of a speech, remarked that the last fortnight in Parliament had seen demolished the glowing picture painted by the enthusiastic brush of Radical journalists. The Government's own followers had charged the Ministers with every sort of tergiversation and with a breach of the clearest pledges. "We have seen weekly changes and plans of surrender. If the original pledge had consisted of insisting, at the very beginning of the session, on the Sovereign giving constitutional guarantees, it is so scandalous that any device might be justified to enable them to get out of it. The constituencies have justified the Lords' action, and the Minister's are unable to pass the Budget."

Mr- Balfour continued that he wanted, not a better, but a stronger Second Chamber—not another House of Commons, or one that was too strong, and which might arrogate to itself, as some second chambers did, the authority of an immediately representative chamber ; but it should be powerful enough to resist temporary gusts of public opinion, and would thus . represent, perhaps, more accurately than the House of Commons, the permanent wishes of the nation. The Radicals desired, not social reform, but revolution. Social reforms were complicated, and necessarily should be as gradual as possible. The Government's policy would involve a revolutionary or antirevolutionary struggle. Would the country sit down under a single chamber system? The Socialist®, the Radicals, and the Nationalists were not going to be the power for ever. One revolution would breed another. The abolition of the veto, as had been said by Mr Redmond, meant Home Rule, and- Home Rule meant Irish import duties and Customs barriers. Mr Balfour proceeded: "And our delay with Fiscal Reform is forcing Canada to make commercial* treaties with foreign countries in ignorance of the fact that this country will adopt the preference system which is possible between Canada and ourselves." He would like to see Tariff Reform, but whether such reform would be the "future policy of the Government or otherwise,- the old system was gone, never to return, and that was largely owing to the present Government's pressure of expenditure.

TEMPORARY BORROWING BILL. LONDON, March 5. The Treasury Temporary Borrowing Bill has been read a third time.

During the debate, Mr Cecil, answering a. remark by Mr Asquith, said that the great majority of the people regarded it as incredible that the Lords would reject the Budget. He recalled Mr Lloyd-George's word "rat-trap," as applied to a member of the House, when Mr Stanley Wilson, in referring to the Ribbkisdale Government, had described Mr Lloyd-George as " half pantaloon and half highwayman." The Speaker objected to such offensiveness, but said he was unable to compel the withdrawal of the language, because quotations from, another House were frequently used in an election.

Mr Stanley Wilson explained that he had made the remark because Mr LloydGeorge's methods in the House and in

' the country had produced the present situation.

GOVERNMENT RIGHTS MAINTAINED.

LONDON, March 5

Mr Lloyd-George declared that the Government could not accept the responsibility of using demand notes on an income tax which it was not prepared to enforce. If the Government sent the House of Lords a bill for a single tax, it would surrender the right it gained when Mr Gladstone, in 1861, circumvented the Lords by putting taxes in one bill which the Lords must accept or reject as a whole.

LONDON, March 5

Lord Courtney of Penwi.th, speaking at the New Reform Club, said that though a majority had been returned with a mandate to -curb, restrain, and limit the Lords' power, the mandate carried no absolute direction to carry through any bill which embodied a. resolution of the late Mr Campbell-Bannerman. In the House of Commons, the Transvaal War Loan Redemption Bill was read a third time. LABOUR MEMBER'S ADVICE. LONDON, March 7. Mr Ramsay Maedonald, speaking at Caxton Hall, appealed to Mr Asquith not to waste time in sending his resolutions to the Lords, who would decline to discuss them. Mr Asquith d r ould then be unable to ask the King for guarantees, because the Lords would reply that they were prepared to discuss thtf bill when they knew its detailed proposals. If Mr Asquith humiliated and checkmated them, and sent the bill on its weary way to the Lords the Liberals would get such a thrashing when they appealed to the country as the Tories got in 1906. Let Mr Asquith introduce hie bill straight into the Lords, then let him go to the King. There would not even be the need for another election. The Budget should pass before an appeal was made to the country.

Mr Balfour has started on a visit to Cannes. H<» is not expected to return until after Easter. His election efforts have affected his health, and he has been ordered to 'rest. On the 22nd inst. the Constitutional Club will tender a banquet to those candidates ,at the election who were chosen from the ranks of the working men. .