The Wanganui Herald. [PUBLISHED DAILY.] SATURDAY, JULY 8, 1911. THE CLAIMS OF THE LORDS.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXXVI, Issue 13422, 8 July 1911, Page 4

The Wanganui Herald. [PUBLISHED DAILY.] SATURDAY, JULY 8, 1911. THE CLAIMS OF THE LORDS.

It will bo noted iu to-day’s cables that tho House of Lords has finished the Committee stages of tho Veto Bill, and virtually reported it with radical amendments, amendments which the Government have declared they will not accept. A week or so ago Lord Morley definitely stated that the acceptance by the House of Lords of Lord Lansdowne’s amendment to the Parliament Bill would destroy all possibility of agreement between the Houses. Aa will be seen from tho cable message, that amendment was carried by 253 to 46—a majority large enough in all conscience to show that the Lords intend to continue to defy the. Commons. Lord Lansdowno’s amendment touches one of the main provisions of the Parliament Bill, which is designed to enable the House of Commons to overcome the resistance of the Lords. This clause of tho Veto Hill reads: “If any Bill other than a Money Bill is passed by the House of Commons iu three successive sessions (whether of the same Parliament or not), and, having been sent up to the House of Lords at least one month before the end of the session, is rejected by the House of Lords in each of those sessions, that Bill shall, on its rejection for the third time by the House of Lords, unless'the House of Commons direct to the contrary, be presented to his Majesty, and become an Act of Parliament on tho Royal Assent being signified thereto, notwithstanding that the House of Lords has not consented, to the Bill. Provided that this provision shall not take effect unless two years have elapsed between the date of the first introduction of the Bill in the House of Commons and tho date on which it pusses the. House of Commons for the third lime.” Lord Lausdownc’s amendment exempts from the operation of this clause Bills affecting the existence of the Crown, the Protestant succession, Home Rule for Ireland, Scotland, Wales, or England, or anything which a joint com rail tee of the two Houses regardss as an issue of great gravity upon which the judgment of tho country has been insufficiently expressed. Another radical amendment adopted by tho Lords, proposed by Lord Cromer, gave tho decision as to what constitutes a Money Bill to a joint committee of seven members from each House, whereas the Bill itself proposed that the Speaker of tho House of Commons should lie sole judge of what constitutes a Money Bill. Section two of danse one defines a Money Bill to be a public Bill which, in the opinion of the Speaker of tho House of Commons, contains only provisions dealing with all or any of the following subjects, namely, the imposition, repeal, alteration or regulation of taxation; charges on the Consolidated Fund, or the provision of money by Parliament; supply; tho appropriation, control, or regulation of public money; the raising or guaranteeing of any loan or the repayi ment thereof; or matters incidental to ! these subjects, or any of them.- Tho 'carrying of Lord Cromer's amendment, as

Lord Haldane said the other day, would enable a small committee to control Parliament by defining the relations and powers of the two Houses, and thia is quite unacceptable to the Government. When this amendment was moved, the Lord Chancellor agreed that to affirm it would be to dethrone the House of Coommons from its hitherto unassailable authority in finance, referring no doubt to the familiar proposition that the House of Lords should not even reject Money Bills, which has had the approval of no less a Conservative an authority than the lata Lord Salisbury. Referring to a Liberal Einnnde Bill in 1891, Lord Salisbury warned the Lords lhal they could not reject a Money Hill lurause they could nut change (he Executive; and that, to leave the Executive in power while depriving it of means of carrying on the government of the country would create a gra\\. Constitutional situation. The House ol Lords, however, has not conceded so much, as was seen in its recent rejection of the Liberal Budget. In claiming now equal r“presentation in the decision of what eonstintes a Money Bill it asserts a right to co-ordinate power, and if to this is added what is Lord Laudowne's proposal it would have something mure than equality, since it would be able to cither control the situation or send the House of Commons to the country whenever it differed from that House in proposed legislation dealing with the Constitution, Home Rule for any of tho four count lies of flic Lulled Kingdom, or any other subject which in the opinion of a joint committee should be submitted to popular judgment In persisting with such amendments, the lories scorn to be damaging their own cause. Trey have agreed that the llou.sr of Lords must be reconstructed, and even passed rcsolutiouos abandoning the principle of hercditaiy iegislatorship; while the Government lias offered, in effect, to keep an open mind with regard to the relative powers of the Second Chamber that is to ho. All that the big Tory majority in the House of Lords is doing, therefore, is what it might do if its desire was to prejudice the nation against any second -Chamber at all, and especially against peers as politicianas. Some' of the London papers’ hint at a compromise, hut as matters now stand compromise seems to be, quite out of the question. 'Hie Government have declared they will not accept tho amendments, and there seems iu thing for’it but to ask for a dissolution and make a further appeal to the country, or request tho King to create a sufficient number of new peers to ensure the will of the Government being given effect to. Farther developments will be awaited with interest.