Topics of the Day.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIV, Issue 15, 13 April 1910, Page 48

Topics of the Day.

By

Our London Correspondent.

THE BRITISH CRISIS. PREMIER AND PARLIAMENT. •WE STAND OR FALL BY BUDGET.” LONDON, February 25. ©N Monday evening Air. Asquith was called upon to “face the music.” With a few hours of the delivery of the King’s fpecrh, by which the Government called upon the ('opinions to deal with the financial situation before tackling the constitutional question which Nationalists, Labour members, and a good many Radicals were anxious to put in the first place, the Premier was defending the plan under which the “veto first” demand was set aside. Air. Balfour opened the debate on the Address. He welcomed the statement’ of

Ministerial good intentions made in the King's speech with regard to the Navy. Then, I in ning to the recent election and its results, he remarked that the issue .had primarily been the Budget. “On the

Budget,” he allirmed, “the country had pronounced.” At this there was a Liberal cheer. Turning to the quarter fron» which it proceeded, Mr. Balfour drily continued: "1 am not quite sure what it has pronounced, but at all events it has pronounced”—an observation which sent a ripple of laughter over the House. Mr. Balfour had something to

say about the position in which the election had placed Mr. John Redmond and his friends. He pointed out that the Nationalists had refused in the last Parliament to vote against the third reading of the Finance Bill, because they regarded the Home Rule i<sue as more important than the financial issue. As-

suming that they would adopt a similar attitude in this Parliament, he pointed out‘that Home Ruh* had not’ been one of the dominant issues of the election. “1 have had 149 speeches of Cabinet Ministers examined,” he observed, amid laughter, “and in one speech only was there a voluntary reference to Homo Rule. Ministers,” he said, “have persuaded every Irishman that Home Rulo is a thing they are struggling for, and they have left every Englishman and Scotsman indifferent on the aubjecV*

KING’S SPEECH GRAMMAR. Mr. Balfour's general conclusion as to the results of the election was that no one knew what the settled opinion of tlie country was on the Budget, on Home Rule, or the House of Lords. Another conclusion lie drew was that the House would probably pass a Budget of which the constituencies as a whole did not approve, and that it would do so because some of the constituencies want another great and revolutionary change, of which the majority of them have no knowledge whatever. Some scornful allusions were made at the end of the Opposition Leader’s remarks to the reference in the King's speech to the House of Lords. Two different policies, he observed, had been embodied in one ungrammatical sentence. He was careful to point out that it was Ministers, and not His Majesty, who were responsible. The grammar ot a King’s speech, he said, was not always good. “Sometimes it is worse than the

grammar of even the most illiterate man in the Cabinet. It pertainly appears to be so on the present occasion.” Mr. Balfour hailed the ambiguity of the

language thus criticised as showing that the Government had not itself made up its mind as to the precise character of the changes it intended to introduce into the House of Lords. He expressed the hope that whatever change was introduced into our Constitution, care would be taken that it was not made the sport of a chance majority. THE PREMIER’S PLEDGE. Mr. Asquith's turn came next. He showed a l>old front, and there was nothing in his manner to show that he regarded the occasion as at all exceptional, though a few words at the end of his speech showed him to be fully

conscious of the fact that the fate of his Ministry was trembling in the balance.

He soon came to grips with the difficulty raised by the Nationalist demand. “If,” he said, “you are to get Home Rule or any one of those changes on which the hearts of the Progressive party —the three parties on which the Government rely for its majority—aro set, they must be preceded by the abolition of the Lords’ veto.” Mr. Asquith then came to his Albert Hall “pledge.” He denied that he intended to convey

that a Liberal Ministry ought not to meet a new House of Commons unless it secured in advance some kind of guarantee as to the contingent exercise of the royal prerogative. “I tell the House quite frankly I have received no such guarantees, and I have asked for no such guarantees.”

The Prime Minister laid it down as the duty of a Minister to keep Hie Sovereign and the prerogative of the Crown outside the domain of party politics. He deelawd that, if necessity arose, he should not hesitate to tender to the Crown such advice as the exigencies of the situation demanded. "But,” he said, “to ask in advance for an indefinite exercise of the royal prerogative in regard to a measure never even submitted to or approved by the House of Commons is a request which no constitutional Minister could properly make, and which the Sovereign could not properly grant.” Mr. Asquith then laid down before the House the course of procedure proposed by the Government. Apart from the time to be given to finance, the session is. if the Ministerial programme bo carried, to be devoted to the topic of the Lords. Tn the first instance there is to be a resolution. This resolution is afterwards to bo embodied in a bill, to be carried through the Commons

in the course of the present session. The resolution is to be presented at such a time that the governing principles ol the Ministerial policy can be debated and determined before the House rises for its spring recess. The Budget is to be reintroduced, unchanged except in some immaterial matters, and also passed before the spring recess. The Government will stand or fall by the Budget, ami will stake its credit on carrying it through the Commons. HOSTILE NATIONALISTS. Mr. Keir Hardie intervened with the question “whether it is intended to semi the resolution to the House of Lords before the Budget passes from the control of this House.” Mr. Asquith replied: "1 don’t propose to send the resolution to the Lords at all.” The importance

of this question and the reply became apparent in the course of Mr. Redmond’s speech. For the Nationalist leader, while showing himself unsatisfied with the Ministerial policy outlined by the Premier, supported, the compromise thus suggested by the Labour representative. “Instead of sitting on for months,” said Mr. Redmond, "ploughing the sands with a futile discussion on the clauses of a bill which you have received notice would never pass, you ought then”—after the submission of the resolution to the Lords —“to ask guarantees from the Sovereign,

and if they were refused you should at once free yourselves from any responsibility for the government of the country.”

The Nationalist Leader held that iti would be a disastrous policy to pass the Budget before the Government had received any assurance that the Veto Bill would reach the Statute Book in this Parliament. "We cannot in this matter,” he affirmed, “walk blindfold. VVe cannot! be a party to a policy of ploughing the sands onge more,” and he ended by stating that the Nationalists could not accept a policy which contemplated the continuance of the Government in office without any guarantee that the Veto Bill would be passed this year. RIGHT-ABOUT-FACE. On Tuesday the debate was continued by Mr. Barnes, the Chairman of the Labour party. Only five days before he had declared that the "Budget first, veto second” policy would not be acceptable to the Labour party. He now, found himself under the painful necessity of having to execute a right-about-face, and to tell the House that he and his colleagues were prepared to accept that policy. He pressed for two conditions. They were that the committea stage of the old Budget should be taken as a whole without unnecessary delay, and “without giving any power of discussing it to the new members,” and that the coming year’s Budget should follow the Veto Bill. So far from having authority to insist, as he did in last week’s manifesto, that the veto should be taken before the old Budget, he had to say on behalf of his colleagues that they wanted the old Budget to go through. Nor was the able to respect his declaration that the continuance of the Government in office without assurances from the King regal ding the Lords’ veto would not be acceptable to the Labour party. MR. \VM. O'BRIEN DECLARES WAR'. The Independent Nationalists’ declaration of war against the Budget came soon afterwards. It was delivered by Mr» Wm. O’Brien. He described the mission of the Independent Nationalists as being to deliver Ireland from a Budget which would “make Home Rule a curse instead of a blessing.” The net practical result; of the situation, in Mr. O’Brien’s opinion. is that Ireland bv its own act was saddled with a scheme of Imperial taxation that would spell ruin to any Irish Government, and that was a “flagitious breach of the Act of Union.” He declined to la'lieve that Home Rule was an impossibility till the veto of the House, of Lords had been abolished, and he expressed the opinion that the Budget was a more serious obstacle than the HousS of Lords to successful Home Rule. The latter part of the debate was noteworthy for the development of whafi looked like a rather serious Liberal revolt. The Ministry was severely criticised by half a dozen Liberal members. Air. Wedgwood roundly declared that the! Government did not mean business, and called upon the Premier to resign, whilst 1 another member bluntly stated that if the Albert Hall policy of “safeguards” was not the Ministerial policy, the Government would “have to get support for the policy from the people.” So ended the general debate on the Address, and it must have been with feelings of relief that Ministers on tha morrow found themselves able to turn their backs on such topics as the Albert Hall pledge, even if it was only to find themselves face to face with the question of j TARIFF REFORM. This subject was introduced by Mr, Austen Chamberlain, who had tabled aS amendment expressing regret that tha King's speech contained no mention ol any proposals for “enlarging the market for British and Irish produce and increasing the demands for labour by a reform of our fiscal system which would promote the growth and stability of ouC home trade, provide means for negotis ating for the mitigation of foreign tariffs, and develop our oversea trade, ■through the establishment of a system of mutual preference between the difr forent portions of the Empire.” In the course of a vigorous speech, Air, Chamberlain showed that the demand fop productive labour in Great Britain had not kept pace with the growth of that population, and amid cheers and counteU cheers, urged that the real test of anjj economic system was that it should provide comfortable subsistence for th<

largest number of people in the country. Applying the test, he contended that the Free Trade system had hopelessly broken down.

He poured out scorn on the election l eering tactics of Free Traders, with their statement about the consumption of

“black bread” and “carrion and offal” by the workers in protected Germany, and wound up an excellent speech by asking the opponents of Tariff Reform whether it was not time they “devoted a little attention to ascertaining the truth that they ceased to meet the case for Tariff Reform by these misrepresentations, and devoted themselves to serious argument on what is a serious proposition?” Mr. Austen Chamberlain was heartily cheered when he resumed his seat. THE CASE AGAINST. Mr. Sydney Buxton, the new President of the Board of Trade, made a quiet, business-like speech in reply, his main contention being under the present fiscal system trade was improving and unemployment diminishing. The position of the Nationalists was stated by Mr. Kettle in a speech containing many humorous touches. He refused to entertain the present Tariff Reform policy as applied to Ireland, contending that it did not offer any real protection to Irish agriculture, and that if the Irish textile industry was to benefit Ireland must have a protective tariff as against British manufactured goods. Mr. Ramsay Macdonald speaking for Labour, offered uncompromising opposition to Tariff Reform, and made a particularly able and vigorous speech in defence of Free Trade. MR BALFOUR’S PLEDGE. The debate was continued yesterday, the chief speakers being Mr. Balfour and Mr. Lloyd George. The Leader of the Opposition denounced as “bad' political economy,” the statement made by Free Traders that the consumer always paid at least the duty on an imported article and probably more. Dealing with working class taxation under Tariff Reform, he contended that this was an administrative matter on which Tariff Reformers could pledge themselves beforehand. “What we say,” he remarked, “is that, that the contribution the working class makes to taxation is not to be increased by the mere fact that you substitute a Tariff Reform system for a Free Trade system.” Turning to the various devices proposed or supported by the Government for dealing with unemployment he dismissed them all as insufficient in themselves. “All these schemes can only do what you expect from them if you associate with them a scheme of Tariff Reform.” Mr. Balfour admitted that there was a controversy as to the effect of the tariff system on the condition of the working classes, but he laid down the proposition that in no country which had adopted tariffs did the working classes desire to give them up. A FREE TRADE “VICTORY.” Mr. Lloyd George devoted the greater part of his speech to defending his statements about the consumption of black bread, offal, horse, dog and donkey flesh in Germany, winding up with expressing fervent hope that this country would “not commit the folly of returning to Protection.” Finally, after Mr. Bonar Law had put the ease for Tariff Reform, the first division of the session was taken. When the result was known it was hailed with a storm of Unionist cheering. Twelve months ago Mr. Austen Chamberlain’s Tariff Reform amendment to the Address was rejected by the overwhelming majority of 1(19. The preponderance record last night against identically the same amendment, moved by the same member, was 31, the figures being 285 to 254. Tho Irish members again abstained from voting.