Mr. Balfour, who with Sir Frederick Banbury was enter- tained
by the City of London Conservative Association on Friday week, pointed out that the Government had been charged with every kind of tergiversation by their own followers on the questions of pledges about holding office, guarantees, and so forth, while their plans for dealing with the House of Lords had been fundamentally modified under pressure to the extent of throwing the King's Speech over- board. They had, in fact, themselves passed a vote of censure on themselves. The state of affairs might be amusing if it were not extraordinarily bad for the country, by discrediting the whole system of Parliamentary institutions and the whole system of party government. The offers of the Opposition in the Commons and Lords to pass any measures for the legalising of taxation necessary to carry on public administration were rejected with scorn. It was beneath the dignity of the Government to have dealings with the House of Lords, but what had become of their dignity in the last fortnight ?
Previous page
