On Wednesday in the Commons Mr. Asquith moved that the
proceedings of Monday in connexion with the Home Rule Bill be rescinded, and the outcome was a scene of disorder and riot such as has not occurred since the conflict during the Home Rule debates of 1893. The Speaker at the beginning of the sitting ruled that, though Mr. Asquith's motion was without precedent, it was not out of order. Mr. Asquith argued that Sir F. Banbury's amendment of Monday did not represent the considered judgment of the House, as was proved by the previous divisions on the same financial ques- tion. The House had always held the right to rescind, though he admitted that it had not been exercised in the case of Bills under Parliamentary consideration. Mr. Balfour, after being defeated in 1905, had remained in office, in spite of the fact that opinion in the country was hostile to him—a thing which could not be said of public opinion in relation to the present Government. Mr. Bonar Law, in reply, denied that the division of Monday was the result of a trick, and declared that the Government autocrats were simply destroying the safeguards of Parliament and the House itself as a delibera- tive assembly. If they had given the international situation as their reason for not resigning the Opposition would have respected it. As it was, the only honourable course was resignation or dissolution.
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