On Friday week Mr. Asquith at a dinner emphasised the
. fact that the Lords had in effect rejected the Licensing Bill before a word had been uttered in their House in explanation of its principles. He compared with the treatment of the Liberal Licensing and Education Bills by the House of Lords the very different treatment of the Conservative Licensing and Education Bills. Put briefly, the situation was this,—that the present system enabled the party which had been repudiated by the country at the polls to determine, through the House of Lords, what legislation there should or should not be. Was that state of things to continue ? He declared that it must be ended, and he therefore invited the Liberal Party to regard "the veto of the House of Lords as the dominating issue in politics." Mr. Asquith went on to discuss the question of immediate dissolution, and rejected that course as "historically un- tenable" and "immeasurably absurd." He refused to set up such a precedent. As to the programme of next Session he could say little, but he assured his audience that the next Budget "would stand at the very centre of the Liberal Party's work." It would raise again the controversy with the House of Lords in its acutest form, and from this con- troversy the party would not shrink. Liberals had now only to simplify the issue and concentrate on one point.
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