23 OCTOBER 1909, Page 3

Lord Milner, speaking in support of a Tariff Reform resolution

at a Unionist meeting held at Ealing on Tuesday, expressed his unreserved adhesion to the principles laid down in Lord Curzon's speech. With the best will in the world, he could not tell how the House of Lords would treat the Budget, which had not got there, and perhaps never might get there. The Lords, however, would no doubt be guided above all by the advice of Lord Lansdowne, and his advice would be dictated by the most disinterested conceptions of public duty. On the question of Constitutional right, Lord Milner strongly supported the view of Lord Curzon. The argument that rejection would bring about financial chaos he believed to rest on gross exaggeration. In conclusion, Lord Milner dealt very effectively with those critics who bitterly attacked the Lords for defying the will of the people while in the same breath they admitted the revolutionary character of the Budget.