The Lord Chancellor in his reply did not consider the
Bill in detail, but dealt almost entirely with the Constitutional issue, which, he claimed, had not been treated seriously by Lord Lansdowne. The House of Lords had a legal, but no Constitutional, right to reject the Budget, and there was nothing in either the valuation or the licensing clauses that was foreign to the nature of the Bill. If the Upper House could establish its right to a control over the purse, it would have the Government of the day in the hollow of its hand. It was, in his opinion, impossible that any Liberal Government "should ever again bear the heavy burden of office unless it was secured against a repetition of such treatment as this." That is a very confident prophecy; but does not the Lord Chancellor forget that political parties in a democratic State like ours cannot act as independent organisms P They take colour and shape from the people on whom they depend. If the electors support the Lords, and in effect say "Pooh! she may!" even when mamma says "No, she sha'n't !" the Liberal Party will hare to acquiesce. If the country refuses to listen to a Constitutional controversy and insists on going on to some other question, the Constitutional controversy will die of inanition. We must not close our account of the first day's debate without mentioning the very able speech of Lord Revelstoke. In distinguishing between capital which is attracted and capital which is &riven abroad he made a valuable contribution to the discussion.
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