That is, of course, a travesty, though a very clever
and ingenious travesty, of the Lords' position. They do not claim for a moment the right to refer normal Finance Bills to the people, or to make their very exceptional action this year a precedent for ordinary times. They merely claim to do what Mr. Gladstone, in the discussions over the Paper-duties, clearly showed they had the right to do,—in special and peculiar circumstances, and when far-reaching principles of a novel kind were involved and intermingled with ordinary tax purposes, to refuse their assent to a Money Bill, and so obtain a reference to the people. No doubt Mr. Gladstone did not use the phrase "reference to the people," but his strongly expressed reservations of the rights of the Lords for an emergency case implied recourse to a Dissolution to settle the crisis.
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