TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE REFERENCE OF THE BUDGET TO THE ELECTORS.
THE House of Lords have referred the Budget to the JL country. They have done so because they hold that the Budget contains not only provisions of a novel and extremely far-reaching character, but provisions also upon which the country has not yet been consulted. They claim no right to prevent the country adopting those provisions; whether good or bad, if they have a mind to. All they tell the Lower House is that it is the Lords' duty under the Constitution to see that the country has an opportunity of saying whether it does or does not approve the provisions in question. The Lords' position may be colloquially summed up :—" We have got to obey the word of the master like everybody else in the country ; but in a new and difficult matter like the present we are going to make certain of the master's orders." Purely as a matter of tactics, and so that we might make quite sure of the master dismissing a reckless and irresponsible set of servants at no distant date, we have doubted the wisdom of the action which the lords have taken. On the bare merits of the question, however, we cannot pretend to say that the Peers are doing anything wrong, for we have again and again urged in these columns that the main function left for the Lords in the Constitution is to preserve the veto of the people in the case of doubtful legislation, and to prevent the risk, necessarily a serious one in a representative Constitution, of the servant usurping the function of the master. and ruling the house in the master's name rather than carrying out his true wishes.
To the action of the Lords in referring the Budget to the electors the Government—that is, the Liberal majority in the House of Commons—have replied by the declaration that the Lords have committed a breach of the Constitution and a usurpation of the rights of the Commons. It is on this issue that the Liberals, as far as they have the power to do so, propose to fight the Election. On the verdict which will be given the whole attention of the nation is now concentrated. We do not profess to be more able than our neigh- bours to predict the future. As the writer in the Old Testament said long ago, "the heart of kings is unsearchable," and the King of our time and coun..6-f —the sovereign people—has a heart even more difficult to fathom than that of an Eastern Monarch. It may well be that some factor now hardly discernible, or at most only a cloud as big as a man's hand, may grow till it overshadows all other considerations in the minds of the electors- who will go to the polls in the middle of January. Subject to this proviso, we are bound to say that we shall be very much surprised if the democracy can really be worked up into a state of furious indignation because the House of Lords has dared to go on beaded knee to its Sovereign and ask his pleasure. That is certainly not the sort of action which is resented by Sovereigns in general, and we doubt whether King Demos will prove an exception. Members of the House of Commons, and a considerable portion of the middle class who regard the House of Commons with awe and reverence, will unquestionably be greatly moved by the last words of Mr. Asquith's Resolution,—namely, that the action of the Lords is a usurpation of the rights of the Commons. We find it difficult, however, to think that the bulk of the voters will feel any very great horror and detestation at this attempt to make their flesh creep. If Mr. Asquith had been able to talk, which he clearly could not without a too obvious departure from the region of truth and fact, of the usurpation of the rights of the electors, it would have been a very different matter. The democracy, though very keen about its own rights, is not apt to be particularly anxious—nor perhaps should it be—about the rights of its servants.
If the Lords had taken up the line that they are an independent power, that they are going to exercise their rights and duties no matter what may be the opinion of the electors, and that they will maintain the powers which they possess in the Constitution against all comers, the task of raising the country against them would have been easy enough. One breath of the people's will would have destroyed them. But not even the most fanatical opponent of the House of Lords can venture to say that the Peers have taken up .this position. Their , crime, if it be a crime, is not that of resisting the will of the people, not even of permanently resisting the will of the representatives of the people. It is merely the crime'of asking for orders. This, we must say once again, is a matter which we shall be much surprised to see the nation consider to be- the unforgivable offence which it is represented to be on Liberal platforms and in Liberal newspapers. Though the Liberals may try to keep as the main issue of the Election the question whether the Peers have or have not committed a criminal act in daring to insist that the country shall be consulted, we are pretty confident that they will not succeed in doing so. It takes two to make an issue. At least three other considerations will play an equal, if not greater, part at the Election. It must not be forgotten that at the last Election pretty nearly half the electors who went to the polls voted in favour of Tariff Reform. Happily, in our opinion, the country by a. majority condemned the new departure ; but it was only a. majority of some eighty thousand votes. 'It is idle to pretend, when the, country is so nearly divided upon such a question, that one half of the electors will be able to prevent the other half from insisting that theFiscal question shall be discussed in detail throughout the country. We deeply regret the fact, but the fact remains. Next, it will be impossible for the Government to prevent the controversial part of the Budget—the land clauses and the licensing clauses-from being discussed also. Fuithei, the Liberals will not be able to prevent the principles which underlie the land clauses, and which involve the whole question of private property in land, from being raised and debated, and also the methods by which those principles have been urged by the member of the Government chiefly concerned with the Budget and by those of his colleagues who share his views. The Limehouse and Newcastle speeches, and all they mean, will play their part at the Election, and cannot be glossed over, or buried under a Resolution about the alleged usurpation by the Peers. . - Before we leave the subject of the Election we may point- out a matter in which it appears to us that the Liberal 'Party is likely to find itself in a position of no small difficulty. Sir Edward Grey and Mr.-Haldane have told us in unmistakable terms that they are Second- Chamber men,—that they believe in the necessity of having some strong and independent body to 'revise the work of the Lower House, and to prevent that omnipotence of the House of Commons which Cromwell, the most representative Englishman who has ever lived, said long ago was " the horridest arbitrariness in the world." Sir Edward Grey and Mr,. Haldane do not stand alone. It is an open secret that a majority of their colleagues' are also Second-Chamber inen. Yet it-tvonld seem that the Cabinet are going to put forward as a solution of the problem which now confronts them a policy which, in effect if not in name, is the policy of a single, unchecked, omnipotent Lower House. It is impossible totally to abolish the veto of the Lords, which appears to be the official proposal of the Government, without in effect abolishing the Upper Chamber and coming to a single-Chamber system. If the abolition of the veto were to take place—Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's plan of the three summonses to the Peers is virtual abolition—the Lords would be in a very real sense " side-tracked." The Commons would have left the old gate-house standing, but made a road round it, so that any attempt to shut the gates by the gatekeeper would be the merest farce.. We can quite well understand that such action as this would suit ordinary Liberal Party men very well. Though omnipotent, the House of Commons would be able to point to the stately fabric of the House of Lords fig still a. gate-house in excellent repair. Next, they would as a party be freed from certain embarrassments which would come by total abolition, and by letting loose some two hundred 'to three hundred Peers to compete for' seats in the House of COmmons. The Peers would be kept in their gilded cage as effectually as ever: Finally, Liberal Governments would still have what they find so useful and beneficial from a party point of view, the power of creating Peers, and in that way rewarding the faithful services of rich supporters. But though we can understand that this plan would suit the Liberal Party managers admirably, it is a course of action entirely incompatible with the declarations of Sir Edward Grey and Mr. Haldane. How the Cabinet are going to manage to get over these difficulties we cannot pretend to say, but we are sure that we are raising no pedantic or captious point when we draw attention to them.
To judge from the tone of the Liberal Press and Liberal speakers, all moderate and " centre-minded " men ought to be in the depths of woe at the prospect now before the country. We fear, then, that we shall be regarded with something akin to contemptuous disgust by our Liberal contemporaries when we say that we find it impossible to regard the situation in a tragic light. The Lords may not have played their cards as well as they might, and in our opinion should, have played them, but of one thing we are certain. We are face to face with nothing in the nature of revolution. No doubt the babble of the political auction-room, always shrill, may rise during the next six weeks to a shriek. But that babble will find its usual quietus at the polls. As firm believers, not only in the necessity, but in the ultimate wisdom and justice of a democratic system of government, we have no fears as to the ultimate result. If the people adopt the view of the Opposition, and turn out the present Government as unworthy of their confidence, they will do well. If, on the other hand, the voters continue their confidence in the present holders of power, and the action of the Lords is condemned, we cannot profess to say that we shall think that the end of the world has come. We shall, as in duty bound, acquiesce in the decision arrived at by those in whose hands the sovereignty of the nation lies. All that will remain for us and those who think like us will be to watch with care and vigilance the manner in which the Liberal Party carry out the orders of their and our master. That -,114:3 order will be for a single unchecked Chamber we do not for a moment believe. It is possible, if the order is for a reformed Second Chamber, that we shall get one which will prove much more efficient than the existing House of Lords. It must not be supposed that such a decision, if it is clear and unmistakable, will very greatly trouble the more active Members of the House of Lords. If the House of Lords goes, the chief Peers on ..the Unionist side will, of course, be able to sit in the House of Commons. We can well imagine that though out of a sense of loyalty they feel that they must now stand together and by their own House, it would be a matter of real satisfaction to the majority of them to be able to enter the Lower House. Men like Lord. Lansdowne, Lord Curzon, Lord Milner, Lord Cawdor, Lord Balfour of Burleigh, to take only a few names at random, will not be driven out of political life, or have their public influence diminished, should the House of Lords be abolished. On the contrary, their personal influence on public affairs would be increased by abolition. The people to suffer by the abolition of the House of Lords will be the men—and the number is not small—who at present hold seats in the House of Commons, because the man who is the most popular, or who, as we may say, is the most natural representative of the district, is now debarred from seeking the votes of the electors.
But though, on the whole, we are unperturbed by the prospect before us, our readers must not imagine that our optimism will prevent us, or , should prevent other moderate-minded men, from doing their very utmost at the coming Election to defeat the present Government. In our opinion, the present Government have adopted principles of political action, likely to have an exceedingly bad effect on the commonwealth, and have propagated those principles by demagogic action of the most dangerous and demoralising kind. Politicians, like other men, are at times the better for a sharp lesson. We want to see a mark set upon action like that of the present Govern- ment, and a lesson given which will be remembered by politicians on both sides for a g3neration at least,—the lesson that violence does not pay, and that it is bad policy in a country like this to scout the influence and ignore the views of moderate men. If we can contrive to give our politicians a lesson of that kind, it will be infinitely better, not only for the nation, but for' the internal welfare of both parties in the State. We want to put a brand upon " Limehouse " and all that it means,
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