NEWS OF THE WEEK.
ON Wednesday the House of Lords will receive the Parlia- ment Bill and decide its fate. The Government have decided to assume, and as we think wisely, that the Lords' amendments will not be insisted on, and that abstention on the part of the official Unionist peers will be sufficient to allow the Bill to pass by means of the votes of the Liberal peers and of those independent peers who, disregarding all party and minor considerations, are determined to let common- sense prevail, and to reject the sophistical plea that the constitutional situation created by the Parliament Bill will be improved by the addition of three hundred or-four hundred peers. Further—and this, as we have pointed out elsewhere, will probably prove to be one of the controlling factors in the situation of 1911 as it was in that of 1832—we believe that a considerable number of peers, in spite of their personal predilections, will feel that it is their duty to save the King from the intolerable position in which he must inevitably be placed if the Lords' amendments are insisted on and the creation of peers is forced. To sum up, we cannot believe that in the end the peers will be so blinded by party passion, or let us say by party tactics, that they will fail to do what they did in 1832—that is, consider the position of the King. If that position is considered, there can be no forcing of a creation of peers. We agree, therefore, with the Times—which dealt with the situation on Friday in a lead- ing article which is a model of sense and clear sight—that the Bill will now pass without a creation.
