THE VETO BILL.
[To THE EDITOR Or TRH "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—There are two points in connexion with the Veto Bill which do not seem to have received adequate consideration.
First, the Lords have passed the Veto Bill. They may have been right or they may have been wrong, but they have passed the Bill, and the only question now awaiting settlement is whether it is worth while to compel a creation of strap-hanger peers in order to keep the jejune and unsatisfactory amend- ments to the Bill for a few days longer on the paper. Every- one knows that eventually the amendments must go. If they are not to be accepted as a compromise, the sooner they go the better.
Secondly, as the Veto Bill is to be carried by brute force, it is all to the good that it should pass in its most objection- able form. It will be all the easier to repeal in times to come. If the Lords go to the length of insisting on their amend- ments, they bind themselves to those amendments, and will be chained to them for ever. If, under duress, they abandon the amendments, they are free in the future to take up any position they like. An abandoned offer of compromise binds no one.—•
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