Mr. Asquith made a short speech at the Eighty Club
on Wednesday, in which he declared that the Government were determined to dispose of the Parish Councils Bill and the Em- ployers' Liability Bill, as far as the lower House is concerned, before the Prorogation ; and deprecated that excess of affec- tion which some of the Members of both parties are showing for the former Bill, which is too likely to end in smothering it with too much love. The embarrassing side of the situation is that the Gladstonians seem just as eager to press their amendments on the Government as the Unionists,—a fact which makes the use of the " guillotine " almost imp ossible. On the subject of " contracting-out " of the Employers' Liability Bill, Mr. Asquith declared that if the Lords amended it so as to admit contracting-out in any ease where a bare majority of the employes under any particular com- pany vote for contracting-out, the whole value of the Bill would be destroyed. The pressure of employers would generally secure a bare majority for the workmen who favour the employers' view, so that any strong firm of employers could manage to foil the intentions of the Act altogether. Mr. Asquith was careful not to indicate what the Government would do, in case a two-thirds majority of the employes were to be made the condition of the right to contract out of the Bill. Nor did he deal at all with the extraordinary interference with the liberty of the working class to judge for themselves, which the Bill in its present shape not only justifies but enforces. It is the flower of a democratic despotism.
