THE REFERENDUM.
[TO THE EDITOR OP THE " EP nareToic."] Sin,—It may interest your readers to be reminded that the Referendum which you ably advocate as a possible solution of the difficulty with the House of Lords is not " a foreign device," but is in actual use in this country in the sphere of ecclesiastical policy. In the Church of Scotland and in the United Free Church of Scotland what is known as the Barrier Act provides
that new legislation which may be proposed in the General Assembly, the supreme ecclesiastical Court of these Churches, is not valid until it has been referred to all the presbyteries of the Church and is agreed to by a majority of these. Indeed, the United Free Church goes further and refers proposals of legislation to kirk sessions as well as presbyteries. The object of the Barrier Act is, of course, to prevent one General Assembly, which consists of only a third or a fourth of the ministers of the Church, from passing a measure which the majority of the Church might be opposed to. The parallel, therefore, is not on all fours with the present political situa- tion, but it is worthy of consideration, and it is curious that the Prime Minister, conversant as he is with Scotch Presby- terianism, treated the Referendum solution with so scant
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