In this context we may also note Lord Courtney's letter
on " The National Will and Representation " in Monday's Times. He also deals with Mr. Asquith's misreading of the Australian analogy, and challenges his assumption that the House of Commons is the mirror of the nation :—
" It is not so any more than the Commonwealth Parliament is a mirror of the Commonwealth. If the Prime Minister seriously and warmly wishes to repel the advent of the Referendum among ourselves, he must take steps to make good what is at present his unproved, or even disproved, claim that the House of Commons is a perfect revelation of the mind, the thought, the temper of the people."
Lord Courtney, though a Liberal, is not afraid to speak of the Referendum. To some Members of the Cabinet it is anathema, a thing not even to be mentioned. Thus at the meeting of the Royal Colonial Institute on Monday Sir John Downer, a Mem- ber of the Legislative Council of South Australia, was abruptly called to order by Lord Carrington for referring to the recent Australian Referendum as an object-lesson for English Unionists, on the ground that it was a non-political gathering. There are some of our democratic patricians who would like to proscribe the use of the name Referendum, just as in the eighteenth century the name of the Macgregor clan, was forbidden to be used in writing or speech.
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