[TO THE EDITOR 07 THE "SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—May I express a hope that in one of your able articles on the Constitutional crisis you will specifically consider the following arguments against the Lords carrying their resist- ance to the Parliament Bill so far as to enable Mr. Asquith to create the five hundred new Peers P (1) The danger to the State lies not so much in the passing of the Bill as in what may come after,—in the price which the Ministry, or rather the country, will have to pay for the sub- sequent support of the Nationalist and Labour Parties. If the new Peers are created, Mr. Asquith will be able to pay this price at once, and he will be forced to do so in order to retain office ; whereas if the Parliament Bill were to be passed without the creation of new Peers, he would only be able to pass a Home-rule Bill, or such Socialistic legislation as the Labour Party might demand, in from two to three years' time by means of the new procedure.
(2) The creation of five hundred new Peers would no doubt eventually necessitate the reconstruction of the Second Chamber. But the Liberal Ministry would have no induce- ment to carry out the reconstruction at once; on the contrary, it would be certain to put off doing so as long as it had a majority in the Upper House, which would probably mean for the rest of this Parliament. But if no new Peers were created, and they never had a majority in the Lords, they would be bound at once to introduce a Bill to reform the Upper Chamber in order to force it through by the machinery of the Parliament Act. The country would therefore have this Bill, as well as the Home-rule and the Labour Party's Bills, presented to it at once, and would have at least two years in which to think them over before any of them became law.
(3) In the event of the Government changing hands soon after the passing of the Parliament Act, a Unionist Ministry, even with a majority in the House of Commons, would be unable to reform the House of Lords for at least two years if the five hundred Radical Peers had been created. For at least two years, therefore, the government of the country would have to be carried on with admittedly impracticable
machinery.—I am, Sir, &c., EDWARD T. Maori. The Hard, Hythe, Southampton.
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