THE BUDGET REFERENDUM.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THZ " SPECTATOL"f
SIR,—The cry raised by a section of the Unionist Party in favour of a "Budget Referendum" would be amusing were it not significant of the change that has come over public opinion during the last thirty years and more. Hitherto scouted by Tories and Liberals alike, the " Referendum " at last finds a sponsor in the Tory Party sitting in Opposition, and is avowedly proposed on accidental and party tactical grounds alone. If the Referendum is applicable to Budget proposals, why not to all Governmental measures P Is the Tory Party prepared for so stupendous a Constitutional change as that ? If not, why not ? Again, under the Constitution, or at least under Constitutional practice, an "appeal to the country" lies with the responsible Government of the day ; but under this new " wild-cat " proposal—I hope the term will be forgiven—that appeal would lie with the House of Lords : is the House of Lords trusted to that extent P If there be any saving virtue in the Referendum, it must find expression in a general, and not in an accidental, operation depending on the exigencies of party tactics. Are the Tories prepared for that P Are the Liberals P I write as an old man who, as yet, has never registered a Liberal vote, nor abstained from giving an unbroken support to the Conservative Party,—the position of the one I can, and do, respect, but for the other I have a profound distrust. Still, for all that, I have for years past
been, and still am, a convinced SOCIALIST.
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