That invaluable person, the Scottish heckler, elicited a very significant
and important declaration from Mr. Asquith on Wednesday. Asked bow he intended to improve the House of Lords, Mr. Asquith replied : " It is not proposed to improve it at all, but to limit its veto." Could anything he plainer than this admission that the Government intend to bring about what is virtually a single-Chamber system ? Yet Mr. Asquith denied that he supported the policy of a single-Chamber Government. Further questions elicited the statement that Mr. Asquith proposes to attain his end by passing an Act of Parliament limiting the veto of the House of Lords to the lifetime of a single Parliament. In this context it is worth recalling the words used in the Prime Minister's Albert Hall speech on December 10th, 1909: " The will of the people as deliberately expressed by their elected representatives must, within the limits of the lifetime of a single Parliament, be made effective." This clearly does not mean the carrying over of any measure opposed by the Lords from one Parlia- ment to another. The Second Chamber is to be maintained with all its imperfections as an excuse for crippling it altogether. On Thursday he was again interrogated on the same subject. "Another elector : Will Mr. Asquith tell us what he is prepared to do in the event of the House of Lords refusing to pass a Bill sent up to them limiting their veto.' Mr. Asquith : 'No, I will not. We shall wait and see.'" Mr. Asquith's answer reminds us of that of the London street -urchin when asked by the Magistrate if he knew where be would go if he did not speak the truth,—" I don't know, you don't know, nor none of us don't know."
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