We may add that there is also a possibility of
what we may call an opportunist and suspensive compromise being found in the suggestion that the Government's own proposal for always allowing the right of the Lords to impose two years' delay should be applied in the present case. This com- promise, however, would not provide a final solution of the problem, but would merely have the advantage of allowing schemes for a permanent compromise to be properly dis- cussed, and would prevent the taking of any rash or hasty steps in hot blood. The true compromise is, as we have said, to be found in the Referendum. This compromise we believe that the Lords have it in their power to insist upon. If, when the Government's " Veto " Bill reaches them, they add a Referendum clause, and leave it to the House of Commons to take the responsibility of depriving the people of directly expressing their opinion on the Constitutional issue, we believe that the Liberals, however unwilling, and however much they may hate the Referendum, will be obliged by the weight of public opinion to adopt the proposal of the Peers.
