THE LAST RESORT IN POLITICAL WARFARE. T HE mode of determining
disputes between two Houses of a, common Legislature is a question which certainly deserves the most earnest attention of all constitution-makers. Within the last decade it is a problem which has more than once threatened to becomq. acute in this country, and it would be a serious mistake L suppose that, because of the total failure of the attempt to get up a cry against the House of Lords, on account of the way in which that body exercised its responsibilities in 1893-95, the subject of the relations between our two ' Houses has been removed from the sphere of dangerous complications. It happened that the majority of the electors were unfavourable to, or uninterested in, the bulk of the legislative enterprises undertaken by the party which controlled the House of Commons from 1892 to 1895, and. they therefore absolutely refused to lend any support to the feeble campaign inaugurated against the Peers on the score of their rejection or mutilation of those projects. But things might have turned out otherwise then, and at any rate they may turn out otherwise at no distant date. It is quite conceivable that if the Radical party were to discover a leader endowed with Mr. Gladstone's gifts of intellectual resource and moral inspiration, they might obtain at the next General Election, or the next but one, a majority committed to measures of social and economic change of a far-reaching character, which it would be the clear duty of the House of Lords to refuse to pass on the first presentation. The Upper House would be, in all probability, under a moral and constitutional obligation to take that course, because the kind of discussion which new and large legislative schemes receive during an electioneering campaign and the period leading up to it, is seldom, if ever, calculated to place the electorate in a position to form a definite opinion upon them in all their bearings. To that end it is generally, if not always, necessary that the schemes in question should be embodied in Bills brought forward and defended by the Government of the day, and exposed to the full light of Opposition criticism in the House of Commons. If, for example, which we do not at all anticipate, a wave of feeling should be created, by further developments of the present unhappy dispute in the engineering trade, in favour of some general legislation limiting the hours of adult labour, and the Radical party were to take up that cry and come into power upon it, there can, in our opinion, be no doubt whatever that the House of Lords ought to refuse to pass any Bill of the kind until the voters had had the oppor- tunity of considering it, after full Parliamentary debates alike on its principles and on its details. But although that would be the duty of the Lords, it is almost certain that, in the situation supposed, their right to reject a measure for which it could be plausibly said that there had been a strong popular demand would be fiercely challenged. Their action would be held up as another, and a decisive instance of their essentially anti-popular prepossessions; and the grave economic and social issues involved in the measure out of which the dispute between the two Houses had arisen would be complicated and confused by pro- posals to treat the Peers as having at last "filled up the cup" of their political iniquities. The one result which might with absolute certainty be antici- pated from such a combination of circumstances would be that none of the questions raised, whether industrial or constitutional, would be settled on their merits. But it is precisely the settlement of public questions on their merits to which all the efforts of rational and free peoples should be directed. It is, therefore, we contend, a matter of first- rate national concern that the relations between the two Houses of the Imperial Parliament should be made the subject of some recognised constitutional understanding, which should embrace both a clear view of the duties and rights of the Peers in respect of calling for a popular vote, and, if need be, a supplementary arrangement empowering some fixed proportion of the electorate to demand that such a vote be taken. This would obviate the objection raised, not altogether without reason, to entrusting the House of Lords, as at present constituted, with the sole power of requiring that any measure be made the subject of a Referendum vote.
We trust that among the larger-minded politicians on both sides it will be recognised that the respective func- tions of the two Chambers of our Legislature ought not to be left indefinitely in their present undetermined condition ; and, as we have indicated, it is by the definite and carefully devised adoption of the principle of the Referendum that we believe that a permanently satisfactory and smoothly working settlement may be reached. For reasons which, whether sufficient or not, are quite intelligible, the Con- vention which has been sitting during the present month at Sydney for the drafting of a Federal Constitution has not accepted the Referendum principle in regard to the settlement of differences between the Federal Senate and House of Commons. But none the less does this assemblage of British statesmen at the other side of the world deserve credit for the time and trouble which they have taken to settle on equitable and practical lines the methods of determining constitutional deadlocks. To them the question of the relations between the two Houses appears at present mainly in the light of a balance between the rights and powers of the more and the less populous Colonies. Either Victoria or New South Wales alone contains a larger number of inhabitants than South Australia, West Australia, and Tasmania combined. The Federal House of Commons, it has been decided, shall be elected by districts on a basis of population, and therefore it will, of course, be dominated by the more thickly inhabited Colonies. Even the accession of Queens- land to the Federation, which now seems almost assured, will still leave the two first-named Colonies in a position of great predominance in the Lower House if they act together. In the Senate, on the other hand, it has been decided that, following the example of the American Constitution, there shall be an equal number of repre- sentatives from each Colony in the Commonwealth. As we read the telegrams, no steps will be taken by means of any system of indirect election to give the Senate a more conservative character than the House of Commons. What the qualifications of the Senators will be we do not clearly gather, but apparently the six representatives which the Upper House is to contain from each Colony are to be elected by a popular vote in that Colony acting as one constituency. Obviously, therefore, it is quite conceivable that if questions arose on which the interests, real or supposed, of the more and the less populous Colonies diverged, the two Houses would come into direct conflict. Not less plainly, it would be of great consequence to the Australian Common- wealth that such deadlocks should be determined as speedily as may be, and also in a sense which would commend itself as far as may be to the general approval of the great body of colonists. The Convention has discussed devices of all kinds for that purpose, and so far as we can judge, has displayed great good temper. When we remember how bitter were the debates in the Conven- tion out of which the American Constitution emerged, how the smaller States threatened that they would appeal to foreign Powers for aid, and the greater States an- nounced that any such appeal would be met by them with force of arms, we may well admire the mutual considera- tion which has been shown by the members of the Con- vention at Sydney during the past week or two. We should have been glad if the representatives of the smaller States had seen their way to allow questions dividing the two Houses to be made the subject of a simple Referendum. Such a sacrifice on their part might, we think, have accelerated the development of that sentiment of common Australian citizenship which is so desirable. Still, it is not difficult to understand that they might feel bound not to appear to be giving away with one hand, by accepting the Referendum, what they had obtained for their constituents with the other hand, when the vote prescribing equal representation in the Senate was carried. It is certainly much to the honour of the representatives of the more populous Colonies that they have shown themselves ready to accept a settlement giving them a good deal less than, having regard to their numbers, they might naturally have claimed. The settlement finally arrived at, as we under- stand, is that in the event of a deadlock both Houses shall be dissolved, and that if, even then, they cannot come to an accord, the question at issue shall be deter- mined by a three-fourths majority of both Houses sitting together. Apparently it is possible that, even so, a final conclusion might not be reached, as the requisite majority might not be obtainable. But we may reasonably hope that the spirit of reciprocal concession which has led to the decision reached on Monday as to the way out of dead- locks will show itself in future in avoiding the creation of such difficulties, and in the ready adoption of every means for solving them in a friendly way if they actually arise.
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