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only shutting the stable door when the horse was stolen During "the interregnum," as Mr. Balfour called it, so created, all these burning questions are to be settled. With an Upper Chamber that is neither one thing nor the other-without either the constitutional power of the old system or the moral authority of the new-this sweeping bouleversement is to be carried out virtually by the will of the House of Commons alone.

It is very well for Mr. Asquith to say that he is all for a Second Chamber. But while this revolution is in progress, we shall have no Second Chamber. The whole programme will be carried out by what is practically a single-chamber Government. The extent to which Ministers are bent on misrepresenting the true nature of the question is shown by the constant assertions that the proposals of the Opposition are far more revolutionary than their own. The difference between the two is what we have already pointed out. Lord Lansdowne and Lord Rosebery would really amend the Constitution; the Government would dismember it. The Constitution can never be again what it has been from its birth after the check upon the Lower House, exercised so long with so much wisdom and moderation, has been taken away. That operation must necessarily be its death-blow. And now we are told that this is less revolutionary than changes in its composition. Whatever the abolition of the Veto may be in the abstract, to call it a constitutional amendment is pure

nonsense.

The final cause of a Second Chamber is the necessity for arresting hurried and partial legislation, so as to give the nation a chance of speaking their mind thereon before it becomes law. A Second Chamber deprived of the power of doing so is a roi fainéant; nor would its evils, as has been pointed

out before, be purely negative. AS with many other shams, a positive danger lurks within it, the danger, namely, of its being mistaken for a reality, leading people to believe that they still have the same protection as before against snap majorities which do not really represent the matured opinion of the nation.

How much more is this reflection forced upon us when we consider that it is not even an English or a British faction which has seized the reins of power. The British Constitution is being overthrown by an organized gang of foreigners, the implacable enemies of this country, to whom, to their eternal shame, the Liberals and Radicals have sold themselves. This bitter truth is as clear as daylight to all who have eyes to see and ears to hear. Unhappily, a very large number of the British electorate at the present moment possess neither. The "political mystification" which, according to Lord Beaconsfield, the Whigs practised so successfully in the eighteenth century, has continued down to our own times. "The artful orators" and "the bewildering phrases" which secured the ascendancy of Whiggism have done quite as much to secure the ascendancy of Liberalism, which, in spite of brief Conservative interludes, has prevailed more or less for the last eighty years. And even now it has succeeded in blinding a large class of the electorate to the infamy which they are patiently enduring in allowing American Fenians to dictate the policy of the British Government, and their accomplices in England to reap the reward of their compliance in a prolonged term of official power.

Mr. Ian Malcolm's amendment, moved on the 15th of February, brought this special point to the front. The speeches of that night promised to be the most interesting that have been listened to in the course of the debate

on the Addresses.

But the House and the public were disappointed. Mr. Asquith refused to give any further explanation of his Home Rule policy than what he had already given, and the "Daily News" asked "Why should he?" Perhaps we shall get a little nearer the Both Mr. Ian Malcolm and Lord Hugh truth if we ask "Why shouldn't he?" Cecil complained that he had said little or nothing to help the British public to understand what the Government really means. The question is, Does he want them to understand it? In the apathetic mood in which the people of this country seem at present wrapped, we may well ask, Do they care to understand it themselves?

But

to waive that point, Mr. Asquith and his colleagues are doubtless aware that this frame of mind may not endure for ever, and that when the country awakes from it, it may be expedient for them to know as little about the matter as they do now. Home Rule is a Protean monster, and may assume any one of half a dozen different shapes. To keep it in the background, and give the people no time to analyze its machinery, or ponder on its probable results, is clearly the Government game. And in the meantime we are expected to be satisfied with Mr. Redmond's assurance that it will do no harm-there shall be no religious persecution. The Ulster Protestants are told that not a hair of their heads shall be touched. So Charles the First assured Strafford. But Strafford lost his head soon afterwards. The Home Rule demand in Ireland is not merely a political movement. Rightly understood, it is still more an ecclesiastical movement. Remember Lord Beaconsfield's words apropos of the Irish Church-"Through all the strife of discordant factions moves the steady purpose of one Power." If people suppose that Rome has given up all idea of making Ireland a Roman Catholic country,

they are much mistaken. The Roman Catholic priesthood are secretly working for the same object. Home Rule will give them their chance. In an Irish Parliament the Roman Catholics would have a powerful majority. Why shouldn't they use it for their own purposes? The Protestant communities of Ireland certainly come under the head of "Irish affairs." As we have already said, and as Lord H. Cecil repeated, the abolition of the Veto would enable the Government to force any measure they pleased down the throats of both Ireland and Great Britain. Home Rule, threatening Irish Protestantism with spoliation or destruction, would, we say again, as Mr. Ian Malcolm said in the debate, be the work of a single-chamber Government.

What the Government may be willing to do in the last resort we shall scarcely know till that situation is reached. They would not be expected to show any signs of wavering on the first reading. The Home Rulers and the disestablishment party have recognized the necessity of allowing their demands to be postponed till the House of Lords question is settled, because they know that they cannot get what they want while the Veto is still in force. What they would do if they saw any signs of flinching on the part of the Government it is easy to guess. The situation may have changed before the bill reaches the Committee stage, or even before the second reading, but we do not expect to know the final resolution of the Government very much sooner. They will push the bill at first with the utmost vigor, and then, if met by the Opposition with firmness and frankness, and with a popular Reform Bill of their own to lay before the people, it is quite possible they may signal for a compromise, At all events, it is clearly the policy of the Unionists to go boldly forward to meet changes which they cannot pre

vent, to show themselves masters of the question, and to make it, if possible, their own.

Such was the aspect in which the approaching contest presented itself when, on the 21st of last month, Mr. Asquith introduced the bill. As we have already predicted, the Prime Minister at this early stage of the struggle spoke with great confidence and courage, and showed no signs of any disposition on the part of the Government to modify the bill, or to meet the Opposition in a conciliatory spirit. Не асcepted the anomalous position in which Parliament would be placed by the "interregnum"-the interval, that is, -nobody knows how long a one,-between the abolition of the Veto and the reconstruction of the House. He repeated, in short, only what he has said all along of the check on Radical legislation exercised by the House of Lords, which he declared to be intolerable. His sorry attempt to show that when the House of Lords rejects measures passed by the House of Commons we are living under single-chamber government, is hardly worthy even of the name of sophistry. It is too transparent, and draws no distinction between positive and negative action. The rejection of a measure which may be brought up again at any time is one thing; the forcible carriage of one пориви 18 мB[ М not be repealed for a considerable period, if ever, is quite another. latter is really single-chamber government; the former is only the legitimate exercise of the revising powers which properly belong to a Second Chamber.

The

But Mr. Asquith gave himself away completely when he charged the House of Lords with having committed suicide when they rejected the Budget, while introducing a bill at the very same moment which proves that they were quite right. The refusal of a tacking bill by the House of Lords re

quires no other justification than the introduction of a bill by the Government to make tacking illegal. Mr. Balfour replied to him, as he has often replied to him before, pointing out the gaps in his argument and the objections which have never yet been answered, and which, being unanswerable, are quietly ignored. Sir Robert Finlay showed with great acuteness how the provisions of the Parliament Bill must necessarily work in practice, and how, while aiming at exalting the Lower of the Commons, they would at the same time entail great humiliation on them, making them, in fact, "absolutely ridiculous." The House of Commons may "suggest" amendments to the bill in the second or third session, for the consideration of the House of Lords. These are not to be inserted in the bill unless the House of Lords accept them; but they would show that the Commons thought the bill in some respects a faulty one. The House of Lords, believing it to be vicious in principle, would reject these amendments, and thus a bill would become law which both Houses had condemned.

We are glad to see that Mr. Balfour protests against the doctrine that both political parties ought to be equally represented in the House of Lords. If the Second Chamber is to be a revising chamber, it is against bold, violent, or unconstitutional changes that it is to exercise this function. These, of course, will be sent up by the Radical party in the House of Commons. But if there is to be an equally strong Radical party in the House of Lords, how is the work of revision to be carried out? We ourselves, only last August, as well as on several previous occasions, called attention to this same absurdity. And it is well that it should be properly exposed, and put to shame by the leader of the Opposition.

But, after all, the central point of interest in Mr. Balfour's speech is his

emphatic declaration against compromise. He would do a great deal, he said, to help forward a peaceable accommodation of this quarrel. "But there are some gains for which too great a price may be paid." "Much as I desire peace, anxious as I am to ensue it, gladly as I would do much in the way of compromise, there are some issues so great that no compromise is possible." And he concluded a speech well worthy of the great position which he occupies in these decisive words:

If you are going to use the desire of this country to have some change in the relations between the two Houses as an instrument for getting something they do not desire, we on this side will have no part or lot in your plan, and we should think ourselves disgraced for ever if we gave it our support.

Mr. Balfour fully recognizes the gravity of the existing situation. "Does any man," he asked, "who has any power of reading the signs of the times, look forward with anything but deep anxiety, as I do, to the course of the struggle, or debate, which has begun to-day?" To judge from what he said in another part of his speech, he is not here referring so much to the ultimate result as to what we may have to go through before the end is reached. Undoubtedly, if the conflict is to be fought out to the bitter end, it may become an affair of campaigns. For this is one of those contests in which the vanquished party is not bound to know anything about finalof the Unionists to power would be the ity. Suppose the Parliament Bill to be carried in its present shape, the return signal for repealing it. If Home Rule were ever carried, then even if the Nationalist members retained their seats in the British Parliament, they would have no particular reason for supporting a Radical Government, or playing the game of Socialists and

Secularists whose principles they dislike. Thus the turn of the Unionists and Conservatives is sure to come round again, and then the fight would be renewed. We may firmly believe that the constitutional cause will triumph in the end, and yet anticipate with much anxiety the varying fortunes of the struggle which is likely to precede it.

To prevent, if possible, so disastrous a period of prolonged strife, with all its demoralizing effects, is what most men capable of estimating its mischief would, like Mr. Balfour, do much to prevent. Various schemes have been devised for satisfying the legitimate demand for reform without sacrificing the House of Lords, now our sole protectors against the threatened revolution. What the House of Lords has to do is to draw up such a scheme of reform as shall satisfy the nation that the Veto shall only be exercised with due regard to popular rights. This is the task now before them; and though difficult, it is, we hope, not impossible. At all events, it is the only way by which we can hope to repel an attack which, if successful, would swamp all those political and social principles, all those immemorial traditions and prescriptions, to which we owe mainly both the character of the British people and the greatness of the British Empire.

In the first place, then, the Unionist party, both in the Lords and Commons, must speak with no uncertain voice. Recognizing that one of those occasions has arisen when changes are required in the structure of national institutions, let them unhesitatingly proclaim their determination to lead the party of constitutional reform against those who, in the name of reform, would destroy the Constitution itself, standing as it does between themselves and their most cherished objects. There are three great prin

ciples which are now openly threatened-sanctity of family life, security of property, and freedom of industry. A strong Second Chamber with the right of Veto is their only safeguard, and the Unionist party must lose no time in showing how they would construct it On this point there can, as Mr. Balfour says, be no compromise. The Lords must hurry on their own Reform Bill, and have it in their hands to show before they throw out the Parliament Bill. Lord Lansdowne has already given notice of his intention to introduce such a measure at an early date; and though we do not much believe in any case in the creation of 500 new Peers to force the Bill through, what would make such an outrage still more doubtful would be the production before the public of a well-considered and thoroughly popular Reform Bill, the work of the Lords themselves.

And what we must never forget is this, that there are two parties in the House of Commons whom no reform will satisfy; whose hostility to the Second Chamber no changes could dis

arm.

Apart from the fact that no reconstruction retaining the Veto could possibly be accepted by them, the Irish party have little interest in the character or construction of the House of Lords. A bill which abolished the Veto, while deferring the question of reform to the Greek calends, leaving the House of Lords a log upon the waters, would be agreed to by the Nationalists just as readily as any other bill. The Radicals don't want a Second Chamber at all. It is useless therefore, we fear, for the Unionist party to attempt to conciliate either of these two opponents. They must appeal rather to the great body of moderate Liberals throughout the country, who are not of course without their representatives in the House of Commons and the Cabinet, but who are powerless, as far as we can see at

present, to give effect in action to what they really believe in their hearts, or else are spellbound by old associations and shibboleths. All alike should be brought to see that they cannot serve two masters. If they stand by the Constitution they must throw over Home Rule. If they stand by Home Rule they must throw over the Constitution. Their conduct at the present crisis will be a test of their sincerity. They have always posed as champions of the Constitution, and the British people have taken them at their own valuation. We shall continue to believe that there are enough of such men still left within the bounds of Great Britain to break the wand of the enchanter, and burst through the spell which Radical sorceries have laid upon them. This is how such men acted a quarter of a century ago, and it is to these we say that the Unionists must address themselves. It is to their common-sense, political traditions, and constitutional loyalty that the House of Lords must adjust whatever measure they may frame for the reconstruction of the present Chambers.

It is agreed on all hands that the new House is to be largely leavened with an elective element. But there are many different ways by which that object might be effected. One which is regarded favorably by the Radicals. if the total destruction of the Second Chamber cannot be compassed, is that the House of Lords should be greatly reduced in numbers, and that in any critical emergency they should sit jointly with the Commons, thus giving the decision arrived at the sanction of an elective assembly. This is a solution of the problem which must be ap proached very warily; for a very brief calculation is sufficient to show us that the reduction in the number of the peers below a certain point would make a Conservative majority in a House of

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