THE PEERS AND THE BUDGET.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2669, 26 November 1909, Page 5

THE PEERS AND THE BUDGET.

A SPEECH BY LORD ROSEBERY.

United Press (Received November 25. 8.45 p.m ) : V LONDON. Nov. 25.

Owing to the number of Conservatives desiring to speak, the debate will not finish beforo-Tuesday. Expectations that Lord Rosebery would speak drew a remarkable audience to the House of Lords.

The Marquis of Salisbury declared that the Lords did not pretend to an absolute veto, but said that the country shall decide.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, on behalf of the majority of the bishops, announced that as the division would be strictly of a party character, the episcopal bench would stand aside.

Lord Rosebery - said that the present crisis was the greatest since 1832 (the year of the first Reform Act). The Budget was crude and vindictive, and threatened to poison the very source of national supremacy. It had already destroyed confidence in Britain as the money market of the world. Britain was no longer the strong-box and safe of Europe, to which foreigners sent their savings for safety. (Received November 25, 10.5 p.m.) Lord Rosebery' continued: The Budget’s influence was like a great invading miasma spreading the disease of want of confidence, which was fatal to a commercial nation. Ships were going westward carrying bonds and stocks as ballast, but the strength, efficiency, and security of the Second Chamber were more vital to the country than the Budget. He had no fault to find with Lord Lansdowne’s resolution, in that it did not ask the rejection of the Budget, but was a resolution bringing about van.,appeal to the community. The Lords’ power should only he ex-’ ercjsed under exceptional circumstances, with the express condonation of the nation itself. He would gladly vote , for some form of referendum, but, as Premier, he (Lord Rosebery) had given utterances to references to the House of Lords and to financial legislation which prevented him from voting for Lord Lansdowne’s amendment. (Received November 25, 11.20 p.m.) Lord Rosebery continued: The general elections were not conducted in a Palaco of Truth, and it was difficult to obtain the nation’s clear decision. The Lords, by voting for Lord Lansdowne’s amendment would he risking the existence of their Chamber itself. Lord Rosebery on this point said: “I apprehend that the result will be an appeal to thei country upon the question of an unreformed hereditary Second Chamber. The first basis of reform will be delegation similar to that practised in .thb .cases, of the Scottish and. ..Irish peerage/*.. He said that the House ofLords might even elect 160 peers to vote upon Lord Lansdowne’s resolution, and that would carry more weight than a vote of the whole Chamber. He was not greatly alarmed .at menaces. The House of Lords had long lived onmenaces, but the present menaces came from men who did not value the controlling forces of a Second Chamber; men who were eminently revolutionary. In essence, if not in fact, the tendency of modern legislation was to shoot up measures from the over-worked Commons to the Lords, like rubbish on a dung-heap,, therefore the Lords should carefully reserve the power of resistance which they possessed. In rejecting the Budget they would be doing exactly what their enemies wished. He favored a less heroic policy than Lord Lansdowne’s, and he believed that the winding policy would have been to pass the Budget and to give the country six or eight months’ experience of its intolerable imposition, ite intolerable bureaucracy, above all the _ enormous loss of- employment , and .capital it involved. The opponents: of the Budget would then .have achieved a ; victory when they next approached the polls which - would I Have surprised . them.