IMPERIAL POLITICS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2692, 23 December 1909, Page 5

IMPERIAL POLITICS.

AN EX-CHANCELLOR’S VIEWS

'(JNITKD i'ItKSS ASSOCIATION —OOI’YIIIOIIT LONDON, Dec. 21.

Lord St. Aldwyn (formerly Sir 'Michael Hicks Beach), in a letter to a 'corespondent said" he had been silent because nothing he could say would ■have prevented the rejection of the Budget. He did not care to argue against his own side. “The wisest Conservative leaders in the past,” he said, “have always held that the only ground on which the Lords can properly reject a Financial Bill is on account of ‘tacking.’ I see nothing in the actual proposals of the Bill so foreign to the finance of the year as to justify its rejection on account of tacking, nor could the proposals,

whatever their advocates have -said, have been properly de»cribed as socialism or a revolution. The imposition of small duties on imported articles of large consumption would have been financially sounder and less injurious to the working classes than some of the excessive direct taxation included in the Budget,” Lord St. Aldwyn thus concluded his letter: “It would be wrong to infer /from my silence that I am on the Government’s side. The Government now propose to make the House of Lords impotent except for 12 months. Then Home Rule,; the endowment of church■es, universal suffrage, and every other radical nostrum will be passed into law ■by a caucus Government majority in a •gagged House of Commons. This is the meaning of the disposition under the mask of popular government. 'Therefore, I advise the electors to vote against the Government.

LORD ROSEBERY WANTS AN EXPLANATION.

Lord Rosebery, in a letter, asks for a definite declaration by both parties regarding reform of the House of Lords. “The Government,” he states, “wish a second chamber to be a pliant phantom. , The country did not wish to give Liberals carte blanche to deal with the constitution in any way they think fit. On the other hand, unless Mr Balfour gives a pledge thoroughly and., unmistakably we may see the Conservative Government repeat the fatal eror of letting the opportunity pass.

A NON-CONFORMIST CRITIC OF

THE GOVERNMENT.

Sir R. V' 5 . Perks, criticising the ac--tion of Free Churchmen at Mr. LloydGeorge’s meeting at Queen’s Hall, declared that the comments marked the abstention of Wesleyans. “These,” he said, “will not tolerate politics in the pulpit, in other words clerical dictation. Mr. Asquith’s ' programme is Home Rule for Ireland, socialism for -the Labor Party, and nothing for the No nconf or mist s.”