hrown.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] Mr Lyttelton.

[5] Prime Minister of the Australian Commonwealth.

THE HOUSE OF LORDS

HOUSE OF COMMONS, _June 29, 1907_

On June 24, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman had moved:

"That, in order to give effect to the will of the people
as expressed by their elected representatives, it is
necessary that the power of the other House to alter or
reject Bills passed by this House should be so restricted
by law as to secure that within the limits of a single
Parliament the final decision of the Commons shall
prevail."

This was carried after three days' debate by 315 to 100.

I will not venture at any length into an abstract constitutional
discussion upon this Motion, because, after all, we have an extremely
practical issue before us. It seems to me that this great question
must be looked at from three points of view. There is the issue
between the two Houses; there is the issue between the two political
Parties; and then there is the national issue. The quarrel which is
now open between the House of Lords and the House of Commons arises
from two events--the general election of 1906, and the rejection of
the measures of the new Liberal Government, culminating in the
destruction of the Education Bill by the House of Lords at the end of
that year. Either of these events is memorable in itself, but placed
in juxtaposition and considered together they have a multiplied
significance. The general election of 1906 was the most vehement
expression of public opinion which this generation has known; and that
expression of public will was countered in the December of the same
year by the most arbitrary and uncompromising assertion of
aristocratic privilege upon record.

Let the House think of it. The process of the election of Members of
Parliament is extremely elaborate. The candidates go about the country
for two or three weeks saying all they have to say for themselves in
the different constituencies which they are contesting; at the end of
that exhaustive discussion there is an elaborate process of voting;
the returns are counted with the most scrupulous care; and as the
result 670 Members, representing 6,000,000 of voters and many more who
take a deep interest in public affairs but have no votes, are
returned to the House of Commons in the name of the people of Great
Britain and Ireland. The new Parliament assembles. Scarcely any
question