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it of this kind were provided it would be difficult to transact it as it ought to be transacted.

The Meaning of the Clause.

But the assurance which was given by the Government of that day was that the discretion as to how this business was to be distributed in the Council of the Governor-General was to be left entirely to the Governor-General himself. This is what was said on that occasion by the late Duke of Argyll, who was then a member of the Cabinet:

:

"The Clause now proposed would authorise the Governor-General from time to time to make such regulations as he thought necessary for the more convenient transaction of business, and if the division of work which he made was found inconvenient, or if his successor disproved of it, the regulation might be altered or remodelled in a moment according to the views of the Governor-General for the time being."

That, my Lords, is the interpretation which was given to that clause by the Government which proposed the Bill; that was the understanding on which the clause was accepted in this House; and I say that language of that kind is wholly inconsistent with forcing the Governor-General to make a distribution of his business which he does not himself desire.

Position of the Commander-in-Chief under the

Compromise.

That is a very clear case, to my mind; but I think also that it is contrary to the spirit at all events of the Statute that you should put the Commander-in-Chief in charge of any Department of Government at all. Those who have hitherto been in charge of those Departments have been ordinary members of the Governor-General's Council. The Commander-in-Chief is not an ordinary member, but an extraordinary member. He may be there, or he may not be there, according to the discretion of the Secretary of State; and I contend that if you, as you do, practically turn him from his position as an extraordinary member into an ordinary member, he cannot, under the Statute, being an ordinary member, exercise any military command. About that there can be no doubt, because the clause says:

"If a person so appointed shall be in the military service of the Crown, he shall not, during his continuance in office as a member of Council, hold any military command or be employed in any military duties."

That is clear. Of course, it may be said that that does not really preclude the employment upon these duties of an extraordinary member. That is a very nice legal point which I will not argue. But what I want to point out is this. Mr. Brodrick may write any number of despatches he likes, but he cannot deprive the Secretary of State of the power of putting the Commander-in-Chief on the Council or not at his discretion.

I want to know, supposing a Secretary of State were to omit to appoint the Commander-in-Chief to be an extraordinary member of the Council, what becomes of your arrangement? It

comes toppling down on your heads. He is not in Council and cannot undertake the duties, and it is obvious that the intention of those who framed the Statute was that the Commander-in-Chief, being an extraordinary member and of specially high rank, was not to be put in charge of any Department of that kind. I venture to say that in all the discussions that went on on the Bill of 1861 in this House, that idea never entered the head of any man. Do you suppose for a moment that the late Lord Ellenborough would have approved such a proceeding, that he would not have cried out upon it at once? Why, he told us on that occasion, to our great astonishment I admit, that he himself had written with his own hand every important letter which went from the Military Department. He would not do that if he was alive now, but it shows what was his feeling as to the respective positions of the Viceroy and the Commander-in-Chief in respect to these matters.

Parliamentary Discussion Prevented.

I think we have great ground to complain that in this matter you have not thought fit to consult Parliament. You have, on the contrary, done everything that you could to prevent Parliament from expressing its opinion on this subject. The Papers were laid on the Table of the other House of Parliament forty-eight hours after the debate on the Budget, and there is at the present moment on the Papers of that House a blocking notice which absolutely precludes the other House of Parliament from considering this question at all. That, my Lords, I hope will be my justification for having detained you so long.

Reasons for Protest against the Government's Policy.

I do believe that a more important question in respect to the Government of India has not been raised since the year 1861, and that it is absolutely essential that some notice at least should be taken of this matter in Parliament. I must enter my protest against the course which has been pursued by the Secretary of State. I protest against it, first, because I believe that it will mischievously disorganise the military administration of India and diminish the effective control of the Viceroy in Council over that administration. I protest against it, secondly, because it tends to deprive the Viceroy of that unfettered discretion in regard to the distribution of the business of his Council which has been conferred upon him by Act of Parliament; and I protest against it, lastly, because it has been adopted without the knowledge or the advice of Parliament, and is altogether inconsistent with the manifest intention of the Government which proposed, and of the Parliament which passed, the Statute of 1861.

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MR. CHAMBERLAIN'S FISCAL THEORIES.

A TWO YEARS' RECORD, 1903-5.

MR. ASQUITH said: Lord Rosebery, and ladies and gentlemen,— From the time when it was publicly announced that I was to have the honour of addressing you here this afternoon, I have received many suggestions and much exhortation, proceeding, I am bound to say, for the most part from rather suspicious quarters, as to the topics which it would no doubt be my inclination, and it would certainly be my proper business, to handle. Gentlemen, I am free to admit that the Government now in power, or at least in office, provides its critics with such an embarrassing variety of points of attack that the choice of a subject is not altogether easy.

The Predominant Issue in British Politics.

At the same time, it seemed to me from the first, and it seems to me now, that when a Liberal speaker has the pleasure and privilege which I have to-day of speaking at this time, and here in the capital of Scotland, to a great representative Liberal audience such as is gathered within these walls, his first and his main duty is to devote himself, as I mean to devote myself exclusively this afternoon, to that which has become, and that which until the election is over will remain, the predominant issue in British politics. It is curious and not unamusing to observe the efforts which are being made by the regular apologists of the Government on the platform and in the Press, to switch off public attention from the great controversy between Free Trade and Protection. They say to me, and to many of us to whom they offer their suggestions, "Oh, talk about the Japanese Alliance, or about Disestablishment, or about Home Rule, or about the equinoctial gales, or about the music of the spheres, but, for Heaven's sake, keep clear of that wearisome, threadbare, weather-beaten topic the Fiscal question." And yet, gentlemen, rarely in our time, or I suppose in any time, has a great issue, suddenly sprung upon the people, so completely dominated the political stage. Just remember. It is precisely two years ago since Mr. Chamberlain abandoned office, and, to his honour be it said, the ordinary rewards of political ambition, and started his Protectionist crusade. The immediate result was the breaking up of the Cabinet, for what we see there now is, after all, only the débris of Lord Salisbury's Administra

tion. Another result equally manifest and equally momentous was. the splitting into pieces of the great political combination which in this country now for nearly twenty years has been in the ascendant. Yes, gentlemen, and the last word has not yet been spoken, the last word will not be spoken until the issue is determined by the only tribunal which in this country has ultimate and plenary jurisdiction to decide it. And so long as that is the case, I say it is our duty as Liberal speakers and as Liberal workers to keep in the forefront of the political campaign the issue according to which the electors' votes ought to be determined. Gentlemen, I therefore do not propose to take the advice which has been given to me to eschew this subject to-day.

The Half-sheet of Notepaper Screen.

At the same time, I must confess to a certain amount of sympathy-compassionate sympathy-with those who tender it. It is all very well for Mr. Balfour to take refuge behind his Delphic half-sheet of notepaper. It is quite enough to screen him. But think of the hard case of those unfortunate gentlemen-you have some of them here in Edinburgh-who cannot be content with the half-sheet of notepaper, but whose melancholy business it is, day after day, week after week, to emit column after column in defence of an unintelligible policy and a tottering Government. I think, as I say, that they deserve a certain measure of compassion. Compared with their task, the making of bricks without straw, or an omelette without eggs, is mere child's play. I remember an eminent Irish prelate in the days when I was at Oxford, in an exceptionally soaring flight of rhetoric even for him, speaking of certain people who spend their lives with one eye fixed on Heaven and the other listening at the keyhole to hear what was said behind their backs. That, I agree, is a picture which the heavy-gaited Saxon imagination may find somewhat difficult to follow. Seriously, ladies and gentlemen, hardly less easy is it for these people to preserve their straightness of vision, and, shall I say, their comfortableness of attitude, when they have to pick their way day by day between the pallid ambiguities of official Toryism on the one side, and the glaring crudities of the Chamberlain programme upon the other. I cannot, therefore, admit that from any point of view, or in any real sense of the word, the Fiscal question is threadbare.

Mr. Chamberlain's Raging Propaganda.

I am going-I dare say I shall make rather a dull speech, but I am not going to make any apology-to ask you, now that two years have elapsed-exactly two years, as I said a few moments ago-since Mr. Chamberlain started his militant propaganda, to examine in a little detail how the assumptions of fact upon which his case was based have fared during the experience of these two years. I am not going back upon ancient history-to the days of the Corn Laws and all the rest of it-I am not going to indulge in

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