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was an unusually severe economy in the information vouchsafed upon impending legislation. After a reference to "the grave concern" aroused by the relations between employers and workmen, and an expression of hope "that a reasonable spirit may prevail on both sides and avoid developments that would seriously affect the trade of the country' the welfare of the people, came the curt statement which has encouraged the idea that Ministers are so completely at loggerheads on their Irish policy as to be unable even to concoct a decent formula defining their mighty destructive, constructive, and reconstructive statesmanship, that "A measure for the better government of Ireland will be submitted to you." Sir Edward Carson could not have said less, and the countenances of the Molly Maguires were better than a play. The spoliation of the Welsh Church, upon which we publish an admirable and eloquent article by one of the most brilliant young members of the Unionist Party, was thus adumbrated: "A Bill will be laid before you to terminate the establishment of the Church in Wales and to make provision for its temporalities." This was a masterpiece of euphemism, while the great measure of Manhood Suffrage suddenly sprung upon his colleagues and the country in the autumn by our unconscionable Premier, and the yet more sensational measure for the Emancipation of Woman, to which Mr. Lloyd George, Viscount Haldane, and other Ministers under petticoat government are committed, appeared in this jejune form in the Royal speech: "Proposals will be brought forward for the amendment of the law with respect to the Franchise and the registration of electors." The Adult Suffrage party, the Suffragists and the Suffragettes gave a common gasp, and each wondered whom the Government intended to betray in this ambiguous paragraph, which may mean anything from the enfranchisement of all men, women, and children, to say nothing of cats and dogs, down to a minor amendment of the registration laws. After a promise to bring in a Bill to give effect "to the unanimous recommendation of the last Imperial Conference for the amendment and consolidation of the law relating to British nationality "— which we may say in passing was the solitary reference, apart from the Indian paragraphs, to the British Empire-Ministers covered all vote-catching contingencies by informing the Legisla

ture: "You will further be invited to consider proposals for dealing by legislation with certain social and industrial reforms."

Debate on the Address

THE Debate on the Address in the two Houses followed the usual course with this healthy difference, that the Leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons made it patent from the outset that the kid-glove methods which have so long hampered the Opposition Front Bench had been finally discarded, to the immense delight of his supporters inside and outside Parliament, who are agreed that unless our leaders display infinitely greater pugnacity than in former years we shall never get rid of the Government of snobbery, jobbery, and robbery. As we have already observed, there is nowadays an unreality about the proceedings of the House of Lords which deters busy men from ploughing through the columns of rhetoric which the Peerage continues to emit after their glory has departed, and for which the more generous organs of the Press still find the requisite space. Contrary to custom, the task of moving the Address, in reply to the speech from the Throne, was entrusted to a veteran, Lord Sheffield, owing to the conspicuous lack of junior peers prepared in return for the office and salary, which is at the disposal of any Lord who will call himself a Radical, to kow-tow to the Demagogues and to say ditto to Mr. Ure. Lord Sheffield waxed eloquent on the blessings of Welsh Disendowment, which would provide from a hundred thousand pounds to a hundred and fifty thousand pounds "for general Welsh purposes of public utility." At least as much could be said for a measure to expropriate wealthy Radical peers without compensation. Upon Home Rule the Mover was decidedly unorthodox, and if any one read the speeches nowadays delivered in the House of Lords, Lord Sheffield's apologetics would be calculated to cause anxiety among Irish Nationalists and Radical stalwarts. Such a speech, coming from a semi-official spokesman, is all the more noteworthy, in the face of the fact that Mr. Asquith and his colleagues have convinced themselves, or at any rate have repeatedly declared, and the statement has re-echoed throughout the Cocoa press, that Home Rule was abundantly discussed and conclusively decided at the last General Election, and that the

present Parliament has a Mandate (with a capital M) to disript the United Kingdom, to restore the Heptarchy, or to perpetrate any other folly or lunacy which may commend itself to Ministers battling desperately for their lives and their pockets. According to Lord Sheffield and contrary to the views of the Greys, the Haldanes, the Asquiths, the Ures, the Simons, &c. &c., Home Rule is very far from being a chose jugée, nor is it easy to carry out the will of the people hypothetically expressed at the last General Election, by establishing a parliament in Dublin to deal with purely Irish affairs, while leaving the Imperial Parliament in control of Imperial affairs, &c. &c. Lord Sheffield informed the Peers" with regard to Home Rule, the problem which the Government had set before them for solution was one of extreme difficulty." For his own part, he "would support no illusory solution, which offered mere phrases and did not give effective and direct power for the purpose of maintaining the paramount rights of the United Kingdom." His confidence in the capacity of the Government to solve the problem may be gathered from the dispassionate observation that the time for examining the Bill, "for amending it so as to secure that the assurances of the Government should have adequate effect given to them in the clauses, would be when the Bill became public property and was subjected-as it certainly would be to a careful scrutiny in the Press, on the platform, and in both Houses of Parliament." Evidently the speaker anticipated a repetition of the history of Mr. Lloyd George's Insurance Bill-an illconsidered, undigested, impracticable, unworkable measure, to which no serious thought had been previously given, strung together by a few heedless and excitable journalists, and pitchforked at the House of Commons with an earnest appeal to the Unionist Party to co-operate in licking it into shape, with the results we all know.

LORD SHEFFIELD, who is under no necessity to "toe the line" to Messrs. Redmond, Dillon, Devlin, and Patrick Ford, actually concluded his disquieting speech by a humble appeal to Lord Lansdowne," whether he, with his great knowledge of Ireland, and with, he was sure, his great sympathy with the Irish people, did not earnestly long to

Colonial
Analogy

find some way of escape from the bitter consequences of the past But we are very rapidly escaping from" the bitter consequences the past," and the evil chapter of Irish ill-will would be speedi closed were it not for the countenance given by the Radic Party to the Irish Molly Maguires, who, as the salaried servan of American Anglophobes, depend for their bread and butter c embittering the relations between Ireland and England. TI speaker dropped one particularly pertinent remark: "If Irelan were in the South Pacific they could have a Colonial solution an make the country as independent as Australia or Canada. Bu they could not do this, and the solution was therefore mo complicated." This is, of course, a truism governing the who problem which has hitherto been successfully obscured from number of innocent and well-meaning people by vague verbiag about "Home Rule." Happily the hour is approaching whe Home Rule must be reduced to writing. Meanwhile Minister would be well advised in putting Lord Sheffield's warning into the pipes and smoking it. The Seconder of the Address in the Uppe House was Lord Furness, one of the many democrats who, afte an active political life as an enemy of an hereditary House c Lords, ultimately condescends to join that assembly whic on the present occasion he addressed in the gorgeous uniform a Deputy-Lieutenant of Yorkshire. He spoke on labour unres emphasising the value of co-partnership as a remedy for th present unsatisfactory relations between employers and employed and urged that a Royal Commission should be appointed to ir vestigate the question, but he had no suggestion to make for dealing with the appalling disaster immediately confrontin the nation in the shape of a general coal strike. The Unionis Leader in the Lords, over whom Lord Curzon is believed t exercise a deleterious influence, which was painfully manifes last year during the terrible tragedy of the Parliament Bill, afte: the usual polite preliminaries was unable to conceal his or Lord Curzon's disapproval of the announcements made at Delhi by the King, upon which the Unionist Party is invited to adopt ar attitude scarcely calculated to commend itself to the Party at large, or, indeed, to any Unionist who will stop to think of the grave consequences of making what will appear to the people of India-however it may appear to the people of this

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country-as reflections on the action of the Emperor of India. The Unionist Party cannot afford or consent to be placed in a false position on a great Imperial issue, through the ardour or the anger of one powerful and pushful personality, for whom some allowance zay be made, as the policy with which his Viceroyalty was Mentified has been to some extent reconsidered. Lord Curzon anot, however, be set up as an autocrat with a permanent veto Indian policy, nor are Unionists content to say ditto to him. He is one of the last men upon whose judgment we should be prepared, in a homely phrase, to “go nap.' go nap." He proved a lamentabe adviser of the House of Lords on the great constitutional question, and there is no reason to regard him as infallible on ther matters. After warmly After warmly complimenting the King and Queen on "a wonderful achievement," Lord Lansdowne indigcantly repelled the suggestion that the success of the Royal visit to India was in any way attributable" to the historic announcecent made by his Majesty on the occasion of his visit to Delhi. Any such assertion would, I conceive, imply a much too modest estimate of the effect produced upon the people of India by the demeanour and characteristics of their Majesties themselves."

ALL the reports from India, both public and private, coincide in emphasising the immense impression made by the Emperor and Empress on the myriads of people with whom they came in contact. But apart from this

A Mistaken
Attitud

personal aspect and personal contact some great and lasting souvenir calculated to appeal to the Oriental imaginain had been expected to commemorate a unique episode, and iz all time the momentous declaration made at the Delhi Durbar I be associated in the minds of the vast and varied communities ich constitute our Indian Empire with the visit of the Emperor announce his accession to his people. Parliamentarians should alise that there are moments in the life of nations when the gle service they can render is to efface themselves. The Delhi announcement was impressive because it was not made in the patch of a Secretary of State or in the speech of a Viceroy in Cancil, but because it came straight from the lips of the Sovereign

lf, and such a declaration on such an occasion undoubtedly Laced the prestige of the Crown in India to an extent that

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