370 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



threat of dissolution prevent the Party Whips influencing 

 members by calling attention to their votes as given in the 

 Division Lobby. 



There are, of course, Constitutional questions of the first 

 importance long overdue for settlement. Of these the most 

 pressing are probably devolution and the reconstitution of the 

 Upper House, and, although it is not here suggested that the 

 adoption of the reforms recommended above should depend 

 upon the prior solution of these highly contentious matters, 

 it is submitted that the difficulties in the way of their settle- 

 ment have been quite unduly magnified, and that the present 

 is an opportune time for disposing of them finally and by 

 agreement. 



Such congestion of business at Westminster as is really 

 inevitable is due entirely to the attempt of one Parliament 

 to legislate for three Kingdoms and for a whole Empire ; a 

 task as unnecessary as it is impossible of adequate performance. 

 Four-fifths of Ireland clamours for Home Rule. Ulster could 

 be satisfied by a similar grant in her own area ; eventual 

 reunion being inevitable provided that the parties were left 

 free to negotiate it at their own time. Scotland is, admittedly, 

 capable of managing her local affairs, and is more than willing 

 to do so. Wales is anxious to shoulder her own burden, 

 while England, dominated by the " Celtic fringe," longs to be 

 mistress in her own house. " Home Rule all round " would 

 satisfy all these aspirations, set free the Imperial Parliament 

 to deal with Imperial matters, and facilitate that Federation 

 upon which the future strength and happiness of the peoples 

 of our vast Empire depend. 



No responsible statesman has ever pretended that the 

 House of Lords, as at present constituted, and limited, can be 

 a permanent feature in our Constitution. The Government 

 which under the Parliament Act deprived that Assembly of 

 all but the shadow of its former powers declared, in the preamble 

 to the Parliament Bill, that it was its intention to set up, in 

 its place, a Second Chamber constituted upon a popular instead 

 of a hereditary basis. That Government never found a 

 convenient season for fulfilling this important pledge, which 

 is none the less morally binding upon those who gave it and, 

 though perhaps to a less degree, upon their successors in 

 office. The House of Lords, by the patriotic self-restraint 



