The Progress of the World. 



i I 



should fail to adjust differences on the spot. The time 

 will come when all treaties will contain a clause pre- 

 scribing a reference to the Hague whenever differ- 

 ences arise as to the interpretation of their clauses. 



Mr. Herbert Samuel deserves to 

 CheJXing ^"^ congratulated upon two great 

 of changes in the department over 



Cable Rates. ,,,1,;^^ he presides with so much 

 energy and intelligence. On New Year's Day the 

 National Telephone Company hands over its whole 

 plant and staff" to the Post Office. This, however, was 

 merely the carrying out of a policy approved by 

 Parliament. The surprise New Year's gift of the 

 Post OlVice was the announcement that cable rates for 

 plain-word messages throughout the Empire and the 

 United States are cut by one-half " on condition that 

 they may if necessary be deferred for not more than 

 twenty-four hours in favour of full rate traffic." Fifty 

 per cent, reduction in cablegrams is well worth a 

 day's delay. The alternative to a cablegram is a 

 letter which takes from ten days to si.x weeks to reich 

 its destination. The loss of twenty-four hours in 

 transmission is trivial compared with the reduction in 

 cost. It is only possible by the fact that cables are 

 idle half their time. Some day railway companies 

 will take a hint from Mr. Samuel's reform and issue 

 tickets at half price — not to be used during the rush 

 hours. As a measure for linking the English-speaking 

 world together this fifty per cent, cut in cables is prob- 

 ably worth more than the Durbar. Special recogni- 

 tion should be made to Mr. Henniker Heaton, the 

 pioneer of this and almost all other Post Office 

 reforms. Heaton labours and Samuel enters into his 

 labours. 



The Session which closed last 

 month got through an astoirishing 

 amount of work. The list of 

 measures placed on the Statute 

 lior.K was i)hcnonienal. The Parliamentary Bill and 

 the Insurance Hill alone were sufficient to make 1911 

 famous. But besides minor measures the following 

 .Acts received the Royal Assent: — 

 Parliament. Perjury, 



l-ilxiurers (Ireland). Telephone Transfer. 



Official Sccrtls. 



Autumn Silling. 

 Nnlional Insurance. Lunacy. 



Coal Mines. Maritime Cnnvrnlion!!. 



Conveyancing. Merchandise Marks. 



Copyright. Rag Flock. 



House Letting and Rating Shopi. 



(Scotland). Small L.Tndowncrs (Scotland). 



Ix)cal Aulhoriticii (Ireland) Telegraph Consiruclinn. 

 (Qualification of Women) 



A Busy Session. 



The most startling surprise of last 

 ^"^ ^°'^to '"^'" month was the fact, which passed 

 Veto the Budget, almost without comment, that the 

 Speaker refused to declare that 

 the Budget was a financial measure within the mean- 

 ing of the Veto Act. The one thing which it was 

 believed was eflfectively secured by the Veto Act was 

 that it said once and for ever " hands off" to the Peers 

 in tht case of all Money Bills. It was the rejection 

 of a Budget that led to the appeal to the country, and 

 everyone believed that the Veto Bill forbade the 

 House of Lords to meddle with Budgets ever any 

 more. But vain are the expectations of mortal men. 

 The Veto Act gave authority to the Speaker to decide 

 which are Money Bills and which are not. Unless 

 the Speaker endorses a Bill as a Money Bill under 

 the Act the Peers can maul it about as they please, 

 or throw it out altogether, if they so prefer. The 

 Budget of last Session was not endorsed by the 

 Speaker as a Money Bill presumably because it con- 

 tained some provisions not strictly financial. Hence 

 the Peers could havij exercised their statutory right 

 to reject the Budget or to amend it. They did not 

 touch it. But what a commentary upon the frenzied 

 fears of the Peers that the Veto Act was the end of 

 all things ! And what a justification of the warnings 

 which from first to last we addressed to the Radical.s 

 as to the worse than uselessness of the Parliament 

 Bill. 



The Peers, recovering a little from 



The Rejection (heir panic, decided to show that 

 or the 

 Naval Prize Court Bill, they are Still a power in the land 



by throwing out the Naval Prize 

 Court Bill. I',y so doing they inflicted a humilia- 

 tion upon the nation whose Government had 

 invited the Powers to draw up the Declaration 

 of London on the assurance that it would 

 pass a law giving authority to the Courts, but 

 that mattered little to the joy of throwing out a 

 Government Bill. Fortunately the Declaration ot 

 London is beyond their control. The Government 

 can and ought to ratify that Declaration without loss 

 of time. I5ut even if it failed to do this obvious duly, 

 the Declaration will govern the decisions of all Prize 

 Courts even before it is ratified. It is the latest and 

 most authoritative exjiression of what by general 

 consent is regarded as what ought to be the law ol 

 naval warfare. All that the Lords have done has 

 been to deprive our own shipowners of the advantage 

 of an appeal to an International Court from the 

 Courts of the Power whose cruisers have inflicted 

 the wrong. The Russian Amba.ssador at Con- 



