The Progress of the World. 



13 



An 

 Overloaded 

 Programme. 



The legislative proj;ramme for the 

 coming session contains three Bills, 

 all of which are destined to be 

 thrown out by the House of Lords. 

 I'hey are Home Rule, Welsh Disestablishment, and a 

 Suffrage Bill, manhood or adult, as the House may 

 decide. Any one of these measures would take up 

 the whole of an ordinary Session. But all of them 

 must be introduced this year in order to render it 

 possible to carry them in 1914. Each of them must 

 be sent up thrice to the Upper Chamber before tl>e 

 veto of the Lords ceases to be operative. Long 

 before 1914 the Liberals will be cursing the Parlia- 

 ment Act as a most efficient instrument for reinforcing 

 the obstructive powers of the Peers. Yet even to this 

 day there are Peers who persist in lamenting that 

 Veto Act as the destruction of their order ! 



On the Woman's Suffrage cause 

 The Position the Cabinet is hopelessly divided. 

 Woman's°Sulfrage. ^Ir- Asquith and a minority of his 

 colleagues regard the enfranchise- 

 ment of women as fraught with disaster and danger to 

 the State. Mr. Lloyd George, with Lord Haldane and 

 Sir Edward Grey, regard the exclusion of women from 

 citi/enbhip as a danger and disaster to tiie State. 

 ihctefore the Cabinet throws the whole question on 

 tlic table of the House, and asks the majority of 

 its members to decide whether or not women arc 

 to be permitted to vote. If a majority say Ay, .Mr. 

 .•\squith and his minority will pocket their objections 

 to the Bill, the Adult Suffrage Bill will become a 

 (Government measure, and will be sent up to its 

 inevitable fate in the House of Lords backed by the 

 authority of the ("abinet. It is difficult to see what 

 more Mr. Asquith could have done. Tiie militants, 

 however, are very discontented ; but though they 

 siriash windows they refuse to endorse the more 

 drastic methods of one militant Amazon, who boasted 

 that she had thrust lighted linen rags steeped in 

 kerosene iiuo pillar letter-boxes. Mr. Lloyd George 

 and Sir Ldward Grey have addressed a great jjublic 

 meeting in favour of woman'.s suffiage. It is 

 expected that Mr. Asquith will follow suit on 

 the other side. As four hundred members of the 

 House are said to be pledged to the principle of 

 woman's suffrage it will be interesting to sec how 

 many will refuse to vote for the amendment by which 

 It is proposed to give legal effect to that principle. 



The byc-eleclions are going badly 

 Tho Government f,,r ihc Government. They lost 

 and tho v .1 » 1 • .1 r 



Byc-Eicciions. North Ayrshire on the Insurance 



Bill, as they lost South Somerset ; 



and their majority was pulled down at Govan from 



2,040 to 980. The Government is " spending its 



majority like a gentleman." The relations between 



the Ministerialists and the Labour party are not so 



cordial as they ought to be. If the LTnionists would 



but drop Protection they might win the next general 



election. Even with that handicap they have a 



better chance than is pleasant to contemplate. Mr. 



Bonar Law is proving himself worthy of the position 



to which he has been called. 



Some scandal has been occasioned 



The Pope jn certain quarters by the Papal 



the Boycott. Decree of October 9th, published 



November loth, which declares 



that any Catholic who summons any ecclesiastical 



persons whatever to appear before a tribunal of 



laymen without permission from any ecclesiastical 



authority becomes ipso fafto excommunicated. Of 



course this s|)rings from the secular struggle of the 



(,'huich to assert an exclusive jurisdiction over all its 



priests, and as such a survival or revival it is naturally 



aljhorrent to the lay world of the twentieth century. 



But there is anotlier side to it which ought not to be 



forgotten. The Papal Decree is in reality an attempt 



to use the ecclesiastical boycott of excommunication 



in order to compel all C'atholics to arbitrate before 



they fight. It might b'j well if the State took a lea^ 



from the book of the Vatican and enacted a similar 



law on modern lines for the avoidance of unnecessary 



litigation. The Pope excommunicates all who 



summon clerics before a lay tribunal without the 



permission of a Bishoj) ; but by the circular of 1886 



the Bishop is compelled to grant that permission 



providing that efforts have been made to arrive at an 



amicable settlement. The new Decree therefore 



only amounts to the excomnuinication of all laymen 



who take a priest into court without having first 



attempted to arrive at an amicable settlement. That 



law might very well be extended to all Christian 



men, whether lay or clerical. 



The threatened general railway 



strike has been averted. The 



Industi lal Wars. .1.1 1 • 1 ■ 1 „ 



threatened general miners strike 



has been postponed until on a 



ballot a majority of two-thirds of the adult miners has 



approved of this drastic measure. The voting will 



take place about Jan. 12. Short but somewhat 



angry strikes of carters at Newcastle and transport 



workers at Dundee were settled by the peacemaker 



.\skwith. The cotton trade in Lancashire was 



booming at the end of the year when the fair 



prospect of prosperity was suddenly overclouded 



by a strike ordered l)y the Union for the pur- 



