The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-02-19
THE LORDS.
LabouchereM akesHis
Yearly Onslaught.
JOHN DILLON,
The Recently Retired Irish
National Leader.


Iorts to be funny, or to be as serious
as burial service. One is in favor of
the abolition of the house of lords the
other is for the adjournment of the
house for the Derby races. Henry La
oouchere primes himself annually, for
the first-named deliverance, and the
other by unanimous consent, used to
fall every year to Richard Power, one
OF the members for Waterford. But
bright and witty "Dick' Power is dead
and many moons will wax and wane
before another will fill his place or make
the rafters ring with laughter as he
asked parliament to go to the Derby.
Labouchere's onslaught on the upper
chamber is invariably bitter and his
denunciatlon of the lords is merciless
as he summons to his aid all his great
| powers Of scorn and satire and holds
the titled and hereditary legislators up
for public odium.
| 'Labby'' hates the house of lords, and
all who sit Ia it, even as the unnameable
parsonage with the cloven foot is said
to abhor holy water, And every year
he comes up to the attack with fresh
ammunition, each shot of which he
drives unerFingly at the coroneted heads
or the ducal objects of his wrath, He
arraigns them without mercy, No
| brains. no talent, no principle. no pat
riotism, no moral right whatever to be
where they are, or what they are, and
he calls upon the commons and the
country to take from them their inner
tied powers, and by making the lords
at least an elective body, render them
IN some degree answerable to the peo-
pie.
But he might as well be talking to
| the walls or to the four winds of
heaven. His speech is listened to with
interest by crowded house, for La
oouchere is always a drawing card, but
when the party tellers speak their num-
bers. there comes rolling against him
with cruel persistency laundering
majority which, in prize fighting Ian
guage puts Labby to sleep for another
year. at least, so far as the abolition
OF the lords is concerned.
! That is what happened to him q few
nights ago, when he made his anti
lords speech, and when the size of the
majority against him reminded him for
the 18th time that all Great Britain
dearly loves a lord quite as much as
we are told, all the world loves a lover
The actual vote was 223 to 105.
| In making his attack on the lords
| last Monday, M. Labouchere declared
! that his object was TO bring about
! limitation Of the lords veto power
| from which he said liberal measures
Invariably suffered. Z HeI moved an
amendment to The address to the
throne providing that bills adopted by
| the house of commons in one session
and rejected by the lords should, if
re-passed by the commons at a subse-
| quent session, become the law of the
| land.
! Mr. Labouchere's motion was vigor-
ously supported by Sir Henry Camp
| bell Bannerman, the newly elected lib
| eral leader, who declared that "the
present situation is full of danger. No
| dispassionate man can deny the anon
| ally and absurdity of q house Of lords
| in the face of a. representative form
Of government The liberals desire to
guard the rights of the representative
chamber, while leaving to the house
of peers q reasonable power of criti-
cism and advice"
Mr.. Balfour had his forces all ready
for the fray, so well in fact that there
is no immediate danger of the house
of lords being prohibited from doing
business at the old stand for at least
another year, be the service ever so
unacceptable to the masses of the peo-
pie.
The great trouble with the house Of
lords is, that ii never alters its polit-
ical complexion. 1t was tory at the
beginning, it is tory today and tory
it will remain until kingdom come. The
liberal representation in the gilded
chamber is pitifully small and has al
ways been so. The result is, that a
liberal prime minister, no matter how
strong his mandate from the people or
how large his majority in the house
of commons, is absolutely impotent
when his governmental measures are
handed over to the tender mercies Of
the lords.
Time and again the upper house has
blocked the most important reform
bills that came to it from the commons,
or If it really did permit the measure
to become law, so emasculated the
bill by amendments that it's original
purpose was almost entirely defeated.
The case is different when conserva-
tive, or tory, ministry is in Office as is
the case at present. The tory majority
in both houses work harmoniously, and
measures of the administration have
no difficulty in plotting their way
through the lords. A liberal ministers
bill has to fight for its life from the
moment 1t falls into the den Of the
peers, while the bills from a tory pre-
mier are welcomed with outstretched
arms and are rairoaded through with
scarcely the altering of a line. No
wonder Mr.. Labouchere hates the
house of lords.
The retirement last week Of Mr.. John
Dillon from the Craftsmanship of the
Irish nationalist party, is an event
that is sure to be productive Of re-
suits in Irish national politics. Mr. Dill
lon announced his resignation at the
meeting of the party held prior to the
opening of parliament, and he gave as
his chief reason, in fact his only rea-
son, so far as the cable dispatches
have told us in this country, that, after
the March elections, to be held under
the provisions of the recently passed
local government act, national con-
vention of the Irish people will as
semble in Dublin, and there the ques-
ton of the leadership, so veXed and
sore since Parnelps death, will be fin
ally adjusted. Let us hope So
John Dillon is the son of John Blake
Dillon, the colleague of Mitchell and
Meagher and Duffy in the Young Ire
land movement of 1S4S. He was born
in Blackjack, county Dublin, in 1851.
He was intended for the medical pro-
fession, and took the degree of lcenti-
ate in the College of Surgeons. He re-
Trained from active participation in
political affairs until Mr.. Parnell for
mulated his famous policy OF action in
1879, and at once Dillon became an
eager advocate of the new and vigor-
Gus leader His friend and colleague
T. P. O'Connor, describes Mr.. Dillon in
the following picturesque language:
"Mr Dillon, as so often happens, is
the very opposite in appearance and
manner from what the readers of his
speeches. especially the hostile readers,
would expect. He came in the course
of time to be regarded by large sec
tious Of the English people as the em-
bodiment oc everything that was bril-