The Liberals want the carriage of the State to be
driven without a brake,-;--neither more nor less than that. No sensible or cautious person in ordinary life cares to take steep hills without a brake, and we shall be greatly surprised if the people express their opinion that a Government can dispense with that simple precaution. Of course the existing brake may not be of the best possible kind. We think it is not. But that is no reason for having, none at all. Mr. Lloyd George has approved of the Campbell-Bannerman scheme by which the Commons would, in effect, say to the Lords' • " veto," as it is falsely called, "Going, going, gone!" The 'essential fact is that the " veto " would go in spite of the
preliminary warnings, and the Commons would be the auctioneer of the nation's fortunes. It is childish to pretend that this would mean the retention of a Second Chamber.
