The complete change in the political situation since our last
issue must now be recorded. On Saturday last the papers gave a report of the meeting of Unionist peers held on the previous day at which Lord Lansdowne read a letter addressed to Mr. Balfour by the Prime Minister. In that letter Mr. Asquith declared that he felt bound in courtesy to let the Opposition know that the King would feel it his duty, if so advised by his Ministers, to create a number of peers sufficient to ensure the Parliament Bill becoming law in substantially the same form in which it left the Commons. No verbatim report was pub- lished of Lord Lansdowne's speech, but the newspapers were given to understand that he made it clear that, in his opinion, the Peers were no longer "free agents," and that therefore the circumstances had arisen in which it would be impossible any longer to resist. On Monday the newspapers published an admirable letter from Lord Curzon endorsing Lord Lanado cane's policy and pointing out the irreparable evil which would be done by a creation of peers.
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