Mr. Asquith spoke at Reading on Tuesday. Addressing a great
gathering at the railway sheds, the Prime Minister declared that Mr. Redmond had no more to do with the Dissolution than the man in the moon. He condemned plural voting as an abuse which prevented the House of Commons from being fully representative, but said nothing about the over-representation of Ireland. Coming to the Referendum, Mr. Asquith repeated his criticism that it was impossible to define what were "questions of great gravity." He objected entirely to the substitution of a casual and sporadic set of judgments by plebiscite on an imperfectly defined issue for the judgment deliberately arrived at after the exchange of argument and the clash of Parliamentary discussion by the chosen and responsible representatives of the people. Such a change would upset the very foundations of representative government, and degrade the House of Commons from the position of the greatest and most deliberate Executive in the world to the level of a mere debating society.
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