HL Deb 01 December 1920 vol 42 cc783-906

Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.

Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(The Lord Chancellor.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

House in Committee accordingly.

[The EARL OF DONOUGIHIORE in the Chair.]

Clause 1:

Establishment of Parliaments of Southern and Northern Ireland.

1.—(1) On and after the appointed day there shall be established for Southern Ireland a Parliament to be called the Parliament of Southern Ireland consisting, of His Majesty and the House of Commons of Southern Ireland, and there shall be established for Northern Ireland a Parliament to be called the Parliament of Northern Ireland consisting of His Majesty and the House of Commons of Northern Ireland.

(2) For the purposes of this Act Northern Ireland shall consist of the parliamentary counties of Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry and Tyrone, and the parliamentary boroughs of Belfast and Londonderry, and Southern Ireland shall consist of so much of Ireland as is not comprised within the said parliamentary counties and boroughs.

LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH had an Amendment on the Paper to insert, before Clause 1, one of the following new clauses— 1. This Bill shall not become operative until after a referendum of the people of Ireland has been taken thereon. 1. A series of conventions shall be held to be formed of a number of members to be hereafter decided upon, two-thirds of whom shall be elected by the people of Ireland, and one-third to be appointed by the Parliament of Great Britain to redraft or amend this Bill in order that it may assume a form acceptable to the Irish people. 1. While in the interests of Ireland the Parliament of Great Britain temporarily confers by this Bill certain measures of Home Rule to Ireland, it reserves the right to cancel all or any of the constitutional privileges herein contained, should it be decided to pass a devolution Bill granting self-governing powers to England, Scotland and Wales, in order to bring the government of Ireland into line with the rest of the United Kingdom.

The noble Lord said: In rising to move the Amendments that stand in my name I desire to say that I have put the three together for the reason that I thought I could address your Lordships on the three collectively and so save time in this debate. I have considered for the last thirty years that a great many of the evils that have arisen during that period would have been obviated if we had thirty years ago given Home Rule to Ireland. Yet, despite my strong feelings (which have been accentuated from a knowledge of the Irish people outside Ireland as well as other considerations) I felt compelled to vote against this Bill the other day, not because I thought it wholly undesirable to give some form of self-government to Ireland, but because I felt that the Bill as at present drafted would do more harm than good, and would create more revolutionaries than if it did not come into force. Amongst other considerations, it is to be remembered that the bulk of the Irish people do not reside in Ireland—they reside throughout the British Empire—and it is of the greatest importance that any measure passed in this direction should not tend to break up the unity, first of all of Great Britain, and also of the British Empire.

We learned several lessons from the war, but the most important and the most emphatic lesson has been that with a few good, useful officers it is possible to raise an Army of 2,000,000 in twenty-four months; added to which one cannot look upon the world to-day in the spirit of the farmer who refuses to notice anything outside his immediate surroundings, but goes on his own way. The life and prosperity of Great Britain and the British Empire is not tied up with what takes place within the British Isles. It is also influenced by what takes place, and by what is going to take place, throughout the world as a whole. No careful observer of the course of events in the past can fail to realise some of the stupendous evils and dangers that stare us in the face in the cooling twenty years. During the past 200 years materialistic science in Germany has brought us into a state, through its false doctrines, that culminated in the last war as the beginning of probably a sixty-years war, and the action of German intrigue to undermine for the last thirty years the stability of all Governments by encouraging anarchy throughout every country but Germany is a force that we have not done with. It will increase in the next twenty years. That force is growing largely. Germany may have tried to bite too much off the cake when she went for a World Empire, but Germany is still the same Germany underneath the surface, and she is still fighting in the same direction. In less than twenty years the probability is that Bolshevist domination will extend from the Rhine to the Pacific. The danger we had to face five years ago is no less than the danger we will have to face in a few years—

LORD BUCKMASTER

I think it well to call your Lordships' attention to the fact that the speech of the noble Lord appears to have no relation whatever to the Amendment, and unless your Lordships take charge of this debate it may be prolonged in these circumstances for an indefinite period.

LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH

I will try and confine myself as much as possible to the Amendment. If I have digressed a little it is simply to point out to your Lordships that in passing this Bill and amending it we have to consider that it is these conditions, combined with the fact that in all densely populated countries it is becoming more difficult every day to carry on Government from one central place, which tend towards the necessity for federating Great Britain in the course of a very few years. If we pass a Bill for the Government of Ireland in the form proposed, we may raise an insurmountable barrier to federation, and, instead of mitigating the evil, may only tend to sever Ireland from the rest of the United Kingdom.

In one of the three Amendments—I have put them, I think, in the reverse order to their importance—it is suggested that whatever Bill is passed at present shall be so safeguarded that when a devolution or federating Bill for Great Britain comes forward, as of necessity it must in less than twenty years, this Bill shall not be an insurmountable barrier to what will then be necessary for the welfare of Great Britain and the British Empire.

It has been said on many sides that this Bill is not acceptable to the Irish people. When we started the Commonwealth Constitution in Australia it was not acceptable to Australia as it first came forward, and conventions were held in many places during many months and years before a Bill could be drafted that was acceptable to the whole of Australia. Even if this Bill is not at present passed, if it should be necessary to throw it out on Third Reading, I am in favour of its going through Committee and being so amended as to beget in the minds of the Irish people confidence in the intention of the Government to give them some form of self-government at the earliest opportunity. That would do a great deal, it seems to me, to stay the evil that is now going on in Ireland. I am not myself certain that Ireland is at this moment ripe for any form of self-government. Before you can give a new Constitution to a people they must be prepared to abide by some law or Constitution. Does Ireland to-day look as if it was prepared to abide by any law or Constitution? It is with the object of allowing His Majesty's Government to take more time in order to reconsider the stupendous questions at issue that I move the Amendments which stand in my name on the Paper.

I have endeavoured in the second Amendment—perhaps I have drafted it badly—to provide that if this Bill is amended and passed it shall not come into operation until it has been subjected to discussion at further conventions in different parts of Ireland with the object of accumulating knowledge of what would meet with the approval of the Irish people. Then the Government would be in a position to pass an amending Bill before this Bill comes into operation, and make it more suitable than it is at present. I feel that if at the present moment self-government were given to Ireland as proposed in this Bill, it would only be a first step to the abolition of all control by Great Britain over Ireland and all unity between that country and Great Britain. That would mean that, in the event of a war as great as that through which we have just passed happening in fifteen or twenty years time, Great Britain would be in an unsafe military position, and your Lordships ought to guard against that.

I do not want to take up the time of the House and I must apologise for having spoken even at this length. I have lived so many years outside of Great Britain that there are many men, no doubt, who are more capable of undertaking the detail of whatever Bill is carried; but I wish to point out the stupendous evils that should be carefully weighed by His Majesty's Government and your Lordships before the Bill is finally passed into law. I therefore beg to move the Amendments standing in my name in the reverse order in which they appear on the Paper. I put them in their present order for the sake of provoking discussion, but I think it best to move them as I now suggest.

Amendment moved—

Before Clause 1, insert the following new clause: 1. While in the interests of Ireland the Parliament of Great Britain temporarily confers by this Bill certain measures of Home Rule to Ireland, it reserves the right to cancel all or any of the constitutional privileges herein contained, should it be decided to pass a devolution Bill granting self-governing powers to England, Scotland, and Wales, in order to bring the government of Ireland into line with the rest of the United Kingdom."—(Lord Clifford of Chudleigh.)

THE LORD CHAIRMAN

The noble Lord will forgive me, but does he mean that he wishes to put the third Amendment on page 1 of the Amendment Paper? Because there are other Amendments to Clause 1 standing in his name.

LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH

I wish to move the third paragraph on page 1 of the Paper.

THE LORD CHAIRMAN

I understand that the Question the noble Lord wishes to put to the House is that the last, Amendment standing in his name on page 1 of the Amendment Paper—"While in the interests of Ireland the Parliament of Great Britain," and so on—be here inserted?

THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD BIRKENHEAD)

The method adopted by the noble Lord does net make it particularly easy to follow him in debate. As I understand it, he is putting forward three proposals by way of new clauses in the alternative. He formed the view that a certain order of proposed Amendment would be convenient for the purposes of debate, but that for the purpose of testing the opinion of the House it would be more convenient that he should propose his third Amendment first, with the incidental result that the other two, which are useful for debating purposes, are unfortunately lost from any point of view of materialising in the Division Lobby. It is, I think, clear that no one of these three clauses (and I will say a word about the others out of civility to the noble Lord) could usefully, or with any regard to drafting or common sense, be placed in the position which the noble Lord desires.

His first proposal is to postpone the operation of the Bill until a referendum of the people of Ireland has been taken. Really, this would not be a useful proceeding. It is intentionally a purely dilatory proposal, and it negatives the decision of the House on Second Reading. Southern Ireland has expressed its Republican views at the Parliamentary Election of 1918, and Northern Ireland has expressed its views already through its representatives. The second proposal of the noble Lord is for a convention, of which two-thirds is to be elected by popular vote in Ireland, and one-third to be appointed by the Parliament of Great Britain. This convention is to re-draft the Bill. As one of those who have been very considerably responsible for its present drafting it can hardly be expected that I, at any rate, should receive that proposal with enthusiasm. And incidentally it would abrogate the functions of the Committee of this House. And I must point out to the noble Lord that the proposed convention would be even less likely to arrive at any conclusion than the 1918 Convention, unless it is in the mind of the noble Lord that the opinion of Ulster should be coerced by a majority vote, and that, of course, would be in plain violation of all the pledges by which we must stand. The proposal further assumes that Great Britain is prepared to concede whatever terms might be proposed by the noble Lord's convention, entirely regardless of the view we might take as to whether these proposals were in the interests of the United Kingdom and of the Empire.

The proposal apparently upon which we are asked to divide is really entirely unnecessary. I do not think that the noble Lord's attention can have been directed to Clause 73 of the Bill, which preserves in terms, so far as any paper safeguard can do it, the supreme authority of the Parliament of the United Kingdom; and under the provisions of Clause 7 (I think the noble Lord must have overlooked this, too) future Acts of the Imperial Parliament will prevail over any Acts of The Irish Parliament. A critic of the Bill might say that no paper safeguard will help, but that line of argument is not open to the noble Lord, who is proposing to substitute a paper safeguard much less complete in its scope and in its terms than those which are already contained in the Bill.

On Question, Amendment negatived.

THE EARL OF MIDLETON moved, in subsection (1), to leave out "Southern" where that word first occurs. The noble Earl said: We now approach what is really one of the most important points in the Bill, and I will endeavour as far as I can, in moving the Amendment, to avoid travelling again over the same ground part of which we discussed on the Second Reading. I think that up to now the House has some reason to complain that we have had no answer whatever, so far as I know, to the arguments which we have addressed to the House on the question of the treatment of Ulster by the establishment of a second Parliament. The onus probandi lies with the Government for the plan which has been adopted, because it was contrary to past precedent and treatment of the question and invokes in the strongest way all the present contention.

When we look at the case of Ireland as a whole we cannot help feeling that among four millions of people it is certainly not usual to establish two Parliaments if you can establish one. The establishment of a Parliament in Ireland at all is not due to any complaint on the part of Great Britain or of Ulster, but to the attitude taken up by the South and West of Ireland now for nearly forty years. During the whole of that time the contention of Ulster has been, and remained up to a few weeks ago, that they should be let alone, in the sense that they should remain part of the British Parliament.

I think that the Government (taking the points one by one) ought first of all to explain to us why it is necessary to set up this most wasteful system, in which you are to have, for 800,000 people or little more, all the expenses of a Parliament and of a separate Judiciary, and all the vast bureaucratic expense of setting up Departments, with headquarters for every class of government—Home Office, Local Government, and the like. Quite apart from that, who are you going to placate by it? If the attitude of Ulster had always been what it is through the spokesmen whom we have heard in this House in the last few days, I for one should not try over again to press our strong belief that the future of Ireland and the prosperity of Ireland would be best secured by one Parliament. I recognise that the Second Reading of the Bill has settled that question for the moment. But I do think that we ought to have it made very clear to us what it is that Ulster is going to gain by being given a separate Parliament, instead of being left as part of Great Britain, which we maintain is the natural, the proper, and the traditional claim which Ulster has made; and why it is necessary to adopt for Ulster the system which has been denounced by every party in the South as the one which is certain to stand between them and the possible acceptance of the Bill.

I am lost in amazement at the position which is now taken up. It is not customary in this House to read speeches made in the other House of Parliament, but I have before me the conclusive speech of the Ulster leader as recently as May 18, when this subject was discussed in another place on a Motion made by Lord Robert Cecil that Ulster should remain as part of Great Britain. I make a similar Motion to-day, and if I may in a few words give what were the arguments used—and conclusively used—by the Ulster leader in another place I could not present a stronger or more conclusive case. He pointed out-that the whole of the interests of Ulster were so interwoven with those of Great Britain that it would be fatuous and futile for any Government to set up a separate Parliament. He pointed out that Belfast and the Clyde were mutually dependent, that the interchange of employment was great. He pointed out in addition, with great force, that Ulster had never asked to have the duty of governing Catholics, and that by this RII they would be forced to govern Catholics. There are many people who think that if you set up an Ulster Parliament in the next three or four months one of the first difficulties they would have would be with the Catholics of the two southern counties in Ulster who are least attached to Ulster rule. It was pointed out that with a Labour population, so interchangeable with Great Britain it would have the worst possible effect to have different labour laws as between Great Britain and Ulster. This, I think, received the support of Mr. Clynes and other Labour leaders who have throughout most strongly objected to this particular measure.

We begin to ask ourselves, Why is this to be thrown over by the opinions which have grown up in the last few weeks? I do not wish to throw any doubt on what I know is the genuine sentiment which noble Lords who have spoken for Ulster have conveyed to this House, but I would point out that what those who represent Ulster in the House of Commons were sent to tell the House of Commons is what they told the House of Commons last May, and that the sentiment we are now asked to take as the Ulster view has never been submitted to the electors of Ulster. I much doubt whether, if you were to discuss this question now and it vas found that we were going to make Ulster trade and labour dependent in the future on the comparatively small force of an Ulster Parliament as compared with the Parliament of Great Britain, there would be that unanimity of feeling which is expressed with regard to this subject by Ulster in this House.

I cannot cut out from my remembrance the speeches we heard for nine months in the Convention, and I would challenge the noble Marquess, Lord Londonderry, who also listened to them, to tell me a single speech made by an Ulsterman which did not press upon us with a force which we could not resist the point that the whole of the future of Ulster, the future of her trade and prosperity which had grown tinder the Union, was dependent on her attachment to Great Britain, on her forming part of Great Britain in all matters of treaties and commerce. It was for that reason, and not for any want of belief in their competence to settle their own affairs, that Ulstermen declined to take the fiscal concessions which other parts of Ireland were so anxious to claim.

Now we are asked to go hack on the whole of this. We are asked to set up this Ulster Parliament; and I only wish to say what is the danger I apprehend. You are going to set up rather an absurdity—a little Home Rule in a part of the country which does not desire it in the place of giving the larger Home Rule to the part of the country which does desire it. One part says, "We wish to remain part of Great Britain"; and the other part says, "Whatever we desire, and whatever is done, we will never consent to a second Parliament in these islands." They may be right or wrong; but the object of this Bill, if it has an object at all, should be towards a settlement of this question. It should not put up a fresh barrier. That is what I submit your Lordships are asked to do this afternoon.

There are subsidiary difficulties. We in the South must not be accused of desiring to adopt a selfish policy. Our policy, we quite admit, would be to ask Ulster to come in and take her share of the Government and dominate, as she would, the whole government of Ireland by her weight and influence. That chapter is closed for the moment, and that chapter being closed we then ask that Ulster will not stand in the way of a settlement for the rest of Ireland. Is it not rather a satire to have the Leader of this House getting up as he did last Thursday night and saying to us in the South, It is quite true that all parties in the South voted for the safeguard of a Senate, but that safeguard (as we have established a Second Parliament for Ulster and they cannot make up their mind about it) is one we shall be unable to put in the Bill although we pledged ourselves to it in the House of Commons. That alone shows that you have to do gross injustice to one part of Ireland because it does not happen to suit the other part. We shall have to challenge that in this House.

In the meantime I wish to make it perfectly clear that it is only the substitution of one form of immunity for another the form of immunity demanded by Ulster ever since the Bill of 1885, made in the Convention two years ago, made on their behalf in the House of Commons as as recently as six months ago, and for which they all went into the Lobby, following Sir Edward Carson, making the best Division which was made during the Committee stage in the House of Commons, where, with the immense force of this Government's majority, 400 or 500, they only secured a majority of 204 to 80 against this proposal.

As we have many Amendments to consider I do not desire to detain your Lordships with a long argument, I can only repeat that I put this forward with the fullest responsibility knowing that it is supported by almost every individual, every public body that I know of, every newspaper and every organ of public opinion in the South, and it is because I am convinced that the adoption of the principle in the Bill in preference is likely to prove a barrier to the acceptance of the Bill that I ask the Government again to give it their best consideration.

Amendment moved— Page 1, lire 8, leave out ("Southern").—(The Earl of Mialeton.)

LORD FARNHAM

In rising to support the Amendment, I do so because I have a similar Amendment on the Paper and other Amendments which depend on the adoption of the one we are now considering. I support it on somewhat differ- eat lines from those of the noble Earl. While he is in favour of leaving only six counties in the Imperial Parliament, I have an Amendment down for the purpose of leaving the whole nine counties in the Imperial Parliament; thus keeping the province of Ulster intact. My reason for doing so is the same as that which I indicated on the Second Reading—namely, that it is really the only true and proper way in which this country and the Government can keep their pledge to Ulster, and in which the loyalists in Ulster can keep their pledges one to another to stand or fall together and not submit to a Parliament in Dublin.

I prefer this way of putting forward the claims of those three counties, because I realise the difficulty that there is, or would be, in trying to get those counties put into any Parliament for Northern Ireland. The Ulster leaders and the majority of the Ulster Council decided that those three counties would be an encumbrance to them in their Parliament, and that they would prefer them to be outside it. That is one view. On the other hand we have the opinion of those who maintain that the Ulster Parliament is already too large, and who would take away two further counties from it. I have always main tanned that the proper way of dealing with the Ulster question was not to set up a Parliament in Ulster but that Ulster should remain in the United Kingdom. I always took that point of view in the controversy which arose in Ulster, and it is one which I still hold. It is quite true that those noble Lords who come from Ulster have voted for his Bill, but I cannot help feeling that the real reason for voting for it is not any love of setting up this Parliament in Ulster, but that they fear the Government are going to force this Parliament upon them and they have made up their minds that they cannot avoid it, and therefore are going to do the best they can to make it work well.

But I am firmly of opinion that the majority of people in Ulster, at all events, are not in favour of having this Parliament set up in Northern Ireland. I believe that the great majority of them look upon it with considerable disfavour and mistrust, and that the real feeling of people throughout Ulster is that to which the noble Earl, Lord Midleton, referred, which is, in the words of their leader, Sir Edward Carson— All we desire is to be left alone. Leave us alone. It has already been pointed out, and I need not enlarge upon it, that the Ulster Party supported Lord Robert Cecil's Amendment in the House of Commons to that effect. My Amendment to include the whole of Ulster in the Imperial Parliament has this advantage—that the Ulster people as a whole cannot really disapprove of it. The three counties of Cavan, Monaghan, and Donegal, or at least the whole loyalist population there, thoroughly approve of it, and the Nationalist population in the three counties cannot disapprove of it, because at all events it leaves them as they are at present; and does not force upon them a Bill which they unanimously hate and detest.

I believe also that it is much more likely to give effect to what the Government say is their real motive in passing the Bill—namely, ultimately to bring about the union of Ireland. I cannot see how the setting up of a Parliament in Northern Ireland can possibly go towards that union. There is a large public opinion throughout Ireland to that effect. Surely, if a Parliament is established in Northern Ireland, and Northern Ireland sets to work that Parliament well and make it a great example, it will set up a spirit of rivalry between Northern and Southern Ireland and not a spirit of unity; and if the Parliament is a success, is it likely that Northern Ireland, with its successful Parliament, is ever going to give up that success in order to combine with Southern Ireland?

This point of view I know is held most strongly by some of the leaders of the Ulster Party in another place. Captain Craig repeatedly, en the Second Reading and during the Committee stage, stated most vehemently that there was no question of Northern Ireland ever wishing to combine or settle with the Sinn Feiners in Southern Ireland. He was most emphatic on the point on several occasions, so that their opinion coincides with mine. These are briefly the reasons for which I have placed the Amendments on the Paper. Those Amendments represent the only way in which the loyalists in the three counties can maintain their undeniable right of remaining in the Imperial Province of Ulster and in the United Kingdom.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

Noble Lords will tell me whether I have construed their Amendments—the initial Amendment which we are considering now and those which are consequential to it—accurately. It is extremely important that your Lordships should realise, if it is not plain, exactly what it is upon which we are now asked to vote. If I understand rightly these Amendments—Lord Midleton's and Lord Farnham's Amendment and the consequential proposals standing on the Paper in the names of the noble Lords—both of them agree that there should be one Parliament only in Ireland. Both of them are of opinion that at this moment that should be a Parliament for part of Ireland only, and that the remainder of Ireland should be wholly excluded from the Bill. The difference between the noble Lords is that Lord Midleton would have an area excluded which consists of the six counties, while Lord Farnham thinks that nine counties ought to be excluded. It is, of course, plain that this Amendment is not less a partition Amendment than the proposals which are contained in the Bill itself. The difference between the wishes of the noble Lords and the attempt of the Bill lies in one respect, and in one respect only—that Ulster, according to the views of the noble Lords, ought to continue to send her representatives to the Imperial Parliament and ought not to be allowed to set up a Parliament of her own.

Let me, in the first place, point out that the principle of initial partition is inherent in the Bill. It may be a good idea, or it may be a bad idea, but those of us who are responsible for framing this Bill deliberately adopted the view that in the existing conditions the most promising and fruitful line of progress was that each part of Ireland should at this moment be afforded the opportunity of having a Legislature of its own. I must make it perfectly plain that the noble Earl's Amendment a fortiori strikes absolutely at the heart of our Bill. If this Amendment were carried everything that is characteristic, everything that we think (it may be with human fallibility) is most valuable in our proposals, would completely disappear, and incidentally the whole fabric of the Bill would of course be cut to pieces. The proposal to exclude six counties or nine counties would involve so many radical alterations in the structure of the Bill that this Bill would be virtually a new one. Noble Lords have not even begun to draft the Amendments which in such a case would be necessary. There could be no Council of Ireland, of course.

A NOBLE LORD

Hear, hear.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

The noble Lord is, of course, perfectly entitled to cheer, but he will not I think complain if I equally point out to him that the proposal for the. Council is the central and fundamental part of our proposals; and after long debate at least the general principle of those proposals has already been accepted by this House. The whole of the proposals for the Council, with, I believe, precious prospects of settlement, will disappear absolutely, and it will be necessary to frame some new scheme of legislation and administration with respect to railways and fisheries. There would, of course, be no justification for refusing, the representation in the United Kingdom Parliament of the six or nine counties, and of course for the forty-six representatives in Clause 18 some other number would have to be substituted appropriate to Southern Ireland. The noble Lord will not have failed to observe either that fundamental changes would have to be made in the financial provisions, particularly those relating to the Imperial contribution, the collection and appropriation of purchase annuities, and the constitution of the Joint Exchequer Board and the Civil Service Committee, and—I gather that the noble Lord would welcome this—the Judicature provisions would all necesarily be omitted or recast. The result of all this would, of course, be that the Bill would be an entirely different Bill, and indeed there would have been little object in giving a Second Reading to a Bill the whole vital character of which would require to be so transformed as the proposals of the noble Lord would transform them.

But I apprehend that your Lordships will be guided to a conclusion in the Lobby upon this question not so much by the more or less technical arguments, important as they are, which I have hitherto attempted to bring forward, but by the broader considerations upon which the noble Lord laid so much stress. He asked—and be said that hitherto no explanation had been forthcoming—"Why is the wasteful system necessary of two Governments in Ireland instead of one?" I do not shrink in the least from an answer to that question, though I must confess to some degree of astonishment that at this period of the controversy the noble Earl thought that was a question that even required an answer. What is it that the experience of the last thirty years has taught us? It has taught us that the whole controversy in Ireland depends upon and springs from the circumstance that there is in Ireland, not one community, but two communities, with different histories, different ideals, different religions, and different outlooks on life; and I confess I am amazed that the noble Earl, who listened to the speech of the noble Viscount, Lord Grey, on the Second Reading, should have thought it necessary to ask such a question. In that speech the noble Viscount, n the most candid and moving manner and in the most generous spirit, admitted that looking back he was inclined to believe that the mistake that had been made in the Home Rule proposals of the past had been that they had given too little attention to the wholly individual case of those counties of the province of Ulster whose position we are now considering.

It is not that we, this Government, are responsible for the first time in saying we will have two Governments in Ireland; it is that we recognise frankly but clearly, as we are bound to do, what has taken place in the last twenty years. We note the admissions made by Mr. Asquith, made by the present Prime Minister, and acquiesced in by most of the leaders of the Unionist party, that under no existing or conceivable circumstances can Ulster be coerced. When once that admission is made, you must of course equally recognise tile conclusion that if anything at all is to be done in the direction of self-government for Ireland—and that at least your Lordships will affirm; that at least almost everybody recognises to-day except a very small minority—

THE EARL OF MIDLETON

Might I say that the noble and learned Lord is arguing as if I had asked that there should not be two Governments in Ireland. I have argued against there being two Parliaments in Ireland.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I followed the noble Earl's argument with the greatest possible care, and the question to which I was addressing myself was the question which he in terms asked, "Why is the wasteful system necessary of two Governments in Ireland?" I was attempting to answer that question. We are roost clearly of opinion that the Irish question must be faced as a whole; in other words, that you are not to draw a distinction between the population in the South and the population in the North and say to one of those, "We offer you certain proposals of self-government" and to the other "We give you facilities for remaining in the Imperial Parliament." The reason which guided us to that conclusion has been stated repeatedly in the debates in another place, and it was stated in the course of the Second Reading of the debate here.

It is our desire to, make it plain to the whole world that this question is no longer in its acutest form an English question at all, but that it is an Irish question. It is our desire to make it plain to the whole world by an object lesson. It is not true to say of Irishmen as a whole that they are incapable of governing themselves. We will on the contrary show—we believe we can show, and the Ulster representatives are confident they can show—to the whole world that in the North of Ireland at least there is a population which is capable of administering self-government with as high a degree of efficiency and self-control as in any part of His Majesty's Dominions. When the noble Earl said that this will lead to wastefulness, of course it will lead to wastefulness, but we are not dealing here in the position of men who have the opportunity of selecting an ideal solution; we are dealing with a situation in which any course is difficult and in which any course is open to the gravest objection. The noble Earl has spoken on behalf of the Southern Unionists and certainly no one can speak on their behalf with greater authority, but I really must be allowed to point out to the noble Earl that he speaks with the least possible authority so far as Ulster is concerned.

Several NOBLE LORDS

Hear, hear.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

A clear and sharp gulf of opinion was disclosed, under circumstances with which the noble Earl is perfectly familiar, between himself and those who represent Ulster Unionism. I greatly regret the difference of opinion, which I believe and hope will be entirely fugitive, because under the system of Home Rule, if it ever becomes the law of the land, or under any system of self-government in Ireland, it will be an appalling calamity if any permanent difference of opinion emerges between the Unionists in the South and the Unionists in the North. Therefore I hope and believe that these feelings will be fugitive.

But when the noble Earl tells us about the Irish Convention I shall not, I hope, be suspected of attempting to disparage the very great labours of the noble Earl and his friends, and the great positive contribution which they made to any future deliberations upon this subject, when I point out that the Sinn Feiners were not represented at that Convention. The Ulster representatives never assented to the conclusions of that Convention, and therefore we are face to face with this circumstance—that not one single Member, so far as I know, who was elected to the Parliament which came into being two years ago assented to the recommendations of the Convention. We must, of course, take note of these circumstances when we have our attention called to recommendations made by the Convention, bearing in mind that there has emerged this difference of view between the Ulster representatives and the Unionists in the South of Ireland.

I must point out to the House that of all questions surely this is one on which we must take note of the present views of the representatives of Ulster. The noble Earl says that so many months ago they took a different view and voted for such and such an Amendment moved by Lord Robert Cecil in another place. That claim, I think, justifies me in asking the noble Earl a plain question. Does he mean to give this House the impression that at this moment the Ulster representatives, as between the two proposals, prefer to remain in the Imperial Parliament? The noble Earl knows perfectly well that they have changed their views in the last four months.

THE EARL OF MIDLETON

The noble and learned Lord says that they have changed their views. But have their constituents changed theirs?

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

The noble Earl will, I think, agree that it will be quite impossible to demand that there should be a consultation between a Member and his constituents with each swiftly changing circumstance in the political field. The noble Earl is well aware of the theory, long since laid down by Burke and ever since generally accepted, that a Member of Parliament is the independent representative of his constituents; but I still say, taking the question as one of probability whether they represent their constituents, that it would be an improb- ability so remote as to be inconceivable that where you find all the representatives of Ulster in the House of Commons, and the Chamber of Commerce of Belfast, and other Chambers of Commerce, all agreeing—it is inconceivable that behind them are constituents who do not share their views; and I do not think that the noble Earl will make much progress on behalf of his proposals when he attempts to suggest the probability that there is a cleavage between the Ulster Members and their constituents.

Let us, then, accept frankly the necessary conclusion that they have changed their minds. I, for one, profess no small degree of surprise that the noble Earl should feel astonishment that they had changed their minds. In the course of the last six months there has been a succession of strange and unprecedented happenings in relation to Irish affairs, which would most fully justify and explain even the most complete change of view on the part of the Ulster Members. We are concerned not with their past views but with their views as expressed by themselves, and not by the noble Earl, at this moment, and, as I have said, no one can dispute that their present view is that they prefer that they should be allowed to set up a Parliament of their own.

On this point I have only two observations to make. The first is that there are obvious advantages in the opportunity which this Bill gives to Ulster of setting up a Parliament of her own. You have in the first place—and I have already referred to that—the prospect of seeing that an assembly of Irishmen, freely elected, can exercise powers larger on the whole than those which are given to the Irish Parliament by the Act of 1914. In the second place, my Lords, you have the enormous advantage, as we conceive it to be, that once you have the Ulster Parliament working you have, as I believe, an object lesson and an incitement to an Irish Parliament in the South to address themselves to the task of showing that they are not less capable of self-government. I do not in the least agree with Lord Farnham on this subject. I take the position that Southern Irishmen—excluding altogether those criminal persons whose case is an entirely different one taking the case of the ordinary law-abiding Home Rule population of the South of Ireland I have no doubt that their attitude, in the face of an Ulster Parliament possessed of enormous powers and discharging competently important functions, would be to show that they were not less capable of discharging those functions, especially in relation to t he. extremely unattractive alternative which is all that this Bill offers to them.

I have only one further observation to make, which I hope may carry some degree of weight with some of your Lordships. I have no doubt at all as to the real reason of the change of view of the Ulster Members, reflecting, as I believe, the view of the community of the six counties as a whole. Ulster has been now for more than twenty years the plaything of English politics, and the victim at recurrent intervals of vicissitudes in our political affairs. I think that most of us would be disposed to extend a great deal of commiseration to that small community when we hurriedly throw our memories back to the thronging changes and crises in the last twenty years of our history. They have never varied. Theirs has been a constant view. It has been through all that period an unbroken desire to remain a part of these islands and to continue to send their representatives to this Parliament. It never varied until the last few months. Why has it changed in that period? It has changed because the leaders of that Party have realised, and in my view have rightly realised, that there will never be any peace for Ulster until they are in the position of men who have their own institutions so that they may be the masters in their own households.

Supposing the noble Earl succeeds to-day, and that as the result of a Division taken here to-night, and acquiesced in in another place, Ulster will be left to return her Members to the House of Commons What must be the anticipation of the future entertained by the Ulster leaders? Another Government will succeed the Government of to-day. It may be a Labour Government, which takes the view that there ought to be one Parliament for all Ireland, with precautions wholly inadequate as we all think, for the protection of the North of Ireland. Is Ulster then to wait another five or seven years and then once again to become the plaything of English politics? That is her inevitable destiny if the noble Earl has his way in this Division. Ulster will be in precisely the same position as she was in between Mr. Glad-stone's proposal and this present proposal.

Ulster has had to wait for the recognition, so painfully and hardly attained in the last two and a-half years, that no proposa for a single Parliament for Ireland can be brought forward which involves the coercion of Ulster. If Ulster receives a Parliament of her own she cannot be coerced except with the goodwill and assent of that Parliament; and so surely as the proposal of the noble Earl, founded upon his admitted wish, is that there should be one Parliament for all Ireland which includes Ulster, so surely as that proposal is adopted here to-night you condemn Ulster to be for ten or twenty years, without any fault of hers, the plaything of our English politics, and you place her at the hazard of the wishes of any Government which may succeed this.

LORD BUCKMASTER

I think, after the speech we have just heard from the noble and learned Lord, that it is as well to call your Lordship's attention to the fact that this Bill is a Home Rule Bill for Ireland and not for Ulster, and that the sole consideration to which we have to address our minds is the welfare of the whole of Ireland and not any part of it. I am in favour of these Amendments for reasons a little different from those which have been urged in their support. The real reason why I support them is that I am convinced that the Irish question will never I e solved, and that this Bill will prove nothing but an aggravation of the evil, unless some prospect is afforded of a united Government for the whole of Ireland.

Why is it that this Bill is introduced at all? It is not introduced because Ulster asked for it. Whatever may be her view now, the noble and learned Lord will not suggest that. It is introduced as the result of an agitation which has now been extending over forty years on behalf chiefly of the South and the West of Ireland, asking for Home Rule, and the answer that is to be given is a Bill which the South and the West of Ireland by all their accredited representatives unitedly reject. The only part of Ireland that never asked for Home Rule at all is the part which, so far as I understand it, is to be placated by the passage of this Bill.

I sincerely hope that this Amendment will be carried. I think, from every word that the noble and learned Lord said, it was easy to see that so far as he was speaking for Ulster lie was seeking to obtain for them the opportunity of cutting themselves off in complete isolation from the rest of Ireland, and being able, as he said, to depend upon a finality which would for the future prevent their repose ever again being disturbed. There were two reasons why the noble and learned Lord urged that we ought to support that plan. One, as I understand it, was that Ulster should riot be coerced; and the other, that Ulster should be enabled, by her bright example set to the world, to stimulate some species of governmental competition in the South and West of Ireland.

Let me deal with both those propositions in a few words. With regard to the first, I still find myself quite unable to understand what the noble and learned Lord means when he says that all the representatives of Ulster are now in favour of this Bill. I quite agree that the representatives of Ulster whom I had the good fortune to hear in this House expressed themselves strongly in favour of it, but what did the elected representatives of Ulster do in another place? We know perfectly well what they did. On May 20 they supported a Resolution in the same terms as the Amendment now before your Lordships, and they supported it by arguments and speeches which strongly tempt me to break one of the Rules of Order of your Lordships' House and make quotations from them in order that your Lordships might see how strong was the opinion that was then expressed by Sir Edward Carson on behalf of Ulster in support of this very Amendment. "But," says the noble and learned Lord, "their views have changed."

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I do not know whether the attention of the noble and learned Lord, as he is quoting what took place at an earlier stage of the Bill, has been directed to a stage of the Bill which I should have thought would have afforded him more guidance—the Third Reading.

LORD BUCKMASTER

If the noble and learned Lord had not been so impetuous he would have found that I intend to proceed to what took place at the Third Reading, but, as he must remember, the Committee stage comes first. I was pointing out that if it were open to me to quote to your Lordships what was said on May 20 there would be arguments placed before you from the lips of Ulster stronger than anything I can say in support of this Amendment.

But we will proceed to the Third Reading, which happened a little time back. If this Bill is the Bill which satisfies the demands of Ulster and is to be passed in its present form in order to placate their uneasiness and to satisfy and gratify their hopes and aspirations, what was it that the representatives of Ulster did on the Third Reading? Did they vote for the Bill? Of course, they did not; and I think it is one of the most extraordinary things with which I am acquainted in constitutional government that this House is asked to accept the expressed opinion upon this Bill not by the way that the votes were given upon it in another place but by a private letter written from Sir Edward Carson to the Lord Chancellor. That is certainly the most unusual way of expressing political opinions with which I am acquainted, and I imagine that its only justification is to be found in the fact that it is dealing with the insoluble problem of Ireland, which defies all rules of convention and order. The noble and learned Lord asked me to turn to the Third Reading, and I have turned to it. I still say that if these people are possessed of this passionate zeal to secure the passage of this Bill in its present form, and to be included in it, they did strange violence to their feelings when the Division was called in another place.

Let me turn to the other question, which is that if we put in Ulster there will be some kind of example set up in the North of Ireland—I might say something like a northern light—to which the eyes of the South and the West might be turned in emulation. Do your Lordships really think that the South and West of Ireland, knowing quite well what their feelings are and how bitter and how deplorable has been the controversy, are to be induced to attempt to work this Bill by being told, "Well, Ulster is working it very nicely; don't you think you had better begin?" I believe, myself, that this shows a profound unfamiliarity with the character of the South and West. If we know something about the views of Ulster, we have the advantage in this House of knowing something; of the views of the South and West of Ireland, and they are unanimous, as far as I can see, upon this questions and I think for grounds of bigger and broader statesmanship than those upon which the noble and learned Lord rested his case for resisting this Amendment.

It is thought that if the battle of Home Rule is really won there is only one way in which that victory can be made effective. It is by giving Ireland one Parliament, not necessarily one Parliament with powers that will conflict as between the South and the North, but one Parliament the powers of which are incapable of being separated as between one part of Ireland and the other, and by this means getting together different representatives of Ireland from all its parts, united in the common enterprise of working for the common good of what is, after all, their own country. It is because, as I understand it, the representatives of the South and West of Ireland feel that the prospect of attaining such a degree of unity is destroyed by this Bill, once passed through in its present form, that they have moved this Amendment, and it is certainly for that reason that I shall support them.

VISCOUNT BRYCE

May I be permitted very briefly to give your Lordships a few reasons for thinking that this Amendment ought to receive more favourable consideration not only from this House but from His Majesty's Government than the noble and learned Lord seems to have given it. I take it that the object of the Government is to do three things—in the first place to secure the acceptance of the Bill; in the second place to secure the good working of the Bill; and in the third place to do what they can for the ultimate prosperity and well-being of Ireland as a whole. Is it not more probable that the Bill will receive favourable treatment in Ireland if the Amendment of the noble Earl is accepted?

In the first place, the Bill as it stands is opposed to the material development of Ireland. Ireland is a country in which the manufactures are chiefly concentrated in the North-East corner, the rest of it being agricultural and pastoral. Each of these two elements needs the other, and the same Parliament ought to have power to deal with the agricultural development of the South and West and the manufacturing development of the North. It is very much in the interests of both sections that they should be dealt with by a similar authority.

In the second place, each set of men will be confined to one Parliament for itself instead of bringing their common contribution into the same Parliament. Ireland is none too rich in practical men with practical experience both of manufactures and of agricultural science, and if you take all the men who have a capacity for dealing with manufacturing and commercial questions and put them in the one Parliament of North-Eastern counties and all the others in the Parliament, of the rest of Ireland you deprive each Parliament of what it might lend for the purposes of members representing the other. Ireland, as a whole, would be far better cared for, would have her varied interests more harmoniously and wisely developed, if she had those interests placed in the hands of a Parliament in which both sets of men were represented.

In the third place, it so happens that in each of these two divisions there is a minority—a minority of Roman Catholics in the six counties, and a minority of Protestants in the rest of Ireland. By far the most efficient protection which can be afforded to those minorities is by giving each of them strong representation, and if you had one Parliament which was charged with the protection of minorities—allowing for the special question of the protection of Ulster, to which I will come as a separate matter—in which each minority was well represented you would have, as I say, a better chance of having both minorities fairly dealt with. I do not apprehend that there will be a disposition to persecute. I hope that noble Lords, in spite of all that is happening, will not change their opinion of Irishmen as a whole. I think too well of Irishmen to believe that there will be any desire or any attempt in any Parliament to oppress minorities. But certainly the minorities would feel much happier if they had their own side represented in a supreme Parliament than if in each Parliament that minority was reduced to a trifling percentage. In the next place, if this Bill passes in its present form it will stereotype the separation of the North-Eastern counties from the rest of Ireland.

THE EARL. OF MMLETON

Hear, hear.

VISCOUNT BRYCE

All provisions that are necessary for the protection of Ulster are quite compatible with abstaining from stereotyping this machinery. You are going to set up by the Bill a whole machinery of State powers—Parliaments, Courts, administrative officials—and when that is done the rest of Ireland will think it is done in perpetuum, that it is done as a thing which is to be perpetuated for the whole Island, which is to be split into two; and instead of there being one Ireland, as there has been through the whole course of Irish history, you are to have two Irelands set up against one another. That is the strongest offence you can give to national sentiment in Ireland, and, after all, national sentiment will be a very powerful force in determining the acceptance and working of this Bill. And the patriotism of Ireland which you hope will be exerted to work the Bill and to make it do its best for the propsperity of the country will be lamed and crippled at the outset by the feeling that they have not got one common Island to work for. That sentiment—though, of course, we are apt in this Assembly to think very little of sentiment—will have no small influence upon the prospects of this Bill.

Therefore I venture to say that the Amendment of the noble Earl, Lord Midleton, would give the Bill a far better chance of being accepted in Ireland. The Government must wish it to be accepted; they cannot desire that they should be thrown back upon the alternative of Crown Colony government; they must wish that the South and West of Ireland will take this Bill and try to work it. If the Bill passes in its present form it will not have a fair chance. You can only give it a fair chance by retaining, subject to whatever safeguards and guarantees are thought necessary, a united Ireland. And I am sure none of us who has pondered upon the various phases through which this question has passed can have any doubt that you must give the amplest possible guarantees to Ulster. The opinion of my noble friend and of those who know Ireland is that you could give these guarantees and make Ulster perfectly safe and yet retain a united Ireland, and that is certainly the case. It is in that hope that I would appeal to your Lordships to accept my noble friend's Amendment, because I believe that by doing so we shall be doing what is best and giving this Bill a chance of being accepted and a chance of securing peace and progress.

THE EARL OF CLANWILLIAM

My noble friend Lord Farnham, who spoke just now, alluded to the Amendment standing in his name concerning the six counties and the nine, and as he has already mentioned it I hope Your Lordships will allow me to touch upon it. The noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, told your Lordships that the House had already accepted the principle of the Bill which is the setting up of two Parliaments. I quite recognise that, but I would ask most respectfully whether we are not allowed to introduce Amendments in connection with this Bill although your Lordships have accepted the principle of it. I suppose there would be no objection whatsoever to that course, and the Amendment of my noble friend Lord Farnham is an Amendment to that end.

I voted against the Second Reading of the Bill; so I shall not be considered inconsistent if I vote for my noble friend's Amendment. To my mind the question is whether we are to have the whole of the nine counties in Ulster or simply the six. Your Lordships have been told by my noble friend that there has been a tremendous change of opinion in Ulster so far as Home Rule is concerned. That may or may not be, but there is certainly a tremendous feeling with reference to the exclusion of the three counties—Cavan, Monaghan, and Donegal. There can be no question whatsoever that a large number of people in the six counties consider that the exclusion of the three counties is a desertion of them, and they dislike it intensely.

I do not wish to make a long speech on this matter, but I would ask my noble friends from the six counties to reconsider their position. They have got already or are in course of getting the hostility of their friends in the South and West. I would ask them to consider whether they think it is really advisable practically to ask for the hostility, and perhaps the hatred, of those who live in the three counties, Cavan, Monaghan, and Donegal. They are being discarded to-day, I regret to say, for reasons which are more selfish than anything else. The six counties believe they would be safer by themselves than with the three others. I think in a matter of this sort, which is going to decide the fate of a considerable number of people, it would be a nobler act on the part of Ulster if they would consider the interests of those whom they are turning out. They asked them to go and help them in their hour of distress before the war, and now that they feel safe they tell them they have no further use for them. I would ask my noble friends in the six counties whether they would consider the advisability of moving an Amendment themselves to include those three counties. I should support it, and hope that it would receive the assent of your Lordships.

VISCOUNT CAVE

I venture to think that the two speeches to which we have just listened were not directed, at all events were not closely directed, to the Amendment before your Lordships' House. The speech of the noble Lord who has just resumed his seat was in favour of a larger Ulster—a matter which may arise on a later Amendment. The speech of the noble Viscount opposite was rather directed to the end of obtaining a Parliament for all Ireland, and he defended that proposal with great earnestness. But neither of those matters arises upon this Amendment. We only have to consider now whether, assuming that the fate of the six counties is to be different front that of the rest of Ireland, the six counties shall have a Parliament of their own or shall remain under the British Parliament.

I approach that question from two points of view, first from the point of view of Ulster itself, and, secondly, from the point of view of the future interests of Ireland as a whole. As to the fate of Ulster itself, I do not think we can act wrongly in being guided by the views of those members of your Lordships' House who represent the Ulster counties, and they have voted with no uncertain voice in favour of the Bill. Your Lordships will remember that they have not to choose between the Parliament provided for them by the Bill and government by the Ministers on this side of the Channel. There must be in some form or other a separate Government for Ulster, as there is a separate Government for Ireland. They therefore have to choose between being governed by Ministers appointed for Ulster only but responsible to this Parliament, or by Ministers responsible to an Ulster Parliament as provided in the Bill. They choose the latter, and I do not think any of us would desire to criticise their decision.

But I desire to approach the matter from a wider standpoint. I think that the hope of all of us, and especially of Southern Ireland, which the noble Earl opposite so courageously represents, is in the future union of Ireland. I believe that all Irishmen in their hearts object to partition as a final solution of the question. So the point is, Would the future union be better promoted by the Amendment now before the House or by the proposals in the Bill? I venture to say that the Bill is full of clauses which tend towards the future union of Ireland. Everything throughout the Bill has been done to promote and bring about so far as possible the union in days to come of the two parts of Ireland set up by the Bill; and I strongly feel that, if your Lordships accepted this Amendment, it would work against the chances of that union and in the end against the interests of Southern Ireland and of the Kingdom as a whole. Let me instance only one thing. Take the Council of Ireland. It is set up in the Bill for the very purpose of uniting, so far as present circumstances admit, the two parts of Ireland, of bringing them together, of giving to that joint body as many powers as can be given to it; and if you carry this Amendment you would destroy that Council and would destroy the only hope which is in the Bill of having a united Ireland in days to come.

The noble and learned Viscount, Lord Haldane, drew a conclusion—I think a just conclusion—from the history of one of our great Dominions. In old days two parts of Canada, Ontario and Quebec, were united in one colony. The arrangement was not successful. There was constant strife. Steps were taken to separate the two. Ontario and Quebec were separated, and what was the result? In a few years they came together again, and form part to-day of one united Dominion of Canada. I cannot help feeling that., although to-day partition may be a necessity—and indeed I believe it is a necessity—in order to fulfil the pledges of the Government to Ulster, yet the effect of the Bill will be in the years to come that these two provinces will unite, and some of us may live to see a united Ireland.

THE MARQUESS OF DUFFERIN AND AVA

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Buckmaster, said in his speech that this was a Government of Ireland Bill, and not a Government of Ulster Bill. Surely the object of the Bill is to placate Ireland, and it is something to have placated one quarter of Ireland. Ulster desires to have a separate Parliament under the Imperial Parliament, for the very good reason that she does not trust anybody. Once she has got her own Parliament, that Parliament can only be done away with by the vote of the Ulster Parliament itself. I believe that is good constitutional law and, as the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, said, we shall have no peace whatever if Ulster is under the Imperial Parliament, because every Government that comes in will be threatening to put Ireland back under the single Parliament which Lord Midleton wants so much, and which we will not have.

Lord Buckmaster made great play with the fact that the representatives of Ulster in another place did not record their votes. There was a very good reason and explanation for that. When this Bill first came up naturally everybody in Ulster was opposed to it. The Ulster Members went over to Ulster, saw the Ulster Council, and had communications with their people, and carne to see that some sort of a Parliament was inevitable. Some time ago, before Ireland was in its present state, they agreed with the people they represented that though they would not actually oppose the Bill they would remain more or less neutral, and that is how it came about. Since then things have happened in Ireland which have made still more unpleasant the idea of coming under a single Parliament in Dublin.

THE EARL OF DESART

I will endeavour as far as I can to avoid a repetition of what has already been said. The Lord Chancellor quite truly pointed out that the Amendment would necessitate vast changes in the structure of the Bill, and would destroy or injure almost vitally the conclusions that after months of labour the best thoughts had framed as their solution of this problem. He urged with a great deal of strength that it was vital to this Bill; it was what the Government intended and what they conceived was the proper course to adopt. Apart from the framework of the measure, the particular desire that ought to be and was in every one's mind was to introduce a Bill which afforded a reasonable prospect of laying the foundations of a settlement of the Irish question. If we are right in our view that this proposition sets up partition in what the whole South of Ireland regards as its most odious form, then there is no such prospect of settlement in this Bill.

During the course of the debate it has I been said that Lord Midleton represents I an inconsiderable minority of 350,000 people in the South of Ireland. On this question of partition I certainly claim—I do not know whether he claims it—that I am speaking for every man, woman, and child in Southern Ireland, and whether they be reasonable or not it is the one subject on which they feel most strongly and which will govern their action if this Bill passes into law. I have not heard one word from the Lord Chancellor that recognises—perhaps he does not recognise it—that what is intended by the Amendment is that though Southern Ireland will not like this kind of partition, it will like it much better than that which the Bill proposes. It will afford a greater prospect of the partition, which we recognise to a certain extent must come now, coming to an end and there being some unity in Ireland. We believe it has the better chance.

The noble and learned Viscount, Lord Cave, said that the two Parliaments in his opinion afforded the most likely method of ultimately producing that single Parliament which Lord Dufferin has most distinctly said he would not have under any circumstances. My noble friend Lord Cave may be quite right, but I can only say that no man, woman, or child in the whole of the South really thinks so. What you have to deal with now is the opinion of Southern Ireland if this Bill is to work. It is very much like what Lord Killanin said the other night—like a Judge, just after passing a decree of divorce, delivering a homily on the probability and the desirability of the parties re-marrying as soon as possible.

What we really feel is that it does not matter what we suggest. Whatever Ulster thinks or says is vital. But when we make a suggestion we are always met by the answer that it is really impracticable because of the form of this Bill. We were met by that on the subject of the Second Chamber. We were told that we could not have a Second Chamber because Ulster has a Parliament and does not want a Second Chamber. We therefore feel that there is no sign that the Government is trying to meet Southern Ireland in any way; there is no sign that Ulster is trying to meet Southern Ireland in any way. With Ulster it is really sic volo sic jubeo, and we intend that this Amendment should be an advance from the position we should like to take up that there should be no partition. We say, "You with six counties claim to be exempt from the Parliament to be set up by this Bill. We recognise that is inevitable for the time, but we do ask you to do it in a form which we believe will be more likely to lead to ultimate unity than that set up by the Bill."

When you talk about a settlement of Ireland I cannot help thinking, with something more than apprehension, of what is really contemplated and what I am afraid will happen. If this Bill passes you are setting up a Parliament in Ulster, and setting up government by the Lord Lieutenant and three Privy Councillors in the South of Ireland. Such a state of things will perpetuate chaos. It cannot last; it must lead to something. It must lead to the framing of some new measure for the South of Ireland. Indeed, it would produce a state of things which would be as horrible in Ireland as it would be distasteful to the democracy of this country. I think that in the pathway of the Amendment some chance lies. I believe you may get Southern Ireland to accept this form of partition. Not that they expect you will get rid of partition at once, but you will do something towards reaching the end which is nearest to the heart of the sternest Unionist and bitterest Sinn Feiner.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

I should like to make one or two observations to indicate the vote I intend to give on this Amendment. I agree with Lord Desart that this Bill does not tend towards any settlement of the Irish question. I sympathise with my noble friend Lord Midleton in feeling that something ought to be done to protect the interests of the loyalists in the South. They think that this Amendment would do that, and naturally support it. I have the greatest sympathy with the loyalists in the South, and I feel a certain resentment towards the Lord Chancellor at the reiteration that we have treated Ulster as the plaything of English Parties. I am not conscious that I myself, or those with whom I have acted, have ever done so.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I said successive Governments. I did not mean Governments of which the noble Marquess and myself were members.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

Certainly I am not conscious of ever treating Ulster with any levity. On the contrary, we have had tremendous battles for Ulster. We have sacrificed almost everything to protect Ulster, and I am a little sorry that Ulster can part with us so lightly now without a word of regret on breaking the bond for which we fought hard for so many years. I understand the reason. Noble Lords from Ulster have abandoned all confidence in British Governments. That is the truth. As they have seen this Government, mainly consisting of Unionists, following the example of other Governments in showing themselves unable and unwilling really to fight the battle of the Union, they have at last come to the conclusion that they had better look out for their own safety and get a. Parliament of their own, under the shelter of which they think they may be protected. That is the plain English of it. That is the reason for the attitude of Ulster. I understand that attitude, although it has given me a certain feeling of regret.

This is what governs my vote. Here are two parts of Ireland, one loyal and the other disloyal, and they have both come now to this Parliament and asked for self-government. If we are going to grant self-government to the disloyal portion, I do not see on what ground we can refuse to grant self-government to the loyal portion. That seems to me to be an inconsistency which, for my part, I could not countenance. It does not seem to me a possible line to take. What I should much prefer is that there should be self-government in neither the one nor the other, and if, as the result of the debates in your Lordships' House, it should turn out that there is not going to be, in effect and in practice, self-government in the South of Ireland, I think there ought not to be self-government in the north. But if there is to be self-government in the South I cannot find it possible to vote against an equal measure being accorded to those who have been loyal to the British Crown and the British connection all these years. For that reason I shall he compelled to vote against my noble friend.

THE EARL OF MIDLETON

I will not detain your Lordships more than a moment, but before we go to a Division I wish to enter my protest against the suggestion of the Lord Chancellor, which has been already taken up by my noble friend Lord Desart. He speaks as if he could make a case against us as representing a small minority as against the elected representatives of Ulster. I think my noble friend Lord Buckmaster showed very clearly that whatever the opinion of Ulster is it is of so recent a growth that on Armistice Day, not three weeks ago, the whole of the representatives of Ulster declined to support the Bill on Third Reading. Within three weeks then, we are to reckon with a change of opinion which has existed for thirty years and insistence upon which by the Lord Chancellor is, in our opinion, going to wreck the whole chance of the success of the Bill. No answer has been made, and none can be made, to what my noble friend Lord

Desart said—namely, that you will not find any organ of public opinion, or any public body, or any public meeting or, I believe, hardly any individual in the South of Ireland to share the views of the noble and learned Lord with regard to the future of this Bill, if this provision is included. Because we believe you are heading straight to chaos by insisting upon it we must ask your Lordships to divide so that we can make our protest against it.

On Question, whether the word "Southern" shall stand part of the clause?—

Their Lordships divided:—Contents, 111; Not-Contents, 53.

CONTENTS.
Birkenhead, L. (L. Chancellor.) Farquhar, V. (L. Steward.) Erskine, L.
Sandhurst, V. (L. Chamberlain.) Fairfax of Cameron, L.
Sutherland, D. Allendale, V. Fairlie, L. (B. Glasgow.)
Wellington, D. Bangor, V. Greville, L.
Bertie of Thame, V. Harris, L.
Abercorn, M. (D. Abercorn.) Charlemont, V. Hindiip, L.
Ailsa, M. Chilston, V. Hylton, L.
Camden, M. Devonport, V. Islington, L.
Dufferm and Ava, M. Esher, V. Kintore, L. (E. Kintore.)
Salisbury, M. Finlay, V. Lamington, L.
Albemarle E. Haldane, V. Lawrence, L.
Ancaster E. Hampden, V. Lee of Fareham, L.
Bradford, E. Hardinge, V. Montagu of Beaulieu, L.
Chesterfield, E. Hood, V. Moulton, L.
Craven E. Knollys, V. Muir Mackenzie, L.
Curzon of Kedleston, E. Miner, V. Nunburnholme, L.
Dartmouth, E. Peel, V. Oriel, L. (V. Massereene.)
Devon, E. St Davids, V. Phillimore, L.
Doncaster, E.(D. Buccleuch and Queensberry.) Abinger, L. Ranfurly, L. (E. Sanfurly.)
Addington, L. Rathcreedan, L.
Eldon, E. Annesley, L. (V. Valentia) Redesdalc, L.
Fortescue, E. Armaghdale, L. Ribblesdale, L.
Grey, E. Atkinson, L. Riddell, L.
Howe, E. Avebury, L. Rotherham, L.
Lovelace, E. Balfour, L. Ruthven of Gowrie, L.
Lucan, E. Belper, L. St Audries, L.
Lytton, E. Boston, L. Saltoun, L.
Malmesbury, E. Cheylesmore, L. Somerleyton, L. [Teller.]
Onslow, E. Clinton, L. Stanmore, L. [Teller.]
Pembroke and Montgomery, E. Clwyd, L. Stuart of Wortley, L.
Portsmouth, E. Cochrane of Cults, L. Sudeley, L.
Reading, E. Colebrooke, L. Sumner, L.
Sandwich, E. Cottesloe, L. Treowen, L.
Selborne, E. Cullen of Ashbourne, L. Wavertree, L.
Stamford, E. Dawnav, L. (V. Downe.) Wemyss, L. (E. Wemyss.)
Stanhope, E. Deramore, L. Wigan, L. (E. Crawford.)
Strafford, E. Desborough, L. Wolverton, L.
Vane, E.(M. Londonderry.) Dynevor, L. Wrenbury, L.
NOT-CONTENTS.
Argyll, D. Beauchamp, E. Mayo, E. [Teller.]
Drogheda, E. Midleton, E.
Aberdeen and Temair, M. Harewood, E. Morton, E.
Crewe, M. Kimberley, E. Wicklow, E.
Lincolnshire, M. (L. Great Chamberlain.) Kingston, E.
Lindsey, E. Bryce, V.
Linlithgow, L. Manvers, E. De Vesci, V.
Gough, V. Desart, L. (E. Desart.) Monteagle of Brandon, L.
Harcourt, V. Farnham, L. [Teller.] Oranmore and Browne, L.
Hutchinson, E. (E. Donoughmore.) Fngall, L. (E. Fingall) Ormonde, L. (M. Ormonde.)
Gainford, L. Pentland, L.
Barrymore L Hemphill, L. Rathdonnell, L.
Bellow L. Holm Patrick, L. Salterrford, L. (E. Courtown.)
Bledisloe, L. Inchiquin, L. Saye and Sele, L.
Buckmaster, L. Kenmare, L (E. Kenmare.) Shandon, L
Crofton, L. Killanin, L Southwark, L.
de Mauley, L. Kilmaine, L. Swaythling, L.
Decies L MacDonnell, L. Sydenham, L.
Denman, L. Monteagle, L. (M. Sligo.) Vernon, L.

Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.

LORD ORANMORE AND BROWNE moved, in subsection (1), after "His Majesty" where those words first occur, to insert "the Senate of Southern Ireland." The noble Lord said: The Amendment which stands in my name is for the purpose of securing to the Southern Unionists, who, as we have been told several times, number no fewer than 350,000 people, at least one safeguard in the shape of a Second Chamber. I do not know what view the Government will take with regard to this Amendment, but I ought to say frankly to your Lordships that the Southern Unionists in Ireland feel that in asking for this they are not asking a favour but demanding what is a right, because every Minister of the Crown, from the Prime Minister downwards, has given most solemn undertakings that in the event of a Home Rule Bill being passed for Ireland ample safeguards will be provided for the Southern minority. Not only that, but the special pledge was given by Mr. Walter Long on May 11 that the safeguard for which I ask, that of a Second Chamber, should be provided. We feel that these safeguards which have been promised to us by the responsible Ministers of the Crown are solemn pledges which ought to be as honourably fulfilled as that given to Ulster that she should not be coerced.

I think that in the abstract everybody will be in favour of some representation for the Southern Unionists in an Irish Parliament. After all, they represent the chief part of the wealth of Southern Ireland and a considerable portion of its intelligence, but as the Bill stands at present they will be ruled by a single-Chamber Parliament which will consist probably so long as proportional representation lasts of six representatives of Southern Ireland and 122 Sinn Feiners. But even this small number may before long be reduced if, as is imagined, Ulster intends to do away with proportional representation in the North, as her example will doubtless be followed by the Southern Parliament in the same way.

I hope your Lordships will not forget that this Southern Parliament will have full power over both the properties and the liberties of Southern Unionists. In the Second Reading I also called you Lordships' attention to the fact that it would be quite possible for the Southern Parliament to move the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, and not only that but it will have very large powers of taxation under Clause 24. I was going to say they could tax up to 20s. in the £, but perhaps that is an exaggeration, because probably the 6s. in the £ Income Tax will be collected by the Imperial Parliament before the local Parliament can tax the remaining 14s. My noble friend the Lord Chairman mentioned in the course of the very interesting and exhaustive speech which he made on the Second Reading—which I am sorry to think comparatively few of your Lordships were present to hear—that no less than 93½ per cent. of the taxation of Ireland under the new arrangement would be collected by the British Parliament, and only 6½ per cent. by the Irish Parliament; but I think he forgot Clause 24, under which it will be possible for the Irish Parliament to do away with this injustice to Ireland, and while leaving the 94 per cent. to be collected by Great Britain they will be able to collect an equal amount from those who are politically opposed to them.

I listened with much interest to the reasons which were given both by the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack and also by the Leader of the House as to why the pledge which was given by Mr. Long could not be redeemed. The Lord Chancellor said— I regret profoundly that so far as we are concerned it has exceeded the resources of human ingenuity. When he made that statement I am perfectly certain he did not mean that it was beyond the resources of human ingenuity to find a Second Chamber, but that it was impossible within the limits and resources of human ingenuity to find a Second Chamber which would satisfy Ulster. And the Leader of the House made it very plain, because he said, in reply to my noble friend Lord Midleton— The noble Earl will not surely suggest that you could have two Second Chambers organised on different bases for the North and the South. That is exactly what I am going to suggest, and I am going to quote high authority in support of my views.

I should like to point out that the reason why this is not done is, as in the case of every proposition which we may urge, that Ulster bars the way. In the old days it used to be heard in this House not wily Le roi le veult but also Le roi s'avisera, and so far as this Bill is concerned it is a case either of Ulster le veult or Ulster s'avisera. So much is this the case that the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, on the Second Reading went out of his way to do a very unusual thing. He read a letter addressed to him by the Ulster leader, a letter written for the purpose of being communicated to this House. When I heard that letter read, that letter of recantation of the opinions and views of a lifetime of the right hon. gentleman and his conversion to Home Rule, it almost seemed to me that in the comparative dusk behind the Lord Chancellor I saw the stately figure of the right hon. gentleman, clothed in a white sheet and holding in his hand the lighted taper of a penitent, as he listened to the noble and learned Lord making the Apologia pro vita sua. Although he may have changed his views on that particular question, I may take it that his views on all subjects have not changed during the last three weeks. I will therefore quote one sentence from a speech made by the right hon. gentleman (I will not say where it was made in case I should contravene the rules of this House)— Of course, the first and most difficult one is the constitution of the Second Chamber, and I think the right hon. gentleman in charge of the Bill said that it would not necessarily follow that you should have the same Second Chamber in the North and in the South of Ireland, and with that. I entirely agree. Seeing that that opinion of the right hon. gentleman differed from that of the noble Earl the Leader of the House, and knowing what attention the Government paid to his views, I have ventured to put down the Amendment which stands in my name.

As your Lordships will see, this Amendment proposes in the first place that a Senate should be established for Southern and Northern Ireland. The subsequent Amendments deal with the powers of the two Houses, the relations between the two Houses in case of disagreement, and there is a schedule describing the composition which I should suggest for the Southern Senate of Ireland. I propose to insert a blank schedule so far as Ulster is concerned, because I think it must be left to noble Lords from that part of Ireland and the representatives of Ulster in the House of Commons to decide what form of Senate would best suit them. But I should like to make it absolutely clear that in bringing forward this first. Amendment I do not ask any of your Lordships to bind yourselves to the views which I have put forward in my subsequent Amendments. It may be that you will not agree to all the powers that I propose to give to the two Houses, as to the requirements in cases of difference of opinion, or even as to the constitution of the Senate. Those are matters which can be argued later. But at present the main point on which I ask the assent of the House is the necessity of constituting a Senate as a safeguard for Southern Unionists.

I would like to say one or two words on the broad principle of the Senate as drawn up, because one objection which may be urged is that it might not be a very democratic Assembly. In one sense that is quite true, but it is specially constituted so that the various classes in Ireland, the propertied classes, the learned professions, commerce, trade, and so forth, which would have no chance of representation in an Irish Parliament, may obtain some representation in the Senate. A second reason which-I should like to urge against the objection that the Senate would not be democratic enough is that Southern Ireland is not a democratic country. In spite of the passing wave of republicanism which is now spread over the country I am perfectly certain that there is no better rallying cry in Ireland than the old one of "The King, Lords and Commons of Ireland."

The second objection which may be urged is that the Senate which I suggest is very much on the lines settled by the Convention, and that, as the noble and learned Lord pointed out in the course of his speech, the opinions of the Convention do not carry much weight, because nearly all the representatives of Nationalist Ireland were snowed under at the following General Election. I should like to say, in reply, that nothing succeeds like success. The Convention was within an ace of succeeding, and if it had succeeded those men who were snowed under would on the other alternative have been on the top of the wave. Another reason which I may urge is that those men, whether snowed under or not, represent moderate opinion in Ireland. Unless you can get moderate opinion represented in the Southern Irish Parliament there is absolutely no chance of any success. The noble Earl the Leader of the House pointed that out the other night. He said, "What is the good of trying to come to terms with de Valera? He is an impossible man." The same thing applies to the gun-men. But if you can provide for a Senate on which moderate opinion will be represented there may be sonic hope that they would be able to correct the wilder spirits. I think that is the view which will be held in Ireland, not only by Unionists but by many Nationalists and I believe also a great many Shin Feiners. What I claim, as I say, as a right more than as a favour is that we should be given those safeguards which were solemnly promised to us by the Ministers of the Crown, and one of the most important of those safeguards is the Senate which is proposed by the Amendment which stands in my name and for which I now ask your Lordships' approval.

Amendment moved— Page 1, line 9, after ("His Majesty") insert ("the Senate of Southern Ireland").—(Lord Oranmore and Browne.)

LORD PHILLIMORE

I desire to support this Amendment. I thought it was accepted by all thoughtful politicians that Government by a single Chamber in a self-governing country was a mistake. I prefer the phrase "self-governing" to "democratic," which seems to be a misapplication of a bad word to a good purpose. Speaking then of self-governing countries, I thought it was universally accepted that single-Chamber government was a mistake, that it put into the hands of a single Chamber tyrannical powers, that it necessitated the substitution of the veto of King or President for a Second Chamber, and enabled a single Chamber to misrepresent the opinions of its constituents before it came to an end. I think that is recognised by the Bill, because as I read it the first duty of the Council of Ireland is to have a scheme for the establishment of Second Houses in Northern and Southern Ireland. If it is to be the duty of the Council to establish schemes for Second Houses it is because it is recognised that it is important there should be Second Houses.

What I want to know is, what is to happen before the Council has established that scheme? Is legislation in the meantime to be by His Majesty and the one House of Commons in each case? Surely, if it is desirable that legislation should be by both Houses, it is a fortiori desirable that it should be so at the beginning—at the beginning when people will be rash and wild, and when tentative schemes will be introduced, and before the two Houses of Parliament have get into their saddle and have a sense of responsibility. If, however, there are to be two Houses for legislation it ought to be at the beginning and not later.

I shall perhaps be asked, How is the Council going to work? The Council is to consist of so many people appointed by the House of Commons of Southern Ireland and so many by the House of Commons of Northern Ireland, and it may be that the House of Commons of Southern Ireland will never come together because the Members may refuse to take the Oath of Allegiance, and it may be necessary to dissolve the Southern Parliament, and therefore you can have no Council. I agree that this is true, but I do not think at present that the draftsmen of the Bill have provided for that result. As I understand it, at present you will never be able to have a Council if the Parliament of Southern Ireland does not meet, and you will never be able to have Private Bill legislation if the Parliament does not meet. I assume that by the time we get to the proper clause His Majesty's Government will have some proposal to meet this difficulty and to provide for the existence of the Council, which is necessary under their scheme even if the Parliament of Southern Ireland does not meet. Therefore I assume that there will be a Council, and a Council at the very beginning; and if there is to be a Council at the very beginning, and if, as Clause 3 says, it should be the duty of the Council of Ireland at or as soon as may be after their first meeting to frame a scheme for the establishment of Second Houses for the Parliaments of Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland, then I say we ought to go further and see that no business is done until those Second Houses are established and that no legislation is attempted to be carried through before.

For the moment we are upon the Amendment of my noble friend who has just spoken, and he has expressed no doubt probably what is felt with regard to Southern Ireland. But upon his Amendment we might well vote, it seems to me (subject to any better opinion that may be given), on the general question of whether there should be Second Chambers and Second Chambers at once; not Second Chambers when it is too late, not shutting the door after the steed is stolen, not Second Chambers after we are told legislation has been passed by Single Chambers, but Second Chambers from the beginning. May I throw out a consideration? Is it impossible that the Council shall be the Second Chamber? Is it impossible that there shall he one Second Chamber for both Northern and Southern Ireland, and that in that way the Union which we all desire might gradually be brought about and protection given to the loyalists and Unionists in the South, and at the same time protection given to any of the Roman Catholics in the North who might feel that otherwise they would be injured?

I am not proposing to ask your Lordships to tie yourselves for the moment to any scheme of Second Chamber. I am merely asking you to say that before any legislation is passed there should be a Second Chamber, and I am venturing to say that it might be, not two separate Second Chambers, one for the North of Ireland and one for the South, but one Second Chamber for both.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

The very interesting proposal to which the noble and learned Lord in his concluding words referred has, of course, been made in a quarter not lacking in authority in Ireland, and it may well be that at the proper stage it may form the subject of debate in this House. It is not, of course, the subject-matter of the particular Amendment which has been moved by the noble Lord.

The Amendment of the noble Lord proposes that Second Chambers shall be established in both Parliaments by the Bill itself—though he confines his own suggestion, for the reason he gave, to the South—instead of leaving the establishment to the Council and Parliaments as proposed in Clause 3 of the Bill. The main—not indeed the sole—object of the Second Chambers, under circumstances so unusual as those by which we are confronted to-day, is the protection of minorities. There is, of course, also another very important function which, I should think, was in the mind of my noble friend who has just addressed the. House—that is of safeguarding, of revision, and so forth. But under the peculiar circumstances by which we are confronted, certainly that function of Second Chambers which is active in the protection of minorities is undoubtedly the most important if a Second Chamber is to discharge such a function, the minority must be given a preponderating influence in that Chamber—that is to say, in the Northern Second Chamber there would be, if this object was to be fully secured, a majority of Roman Catholics, and in the Southern Second Chamber there would be a majority consisting mainly of Protestants, but including possibly some Roman Catholics.

One observation must be made at once, and it applies both to what was said by my noble and learned friend and to the observations of the mover of this Amendment. It would be impossible under these circumstances to rely upon any really elective system, and the noble Lord most candidly recognises this in the proposal (which is contained in the Schedule) that he has put down, and to which I will more particularly advert in a moment. It is an enormous disadvantage if you are compelled, under the exceptional circumstances to which you apply yourself, to begin your proposals, in relation to a Second Chamber when you are creating one for the first time, by the admission that you cannot have any really elective system. In other words, no Second Chamber which would serve the purpose that the noble Lord desired could conic into being unless it included a pre- ponderating element of nominated members—members nominated either by the Crown or the Lord Lieutenant, or by some select body to whom the interests of the minority might be committed. When once one has reached this conclusion, it follows that Second Chambers would have to be constituted on quite abnormal and artificial lines. I shall say something in a moment as to the proposals to which the noble Lord who moved the Amendment himself referred. If by this means you gave anything like a real protection to the minority, at the same time this very important consequence follows, that you destroy the independence of the elected House of Commons and wholly undermine the foundation of representative government on which the Bill rests.

The noble Lord will see—I will speak in a moment upon his other arguments—that I am not overstating the case when I say that if the Second Chamber which he desires for Southern Ireland comes into existence, in which the interests for which he stands are protected by an artificially nominated majority, the whole independent function and importance of the First Chamber is dissipated and gone.

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

That depends on the method of settling disputes, does it not?

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I do not think so. The noble Earl might have in his mind a system under which the disputes might be adjusted in Joint Session.

LORD ORANMORE AND BROWNE

That is the Amendment on the Paper.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

The noble Lord who moved will observe, I think, that on the numbers which were accepted in the proposals of the Convention, if there was a Joint Session the number of Protestants would be 50, drawing every inference in favour of the noble Lord's view, and assuming that all the nominees of the Lord Lieutenant shared the political views of the noble Lord, and that the Roman Catholics and Nationalists, or Sinn Fein members as he chooses to call them, would number some 192.

LORD ORANMORE AND BROWNE

There is no idea of having Protestants or Roman Catholics. The whole point is that interests such as banking, commerce, and learned bodies, which have no chance of representation in the House of Commons, shall have some representation in the Senate. The whole idea is that those are the interests which should be represented, as well as the owners of property who, I suppose, would be more or less represented by the Peers who formed part of that Assembly.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I quite agree with the noble Lord that there is not only no advantage but a disadvantage in using the words "Catholic" and "Protestant" unnecessarily. But really it does not make the slightest difference. Supposing you vary it, as I quite agree it is better to do, and instead of saying "Catholic" and "Protestant," say the bankers and those to whom the noble Lord has referred as well as the representatives of Irish Peers. If you take their numbers and reckon as against them those who unless the political representation of Ireland to-day is varied must be accounted the opponents of the noble Lord, the figures are still the same; and my argument upon that, of course, remains that if you were dealing with these matters in Joint Session you would have about 50 accepting the views of the noble Lord and 192 representing the other views, unless some process of reformation takes place beforehand. Those are the figures which were given to me, and I think the calculation will be found to be approximately correct. If it is found to be anything like correct—

LORD ORANMORE AND BROWNE

I must apologise for interrupting the noble and learned Lord again, but let us take the Archbishops and Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church who cannot be held to take the same views as I do; members of His Majesty's Privy Council, whose views will vary. Then there are no fewer than 14 members elected by County Councils who are purely democratic bodies.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I have made all deductions, and I understand that all deductions were made. Of course, the Roman Catholic Archbishops ought not to be numbered and were not numbered in this total; I should be very much surprised if they had been. But the real point is this, and the noble Lord will not dispute it, that if he obtained his Second Chamber he and his friends would find themselves in a small minority in a Joint Session, and I think there can be no dispute there.

LORD ORANMORE AND BROWNE

That is so.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I think there can be no dispute that the absolute protection which the noble Lord wants cannot be given to him. I think I said on the Second Reading of the Bill that the ingenuity of man cannot devise a scheme which will give the noble Lord complete protection, being, as he is, in a very small or a relatively small minority in the part of Ireland in which he lives. Unless you have an absolutely artificial Second Chamber which gives a majority to the noble Lord's friends and which exercises a purely obstructive course on matters which interest the noble Lord, you cannot give the protection to the noble Lord which one can easily understand that he desires.

The Irish Convention proposed a scheme which I think has been adopted entirely by the noble Lord.

LORD ORANMORE AND BROWNE

No, it is much more democratic.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I have them both in front of me, and they resemble each other very closely. The noble Lord in his first Schedule takes the persons entitled to be Senators as the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, the Lord Mayor of Dublin, and the Lord Mayor of Cork. Then there are seventeen representatives of commerce (including banking), labour, and the scientific and learned professions to be nominated by the Lord Lieutenant. Those are nominated members whose views it is no doubt difficult to predicate dogmatically though one may form a judgment. Then there are Senators to be elected by the method of proportional representation, and I am bound to say that I greatly doubt whether under modern conditions any such method of election would be likely to commend itself to a large number of the persons in the South of Ireland, or would survive very long. The Archbishops and Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church are to be elected by the Archbishops and Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church, and the Archbishops and Bishops of the Church of Ireland are to be elected in the same way. Peers who are taxpayers and have residences in Southern Ireland are to be elected by the Peers who are in a similar position. And members of His Majesty's Privy Council in Ireland of not less than two years' standing who are taxpayers and have residences in Southern Ireland are equally elected by their fellow members of the Privy Council.

I cannot myself believe—your Lordships must form an independent judgment on this point—that a Second Chamber so artificially conceived and so entirely out of sympathy, as I view it, with the tendency of the time would be likely to make any appeal to or be accepted by those persons in the South of Ireland of whom the theory of the Bill is that they are at least moderate and will ultimately accept this Bill. I cannot imagine that they would accept a Second Chamber such as the noble Lord suggests imposed upon them from without. It is undoubtedly true that an expectation vas encouraged by Mr. Long, in speaking on behalf of the Government, that the Bill itself would provide a scheme for a Second Chamber.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

Was it not an absolute promise?

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

The noble Marquess suggests that it was an absolute promise, but I believe the words were "we will produce a scheme."

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

Hear, hear.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I am not at all sure, and I do not know whether Mr. Walter Long promised it or not. I was endeavouring as far as I could to quote his exact words and to leave the House to construe them. I do not know whether there was need even of a qualification there, but undoubtedly the expectation was very directly encouraged when this scheme was introduced.

NOBLE LORDS

Hear, hear.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

Your Lordships will at least accept it from me that the attempt was genuinely and honestly made to formulate a scheme, and it was undoubtedly our intention at that time to conic to Parliament with a scheme and within the four corners of the Bill to make such a proposal. We failed. We most carefully considered the scheme and the intention of the scheme, which very closely resembles the scheme put forward by the noble Lord. We were most clearly of opinion—I am certain that no noble Lord who sat in the Committee could fail to reach the same conclusion—that nobody at this period in the development of the constitution of Second Chambers could impose such an Assembly on the South of Ireland from outside, and I cannot imagine what the reception of a proposal such as this would have been in a country like Ulster where the conceptions upon this point are, as the noble Lord w,d1 knows, of an extermely representative and modern character.

The noble Lord says he has not thought it necessary to frame a Second Chamber for Ulster because he thought he might more properly leave that task to those who have a special claim to speak for Ulster. We have taken the view, whether you deal with the North or the South, first of all—this is our revised view, and noble Lords are entitled to make any play they think worth while upon the change of opinion—if you attempt to impose either upon the South or the North from outside a Second Chamber which may be entirely out of harmony with their own views you will have taken a step which most certainly will destroy the very object you are aiming at. In the second place we have the view, again operating from outside, that you cannot impose a Second Chamber which gives any real protection unless you give it powers which destroy the representative character of the First Chamber. And if the device of a Joint Session is resorted to you can only give any degree of protection at all to minorities if you so regulate the numbers who take part in your Joint Session that the minority has an equal, or almost an equal, number of votes with the majority. And that again is a state of affairs which nobody could be expected (being in a majority) permanently to acquiesce in.

We adopted therefore the method which is contained in the Bill, and I ask your Lordships to consider whether there is not something to be said for the course that was adopted. A great deal of scepticism has been expressed in the course of these debates as to the usefulness and as to the discharge of functions by the Council which is set up in the Bill. I cannot help believing that your Lordships underrate the potentialities for useful work in the direction of greater unity which the Council may perform. First of all the tasks that we have assigned to the Council is the task—in agreement if it may be, and by concurrent Acts—of providing Second Chambers for the two parts of Ireland. Is it not Rely, from the very nature of things, that you will get a suggestion proceeding from them which will be more likely to carry out the fundamental object of the noble Lord than any such fanciful attempt as that which is contained in this Amendment? For consider. Their interests will really be identical interests, though springing from a different geographical content. What is that interest? The interest is to see that their own coreligionists (one cannot altogether exclude religion from this question) obtain the best possible terms in that part of Ireland over which their jurisdiction does not extend. In other words, the majority in the South will be deeply concerned to know that fair conditions of protection are provided for those who share their views and are in a minority in the North. And, conversely, the majority in the North will be deeply concerned to see that the gloomy predictions of noble Lords here are, as far as may be defeated by the provisions which may be made for a Second Chamber. And therefore you would have here a body which, at least, would have every conceivable inducement to surmount the most formidable difficulties which I have indicated.

Do not let any noble Lord think that I am involving myself in this inconsistency that, having first shown that it is impossible for our ingenuity to devise a Second Chamber, and pointing out its difficulties. I then say that the Council will be able to create a Second Chamber, great as those difficulties are. I did not say so. The difficulties are the same, but their power and their capacity for solving those difficulties are infinitely greater than ours: first of all, because there is hardly a scheme upon which they would concentrate in agreement to which we would not be willing to give our assent; and, in the second place, because they have the knowledge that they would themselves, in that respect as in others, be the authors and the architects of the Constitution under which they would live.

The noble and learned Lord who spoke last asked a specific question as to what would be the result if the proposal contained in this Bill did not immediately come into effect in the South of Ireland.

Under those circumstances undoubtedly the Council would not come into existence, and, at any rate in theinterim, and unless other provision is made, no proposals for the establishment of a Second Chamber in Ulster would be made. It may well be—this is not the time to give a final opinion on that—that in the contingency of the South of Ireland not consenting to work the proposals contained in this Bill several proposals would be laid before Parliament which are not contained in this Bill. I think very likely that might be the case—I give no final opinion.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

Another Bill?

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

It may even be so. The noble Marquess says "would there be another Bill?" The noble Marquess is right in this sense, that nobody, I suppose, ever imagined that, a Bill being brought forward with the idea and with the hope that it might be worked by both part of Ireland concurrently, if the result proved to be that only one part of Ireland would work it, a new Bill would be introduced. It would indeed be, too ambitious a title to give to such modifications as might thereupon become necessary, but that some modifications would be necessary is quite certain—and would be inevitable under such circumstances.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

Is that all there is to be said for the settlement?

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

The noble Marquess is pleased to indulge in what is not, I think, a very effective piece of sarcasm. If the noble Marquess takes the history of the world and takes the great settlements of the world where antagonisms have lasted for generations and centuries, and each century and each generation has been marked by the blood of those who have taken part in those disturbances, he will not find that it is possible for one man or one body of men to settle the antagonism in five minutes, and the taunt that this is only one part of the settlement leaves me entirely cold. If there were three further stages in the settlement, and still we settled, neither our time nor the time of our successors would be thrown away.

THE EARL OF MIDLETON

I should really be very sorry to think that what the noble and learned Lord has just said was the last word of the Government, or that his name and fame were to be associated with such a deplorable conclusion as that at which he has just arrived. I know that the noble and learned Lord is very busy, and that he has every right to claim our indulgence because he has not followed this question so closely as some of us. But a more absolute travesty of the proposal made I never listened to in this House. In the first place he spoke as if my noble friend were imposing something on Ulster. He has done nothing of the kind.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

No. The noble Earl has entirely misunderstood me, and if he is founding his criticism on this misunderstanding, he had better be put right. I said, on the contrary, that I observed the noble Lord made no proposal with reference to Ulster, and I appreciated and followed the reason he gave.

THE EARL OF MIDLETON

Then let me get to another point. He spoke as if the Council of State would be of some use as a check. The Council of State cannot stop anything.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

No. If the noble Earl will read my speech in the OFFICIAL REPORT to-morrow he will find that I made no such observation as to suggest that any check would be found in the Council of State.

THE EARL OF MIDLETON

Then why did the noble and learned Lord introduce the Council of State into his argument?

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I will tell the noble Earl why. It was because I was pointing out that we had given this responsibility to the Council of State, that its first task would be to make suggestions for the establishment of Second Chambers. I hope that the noble Earl will not make these charges of inaccuracy unless he has quite different ground to found them upon.

THE EARL OF MIDLETON

This subject is vital to us, and we cannot allow those of your Lordships who have not had to follow the Bill from the very beginning to be under the impression, which the continual dragging in of this Council would create, that there is some check on this House of Parliament. Between Saturday and Monday the property of every individual in the South may be dealt with by a hasty decision of a single Chamber, hastily elected on a popular franchise, under circumstances which have never been contemplated in any other civilised country that I am aware of.

I just want to point out some of the fallacies of the noble and learned Lord's argument. In the first place he speaks as if this were an attempt by the Protestant minority to interfere with the great Catholic majority in the South. I wonder if the noble and learned Lord has ever considered that, when he talks of the Irish Convention which may be out of date, there are at least some circumstances to which we may appeal. The Irish Convention gave weeks of consideration to this subject. There was absolute unanimity in the Committee of twenty-one, representing all sections of the Convention, even the most extreme, who drew up a Second Chamber almost identical with that which my noble friend has put forward to-night. And what was the nature of the decision? Not merely was every man of our way of thinking convinced that in a new Assembly like that. in Ireland it was absolutely necessary to have that check which your Lordships have exercised up to the very last few clays, but the whole of the Catholics were of the same opinion, and when the Lord Chancellor tries to persuade you that this will be taken amiss by the great mass of the Irish people whom the Bill is intended to benefit let me tell him that on the final division every Catholic present voted with us and the only opposition was from the Protestants of Ulster.

Now we are asked, because the Protestants of Ulster are to have their own Assembly, to forego absolutely the only safeguard which exists. I deeply regret to see the Lord Chancellor fighting such a case. When he tells us that we have no pledge, I wonder what these words mean. The First Lord of the Admiralty, speaking on May 18, said— The Government undertake between now and Report to place on the Paper a definite scheme for the constitution of a Second Chamber in both Southern and Northern Ireland. It that undertaking is sufficient for the mover and his friends we will consider this question, and of course proposals will be put on the Paper. Is that a definite or indefinite pledge?

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

Quite definite.

THE EARL OF MIDLETON

Have you made it good?

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

No, and I attempted to make it quite plain to the House, what I think your Lordships will be willing to believe, that Mr. Walter Long intended at the time that pledge was given to carry it out, but when we attempted to carry it out we found ourselves, frankly, unable to do so. That was my position on the Second Reading, and it has never varied.

TIIE EARL OF MIDLETON

It is not a question of could not—I hold that the Government are pledged to undertake it. There is no difficulty whatever in their placing proposals on the Paper. What they have placed on the Paper is not a definite scheme. It is an indefinite proposal that twenty Sinn Feiners and twenty Members from Ulster will, if they choose, in a Council of State, produce such a scheme, and if they cannot find one they may or may not propose it as they think proper. That is the only solace which the Lord Chancellor thinks it right to give us for the great sacrifices we have made in the past and are making now.

We went into the Convention against our will. We went in on the promise of the Prime Minister that what we proposed and agreed to would have great weight. Your Lordships can see what weight is attached to this concensus of opinion in the Convention, including men who would not be ashamed of being called Sinn Feiners. I find it quite impossible to believe that your Lordships, who have performed functions of revision for so many years and with so great acceptability to the mass of our fellow countrymen, will refuse us the small right, not boon, which we ask for, and that you will do, under the most difficult circumstances, at least as much for us as those who are most bitterly opposed to us in politics in Ireland have been willing to do and have supported in division after division in the Convention as being in the best interests of the South.

If the Government goes into the Lobby against us to-night and defeats us on this Amendment who have had a seat in Parliament for over forty years, shall be unable to find any occasion on which faith has been so flagrantly violated as it will have been by the Government to-night.

THE EARL OF MAYO

It is quite clear from the Lord Chancellor's speech that we are not to have a Second Chamber in Ireland. It is all very well his saying that this Council is to conic together to frame a Second Chamber. There is not the smallest chance of the Council ever meeting. Do you suppose that Northern members will sit with Sinn Feiners?—the Council will never come into being. It means this, that the Parliament will govern as a single Parliament for years without a Second Chamber, there is no chance of revision; and if ever the Second Chamber conies into being it will not be able to deal with measures that have already been passed, they will have become Acts and will remain.

In asking for a Second Chamber we are asking that we may have a chance of being represented; that there may be a chance of moderate opinion in Ireland being heard. The Lord Chancellor says that it would destroy the independence of the elected Parliament, and in the next sentence he said that the Senate which would be set up would be in a small minority. I do not see how it is going to destroy the independence of the elected Parliament if we are going to be in a small minority. I do not underrate the merits of the Council which is always being rammed down our throats. I know Ireland as well as the Lord Chancellor, perhaps a little better. He says that if this Parliament comes on we shall have to have another Bill. How many more Bills are we going to have? We are going to have two single Parliaments and if they fail we are to have Crown Colony government, and then we are going to have another Bill. It is perfectly hopeless arguing with the Lord Chancellor on these lines. No doubt the Government can impose anything on us and we have to stick it.

THE MARQUESS OF CREWE

I merely desire to explain in a few words why I feel that I ought to support the Amendment. Nobody can, of course, dispute the difficulty which surrounds His Majesty's Government in this matter. It is not easy to devise a Second Chamber anywhere. So far the Government have not found it possible to make any proposals for any changes in your Lordships' House, and I can well understand that, pending that, they have found it difficult to make any proposals about Ireland.

It was, of course, a pleasant surprise to some of us on this side of the House to find the Lord Chancellor laying the emphasis he did on the necessary supremacy of the elected Chamber. He will no doubt recognise that it was with that necessity in view that some of us—I had the honour of being the person to propose it—introduced and carried the Parliament Act through your Lordships' House; and one wonders, in view of what the noble and learned Lord has just said, what the attitude of His Majesty's Government will be when the time comes for the reform of your Lordships' House to be considered. It surely is the fact that what my noble friend behind me asked for is not the supremacy of the Second Chamber. He does not ask for a majority which can over-ride the elected Chamber in Ireland. What he asks for is an opportunity for putting forward, and ensuring the due discussion of, the views which the minority may hold.

We in the days of which I have already spoken attempted to put before your Lordships' House what the value of discussion and delay was, and is, even without a definite power of rejection; and I understand that it is those advantages, and the possibility of exciting and in some cases convincing public opinion on which my noble friends behind me rely in the creation of this Second Chamber. They do not suppose that they will be able to over-ride the elected representatives of Southern Ireland, assuming that those elected representatives meet in the manner which the Bill proposes. What is the alternative? Noble Lords behind me have explained very clearly (and I will not attempt to repeat what they said) that there seems to be very little prospect of the Council of Ireland coming into being at all. If it should come into being—that is to say, if some means are devised for forming such a body, even though the Southern Parliament does not meet—what is the further prospect of its proceeding to elect a satisfactory Second Chamber? I cannot see that there is any, and in these circumstances I am not surprised that those noble Lords who are entitled to speak for such a weighty and important body of opinion in the South, considering that the Government have failed necessarily failed, as the noble and learned Lord opposite says—to carry out their engage- ment, in the first place oppose the Bill altogether, and in the second place endeavour to secure this minor safeguard. I sincerely hope that they will succeed in doing so.

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

I think that just for once the right hand of my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack has failed in its cunning. What are the objections he urged to the Amendment moved by Lord Oranmore and Browne? I think he said, "What is the use of offering an unwelcome Second Chamber to the Irish people? "I have heard something about the offering of an unwelcome Constitution. Again he said, "Where in the world would such a Second Chamber be accepted?" Is that any argument when we are dealing with Ireland? Is it not common ground here that no ordinary argument and no ordinary experience applies when we are dealing with an Irish matter? Early in his speech my noble friend, who had not read all the Amendments on the Paper, and did not know that there was one dealing with a dispute between the two Houses, said, "If you take a purely artificially nominated House like this, you destroy the whole democratic power of the elected House of Commons." When it was pointed out that there was a method, by joint sitting of the two Houses, of dealing with any disputes, he turned right round and said, "What is the use of your Second Chamber, because it would be out-voted on every occasion by the elected representatives of the House of Commons."

Is there any validity at all in the argument or the method of my noble and learned friend? Is it not for my noble friends from Ireland to say the kind of safeguard they require? He said that it is an Irish question. So it is. They said, "We do not ask for a Second Chamber which can over-ride the First Chamber. All we ask for is a Second Chamber which will certainly give us such representation that interests which will never be heard at all on the floor of the House of Commons shall be heard on the floor of the Second Chamber, and then if there is a dispute let the two Houses meet and we will abide by the result. All we ask for is an opportunity to allow our Nationalist or Roman Catholic or even Sinn Fein fellow-countrymen to know what we think, and we will take the consequences." A more moderate, more reasonable or more states- manlike proposal was never made to your Lordships' House.

LORD PHILLIMORE

With your Lordships' indulgence I should like to say a few words, more particularly as I am partly responsible, by having brought in the Council of State, for the unfortunate collision for a moment between the noble Earl and the Lord Chancellor. I venture to submit as the right view that we are not now discussing the composition of the Second Chamber. The only Amendment introduced by Lord Oranmore and Browne is that there shall be a Second Chamber. That is what the Bill intends. The Bill says in Clause 3 that there shall be a Second Chamber. The danger is that you will have a Second Chamber, but have it too late. All that is wanted is to have a declaration here, as Lord Oranmore and Browne has suggested, that there shall be a Second Chamber, and at the end of Clause 3—let noble Lords follow me and mark that—these words- Until that composition of a Second Chamber there shall be no legislation. The danger is that under Clause 3 you have the duty to have a Second Chamber, but you may have legislation without it, and all you want is a declaration in Clause 1 that the Legislature is to be composed of the King, a Second Chamber and the Commons, and a tail to Clause 3 stating that "until that composition there shall be no legislation."

I would ask the House to pardon me one word more. I shall be told "You will never get it. That Council will never make it." I venture to say that if you bring them to the point they will. I should like to make one quotation. I had the honour of being chosen to sit at The Hague on the Council of Jurists to compose the new International Court, and the great American, Mr. Root, worked with me and framed with myself a project by which the rights of the larger and the smaller States should be preserved by joint election by the Council and Assembly of the League. We were told that there would be an impasse in consequence. Mr. Root said— I have been Secretary of State in America. I have been Senator there. You have no Party Government there which enables the two Houses to be arranged in that way. We have collisions between the Senate and the House of Representatives, and they are always arranged. There is a Committee of Conciliation and in the end they always agree. Why? Because they muse. Otherwise, nothing is done. Put it to this Council that it must make a scheme, submit it to the two Houses, and get it approved, and that there shall be no legislation until that has been done, and you will have your Second Chamber.

Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment agreed to accordingly.

LORD ORANMORE AND BROWNEmoved, in subsection (1), after "His

On Question, whether the words "the Senate of Southern Ireland" shall be inserted in the clause?—

Their Lordships divided: Contents, 120; Not-Contents, 36.

CONTENTS.
Argyll, D. Bryce, V. Gainford, L.
Northumberland, D. Cave, V. Greville, L.
Wellington, D. Clarlemont, V. Harris, L.
De Vesci, V. Hemphill, L.
Abercorn, M. (D. Abercorn.) Devonport, V. Hindlip, L.
Aberdeen and Temair, M. Falmouth, V. Holm Patrick, L.
Camden, M. Gough, V. Inchiquin, L.
Crewe, M. Harcourt, V. Islington, L.
Dufferin and Ava, M. Hood, V. Kenmare, L. (E. Kenmare.)
Lincolnshire, M. (L. Great Chamberlain.) Hutchinson, V. (E. Donoughmore.) Kenry, L. (E. Dunraven and Mount-Earl.)
Linlithgow, M. Knutsford, V. Killanin, L.
Salisbury, M. Kilmaine, L.
Abinger, L. Kintore, L. (E. Kintore.)
Albemarle, E. Addington, L.] Lamington, L.
Ancastcr, E. Armaghdale, L. Lawrence, L.
Dartmouth, E. Askwith, L. MacDonnell, L.
Doncaster, E. (D. Buccleuch and Queensberry.) Avebury, L. Montagu of Bcaulieu, L.
Balfour, L. Monteagle, L. (M. Sligo.)
Drogheda, E. Barrymore, L. Monteagle of Brandon, L.
Fortescue, E. Bellew, L. Muir Mackenzie, L.
Grey, E. Belper, L. Oranmore and Browne, L. [Teller.]
Harewood, E. Boston, L.
Howe, E. Buckmaster, L. Oriel, L. (V. Massereene.)
Iveagh, E. Chalmers, L. Ormonde, L. (M. Ormonde.)
Kingston, E. Cheylesmore, L. Parmoor, L.
Malmesbury, E. Clanwilliam. L. (E. Clanwilliam.) Pentland, L.
Manvers, E. Clements, L. (E. Le[...]rim.) Phillimore, L.
Mayo, E. [Teller.] Clifford of Chudleigli, L. Kanfurly, L. (E. Ranfurly.)
Midleton, E. Clinton, L. Rathdonnell, L.
Morton, E. Cottesloe, L. Redesdale, L.
Pembroke and Montgomery, E. Crofton, L. Ribblesdale, L.
Portsmouth, E. de Mauley, L. Ritchie of Dundee, L.
Reading, E. Decies, L. St. Audries, L.
Sandwich, E. Deramore, L. Saltersford, L. (E. Courlown.)
Selborne, E. Desart, L. (E. Desart.) Saltoun, L.
Stanhope, E. Dynevor, L. Shandon, L.
Strafford, E. Emmott, L. Southwark, L.
Wicklow, E. Erskine, L. Sudley, L. (E. Arran.)
Fairfax of Cameron, L. Sumner, L.
Allendale, V. Faringdon, L. Sydenham, L.
Bangor, V. Farnham, L. Vernon, L.
Bertie of Thame, V. Fingall, L. (E. Fingall.) Wemyss, L. (E. Wemyss.)
NOT-CONTENTS.
Birkenhead, L. (L. Chancellor.) Chilston, V. Hylton, L.
Ailsa, M. Esher, V. Lee of Fareham, L.
Finlay, V. Moulton, L.
Bradford, E. Peel, V. Riddell, L.
Chesterfield, E. St. Davids, V. Ruthven of Gowrie, L.
Curzon of Kedleston, E. Somerleyton, L. [Teller.]
Lucan, E. Annesley, L. (V. Valentia.) Stanmore, L. [Teller.)
Lytton, E. Atkinson, L. Stuart of Wortley, L.
Onslow, E. Cawley, J. Teynham, L.
Vane, E. (M. Londonderry.) Clwyd, L. Treowen, L.
Cochrane of Cults, L. Wavertree, L.
Farquhar, V. (L. Steward.) Colebrooke, L. Wigan, L. (E. Crawford.)
Sandhurst, V. (L. Chamberlain.) Fairlie, L. (E. Glasgow.) Wolverton, L.

Majesty" where those words secondly occur, to insert "the Senate of Northern Ireland." The noble Lord said: I do not know whether this is to be regarded as consequential or not. It may seem that a representative of Southern Ireland is not the proper person to move for a Senate for Northern Ireland, but I know that the Government lay great stress upon having everything in this Bill as much as possible the same in the North as in the South. Therefore I propose my Amendment. I need not elaborate it, because I have not put down any Schedule as to the constitution of the Northern Senate, and if in the course of Committee noble Lords from Ulster and representatives in the House of Commons come to the conclusion that they would rather not have a Senate for Northern Ireland, the matter can be reconsidered on the Report stage.

Amendment moved— Page 1, line 12, after ("His Majesty") insert ("the Senate of Northern Ireland").—(Lord Oraernore and Browne.)

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I shall neither support nor oppose this Amendment. It is supplemental to the proposal already proposed by the noble Lord and carried by the House, and I agree that it would perhaps be convenient if we see what is the development of the Amendment which has just been carried, and then deal with the matter appropriately on Report.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD KILLANIN had on the Paper three Amendments to subsection (2) with the object of making the first part of the subsection read as follows— (2) For the purposes of this Act Northern Ireland shall consist of the Parliamentary counties of Antrim, Armagh, Down, and Londonderry, and the Parliamentary borough of Belfast, … The noble Lord said: My proposal is this. Under the provision in the Bill the Northern Parliament is to consist of six counties and the boroughs of Londonderry and Belfast, and the rest of Ireland will come under the Southern Parliament. My proposal is to leave out from the- area under the Northern Parliament the counties of Tyrone and Fermanagh and the borough of Londonderry. If they are excluded from the Northern, they naturally fall under the Southern Parliament. I will give to your Lordships a few facts and figures about the counties of Tyrone and Fermanagh and the borough of Londonderry, which, I think, will make you realise that to include them in Ulster would be unjust, unreasonable, and unwise.

When I had the honour of addressing this House on the Second Reading I expressed my views in reference to the partition of Ireland, and I am not going to repeat them now, beyond saying again that I am in complete agreement with the late Mr. John Redmond, when he said that the partition of Ireland was an abomination and a blasphemy. But I recognise now that by the Second Reading of this Bill your Lordships have voted for and apparently approved of the policy of the partition of Ireland. On the assumption that Ireland is going to be divided the next step is to see where you are going to draw the line of division, and I venture to say o your Lordships that the line that you draw is a very important matter and will have a great effect on how this Bill will be received in Ireland.

It is with repugnance that any noble Lord from Ireland deals with this question of the partition of Ireland, but if it is the cruel fate of Ireland that she is to be divided, then I ask your Lordships to remember that we should at least see that that operation is carried out as properly and as decently and painlessly as possible. Originally the suggestion as to where Ireland should be divided was that the whole of the Province of Ulster should be left out, and should have a Parliament of its own. For some reason or other, I do not know why, Ulster changed her mind and decided that three counties should be dropped, and Ulster has her way in the whole of this Bill and in every detail of it.

Several NOBLE LORDS

Hear, hear.

LORD KILLANIN

This is a perfect Bill ill the eyes of Ulster. Not a single noble Lord from the six counties has put down any Amendment to the Bill, because it is perfect in their eyes. The Government decided that they would leave out of Ulster the three counties of Cavan, Monaghan, and Donegal. On what principle do they do that? Why do they leave them out? They leave them out because in those three counties there is a large Nationalist and Catholic majority. Why do not they leave out Tyrone and Fermanagh and the borough of Londonderry? There is in those counties and in the borough of Londonderry a definite Catholic and Nationalist majority.

I ask you to bear with me while I give your Lordships a few figures. In the county of Tyrone there are three Parliamentary constituencies. Two of them are represented by Nationalists and one by a Unionist. In North-east Tyrone the Nationalist majority is 4,975; in another division of Tyrone the Nationalist was returned wth a majority of 2,746, and in South Tyrone where the Unionist was returned the Unionist majority is 2,577. Therefore if you take the whole county of Tyrone you have a total Nationalist majority in the three constituencies of 5,144. Then if we take the county of Fermanagh, there are two constituencies. In North Fermanagh the Unionist is returned with a majority of 532. In South Fermanagh the Nationalist majority is 2,281. Therefore in the whole county the Nationalist majority is 1,749. In addition to that the majority of the county councillors in these two counties are Nationalist; the Chairmen of the County Councils are Nationalists, and in the borough of Londonderry the Nationalist is returned and the Lord Mayor is a Nationalist. Therefore I submit that if you look at these two counties and this borough from the political and religious point of view—because, the difference is religious—there is absolutely no reason why they should not he included in the Southern portion of Ireland, and it will be looked upon as a great injustice if you do not do so. I might mention that one of the Nationalist Members for one of these Divisions in County Tyrone is Vice-President of the Irish Republic, Mr. Griffith, and if you leave Tyrone in the North of Ireland apparently the Vice-President of the Republic will be a member of the Belfast Parliament.

If we look at the population of these counties we find in Tyrone that the Catholic population is 79,000, and the non-Catholic—that includes protestant episcopalians and presbyterians—is 63,000. Therefore you have a Catholic majority in the county of Tyrone of 15,365. In Fermanagh the Catholic population is 34,740, and the non-Catholic population 27,096. Therefore, in County Fermanagh you have a Catholic majority of 7,644. In Derry the Catholic population is 22,923, and the non-Catholic population 17,857. Therefore, in the borough of Derry you have a Catholic majority of 5,066. If you take these two counties and the borough you have a Catholic majority of 28,075. Therefore I submit that whether you take those two counties and the borough of Londonderry singly, as I have done, or combine them together, you have a quite definite Catholic and Nationalist majority. Under those circumstances I cannot understand how you can defend putting those two counties and the borough of Londonderry in the Northern Parliament instead of the Southern Parliament.

What is the principle on which the Government divided Ireland? The principle, which has been repeatedly stated in the debate and notably by Lord Curzon, is the principle of self-determination. You have said: "There are two selves in Ireland." You have said that Ireland, though geographically she is one body, is something like the Siamese twins; that, although one body, there are really two persons in Ireland, two individualities. The Lord Chancellor repeated that again this evening—two races, two religious views. Your contention is that there are two selves in Ireland, and now you are going to divide these two selves one from another. You are going to split the Siamese twins, and into the bargain you want to say that one of the twins is a Catholic and the other is a Protestant, that one is a Nationalist and the other is a Unionist, and that you must divide them. In dividing them would not you take care that you do not make a gaping wound in one of the twins, and that you do not attach to the other twin a part that in no way belongs to it? That would create a great deal of trouble in the future. But that is what you are doing in this Bill.

I would ask the noble and learned Lord to look at the reverse of the situation. Take the county of Armagh, which my noble friend, Lord Armaghdale, represented so long in another place. In the County of Armagh there is a very large Catholic and Nationalist minority. Armagh is the ecclesiastical capital of Ireland, where the head of the Roman Catholic Church and the head of the Episcopal Church live, both of them strongly against partition. Would you propose to put Armagh in Southern Ireland? Why not? There is a large Catholic minority in Armagh County. I do not propose it; on the contrary, I say that in spite of the fact that there is a large Nationalist and Catholic minority in Armagh that, in as much as the majority of the people are Protestants, it is one of the Protestant counties of Ireland, and should go in with the Northern Parliament. But why do you not apply that principle to the Counties of Tyrone and Fermanagh, where there are large Catholic Nationalist majorities? I admit there are large Protestant minorities there, but why, if the principle of majorities applies in the case of Armagh, should not the majority test apply also in the case of Tyrone and Fermanagh? Some of your Lordships might say that, actually, you are dividing Ireland up into a Catholic Ireland and a Protestant Ireland. Do you really want to be so exclusive that there will be almost no Catholics in the North of Ireland and no Protestants in the South of Ireland? Even in Belfast and the four counties that will remain in the Ulster Parliament there are considerable Catholic and Nationalist minorities. In Belfast itself Catholics and Nationalists will be returned to the Northern Parliament. South Down is Catholic and Nationalist and will return a Nationalist to the Belfast Parliament. South Armagh will return probably a Catholic and Nationalist to the Belfast Parliament. But in the South of Ireland where will there be any Unionist returned? Therefore, the fact that you had put two counties into the South of Ireland which will return Unionists—return, I hope, my great friends Mr. Archdale and Mr. Coote—will have the great advantage that there will be at least some Unionists returned in the Southern part of Ireland.

I can see no grounds in reason or in sense or in fairness why you should exclude these counties from the South of Ireland. It seems to me to be a pure piece of grab on the part of Ulster. Ulster has her way entirely in this Bill. Ulster is very proud of herself and of the Bill, and is repeatedly telling us what a model she will be to the South and West of Ireland. Lord Armaghdale spoke almost of going on a mission to show us in the South of Ireland how to conduct our affairs. I am anxious that the Southern Parliament should come into operation. If you are going to found the two Parliaments, I am extremely anxious that the Southern Parliament should operate. I think it would be a deplorable thing if the outcome is that it does not. Those two counties object to being put into Ulster, and I think they are fully justified in their objection. If you exclude those two counties in spite of the fact that the majorities are in favour of going into the South, I submit that you will create one of those Irish grievances that will tell in the future. You will then he astonished and say: "How on earth has this arisen?"

I constantly see noble Lords beating their breasts in this House about past injustices upon Ireland. This is one of those injustices that you are deliberately committing now. It sill tell now, and it will tell in history. I also wish to remind the Government that not only will this be felt in the two counties themselves, but it will be felt throughout, the whole of Ireland. It will be one of the causes of disturbance in the whole of Ireland, and if you want to reconcile Southern Ireland to the partition of Ireland do not give her one of those handles to which I cannot imagine any defence. You all know that in Ireland we are against partition, and I think you will crown your unfortunate action if in addition to dividing Ireland you divide her unfairly, and thus bleed the South of Ireland, and rob her of her rightful position and her own sustenance in order to aggrandise and fatten Ulster. I beg to move the first of my Amendments.

Amendment moved— Page line 15, after ("Down") insert ("and ").—(Lord killanin.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

My Lords, these Amendments have been sufficiently explained by the noble Lord in his speech. His proposal is founded entirely upon the fact that at this moment the majority of the population in each of these areas is Roman Catholic. The noble Lord will not forget that the Parliamentary representation of those districts has varied from election to election, and that in comparatively recent times it would have been easy to discover a Parliamentary re- presentation less favourable to his argument than that which exists at the moment.

There is another circumstance not mentioned by the noble Lord, and it is, I think, of great importance. In the first place, I do not think the noble Lord will dispute that the main trend of the business activities in the trade of these counties lies in the direction of Belfast and not in the direction of the South of Ireland.

LORD KILLANIN

Not more so than another county in the North—Donegal.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I cannot speak with knowledge, but I am told it is so. Do not let us compare that with other counties in the North, because there are other counties in the North which are being treated in that way for that very reason.

It is a relevant circumstance that their business relations and interests lie almost exclusively in the direction of Belfast at the present time. It is there that they trade and go to market, and it is there that their debtors and creditors are to be found.

There are two other reasons I should mention why I hope this Amendment will not be adopted by the House. In the first place it is not a bad thing that you should ensure the presence in the Ulster Parliament of at any rate some reasonable minority. In the numbers which have been put forward by the noble Lord you will find a powerful minority which may prove to be corrective of undue haste or partiality if such tendencies should unfortunately disclose themselves. Here we have a case which, if the noble Lord's estimate of the future corresponds with his exposition of the present, would justify us in supposing that it would be actually the Members returned to the Ulster Parliament who were able to state the opposite point of view. It is not only an argument based on principle but on convenience and expediency that successive Governments which have given pledges of differential treatment to Ulster have referred to six counties, I believe, and I do not think there is any case in which four counties have been referred to. When in 1914 a Bill was introduced in this House to exclude part of the North of Ireland from the area of the Act of 1914, that Bill in the form in which it left this House applied to all six counties and not to four. So that after considerable argument on this very point this House was of opinion then and has been since the year 1914 at least, that six counties ought to be dealt with and not four. During that period the population of Ulster and those who have applied their minds to these matters have been entitled to suppose that the view taken by your Lordships in 1914 and the view taken by two successive Prime Ministers held the field.

LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH

As a Roman Catholic I have the greatest aversion to religion coming into any discussion of political questions, and I have invariably found that my political views have not agreed with my religion. I must oppose this Amendment. I should be sorry to think that the six counties were picked from the point of view of religion. I never can make out why there is any conflict in Ulster, but if a man does not agree with the inhabitants of a district on the question of religion he can leave that part of the country and go somewhere else where he does, unless he puts his pocket before his soul. If he put his pocket before his soul then he must put his soul in his pocket.

THE EARL OF MIDLETON

I should like to add a word to what has been said in reference to my noble friend's proposal. I hold rather different views from him in some respects, but I do not think the Lord Chancellor is quite accurate as regards what has taken place. I believe I am right in saying, though I have not had time to verify it, that on the last occasion when the amending Bill came before this House your Lordships actually put in nine counties.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I think it was six, but I am not sure; I have not looked it. up.

THE EARL OF MIDLETON

I do not think I can part with this question of the six counties without pointing out that there are very grave doubts whether Ulster has chosen the right number in its own interests and in the best interests of its future. I am not going back on any of the past debates, but your Lordships will recollect that very great changes have taken place in Ulster since the six-county limit was adopted in 1914. Take the city of Derry. At that time the city of Derry upon the whole was Protestant and Unionist. Owing to the introduction of new shipyards employing large numbers of workmen I suggest that the city of Derry now is much more largely Catholic and Nationalist in tone. I have very grave doubts whether, if they were going to make a Protestant entity so to speak, it would not have been better to have left out Tyrone and even the. city of Derry, and whether it will not be found that very grave difficulties will arise in these Parliaments, if they are ever set up, from the inclusion of Tyrone and the city of Derry, and perhaps my noble friend is right in saying Fermanagh. I should like to ask the Ulster Members before it is too late whether they are wise in accepting the six counties and not asking for the nine.

NOBLE LORDS

Hear, hear.

THE EARL OF M1DLETON

It may be found in the future that Ulster will be severed far more by questions of Labour and Capital, in which the comparative conservatism of the country districts will act as a counteracting force to the very advanced elements in Belfast whatever may be their creed. I often wonder whether in the future Ulster will not feel that one of the Amendments which ought to have been pressed for was the inclusion of the nine counties rather than the six. Similarly after hearing my noble friend's speech, I think there can be few members of the House who do not feel some doubts as to whether the adoption of the six-county limit is not a little too wide to produce the effect which they desire of concentrating not merely creeds but occupations within the Northern Parliament.

Having said so much, I should be very sorry to add anything to the very wise words which my noble friend uttered with regard to the possible disturbance of the new Northern Parliament by including elements which are wholly hostile to it look upon the question of the six, or nine, or four counties, whichever it may be, as rather more of a domestic question affecting noble Lords who represent Ulster. We, of course, have our own views which we have already put forward and which have not, been adopted. Failing that. I think it is our duty to make the very best selection we can of the districts which are to form the Northern Parliament and I have very grave misgivings whether the six counties including the City of Derry is the best selection. We have already taken a Division on principles and I should judge from the views which are held in the House that in all probability my noble friend will not get a very large measure of support if he goes to a Division, and I would suggest to him that after the discussion he might not persist in his Amendment.

THE MARQUESS OF CREWE

As I was responsible for the Exclusion Bill in the summer of 1914, to which allusion has already been made, I might say a word. My noble friend behind me has banded me a copy of that Bill as amended in this House, and Clause 1 reads as follows— The Government of Ireland Act, 1914, shall not apply to the excluded area as hereinafter de fined. Subsection (2) is— In this Act the expression excluded area means the province of Ulster. Therefore, it was then the nine counties.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

Then it must be nine. I told the noble Earl that I was not quite sure which it was.

THE MARQUESS OF CREWE

Obviously it is a very easy thing to forget, because so many propositions have been made at different times. Perhaps I might be allowed to support what has just fallen from my noble friend, Lord Midleton, and to say that I think the noble Lord who has moved this Amendment may not think it wise in the present state of the House to divide. That, of course, is a matter for him. But I do wish to express very strongly the opinion that His Majesty's Government are making unnecessary trouble by fixing on the six counties as the area of exclusion. Some principle can be found, if you are to have exclusion at all, for the exclusion of the whole of Ulster, and that, is the course which I myself would greatly have preferred. A principle can also be discovered in favour of the exclusion of the small really Protestant North-Easternenclave. But no principle (as I think the noble and. learned Lord admitted) seems to attach to the exclusion of the six counties.

LORD MONTEAGLE OF BRANDON

In the Bill that I had the honour of introducing in the earlier part of the Session I proposed the exclusion in the last resort, after the Constituent Assembly which I proposed to be set up had sat, of the six counties, but at the time when I drafted my Bill I was not aware of the county council elections that took place in the month of June, and which so remarkably confirmed the figures which my noble friend, Lord Killanin, has put before the House. Those elections, the most recent elections that have been held in those two counties, showed a decided Nationalist majority, and under these circumstances I could not now vote for including those two counties in the Northern Parliament. If, therefore, my noble friend Lord Killanin goes to a Division l shall certainly support him.

On Question, Amendment negatived.

LORD ORAN MORE AND BR.OWNE

The next Amendment standing in my name is consequential.

Amendment moved—

Page 1, line 19, after subsection (2) insert the following new subsections: ("(3) The Senate of Southern Ireland shall be constituted as provided in the First Schedule to this Act. (4) The Senate of Northern Ireland shall be constituted as provided in the Second Schedule to this Act.")—(Lord Oranmore and Browne.)

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I must point out to the noble Lord that lie here positively provides that the Senate of Northern Ireland shall be constituted as provided in the Second Schedule to this Act. It would, I think, be very unusual to insert such a provision positively unless he proposed to take the responsibility of suggesting a provision in the Second Schedule. He certainly must not assume that the Government will take any such responsibility; it is most improbable that they will. It is part of the noble Lord's scheme, and he must consider that. May I also ask the noble Lord to consider—though I think the point is quite clear—that even if these subsections were to be accepted they are out of place in the present clause. I have no doubt that they ought to be contained in the substantive clause to be inserted after Clause 13, and I should be very glad, on the mechanical side of that, to consult with the noble Lord.

LORD ORANMORE AND BROWNE

If the noble and learned Lord says that these Amendments are not inserted in the proper place I should be very glad to alter it.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

That is my own strong opinion. Of course, what I said does not apply to the point of substance.

LORD ORANMORE AND BROWNE

With regard to the point of substance I should be glad to confer with noble Lords from Ulster, and try to frame a Schedule.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

It is by no means unexampled in your Lordships' House to put in a clause of this kind and leave the Schedule blank. It is often done.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I am aware that that is so, but I should greatly doubt whether, on a point of such great constitutional importance as this, a Schedule has been left empty; I know of no such case.

LORD ORANMORE AND BROWNE

I do not press the Amendment, on the understanding that the noble and learned Lord will not object to its being inserted after Clause 13.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

Certainly. If the noble Lord will see me about it I will indicate to him exactly where it should go.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH had on the Paper an Amendment to leave out Clause 1 and, insert the following new clause— 1. On and after the appointed date there shall be established four State Parliaments in Ulster, Munster, Leinster, and Connaught, each of which shall form a House of Commons of Ireland, to be elected on a democratic franchise as hereinafter set forth.

THE LORD CHAIRMAN

The matter is entirely in your Lordships' hands, but this clause seems to me to set up four State Parliaments, and I think your Lordships have decided that there should be two; therefore the Amendment would appear to be out of order.

LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH

May I not move the clause? I have very cogent reasons to mention.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

I am quite sure that the Lord Chairman is perfectly right on the matter of order; this clause is inconsistent with what we have already passed.

Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.

[The sitting was suspended at eight o'clock and resumed at a quarter past nine.]

Clause 2:

Constitution of Council of Ireland.

2.—(1) With a view to the eventual establishment of a Parliament for the whole of Ireland, and to bringing about harmonious action between the parliaments and governments of Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland, and to the promotion of mutual intercourse and uniformity in relation to matters affecting the whole of Ireland, and to providing for the administration of services which the two parliaments mutually agree should be administered uniformly throughout the whole of Ireland or which by virtue of this Act are to be so administered, there shall be constituted as soon as may be after the appointed day a Council to be called the Council of Ireland.

(2) Subject as hereinafter provided, the Council of Ireland shall consist of a person appointed by His Majesty, who shall be President, twenty persons, of whom not less than ten shall be members of the House of Commons of Southern Ireland chosen by that House in such manner as that House may determine, and twenty persons, of whom not less than ten shall be members of the House of Commons of Northern Ireland chosen by that House in such manner as that House may determine, and the appointment of members of the Council of Ireland shall be the first business of the House of Commons of Southern Ireland and of Northern Ireland.

A member of the Council appointed by the House of Commons of Southern Ireland or Northern Ireland, if on his appointment he was a member of either House of Commons, shall, on ceasing to be a member of that House, cease to be a member of the Council:

Provided that on the dissolution of the Parliament of Southern Ireland or Northern Ireland the persons who are members of the Council appointed by the House of Commons of that Parliament shall continue to hold office as members of the Council until the date of the first meeting of the new Parliament, and shall then retire unless re-appointed.

The President of the Council shall preside at each meeting of the Council at which he is present and shall be entitled to vote in case of an equality of votes, but not otherwise.

The first meeting of the Council shall be held at such time and place as may be appointed by the Lord Lieutenant.

The Council may act notwithstanding a vacancy in their number, and the quorum of the Council shall be fifteen; subject as aforesaid the Council may regulate their own procedure including th2 delegation of powers to committees.

(3) The constitution of the Council of Ireland may from time to time be varied by identical Acts passed by the Parliament of Southern Ireland and the Parliament of Northern Ireland and the Acts may provide for all or any of the members of the. Council of Ireland being elected by parliamentary electors, and determine the constituencies by which the several elective members are to be returned and the number of the members to be returned by the several constitencejies and the method of election.

LORD SHANDON moved, in subsection (1), to leave out from "administered" where that word secondly occurs to the end of the clause, and insert "the Senate of Southern Ireland and the Senate of Northern Ireland shall sit together (except for the consideration of Bills passed by the House of Commons of Southern Ireland or Northern Ireland as provided by this Act) and when so sitting together shall constitute the Irish Senate. The Lord Chancellor of Ireland shall be the President of the Irish Senate and the Irish Senate shall have the power provided in this Act."

The noble Lord said: This Amendment is to be taken with a number of other Amendments some of which are consequential, and perhaps with your Lordships' permission I will explain the whole situation. We have now adopted the principle of a Senate for both Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland, and the effect and operation of this Amendment and the subsequent Amendments which stand in my name would be this. The object is not in any way to extend the Bill so that it would amount to an interference with the rights and powers of the Senate of the Parliament of Northern Ireland. On the contrary, the object is to help one of the most strongly urged reasons for the clause dealing with the Council—namely, to help towards an ultimate amalgamation of the two Parliaments in Ireland by bringing the members of the Senate constantly together to discuss questions of common services so that they will always be confronted with the necessity of seeing whether there are not some services which can be properly dealt with over the whole of Ireland.

The functions of the Council as contained in the Bill are really only advisory, and that fact constitutes the main difficulty in giving any effect to its views. So long as there was no provision in the Bill for Senates I quite realise that the only means of bringing about ultimate fusion was by giving to the Council the powers which it is proposed to give in Clause 2. With the spirit of the clause I am in entire agreement. It is not proposed to alter any portion of it down to the word "administered." Accordingly it would read in this way— 2.—(1) With a view to the eventual establishment of a Parliament for the whole of Ireland, and to bringing about harmonious action between the parliaments and governments of Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland, and to the promotion of mutual intercourse and uniformity in relation to matters affecting the whole of Ireland, and to providing for the administration of services which the two parliaments mutually agree should be administered uniformly throughout the whole of Ireland, or which by virtue of this Act are to be so administered….

Then would come in my Amendment— the Senate of Southern Ireland and the Senate of Northern Ireland shall sit together (except for the consideration of Bills passed by the House of Commons of Southern Ireland or Northern Ireland as provided by this Act) and when so sitting together shall constitute the Irish Senate. The Lord Chancellor of Ireland shall be the President of the Irish Senate and the Irish Senate shall have the power provided in this Art. Your Lordships will see that the Amendment in no way whatsoever seeks to interfere with the House of Commons, or whatever you call it, of Northern Ireland or Southern Ireland, because the words inserted expressly prevent that: "(except for the consideration of Bills passed by the House of Commons of Southern Ireland or Northern Ireland as provided by this Act) "—that is to say, Bills dealing with services of Northern Ireland or Southern Ireland which, by the Bill itself, are expressly confined to the operations of the Northern or Southern Parliament. So far then it makes no alteration, except to substitute this amalgamated Senate for the Council.

The advantages of this, once you establish the Senate, I think are fairly obvious. In the first place, you avoid the necessity of having three separate bodies—two Legislatures, and one quasi-Legislature—that is to say, a House of Commons, a Senate (or two Senates) and also a Council. Accordingly, the functions which primarily this Amendment proposes to give to the Senate would be shortly these. If there are two Senates, the Senates will have to be summoned at some time and some place, and no provision is made in the Bill for summoning the Council. Consequently the difficulty which might arise with regard to the place of meeting of the Joint Senates for the special purpose is no greater than that of the place of meeting of the Council. The difference is this. The effect of the proposed provision would of necessity bring the Senate of Northern Ireland, however constituted, and the Senate of Southern Ireland together.

If your Lordships would permit me to refer to the Amendment on page 9 of the Marshalled List you will find it provides that— The Irish Senate may originate any Bill which, if the subject-matter thereof related exclusively to Southern Ireland or Northern Ireland, the Senate of Southern Ireland or the Senate of Northern Ireland would be competent to originate, and such a Bill if passed by the Irish senate shall be submitted to the Houses of Commons of Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland, and if passed by both Houses of Parliament of Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland on receiving His Majesty's assent as provided by this Act shall have effect as identical Acts passed by the Parliaments of Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland. The great advantage of the provision is this. We do not seek to hamper in the slightest degree the importance of the Northern Parliament. We do not seek in the slightest degree to place the will of the Southern Parliament under it with regard to any Bill, good, bad or indifferent.

Even if. the Senate itself—going a step further than merely recommending, which is the provision in regard to the Council—proposes a service for both Parliaments by a majority, still Northern Ireland is not bound to accept it, because it is provided that it must be adopted by both Northern and Southern Parliament if it is to affect North and South. Think of the enormous advantages of that procedure. Taking the primary obligation which is imposed on us by previous Resolutions and Motions, nothing put into this Bill has the effect of coercing the North of Ireland, and the whole Amendment is framed clearly with a view to that. If it is desired, as I believe is honestly intended, that this Act in its working should ultimately lead to a united Parliament, let us help that object in every way we possibly can so far as we do not at all affect injuriously the privileges of the North of Ireland. This does it, I think, perfectly clearly and very simply, and the machinery will not be difficult to carry into effect. The machinery will be more difficult than getting your two sections of the Senate to meet together and discuss the thing in the way of a recommendation. This saves time and saves trouble.

I am convinced that if this Bill is to work at all the more services that are joint the better. I cannot conceive that it would be to the advantage of the North of Ireland to have separate services for everything. I quite admit that if the North of Ireland thinks it ought to have them, well and good. But I believe that, just as the discussions between the members of the Council from North and South would have the effect of producing reasonable recommendations, this will have a still stronger effect in bringing about the fortunate result of setting up joint services. The objection undoubtedly might be raised that the effect of this might have been to give to the Senate sole power over private Bills. That was not intended, and the section is further framed so that a provision is made for Bills which relate to matters affecting interests both in Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. That is to say, the Irish Senate may originate any Bills— which relate to matters affecting interests both in Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland in any case where the matter—

  1. (a) is of such a nature that if it had affected interests in one of those areas only it would have been within the powers of the Parliament for that area; and
  2. (b) is a matter to effect which it would, apart rum this provision, have been necessary to apply to the Parliament of the United Kingdom by petition for leave to bring in a Private Bill;
and the provisions contained in the Schedule to this Act shall have effect with respect to the procedure. It is not intended in any way to prevent the power of Northern Ireland to deal with a Bill relating to matters within the area of Northern Ireland. That will remain just as it is. But it does propose that the Senate shall have, just as the House of Lords has, power to consider private Bills, but always with this provision—that they might be rejected as to the North of Ireland by the North and rejected by the South of Ireland as to the South. That is the object of those Amendments, and I strongly urge on your Lordships and on the Government, once we have adopted the principle of the double Senate, to utilise the existence of those Senates when brought into being in the manner that I have suggested. Look at the simplicity which it produces. It enables us to get rid of a great deal of the hostile criticism to the Council as constructed. It has been called shadowy, and with all respect I think it is shadowy. Once, however, you substitute for that the joint body which we are bringing into being to discuss matters of common service we get a real legislative body which will do something practical, which will bring the members of Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland together for legislative purposes, and which is so framed that it cannot in any way coerce Northern Ireland or restrict the powers which were given to this Parliament. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Clause 2, page 2, line I, leave out from ("administered") to the end of the clause, and insert ("the Senate of Southern Ireland and the Senate of Northern Ireland shall sit together (except for the consideration of Bills passed by the House of Commons of Southern Ireland or Northern Ireland as provided by this Act) and when so sitting together shall constitute the Irish Senate. The Lord Chancellor of Ireland shall be the President the Irish Senate and the Irish Senate shall have the power provided in this Act").—(Lord Shandon.)

THE LORD CHAIRMAN

The noble Lord moved to omit from "administered" on page 2, line 1, to the end of the sub-clause. I suggest to him that the question should be put to the end of the sub-clause in order, if his Amendment is not agreed to, to preserve the right of Lord Parmoor.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

This is a proposal which is certainly a contribution to our discussions, and I think the noble and learned Lord is to be congratulated upon having made it. It really means that the two Senates, sitting together, should be the Irish Senate, and that the Irish Senate is to take the place of the Council of Ireland. It will certainly be necessary, by a consequential Amendment, to concede to the Irish Senate which this Amendment sets up the functions which the Bill assigns to the Council of Ireland. Now, my Lords, there are very serious objections to this proposal, and I will state them as shortly as I can. This new central body instead of being a body appointed by the two Parliaments, which would be a source of great strength to them in their creation, would be a body largely nominated. The functions conceded to the Irish Council under the Bill are difficult and delicate enough to make it desirable that the constitution of the body responsible for those functions should be as unassailable in public criticism as it can be made, and I think the authority derived from these two new Parliaments would greatly exceed any authority they could derive from a process of nomination. I must point out also to the House that instead of Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland being represented equally on the central body, which is the proposal of the Bill, the Southern Irish Senate will be larger than the Northern.

LORD SHANDON

That is not intended; at any rate it is not my intention.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

The noble and learned Lord might cure that by a later Amendment, but until then I am of opinion that that would be the effect. I think it would be a mistake to accept this Amendment or anything like it at this stage of our discussions. There is a further reason. The Amendment assumes that there will be a Senate of Southern Ireland and a Senate of Northern Ireland. Now your Lordships decided before dinner that there should be a Senate for Southern Ireland. The noble Lord responsible for that Amendment has indicated that it is not at present his intention to propose a Senate for Northern Ireland. So far as I know, it has not been the intention of the Government to propose a Senate for Northern Ireland. The view of the Government is still to leave these matters to the Council, but as your Lordships have reached your decision it will naturally be most carefully and respectfully considered. The noble Lord has ostentatiously refrained from making any proposal with regard to Northern Ireland, and has indicated that it is not his intention to do so, and in these circumstances it would be quite impossible to accept the Motion of the noble and learned Lord, which is based upon the hypothesis that before the Bill leaves Parliament there will be created Senates for Northern as well as Southern Ireland. It may be that the representatives of Ulster will tell us unanimously that they do not intend to assent to the creation of a Second Chamber. I think we should commit ourselves to a false position if we accepted the Amendment of the noble and learned Lord, which is based upon the prospect that you would be able, the moment the Bill became law, to deal with a Senate which was in existence both in the North and the South. If my noble and learned friend likes to revise his proposal, or something like it, on Report or the Third Reading, when we shall know more definitely what will be the final constitution of the Second Chamber, in principle decided upon to-night, and shall also be in a position to acquaint the noble and learned Lord with the prospect in Ulster of a Second Chamber, it may be that his Motion will afford the subject of useful discussion. But at this moment I should be misleading him if I did not tell him that it would be very premature, in my judgment, to arrive at any such conclusion.

LORD SHANDON

I am in the hands of the House.

THE EARL OF MIDLETON

The speech of the noble and learned Lord is the strongest vindication that could be given of the proposal which was made to your Lordships on Second Reading that you should adjourn this discussion for a fortnight in order that the Government should consider the very vital changes which would probably be made in the Bill in Committee. I ask your Lordships to look at the situation in which we find ourselves. You have on the one side the proposition of the Government for a Council of State—an extraordinary body, never I think suggested in any other Legislature. Twenty gentlemen of one complexion are to meet twenty gentlemen of another complexion appointed from the South of Ireland, and it is expected that they will be in perfect harmony on a number of questions upon which they do not desire to meet together at all. That is not a very hopeful proposition. But the noble and learned Lord has tried with all the force of his oratory to-night to invest this mushroom body, which I do not believe will ever come into existence, with a sort of sanctity which none of us attach to it. On the other hand, if we were dealing with two bodies functioning in the manner of Senates, as they are in any other part of the world, accustomed to meet together for other business, and brought together not as the noble and learned Lord suggests in a majority- on one side or the other, but in equal numbers for the purposes of joint action, you would then have not only a nucleus for joint action but you would have a body consisting of men accustomed to act together for other business, and who naturally would be the depositories of the confidence which the South and the North might repose in them. I cannot see the force of the noble and learned Lord's objection. It is quite true that we have not formed a Senate for Northern Ireland. On the other hand, we have not hitherto had a single word from any Ulster Member repudiating a Senate for Northern Ireland. In view of the fact that we are in an extreme difficulty owing to the great changes which have taken place in Ulster opinion since Armistice day, and which may even affect the Upper House in Ulster, we need not, I submit, shut our minds to the possibility of Ulster desiring some form of Senate, though not necessarily the same form as that for the South, before we reach the end of our discussion. If not there is surely no objection to Ulster appointing a Senatead hocto communicate with the South, and putting itad hocin the Schedule for that purpose. I think that the sooner the noble and learned Lord realises that the Council of State is a chimera which will never be realised the better it will be for the progress of business in the House. Not a single Irish Member or anybody connected with Ireland supports it from any standpoint.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

The noble Lord is entirely in error. Several from Ulster who have spoken have expressed themselves in favour of this very proposal, and Sir Edward Carson in the House of Commons stated that he looked to the Council as a bridge which would eventually unite Ireland. Do let us keep some contact with reality in our criticism.

THE EARL OF MIDLETON

With great respect to the noble and learned Lord, I study the debates much more than he does.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I am sure the noble Earl is quite wrong. He has criticised me three times to-day. I think I know as well as anybody in this House what are the facts of this matter, and I assure him that on the three specific grounds upon which he impeached my action he was entirely wrong.

THE EARL OF INTEDLETON

I was saying that If have followed these debates, if think, a great deal more closely than the n6ble and learned Lord.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I disagree with you.

THE EARL OF MIDLETON

What I said is not that Ulster liked this Council of State, but that they are prepared to have some body which would act as the connecting link with the South and itself. That is a different proposition from saying that they are prepared to have this Council of State which is, we consider, an unprecedented body. I will not call it by any other name. I do not see any reason why the noble and learned Lord should doubt the possibility of replacing it in the manner that Lord Shandon proposes. It is quite clear if your Lordships' decision is given effect to there must be a Senate for Southern Ireland. It is equally clear that whatever body in Northern Ireland is equivalent to the Senate ought to go with that Senate for Southern Ireland in equal numbers for the purposes described in the Bill. Again I venture to say that it is extremely regrettable that we were not allowed to discuss these matters with the Government and come to some conclusion, seeing the difficulty we are in, that if the noble and learned Lord's words are inserted they must be inserted before we know what the Senate for Northern Ireland is going to be or what the body is going to be in Northern Ireland. I honestly think there is nothing more likely to lead to some agrement than the proposal of the noble and learned Lord. You have one body that must be appointed for Southern Ireland. You are going to appoint one for Northern Ireland, and there must be some link between the two for subjects which are common to both. I hope that the noble and learned Lord will persevere with his Amendment.

LORD ORANMORE AND BROWNE

If I am correctly informed I think the noble and learned Lord is under a misapprehension as to what I really said about a Senate in Northern Ireland. I said that I proposed to insert the words "and a senate for Northern Ireland," but I had not at the present time considered how that Senate should be formed because I thought it was more the business of noble Lords and Members of Parliament from Ulster to settle what it was to be. But I should take the opportunity between the present time and the time when we reached the Schedules to consult with them. and see whether I could formulate a scheme for a settlement.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I am much obliged to the noble Lord; I quite understood that. I understand, then, that the noble Lord, either as the result of successful consultation with the noble Lords from Ulster or on his own authority, does propose to make a positive proposal on the subject. I should like to understand that.

LORD MAC DONNELL

May I ask whether the fact of a Senate for Ulster has not actually been determined by the House?

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

No, it has not.

LORD MAC DONNELL

I mean the constitution of the Senate.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

No, not for Ulster—for Southern Ireland, but not for Northern Ireland.

LORD MAC DONNELL

I venture to suggest that I voted in favour of it.

LORD SHANDON

I am under the impression that while the principle was adopted the only thing that was left at large was the Constitution.

THE LORD CHAIRMAN

The Division took place on the words which would set up a Senate for Southern Ireland. The words "the Senate of Northern Ireland," I think, were inserted in line 12 on page 1.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

Yes, I think they were inserted.

LORD SHANDON

I move, because if once the principle of the Senate is adopted I am regular in moving.

THE LORD CHAIRMAN

I will put the Amendment in the shortened form in case it is defeated so that Lord Parmoor may be saved: "Page 2, line 1, omit from administered to the end of the sub-clause."

Resolved in thenegative, and Amendment agreed to accordingly.

Clause 2, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 3:

Establishment of second Houses of Parliaments of Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland.

3.—(1) It shall be the duty of the Council of Ireland, at or as soon as may be after their first meeting, to frame a scheme for the establishment of second Houses of the Parliaments of Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland and to submit the scheme to the House of Commons of Southern Ireland and the House of Commons of Northern Ireland for their consideration.

If the scheme submitted to the said Houses in pursuance of the foregoing provision is not confirmed in manner hereinafter provided, the Council may at any time thereafter, if it appears to them that they can usefully so do, frame a further scheme for the purpose aforesaid and submit the same to the said Houses, and so from time to time as occasion arises.

(2) The scheme shall specify the titles of the respective Houses and the number of members thereof, the manner in which the members are to be chosen, whether by appointment, or election,

On Question, whether the words proposed to be left out shall stand part of the clause?

Their Lordships divided—Contents, 34; Not-Contents. 48.

CONTENTS.
Birkenhead, L. (L. Chancellor.) Milner, V. Hylton, L.
Bradford, E. Peel, V. Lamington, L.
Chesterfield, E. St. Davids, V. Mouton, L
Drogheda, E. Oriel, L.(V. Massereene.)
Eldon E. Abinger, L. Phillimore, L.
Howe E. Annesley, L. [V. Valentina.) Ruthven of Gowrie, L.
Lovelace E. Atkinson, L. St. Audries, L.
Luean, E. Clwyd, L. Somerleyton, L. [Teller.)
Lytton, E. Colebrooke, L. Stanmore, L. [Teller.]
Onslow, E Deramore, L. Wavertree, L.
Fairlie, L. (E. Glasgow.) Wigan, L. (E. Crawford.)
Sandhurst, V. (L. Chamberlain.) Harris, L. Wolverton, L.
NOT-CONTENTS.
Northumberland, D. Selborne, E. Farnham, L.
Wellington, D. Stanhope, E. Fingall, L. (E. Fingall.)
Greville, L.
Aberdeen and Temair, M. Bangor, V. Hindlip, L.
Camden M. Charlemont, V. (E. Dononghmore.) Holm Patrick, L.
Crew, M. Hutchinson, V. Inchiquin, L.
Linlithgow, M. Killanin, L.
Salisbury, M. Addington, L. Kilmaine, L.
Doncaster, E. (D. Buccleuch and Queensberry.) Ampthill, L. MacDonnell, L.
Avebury, L. Monteagle of Brandon, L.
Grey, E. Balfour, L. Oranmore and Browne. L. [Teller.]
Iveagh, E. Barrymore, L.
Kingston, E. Bellew, L. Pentland, L.
Malmesbury, E. Clanwilliam, L. (E. Clanwilliam.) Ranfurly, L.(E. Ranfurly.)
Mayo, E. Rathdonnell, L.
Midleton, E. Cottesloe, L. Redesdale, L,
Portsmouth, E. Crofton, L. Saltersford, L.(E. Courlown.)
Sandwich, E. Decies, L. Shandon, L. [Teller.]

or otherwise, and in particular the constituencies for which the elected members, if any, are to be returned and the number of members to be returned by such constituencies, and shall define the relations of the two houses of each parliament to one another, and may contain such incidental and consequential provisions as the Council think proper, including provisions for the amendment of this Act.

(3) A scheme framed under this section shall not have effect unless and until it is confirmed by identical Acts of the Parliaments of Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland and if and when so confirmed shall have effect as if enacted in this Act, but may be repealed or altered by identical Acts of those Parliaments.

(4) The House of Commons of Southern Ireland or of Northern Ireland may return to the Council any scheme submitted to them under this section with suggestions for the amendment thereof, and the Council shall thereupon take the suggestions into consideration, and if they think fit frame a new scheme giving effect to all or any of the suggestions.

THE LORD CHAIRMAN

Lord Phillimore has handed in an Amendment to Clause 3, but consequent on your Lordships' derision Clause 3 comes out.

LORD PHILLIMORE

Does Clause 3 stand part?

THE LORD CHA.IRMAN

No, it is struck out.

On Question, That Clause 3 stand part of the Bill?—

Resolved in thenegativeand Clause 3 struck out accordingly.

Clause 4:

Power to establish a Parliament for the whole of Ireland.

4.—(1) The Parliaments of Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland may, by identical Acts agreed to by an absolute majority of members of each Parliament at the third reading (hereinafter referred to as constituent Acts), establish in lieu of the Council of Ireland a Parliament for the whole of Ireland consisting of His Majesty and one or two Houses (which shall be called and known as the Parliament of Ireland), and may determine the number of members thereof and the manner in which the members are to be appointed or elected, and the constituencies for which the several elective members are to be returned, and the number of members to lie returned by the several constituencies, and the method of appointment or election, and in the event of provision being made for two Houses of Parliament, the relations of the two Houses to one another and the date at which the Parliament of Ireland is established is hereinafter referred to as the date of Irish union:

Provided that the Bill for a constituent Act shall not be, introduced except upon a resolution passed at a previous meeting of the House in which the Bill is to be introduced.

(2) On the date of Irish union the Council of Ireland shall cease to exist and there shall be transferred to the Parliament and Government of Ireland all powers then exerciseable by the Council of Ireland, and (except so far as the constituent Acts otherwise provide) the matters which under this Act cease to be reserved matters at the date of Irish union, and any other powers for the joint exercise of which by the Parliaments or Governments of Southern and Northern Ireland provision has been made under this Act.

(3) There shall also be transferred to the Parliament and Government of Ireland, except so far as the constituent Acts otherwise provide, all the powers and duties of the Parliaments and Governments of Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland, including all powers as to taxation, and unless any powers and duties are retained by the Parliaments and Governments of Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland under the constituent Acts, those Parliaments and Governments shall cease to exist:

Provided that if any powers and duties are so retained the constituent Acts shall make provision with respect to the financial relations between the Exchequers of Southern and Northern Ireland on the one hand and the Irish Exchequer on the other.

(4) If by the constituent Acts any powers and duties are so retained as aforesaid the Parliaments of Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland may subsequently by identical Acts transfer any of those powers and duties to the Government and Parliament of Ireland, and in the event of all such powers and duties being so transferred, the Parliaments and Governments of Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland shall cease to exist.

LORD SHANDON

My Amendments on this clause are consequential. They are in subsection (1) to leave out "in lieu of the Council of Ireland," and in the first line of subsection (2) to leave out "the Council of Ireland "and insert" the Irish Senatc as constituted by this Act."

Amendments moved— Page 3, line 41, and line 1 on page 4, leave out ("in lieu of the Council of Ireland") Page 4, line 16, have out ("the Council of Ireland") and insert ("the Irish Senate as constituted by this Act").—(Lord Shandon.)

On Question, Amendments agreed to.

Clause 4, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 5:

Legislative powers of Irish Parliaments.

5.—(1) Subject to the provisions of this Act the Parliament of Southern Ireland and the Parliament of Northern Ireland shall respectively have power to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland with the following limitations, namely, that they shall not have power to make laws except in respect of matters exclusively relating to the portion of Ireland within their jurisdiction, or some part thereof, and (without prejudice to that general limitation) that they shall not have power to make laws in respect of the following matters in particular, namely:—

  1. (1) The Crown or the succession to the Crown, or a regency, or the property of the Crown (including foreshore vested in the Crown), or tile Lord Lieutenant, except as respects the exercise of his executive power in relation to Irish services as defined for the purposes of this Act; or
  2. (2) The making of peace or war, or matters arising from a state of war; or the regulation of the conduct of any portion of His Majesty's subjects during the existence of hostilities between foreign states with which His Majesty is at peace, in relation to those hostilities; or
  3. 3 The navy, the army, the air force, the, territorial force, or any other naval, military, or air force, or the defence of the realm, or any other naval, military, or air force matter (including any pensions and allowances payable to persons who have been members of or in respect of service in any such force or their widows or dependants, and provision for the training, education, 867 employment and assistance for the reinstatement in civil life of persons who have ceased to be members of any such force); or
  4. (4) Treaties, or any relations with foreign states, or relations with other parts of His Majesty's dominions, or matters involving the contravention of treaties or agreements with foreign states or any part of His Majesty's dominions, or offences connected with any such treaties or relations, or procedure connected with the extradition of criminals under any treaty, or the return of fugitive offenders from or to any part of His Majesty's dominions; or
  5. (5) Dignities or titles of honour; or
  6. (6)Treason, treason felony, alienage, naturalisation, or aliens as such, or domicile; or
  7. (7)Trade with any place out of the part of Ireland within their jurisdication, except so far as trade may be affected by the exercise of the powers of taxation given to the said parliaments, or by regulations made for the sole purpose of preventing contagious disease, or by steps taken by means of inquiries or agencies out of the part of Ireland within their jurisdiction for the improvement of the trade of that part or for the protection of traders of that part from fraud the granting of bounties on the export of goods; quarantine; navigation, including merchant shipping (except as respects inland waters, the regulation of harbours, and local health regulations); or
  8. (8)Submarine cables; or
  9. (9)Wireless telegraphy; or
  10. (10)Aerial navigation; or
  11. (11)Lighthouses, buoys, or beacons (except so far as they can consistently with any general Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom be constructed or maintained by a local harbour authority); or
  12. (12)Coinage; legal tender; negotiable instruments (including banknotes); or any change in the standard of weights and measures; or
  13. (13) Trade marks, designs, merchandise marks, copyright, or patent rights; or
  14. (14) Any matter which by this Act is declared to be a reserved matter, so long as it remains reserved.

Any law made in contravention of the limitations imposed by this section shall so far as it contravenes those limitations be void.

(2) The limitation on the powers of the said parliaments to the making of laws with respect to matters exclusively relating to the portion of Ireland within their respective jurisdictions shall not be construed so as to prevent the said Parliaments by identical legislation making laws respecting matters affecting both Southern and Northern Ireland.

THE EARL OF SELBORNEmoved, in subsection (1), after paragraph (13) to insert— (14) Census.

The noble Earl said: I would ask the Lord Chancellor whether the census is not always reserved for the Central Government. I think he will find that in all cases it is not what I call a local delegated power but is reserved for the Central Government.

Amendment moved— Page 6, line 31, after ("or") insert ("(14) Census").—(The Earl of Selborne.)

THE EARL OF CRAWFORD

The Irish census has always been under a different Statute from the English and Scottish census. Your Lordships in August last passed an Irish Census Act limited in its application to Ireland and differing in a dozen important particulars from the Census Act applying to England, Scotland, and Wales. Therefore I think in those circumstances that Lord Seborne should not press his Amendment. The Bill as it stands merely carries on the practice hithero adopted.

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

I shall not press it if the Government object, but the noble Earl's answer is not really an answer. It is quite true that the census has been in a different form from the English and Scottish census, but the power of taking a census in every Constitution is reserved to the Central Authority and not delegated to a local authority. In the United States it is the Federal authority, in Australia it is the Commonwealth authority, in Canada it is the Dominion authority, and in South Africa it is the Union authority. Here I submit it ought to be the Imperial Parliament.

THE EARL OF MAYO

There is another point which the noble Earl has not mentioned. The Trish Government will have to pay for its own census and it is a very expensive amusement. Therefore I can quite understand the reason. We have got very little money as it is with which to work the Bill, and we shall have still less when we have to run a census.

THE EARL OF CRAWFORD

I take due note of Lord Mayo's observations, which I am sure are pertinent. As to Lord Selborne's views, if he will allow me, and if he will now withdraw the Amendment, we will of course consider the matter.

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

Consider it by Report? You see my point?

THE EARL OF CRAWFORD

Perfectly.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

THE EARL OF SELBORNE moved to leave out Clause 5 and insert the following new clause— 5.—(1) Subject to the provisions of this Act the Parliament of Southern Ireland and the Parliament of Northern Ireland shall respectively have power to make laws iii so far as they relate exclusively to the portion of Ireland within their jurisdiction or some part thereof in respect of the following matters:—

  1. (i) Agriculture and fisheries;
  2. (ii) Factories and workshops;
  3. (iii) Railways, canals, and other means of inland transport;
  4. (iv) Housing;
  5. (v) Health;
  6. (vi) Health and unemployment insurance;
  7. (vii) Old age pensions;
  8. (viii) Education—primary, secondary and higher;
  9. (ix) Licensing and the regulation of trade in intoxicating liquors;
  10. (x) Prisons and reformatories;
  11. (xi) Hospitals, asylums, charities and eleemosynary institutions;
  12. (xii) Industrial legislation;
  13. (xiii) Friendly and building societies;
  14. (xiv) Local works and undertakings."
The noble Earl said: I have no intention of trying to re-draft the Bill and take it out of the hands of my noble and learned friend. Therefore if the Government, as they certainly will, resist this Amendment, I am not going to press it. I have put it down because I wish to raise a point that I think ought to be debated in your Lordships' House. This Bill differs from all previous Home Rule Bills in that it is on the Federal lines and not on Dominion Lines. The Act of 1914 and Mr. Glad-stone's two abortive Bills of 1886 and 1893 were what I might call hybrid-Dominion measures. They proceeded more on the model of the Acts conferring self-government on the Dominion of Canada and the Commonwealth of Australia than on Federal lines. Both the Bills I have mentioned began by giving power to make laws for order and good government and only reserved to the Imperial Authorities specifically a certain domain of legislation. I am well aware that in all those measures, as in this one, the supreme authority of the Imperial Parliament was reserved by a special clause.

This Bill differs materially from them all, and also from the Acts conferring self-government on the Dominions, in that it is based on the Federal idea. That was quite definitely stated by Mr. Walter Long in the House of Commons, and I could give the quotation if your Lordships asked for it. He said that the Bill was based on the Federal idea, meaning that this scheme might her, alter fit into a Federal scheme for the whole United Kingdom. I quite admit that it could so fit in, though awkwardly and with difficulty, and it would fit in awkwardly and difficulty because of the form in which it is drafted. I submit that the proper form for this Bill would have been to have enumerated the powers given to the Irish Parliaments and not to have given them general powers, with specific reservations to the Imperial Parliament and a general clause of reservation. This subject was fully debated in the House of Commons. Mr. Walter Long stated, as I have said, that the intention of the Bill was Federal and Sir Edward Carson supported the Amendment moved by Mr. Marriott, and made a powerful speech arguing that the Bill was drafted on the wrong lines.

I want to ask my noble and learned friend why, when the Government have the intention of drafting this Bill on lines which will fit in if necessary with a general Federal scheme for the United Kingdom, they have deliberately drafted it on what I venture to call the wrong lines, and instead of enumerating the powers which are delegated they have enumerated the powers which are specifically reserved. It is discussion on that question which I want to inaugurate because the matter is really very important. If this Bill fulfils the hopes of its authors we are not going for ever to sit down with forty-two or forty-three Irish Members managing our domestic affairs at Westminster while we no longer have any control on the domestic affairs of Ireland, North or South. The present stage is obviously a temporary stage, and must lead up to something in the nature of a Federal Constitution. When that Federal Constitution comes to be drafted the peculiar form of the drafting of this measure will put quite unnecessary but very real difficulties in the way of the draftsmen. I want to ask my noble and learned friend why the Government have adopted this plan.

Amendment moved— Leave out clause 5, and insert the said new clause.—(The Earl of Selborne,)

THE EARL OF CRAWFORD

The question raised by Lord Selborne is, as he says, very interesting, and it is really a very important question as well. I note that he does not intend to force an Amendment upon the Government if the Government take serious objection to it.

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

Because it means re-drafting the whole Bill.

THE EARL OF CRAWFORD

I was going to say that was an incidental objection that I think your Lordships should pay attention to. It would involve not merely re-drafting the Reservation Clause, but it would involve consequential Amendments practically all through the Bill. I do not insist on that point, however, important as that is. Broadly speaking, Lord Selborne's case balanced the two possible methods of dealing with the subject—on the one side, enumeration of powers allocated, as against the Government scheme of exception of powers by means of reservation. The list in Lord Selborne's Amendment, so far as I can make out, is practically averbatimcatalogue of powers, mentioned in one of the speeches by the Prime Minister, which would be conferred upon Ireland. He was saying that this was not a negligible Act, and these powers reproduced by Lord Selborne were actually mentioned by the Prime Minister. But the difference between enumeration and exception of powers goes a good deal further than that. If you are going to confer a gas and water Home Rule Bill—which is the current phrase for a particular kind of Home Rule Bill—by all means enumerate the powers which it is desired to confer on the Irish Parliament. On the other hand, if the desire be to confer a large, and, as is said, a generous scheme of autonomy, enumerate the exceptions and not the powers. Lord Selborne says enumerate the powers. I cannot help thinking that, comprehensive as Lord Selborne's list is, there are any number of functions of one Irish House of Parliament or the other which he has excluded. I do not think under his scheme that Land Acts, judicature, taxation, burials, unemployment, allotments—

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

Put them all in if you like.

THE EARL OF CRAWFORD

—could be put in, and to that extent Lord Selborne's Schedule would be, I think, admittedly looked upon as incomplete.

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

It would be quite easy to amend it.

THE EARL OF CRAWFORD

That is the point. I do not think it would. I think the number of contingencies which may arise, the number of small Bills which may require passage through one House of Parliament or the other, is so wide, is so unforeseen, that it is almost impossible, unless you are going to restrict yourself to a very narrow interpretation of local government, gas and water Home Rule, to make a schedule which will be adequate. That is rather the difficulty we feel—in short, that omissions are inevitable; the changing conditions of two I or three or five years might make this list entirely obsolete, and every time either of those Parliaments might require to meet some new subject they would have to come back here presumably—I am not sure—to get the power to do so. I therefore feel that it is much more prudent, both from a drafting point of view and from the point of view of larger politics, to proceed by exception rather than by enumeration. I do not wish to enter into the question of federalism beyond saying this, that Lord Selborne has quoted Mr. Long's opinion. Mr. Long expressed the view very strongly that this system of exception was by no means inconsistent with an ultimate federal solution.

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

He did, I agree, but it makes it much more difficult.

THE EARL OF CRAWFORD

Whatever our views, and whatever our antecedents, we are bound to be impaled upon one horn of a dilemma, and when Lord Selborne says it will make it more difficult, that is true in one way, but his scheme would make the Irish position much more difficult in another way. Therefore so far as the Government are concerned they prefer that this Amendment should not be made, and that exception rather than enumeration should be the governing factor.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

I wondered all the time that my noble friend was speaking whether the Govern- ment, when they drew this Bill, really bore in mind the enormous consequences of a mistake made in this Bill upon the future of Ireland and the future of England and Wales. I always thought that they undertook this Bill in much too lighthearted a spirit. They do not seem to have realised that once this Bill passes into law and becomes operative a federal system must follow. That is absolutely certain; that is to say, we must hereafter have a Parliament for England, a Parliament for Scotland, and probably also one for Wales. I say it is certain, because of course it would be an intolerable position for Irish members to be sitting at Westminster, voting upon Yorkshire and Hertfordshire matters, and there was no corresponding power to Yorkshire and Hertfordshire electors to make their voices felt upon corresponding Irish matters. The Imperial Government may sit at Westminster supported by Irish votes only; they may have control of the whole of the British policy, and although they may be in a minority in regard to domestic policy in England and Scotland, yet for Imperial purposes they may be the Government of the country. So a federal system is quite certain to follow.

Have the Government reflected that the precedent which they are setting now will have to be followed for England and Scotland, and that any functions now prescribed for Ireland will have to be repeated for the rest of the United Kingdom? Broadly they must correspond, because otherwise you give an unfair advantage to one of the kingdoms over the others. I doubt whether the Government have thought that out. Then the Chancellor of the Duchy says it is very risky to enumerate the powers to be delegated to subordinate legislatures, because you may leave out something which was unforeseen and that will produce difficulties. He does not seem to think that by not foreseeing everything you may create difficulty the other way, and you may suddenly find that the Imperial Parliament has parted with a power which it is really essential, or in the highest degree important, it should retain. Which mistake is the more important? Is it worse or better that the Imperial Parliament should find itself docked of a power which it ought to have, or to find that the subordinate Legislature has not got a power which it ought to receive? I should have no doubt that when trying a new experiment you should proceed cautiously and carefully, enumerating everything which it is proposed to delegate and leaving everything else to the Imperial Parliament.

If WO in the United Kingdom were familiar with this process of delegated Legislatures within the United Kingdom, you might have proceeded with greater courage, but you are trying for the first time, to use a familiar phrase, to "go the whole hog," and saying that everything which may be unforeseen should go to the subordinate Legislature. But you do not know how that will work. You have great confidence, as I have, that the Irish Legislature will work exceedingly badly. Yet you are delegating the whole of it to them, and all the unforeseen mistakes are to be at the expense of the Imperial Parliament and not at the expense of the subordinate Parliament. I should have thought that upon those grounds my noble friend, Lord Selborne, was right, and that the other way was the proper way to proceed. It is no use, however, forcing this on the Government, for it would mean a complete change of the Bill, unless in their wisdom they see fit to accept it.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

When the noble Marquess speaks of the wisdom of the Government, I may perhaps be allowed to point out that the greatest Constitution-makers in the world have differed profoundly as to the wisdom of this argument. Some have adopted the one course; others, after equal consideration, have adopted the other. It is not, I assure him, a matter in regard to which anybody who, has studied constitutional history would be prepared to be dogmatic. We did not undertake this matter in the lighthearted way in which the noble Marquess supposes. When the noble Marquess was a member of the Government he never gave as many weeks to the consideration of a proposal as we have given months to this.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

I never attempted proposals of the kind.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

Very likely not. Probably the noble Marquess was not called upon to do so, but the last charge that can be brought against us is one that we have adopted these proposals without deep consideration. I am myself humbly of opinion that your Lordships will discover some of the difficulties that we have had to face when, in the later stages of the Bill, we confront the difficulties that will arise in consequence of some of the decisions already reached.

A contrast is made between the policy of enumeration (as it is roughly called), and the policy of prohibition or exclusion. This may at least be said that when once you enumerate the various matters—as the noble Earl, who could support himself with a great weight of constitutional authorities advised the House to do—you will come face to face with this, that you omit, and always will omit, a great many things which give considerable trouble afterwards. The noble Earl says "You can put them in?" That supposes that we can think of them better than the noble Earl can do. I do not in the least know that we can. The resources of human ingenuity have been frequently exhausted in this respect. What we did was this. We had to consider whether we would proceed by reservation or enumeration. Before we decided on reservation we went to every great Department that is concerned with the safety of the State. We went to the Admiralty, to the Army, to the Air Force, and we very carefully explored this question from the point of view of the law, and every one of those Departments was satisfied that reservation gave us everything that was necessary for the safety of the new situation that we were creating. Having satisfied ourselves that the method of enumeration was open to very grave disadvantage—we have been able to fortify ourselves by a very great constitutional authority upon the history of this matter—we deliberately decided in favour of this course. I should be very much surprised if your Lordships, who have already very substantially altered the fabric of the Bill, the Second Reading of which was decided upon so very short a time ago, were to throw upon us the burden of completely recasting it in these material respects.

LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH

The noble and learned Lord has made an excellent case from his point of view, but he has omitted the point made by the noble Marquess and the noble Earl. Which, for the future, makes the greatest danger—enumeration or reservation? If you once enumerate you never can take back, or at least you will have a very large conflict of opinion if you take back. If you reserve, you can always give the power, and there will not be nearly so much friction. I am quite aware if this change is made that a considerable amount of alteration in drafting will be necessary, and I do not know whether it is possible to do that. I want to record my opinion that as between the two alternatives the case for enumerating what you are giving seems to me to be much the stronger, not only for present advantage, but for avoiding the risk of future conflict on the course which the Government has taken.

THE EARL OF SELRORNE

I should like to add something to what I have already said, because although I cannot pretend to be a great lawyer like my noble friend, this is a subject to which I have had to give and have given a good deal of attention in my life, and I want quite clearly to put to your Lordships why I think the Government have made a big mistake. If you enumerate the powers to be delegated it is quite true you may leave out some powers which you find afterwards you would like to have given. You can always give additional powers by an amending Act. As a Constitution works and works well, nothing is easier than to add to the powers, and by the process of enumerating the powers delegated there never can be friction between the two authorities, the local and the central.

What may happen under the plan the Government have adopted? You give all powers except the reserved powers to the local Parliaments. You also reserve to the central Parliament powers to legislate on all these questions, and you very properly add that if two laws on the same subject, a local law and a central law, conflict, the central law will always prevail over the local law. Now look what opportunity for friction that gives. The local authority proceeds to legislate on something upon which afterwards the central authority finds it must legislate. The central authority legislates on a subject which is already the subject of a local law, and the local law is superseded by the central legislation. That is deliberately inviting friction. If you start that precedent in Ireland, when you come to Scotland, England, and Wales you will have to conform to the same model and so give occasion or opportunity of friction which you might wholly have avoided by the other process.

On Question, Amendment negatived.

Clause 5 agreed to.

Clause 6:

Prohibition of laws interfering with religious equality, etc.

6.—(1) In the exercise of their power to make laws under this Act neither the Parliament of Southern Ireland nor the Parliament of Northern Ireland shall make a law so as either directly or indirectly to establish or endow any religion, or prohibit or restrict the free exercise thereof, or give a preference, privilege, or advantage, or impose any disability or disadvantage, on account of religious belief or religious or ecclesiastical status, or make any religious belief or religious ceremony a condition, of the validity of any marriage, or affect prejudicially the right of any child to attend a school receiving public money without attending the religious instruction at that school, or alter the constitution of any religious body except whore the alteration is approved on behalf of the religious body by the governing body thereof, or divert from any religious denomination the fabric of cathedral churches, or, except for the purpose of roads, railways, lighting, water, or drainage works, or other works of public utility upon payment of compensation, any other property.

Any law made in contravention of the restrictions imposed by this subsection shall, so far as it contravenes those restrictions, be void.

(2) Any existing enactment by which any penalty, disadvantage, or disability is imposed on account of religious belief or on a member of any religious order as such shall, as from the appointed day, cease to have effect in Ireland.

THE EARL OF MAYO moved, in subsection (1), to leave out "or, except for the purpose of roads, railways, lighting, water, or drainage works, or other works of public utility upon payment of compensation, any other property." The noble Earl said: The Amendment which stands in my name on the Paper seeks to leave out the words from "churches" in Clause 6, page 7, line 15, to the end of line 18, and to substitute the new clauses which appear later on the Paper. In the absence of the clauses there proposed the Southern Irish Parliament could give authority for the commission of acts of spoliation similar to those committed in some counties in Ireland during the past year, in the way of appropriating farms. Unless this provision is inserted both the Southern and Northern Parliament will be able to transfer any land from the present owner to their new nominee.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

Are your two Amendments separate Amendments?

THE EARL OF MAYO

Yes. The noble Marquess does not seem to understand my intention. I leave out the words in line 15 after "churches" to the -end of line 18 on page 7, and propose to insert new clauses.

Amendment moved— Page 7, line 16, leave out from ("churches") to the end of line 18.—(The Earl of Mayo.)

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I think the noble Earl might have assisted your Lordships a little more if he had explained why he wanted to leave out these words, because I confess he left me in some doubt. It is, I understand, because he recommends two new clauses which appear later on the Paper that he wishes to leave out these words. The first of these two clauses is as follows— 7. In the exercise of their power to make laws under this Act neither the Parliament of Southern Ireland nor the Parliament of Northern Ireland shall make a law so as to impair the obligation of any contract or create a tenancy in any lands without. the consent of the owner thereof, or so as directly or indirectly to divert from any person his property without his consent except land for the purpose of labourers' cottages, or houses for the working classes, roads, railways, lighting, water or drainage works, or other works of public utility upon payment of proper compensation. Any law made in contravention of the restrictions imposed by this clause shall, so far as it contravenes those restrictions, be void. Provided that the restrictions imposed by this clause shall not apply to any Act imposing or charging any tax or duty which the Parliament of Southern Ireland or the Parliament of Northern Ireland is authorised to impose or charge, or to any Act altering, amending, repealing, or reenacting the law relating to Bankruptcy and Insolvency in Ireland. The other clause deals with the acquisition of land for labourers' cottages or for the housing of the working classes otherwise than by agreement, whether under the existing law or under any law made by the Parliament of Southern Ireland or the Parliament of Northern Ireland, and provides that they shall be subject to certain provisions.

The first of these new clauses seeks to impose very sweeping limitations upon the legislative powers of the Irish Parliaments. I know of no Parliament which to-day is subject to limitations in any way comparable to those which are proposed in this Amendment. It enumerates three classes of legislation and, apparently on the assumption that laws of this character would be outrageous, it excludes them from the powers of the Irish Parliaments.

I cannot help thinking that the noble Earl is really not well founded in what is the necessary assumption of his Amendment—that laws of this class would necessarily be very dangerous or outrageous in their character. On the contrary, numerous instances can be cited of useful and beneficial legislation passed by the United Kingdom Parliament which would fall within one or other of the categories upon which the noble Earl has fastened. For instance, if you take laws impairing the obligation of contracts, we should recall, going back into history, the Statute of Frauds, the Gaming Acts, the Truck Acts, the Workmen's Compensation Acts, the Settled Land Act, the Health Insurance Act, the Irish Land Acts (I do not think the noble Earl quarrelled with the operation of those Acts) the Town Tenants Act, the Increase of Rents Act. Every one of those Acts is an Act which impaired the sanctity of contract.

The noble Earl's second clause deals with measures which create tenancies in land without the consent of the owner. The provisions of the Allotments Acts, and the Irish Labourers' Acts authorising the compulsory hiring of land—Acts, so far as I know, the general policy of which has been generally assented to—fall within this category. Then the third class the noble Earl proposed to exclude is that of direct or indirect diversion of any person's property without his consent. We are familiar, unhappily, in the legislation of every civilised country with authorised and necessary cases of such diversion. For instance, take the case of sales by mortgagees under powers given by the Conveyancing Acts. Take the case of the transfer of property by declarations under the Trustee Act; or take the case (very familiar to the noble Earl) of sales under the Irish Land Purchase Act. All Statutes which facilitated the execution of judgments of the Courts, whether by regulating the execution of writs levied on distress would come within the language of the Amendment. It is true that the clause excludes Bankruptcy laws but that is only one item. I know that the noble Earl is working under difficulties of time, but as showing how incompletely his Amendment is framed it would actually render it impossible for either of the Parliaments to pass any new Acts similar to those I have enumerated, or to amend any of the existing Acts. It would preclude good legislation as well as bad. I cannot think the noble Earl has considered the effect of the Amendment, which I think was proposed in the House of Commons and received a complete answer. He will see that it is one which the Government ought not to be asked to accept or could be expected to adopt.

THE EARL OF MAYO

Will the Lord Chancellor accept that part of the Amendment which deals with "any act altering, amending, repealing, or re-enacting the law relating to bankruptcy and insolvency in Ireland"?

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

The noble Earl is generally most reasonable. He asks me to select one particular subject out of a very long Amendment; if he will leave it over until the Report stage I shall he glad to consider it.

THE EARL OF MAYO

That was the only part of my new clause that the Lord Chancellor did not sit upon. I am going to ask him another question. My new Clause 8 which deals with the acquisition of land for labourer's cottages only follows the protection afforded to these properties in the Housing of the Working Classes (Ireland) Act which we passed last year. Can the Lord Chancellor give me an assurance that that Act is still in existence and that it will check to a certain extent the wrong acquisition of land, especially of the garden, park and pleasure grounds, domain and home farm. If we are to live in Ireland at all in comfort we must have the amenities around us.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

The new clause which the noble Earl has proposed does single out the compulsory acquisition of land for labourer's cottages or for the housing of the working classes. But it goes a little further than he has realised. He has moved his Amendment in a very optimistic spirit. Not only does it restrict future legislation on these subjects in a surprising manner, but it also makes it impossible to make amendments to existing United Kingdom Acts on these subjects. Such an Amendment might be relevant to an Irish Housing Bill or Labourers' Cottage Bill, if such a Bill was before the House, but it must I think be out of place in the present context. If the Amendments had been made in the past, supposing the noble Earl had had his way five years ago, they would certainly have impeded operations under these Acts, which I am sure the noble Earl would be the first to admit have been highly beneficial to Ireland. The Acts already contain every necessary restriction as regards matters which are mentioned in subsection (2) of the clause. I cannot help thinking that the Amendment is not really a well-conceived one, or one that the noble Earl would stand by on fuller reflection.

THE EARL OF MAYO

I may be very stupid, but what I want to know is whether the Irish Parliament can repeal the Labourers' Housing of the Working Classes Act, 1899. I got inserted in that Act the amendment protecting domains and home farms.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

The Irish Parliament can, of course, repeal any Act which is not reserved. So far as I am aware this Act is not reserved and could be the subject of repeal, but the probability of their doing so would be in the noble Earl's mind.

THE EARL OF MIDLETON

If that be so, should we not have in this measure a provision which is included in the American Constitution, which affects not only Congress but all the State Legislatures, that no private property should be taken without adequate compensation? If it is in the power of the Irish Parliament byex post faciolegislation to repeal any British law there is no protection, and a protection found necessary in the American Constitution would not be an improper one to put in. Would the noble and learned Lord be willing to consider an Amendment to provide that no private property should be taken without adequate compensation?

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I entertain the gravest doubt as to whether the noble Earl is right in saying, with regard to every State in the United States of America, that such a provision finds a place, and the noble Earl would not expect that I should answer such a question without consideration. My own view is a strong one that either this Southern Parliament comes into existence and discharges its duties, or it does not If it does not, cadit quœstio. If it does, I am bold enough to think that having decided, as I presume we have, it shall be given the opportunity to come into existence, it will not be found that it will do things which in civilised countries no Legislative Assembly has been found willing to do. If he asks me specifically whether I will introduce a proposal of that kind he would not think it unreasonable that I should ask him to postpone his inquiry to a later stage and give me an opportunity to consider it.

THE EARL OF DESART

I think the noble and learned Lord does not quite appreciate what the apprehension is in Ireland on these matters. It is not limited to people like my noble friend and myself. As your Lordships know nearly all the farmers own their land and I think there is a very widespread feeling of apprehension that there may be some raid on those who possess land. I am not asking the noble and learned Lord to answer me now, but if something of the kind could be introduced it would not only be a valuable thing, but I believe it would be popular, and not against the feeling of the people or felt to be a limitation of their powers.

VISCOUNT BRYCE

May I say, in the first place, that it is true that in nearly all the Constitutions—I will not say all off hand—of the American States there is this provision that private property should not be taken without due compensation. It is also true, as the noble Earl has said, that there has been a great deal of controversy in Ireland over the taking of land in such a way under the popular demand as would interfere with private rights in a manner which I do not think the Imperial Parliament would sanction. I would therefore suggest to the noble and learned Lord that between now and the Report he should carefully look into this matter and consider whether there is not a possibility of making some provision for the cases which noble Lords have raised.

LORD ORANMORE AND BROWNE

May I point out to the noble Lord that putting in some such clause as is suggested may even be in the interest of the Government which will eventually be set up in Ireland. You must remember they will probably be subject to very great pressure from their extreme followers, and will not be sorry to point to a provision in the Act which prevents them acting in a way in which perhaps they have no strong wish to act themselves but in which they may find themselves driven by those to whom they look for support.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

All these are very interesting suggestions, and I am grateful for them. I think we are all agreed that the particular proposals made by the noble Earl go much too far. Perhaps it will not be thought unreasonable of me if I suggest that between now and a later stage of the Bill the noble Lords who have made the very interesting suggestions should themselves be responsible for an Amendment upon the lines which have been recommended by the noble Earl, Lord Desart. I certainly will promise a very careful consideration of them.

THE EARL OF MAYO

I will water down my clauses to deal with the bankruptcy and insolvency questions in Ireland, and also the question—I confine myself to that—of restrictions that are in the Housing of the Working Classes Acts not to interfere with our demesnes or our parks or our home farms.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

Upon the clause I was going to ask a question of the noble and learned Lord. I put the question upon this clause because the subject-matter of the clause deals with one of the most delicate questions which arise in Ireland, the question of possible legislation of a sectarian type interfering with marriage, education, and so forth. I ventured to refer to this matter when I troubled your Lordships with a few observations upon the Second Reading, but I got no reply. I do not make any complaint of that; there was not an opportunity.

The question I should like to put to the noble and learned Lord is this. Supposing legislation is proposed in and passed through the Southern Parliament violating the conditions of this clause, do the Government contemplate that the Lord Lieutenant should refuse his assent to the Bill? I am assuming that a Bill of a kind which imposes sectarian conditions upon marriage, which is in contravention of this clause, or upon education, is passed through the Southern Parliament. I ask the noble and learned Lord whether the Lord Lieutenant will refuse his assent. Supposing he does not refuse his assent, the King's Government over here will be put in a very ludicrous position. His Majesty will be called upon through the Lord Lieutenant to assent to a measure and will do so, which is mani festly and palpably a violation of the Statute which we are now passing into law. I cannot think that that is a position which any Lord Lieutenant would like to occupy, and I do not quite understand how the Government over there can permit him to do so.

Supposing he refused his assent, then I have to put the question to the noble and learned Lord which I ventured to put upon the Second Reading. Supposing the Government thereupon resigned, which they no doubt would do, and they command a majority in the Irish House of Commons, what remedy has the Lord Lieutenant and how are they to get out of the difficulty? That is the first point. Take the other alternative. Supposing the Lord Lieutenant swallows the absurdity, from his point of view and from the point of view of the Government over here, of giving the Royal Assent to a Bill which is illegal, which is contrary to this Statute, then are you not exposed to this difficulty—that then the law would be questioned in the Courts and would be found to be void. How are the decrees of the Courts to be enforced?

It should be remembered that by the hypothesis I am putting the Bill will have been solemnly passed by the Parliament of Southern Ireland and solemnly assented to by the Lord Lieutenant; and although the judges must, if they are judges of right, find that it is void, how is their judgment to be enforced? The executive will be entirely in the hands of the Irish Government, the very people who will have proposed this law, and unless they are law-abiding folk and anxious to make good work they may defy the finding of the Courts. The only way in which the Courts' judgment can be enforced is by means of the executive, and if the executive is hostile to the Courts there is no means of overcoming it. That is the dilemma in front of all these clauses of which I spoke on the Second Reading. The difficulty is that you are imposing upon Ireland a law which she does not want and repudiates, and you are going to entrust to Southern Ireland powers which at this moment, as the Government admit, they are unfit to wield. If they choose to say "We decline to make your Act work properly. It is quite true the Imperial statute says these laws are void, but we propose to pass them, and defy you"—I ask in those circumstances what do the Government contemplate is the proper remedy?

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

The noble Marquess has asked me a series of questions of great interest and which really raise a point of very considerable importance. It is one which I attempted to deal with on the Second Reading by anticipation. If the noble Marquess is prepared to make the assumption in relation to the future that the Irish Parliament, if and when it approaches the discharge of its functions under this Bill; is going first of all to pass laws which are proscribed under Clause 6 of this Bill, and in the second place, if and when such laws are declared by the Law Courts to be void, is going to defy the Law Courts, and proceed by executive strength to make their will effective in spite of the Law Courts—if he is really prepared to adopt that as his presage of the position which is likely to arise, then he must give me leave to tell him with great plainness but civility, that I think he ought to have voted against the Second Reading of the Bill. If the noble Marquess holds these views as to what the Irish Executive might do there is a still wider question that arises. It is perfectly obvious that under those circumstances it would be reckless to commit even contingently to the Parliament of Southern Ireland the powers which this Bill does commit, and I am lost in amazement that the noble Marquess, if he entertains these apprehensions, can have failed to record in the Lobby the views which he has formed.

He has asked me two particular questions. Let me attempt to answer them. He asks in the first place what is to be done if the Parliament passes any Bill which is in violation of the provisions of Clause 6 (1). In the first place I cannot conceive that if there is a case in which a Bill is attempted to be carried by the Parliament which is in violation of this section the Lord Lieutenant would not refuse his assent to it, I have no doubt whatever that he would refuse. I assume, and shall continue to assume until I am shown to be wrong, that any Lord Lieutenant would do his duty, and if he reached a conclusion that Parliament was passing legislation that was in violation of the provisions of the Act from which alone it derived its rights, his duty plainly would be—and I assume he would discharge that duty—to disallow it.

The noble Marquess says, "Supposing the Lord Lieutenant did not disallow it"? I really do not know why a great bulwark of the Constitution, such as the noble Marquess undoubtedly is, should assume that the Lord Lieutenant would not discharge so obvious and elementary a duty. But if the Lord Lieutenant failed "to discharge that duty, then the noble Marquess asks me what would happen? Subsection (1) provides that any law made in contravention of the restrictions imposed by this subsection shall, so far as it contravenes these restrictions, be void. The effect of a law being void is, I am sure the noble Marquess will appreciate, that it is no law at all. It has no more validity in the Law Courts than if the noble Marquess were to put a bulletin outside his front door issuing orders to his fellow citizens. They might choose to obey them, or they might not. If not, and lie went to the Law Courts to ask that they should be obeyed, he would receive no assistance from the law. If it was an ejectment order or an order affecting religious rights, it would carry no more weight. There are all kinds of legal methods by which these things can be declared to be void and of no validity. There are writs of certiorari. There are all kinds of ways in which illegal acts can be checked by the Law Courts.

There is furthermore the clause which is rather far advanced in the Bill. I am not sure whether the noble Marquess had in his mind clause 50, subsection (1). By that clause, if any question arises in which there really is a serious issue between the Executive on the one side and the parties who are differing from the decision of the Executive on the other, there is not only a recourse to the ordinary Courts but there is a final recourse to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.

It is quite true there is one question which the noble Marquess puts to me that he says was not answered here. It cannot be answered. The noble Marquess says, "Supposing the Irish Parliament when you have set it up defies you and refuses to be bound by your Law Courts and throws back the decision of the Irish Courts and the decision of the Privy Council?" If and when the Irish Parliament does adopt that course the noble Marquess will indeed be right in his premonitions, but he will be wrong as to his power, because in that case no course will be open except that which I indicated on Second Reading and that will be by any means thought appropriate to bring to an end a Parliament which will have repudiated and abused its functions. I do not know if we are too sanguine, but our hope is that once you have defeated the campaign of arson and murder which now holds the field you will be able to assemble together a Parliament in the South which will not disregard the plain rules of sanity. If we are wrong in that view this Bill is wrong. Whether the noble Marquess is right or I am right the future alone can tell.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

I am sorry, but I evidently said something which had the effect of ruffling the noble and learned Lord.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

No, not at all.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

I am very glad to hear it. The noble and learned Lord wishes to know why I did not vote against the Second Reading of the Bill. He knows quite well that I did not vote against the Second Reading because it was absolutely necessary that some legislation should take the place of the Act of 1914. I do not want to weary the House by repeating the reasons which I put, possibly at undue length, in the course of the debate on the Second Reading. But the noble and learned Lord has answered me at such a length and in such detail—for which I am very much obliged to him—that it is quite clear that the Government intend if legislation of a prohibitive character is passed under this clause or any other the Lord Lieutenant will be able to disallow it.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

Not directly. It is assumed that he will do his duty and that no specific directions will be required.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

The most important part of the Lord Lieutenant will be the Government over here. He will be appointed by the Government over here. He will be paid by the Government over here and he will be expected to refuse his assent. Then I put to the noble and learned Lord the question which, I think, is the only part of my observations he did not answer, "Then he will be exposed, of course, to the resignation of his Government." As I explained on Second Reading, that would produce a deadlock from which there is really no issue. There is no means of working an Act of this kind unless the subordinate Parliament is well-affected. It is not a question for any heat at all.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I agree.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

It is a matter of solid and sober argument, that you cannot work a system of this kind except with a well-affected subordinate Parliament. I am not going to trouble your Lordships by repeating what I have already said, but it is perfectly clear that in the present state of feeling in the South of Ireland the people are not well-affected, and I do not think the noble and learned Lord will contend for one moment that they are. They are disaffected, and that is a very strong reason for putting precautions into the Bill in order to prevent their abusing their powers. After the very full explanation given by the noble and learned Lord I hope I shall receive his support.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

It will be very carefully considered by the Government.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

Of course, I knew of those subsequent clauses which the noble Lord was good enough to tell us about. I made myself acquainted with and quite understand the legal effect.

LORD PHILLIMORE

What the noble Marquess has just said rather anticipated what I wanted to say. I think a little dwelling upon Clauses 13 and 50 will be interesting in regard to this matter. If there is any reason to suppose that a Bill violates these provisions, the Lord Lieutenant entrenches himself behind Clause 50 before turning to Clause 13, and submits the matter to the Judicial Committee. Probably the noble Marquess is aware that it is not infrequent for the Crown, before considering whether or not assent shall be given to a reserved Bill in the Colonies, to submit the matter for the advice of the Privy Council in England. Under Clause 50 of the Bill the Lord Lieutenant would be bound to go to the Privy Council, and his answer to the Irish Ministers or Parliament will not be "I am refusing this because I have been instructed to do so under Clause 13, or because I do not like this Bill," but "I am refusing it because under Clause 50 what the Bill proposes to do cannot be done." And after that no resignation of Ministers or anything else could have any effect, except to show absolute obstinacy and unwillingness to work the Parliament.

On Question, Clause 6 agreed to.

Clause 7 agreed to.

Clause 8:

Powers of the Council of Ireland with respect to private Bill legislation.

8.—(l) The Council of Ireland shall have power to make orders with respect to matters affecting interests both in Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland, in any case where the matter—

  1. (a) is of such a nature that if it had affected interests in one of those areas only it would have been within the powers of the Parliament for that area; and
  2. (b) is a matter to effect which it would, apart from this provision, have been necessary to apply to the Parliament of the United Kingdom by petition for leave to bring in a private Bill.

(2) The provisions contained in the First Schedule to this Act shall have effect with respect to the procedure for making such orders.

(3) Any order so made by the Council of Ireland under this section shall be presented to the Lord Lieutenant for His Majesty's assent in like manner as a Bill passed by the House of Commons of Southern Ireland or Northern Ireland and on such assent being given the order shall have effect in Southern and Northern. Ireland respectively as if enacted by the Parliament of Southern Ireland or Northern Ireland, as the case may be.

LORD SHANDON moved to leave out Clause 8. The noble and learned Lord said: The effect of this, the Council having by a former Amendment disappeared, would be to take away the special powers which were given to the Council. So far it is consequential, but it is necessary to reintroduce the clause, so far as the Joint Senate is concerned, later on. Accordingly subsequently, when we come to Clause 11, I should point out the manner in which I propose that the matter should work. The powers which are given to the Council under Clause 8 (which, of course, will have to be left out, having regard to the previous Amendment) are proposed to be given to the Joint Senate. My desire was by no means to give any extended powers which would affect the Northern Parliament or the Southern Parliament, or which would enable the Senate to impose upon either any Bill with regard to their own area which would otherwise be rejected by them. But when we come to that I should have to ask your Lordships' special leave to leave out a portion of that, because it has been pointed out to me that it would go much further than I certainly ever intended, or than I consider would be right, because it would include Money Bills, for example. When we come to that I undertake that I will not press the whole of this clause, my object being to give to the Joint Senate the powers which are already given to the Council.

Amendment moved—

Leave out Clause 8.—(Lord Shandon.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 9:

LORD SHANDON

The next Amendment is merely consequential.

Amendment moved— Page 9, line 4, leave out ("Council of Ireland") and insert ("Irish Senate")—(Lord Shandon.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 9, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 10:

Reserved matters.

10.—(1)The Royal Irish Constabulary and the Dublin Metropolitan Police and the management and control of those forces and the administration of the Acts relating thereto, including appointments, remuneration and removal of magistrates thereunder, shall be reserved matters until such date, not being later than the expiration of three years after the appointed day, as His Majesty in Council may determine, and on the date so determined the public services in connection with the administration of those Acts and the management and control of those forces shall by virtue of this Act be transferred from the Government of the United Kingdom to the Government of Southern Ireland as respects Southern Ireland and to the Government of Northern Ireland as respects Northern Ireland, and shall then cease to be reserved services and become Irish services:

Provided that if the date of Irish union occurs before the said services are so transferred then, unless otherwise provided by the constituent Acts, those services shall as soon as may be after the date of Irish union be transferred from the Government of the United Kingdom to the Government of Ireland.

(2) The following matters, namely,—

  1. (a.) the postal service;
  2. (b) the Post Office Savings Bank and Trustee-Savings Banks;
  3. (c) designs for stamps, whether for postal or revenue purposes;
  4. (d) the Public Record Office of Ireland;
shall be reserved matters until the date of Irish union, and thereafter if the constituent Acts so provide, and on that date if there should be no provision to the contrary in the constituent Acts, or at such later date (if any) as may be prescribed by those Acts, as the case may be, the public services in connection with the administration of those matters, except so far as they are matters with respect to which the Parliament of Ireland have not power to make laws, shall, by virtue of this Act, be transferred from the Government of the United Kingdom to the Government of Ireland, and shall then cease to be reserved services and become Irish services:

Provided that—

  1. (a) if before the date of Irish union the Parliaments of Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland by identical Acts make provision for t he transfer of any of the said services to the Council of Ireland or otherwise for the exercise of the powers relating thereto by the Parliaments and Governments of Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland jointly, such services shall be transferred in accordance with those Acts, and shall on such transfer cease to be reserved services; and
  2. b) nothing in this subsection shall prevent the Parliament or Government of Southern Ireland or Northern Ireland establishing a Public Record Office of Southern Ireland or Northern Ireland, as the case may be, for the reception and preservation of public records appertaining to Southern Ireland or Northern Ireland which otherwise would be deposited in the Public Record Office of Ireland, and if any such office is so established provision may be made by the Lord Lieutenant for the removal to that office of such probates, letters of administration, or other testamentary records granted or coming into existence not earlier than twenty years prior to the appointed day as, in his opinion, properly belong to the part of Ireland in which the office is situated and can conveniently be removed to that office.

(3) The general subject-matter of the Acts relating to land purchase in Ireland shall be a reserved matter unless and, until otherwise provided by any Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom relating to land purchase in Ireland, passed in the present or any future session of that Parliament:

Provided that this reservation shall not in elude—

  1. a) the powers and duties of the Congested Districts Board for Ireland, other than the power of that Board to require advances to be made to them under section seventy-two of the Irish Land Act, 1903; and
  2. (b) the powers and duties of the Irish Land Commission and the Commissioners of Public Works in Ireland with respect to the collection and recovery of purchase annuities, and, except to such extent as may be provided by Irish transfer orders, the powers of the Irish Land Commission with respect to holdings subject to purchase annuities and the apportionment and consolidation of such annuities.

(4) On any transfer under or by virtue of this Act of any reserved matter, the general provisions of this Act (so far as applicable) and the provisions of this Act as to existing Irish officers and existing pensions shall apply with respect to the transfer, with the substitution of the date of the transfer for the appointed day or the date of the passing of this Act.

THE EARL OF SELBORNE moved, in subsection (2), to leave out "(a) the postal service." The noble Earl said: This Amendment is pursuant of my idea that this Bill is founded on federal lines, but departs from those lines very unnecessarily in more places than one. I think I am right in saying that in every federal or quasi-federal constitution the Postal Service is reserved for the central authority. Not only is that so throughout the Empire, but I believe in the United States and also in the German Empire. What would happen when the time came for this constitution to be developed, as I maintain it must be developed, in England, Scotland and Wales? Quite surely the Postal Service could not be given to the local. Parliaments and Governments in England, Scotland and Wales, and, therefore, when the whole federal system is developed you would have a Postal Service in Great Britain a central subject, and in Ireland alone a local subject. I submit that that offends against the rules governing such constitution.

But there is a greater reason than a strict adherence to the proper form of constitution, and that is our experience in the late war. It was proved in the war that the Postal Service is a matter of Imperial defence which never can wisely be delegated to a local authority. The Lord Chancellor may tell us that there are provisions in the Bill for taking up the Postal Service in time of war. That is so, but the damage may be done in the period preceding the outbreak of war. It may be of vital importance in the critical days before the outbreak of war that the Postal Service should be in the hands of the Imperial Authority and not in the hands of a local authority, much less in the hands of an authority which as in the case of the South of Ireland might quite possibly be hostile to the British Empire. I suggest that on the general grounds of proper constitutional form, and also on grounds of national defence, that the Postal Service ought to be an Imperial and not a local service.

Amendment moved— Page 11, line 26, leave out ("(a) the postal service")—(The Earl of Selborne.)

THE EARL OF CRAWFORD

I acknowledge the importance of what the noble Earl said with regard to the difficulty in time of war, but powers are specially reserved, cumbrous as they may be in operation, to meet that particular eventuality. I differ from him in thinking that this is inconsistent with a federal scheme. Certainly the existence of separate postal services in Saxony and Bavaria in no way militated against the German postal service before the war, and there is no reason why any such difficulty should exist in Ireland or in Scotland. But I am a little puzzled by the Amendment. Under the Bill as it stands, it provides that the Postal Service shall be reserved matter until the date of Irish Union. That is how the Bill stands—that until Irish unity occurs it shall remain as it is to-day.

THE EARL OF MAYO

What do you mean by Irish unity?

THE EARL OF CRAWFORD

Irish union is the word; I said unity by mistake. I do not think the error is material. The effect of the Amendment removes it from that category, and the immediate result is that so far from having one Postal Service for Ireland and Great Britain, on the creation of the two Parliaments in Ireland there will be a Postal Service for the North of Ireland; a Postal Service for the South of Ireland and a Postal Service for Great Britain into the bargain. Technically the Amendment does not meet the point of the noble Earl. But on the broad merits I cannot help thinking that the objection he took from the Federal point of view experience shows to be unfounded, while the powers of reservation for resuming the services in case of trouble, though cumbrous at the outset, are adequate to protect the interests of the country.

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

What the noble Earl said is perfectly true, but this seemed to me to be the best moment to raise the point, and if the House took my view there would be consequential amendments. I wish he would consider it before Report.

THE EARL OF CRAWFORD

We will consider it from the point of view of the most important part of Lord Selborne's speech, and that is the danger it may involve in time of war.

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

I do not wish to be misunderstood. The mere fact that it is an Irish service in time of peace is, I suggest, dangerous if a war occurs.

VISCOUNT BRYCE

There is another small point. As your Lordships know, from time to time Postal Conferences occur in which arrangements for international postage are debated, and I take it the intention of the Government is that after the date of the Irish Parliament Ireland shall be represented at such conferences independently of the representtation of Great Britain.

THE EARL OF DROGHEDA

If I may say a word on the point, the danger in time of war conies not from the Postal Service but from the submarine cables and wireless telegraphy, which seem to be reserved in Clause 5. I do not think the. Postal Service is any danger. I know that in the war the real danger came from telegraphs, and the postal danger was developed much later when the whole system of codes came up.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved, in subsection (2), after (c), to insert" (d) the registration of deeds and." The noble and learned Lord said: This is a somewhat technical matter and yet not difficult. The object of the Amendment is to secure that the registry of deeds and the elaborate system of registration established in Ireland in the reign of Queen Anne shall not be divided between Southern and Northern Ireland, but shall remain in existence as a service for all Ireland and I think your Lordships will concur in the propriety of it.

Amendment moved— Page 11, line 30, at end insert ("(d) the registration of deeds and").—(The. Lord Chancellor.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

THE EARL OF MAYO moved to omit the first paragraph of subsection 3) down to "Parliament," and to insert (3) The general subject-matters of the jurisdiction of the Irish Land Commission shall be reserved matters unless and until otherwise provided by an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom passed in the present or any future Session of Parliament. The noble Earl said: The object of the Amendment is to reserve all the powers of the Land Commission in Ireland, not only on land purchase, but the fixing of rents and other miscellaneous powers. The Land Commission have carried out their work very well and conscientiously, and we should like to have the whole power of the Commission reserved, especially with regard to the fixing of rents. The Amendment goes a little further than the clause—in fact, a good deal further—and I hope the noble and learned Lord will accept it, because we have confidence in the Commission in Ireland and would not like their powers curtailed or interfered with.

Amendment moved— Page 12, line 28, leave out from the beginning of the line to the end of line 32 and insert the said new subseetion.—(The. Earl of Mayo.)

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

The language used in the Bill—I am anxious to be sure I understand the proposal—is "the general subject-matter of the Acts relating to land purchase." I understand the noble Earl only proposes to substitute for that the general subject-matters of the jurisdiction of the Irish Land Commission.

THE EARL OF MAYO

Yes.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

My impression is that the language in subsection (3) is even wider than, or as wide as, the language used by the noble Earl, and I am fortified in that view by the opinion of my noble and learned friend, Lord Atkinson, who is the greatest authority in this House on the subject of land purchase.

THE EARL OF MAYO

I must bow to great legal opinion, and I beg to withdraw the Amendment, which was moved in order to get a statement from the noble Lord in charge of the Bill.

LORD ATKINSON

There can be no doubt that the subject-matter of all the Land Acts is covered by this clause.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 10, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 11:

Powers of Irish Council.

11.—(1) The Parliaments of Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland may, by identical Acts, delegate to the Council of Ireland any of the powers of the Parliaments and Governments of Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland, and such Acts may determine the manner in which the powers so delegated are to be exerciseable by the Council.

(2) With a view to the uniform administration throughout Ireland of public services in con- nection with railways and fisheries, any powers (not being powers relating to reserved matters) exerciseable by any department of the Government of the United Kingdom at the appointed day with respect to railways and fisheries in Ireland and the power of making laws with respect to railways and fisheries shall as from the appointed day become powers of the Council of Ireland, and not of the Governments and Parliaments of Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland:

Provided that nothing in this subsection shall prevent the Parliament of Southern Ireland or of Northern Ireland making laws authorising the construction, extension, or improvement of railways where the works to be constructed are situate wholly in Southern Ireland or Northern Ireland as the case may be:

Provided also that the appointed day fixed for the purpose of this subsection shall be a date not earlier than the expiration of the period of two years mentioned in section three (1) of the Ministry of Transport Act, 1919, and all claims arising before the appointed day under section eight of the Ministry of Transport Act, 1919, or determinable as if they were claims so arising shall be satisfied by the Minister of Transport in accordance with that section. The rates, fares, tolls, dues, and other charges directed by the Minister of Transport under the Ministry of Transport Act, 1919, and in force on the appointed day, may be charged until fresh provision shall be made by the Council of Ireland, or the Parliament of the United Kingdom, with regard to the amount of any such rates, fares, tolls, dues, and other charges.

(3) The Council may consider any questions which may appear in any way to bear on the welfare of both Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland, and may, by resolution, make suggestions in relation thereto as they may think proper, but suggestions so made shall have no legislative effect, and in particular it shall be the duty of the Council of Ireland as soon as may be after the constitution thereof to consider what Irish services ought in the common interest to be administered by a body having jurisdiction over the whole of Ireland, and what reserved services which are transferable on the passing of identical Acts ought to be so transferred, and to make recommendations to the Parliaments of Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland as to the advisability of passing identical Acts delegating to the Council of Ireland the administration of any such Irish services, with a view to avoiding the necessity of administering them separately in Southern Ireland or Northern Ireland, and providing for the transfer of any such reserved service at the earliest possible date.

(4) Before any order made by the Council in exercise of any legislative powers vested in the Council comes into force, the order shall be presented to the Lord Lieutenant for His Majesty's assent in like manner as a Bill passed by the House of Commons of Southern Ireland or Northern Ireland, and, on such assent being given, the Order shall have effect in Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland, respectively, as if enacted by the Parliament of Southern Ireland or Northern Ireland, as the case may be.

(5) For the purposes of their powers and duties with respect to Private Bill legislation, railways and fisheries the Council shall have power to appoint such officers as, with the consent of the Joint Exchequer Board, they may think necessary, and the salaries and remuneration of those officers, and any other expenses of the Council with respect to such matters as aforesaid, to such amount as the Joint Exchequer Board may approve shall, so far as not met by fees paid to or other receipts of the Council, be apportioned between Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland in such manner as the Joint Exchequer Board may determine, and the amounts so apportioned shall be charged on and paid out of the Consolidated Fund of Southern Ireland and the Consolidated Fund of Northern Ireland, respectively, and for the purposes of their other powers and duties. The Council shall have power to appoint such secretaries and officers as, subject to the consent of the Treasury of Southern Ireland and the Treasury of Northern Ireland, they may think fit, and the salary and remuneration of those officers and any other expenses of the Council to such amount as the said Treasuries may approve shall, so far as not met aforesaid, be paid out of moneys provided by the Parliaments of Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland in such proportions as the said Treasuries may mutually agree, or in default of agreement may be determined by the Joint Exchequer Board hereinafter constituted.

(6) It shall be lawful for either parliament at any time by Act to revoke the delegation to the Council of Ireland of any powers which are in pursuance of such identical Acts as aforesaid for the time being delegated to the Council and thereupon the powers in question shall cease to exerciseable by the Council of Ireland and shall become exeriseable in the parts of Ireland within their respective jurisdictions by the Parliaments and Governments of Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland, and the Council shall take such steps as may be necessary to carry out the transfer, including adjustments of any funds in their hands or at t heir disposal:

Provided that this subsection shall not apply to any service which on ceasing to be a reserved service has, in pursuance of identical Acts passed by the two Parliaments, been transferred to the Council of Ireland

LORD SHANDON had on the Paper a series of Amendments to Clause 11. The noble and learned Lord said: I mentioned that Clause 8 would have to be reproduced with regard to the Joint Senate. The proposed provision which stands in my name runs in this way, but I will have to ask your Lordships to allow me not to move part of it which I went probably further then I, certainly acting fairly with the House, intended that it should go. It runs— The Irish Senate may originate any Bill which, if the subject-matter thereof related exclusively to Southern Ireland or Northern Ireland, the Senate of Southern Ireland or the Senate of Northern Ireland would be competent to originate. As the Bill stands, and without a subsequent Amendment which stands in the flaw of Lord Oranmore, that would have the effect of covering a Money Bill; but he has put down an Amendment providing that only the House of Commons of Northern and Southern Ireland shall have the power to originate any Money Bill, so that taken as it stands it would not be satisfactory unless the subsequent Amendment was also passed. In addition to that, I certainly only intended t,) do the two things which I mentioned—first, to transfer the powers; secondly, to do what know is very earnestly desired, not by one section of thought but I think by all, not to put the Senate into power over the heads of the local Parliament. It is not easy to frame the Amendment on the moment, but it would run in this way: Page 14, line 6, after subsection (2), insert the following two new subsections—

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

Will the noble and learned Lord explain to us what he is moving?

LORD SHANDON

I will endeavour to do so. The first two Amendments in my name on the Paper are merely consequential.

THE LORD CHAIRMAN

Then we had better clear them out of the way.

Amendments moved—

Page 13, lines 12 and 13, leave out ("Council of Ireland") and insert ("Irish Senate")

Line 24, leave out ("Council of Ireland") and insert ("Irish Senate")—(Lord Shandon.)

On Question, Amendments agreed to.

LORD SHANDON

The next Amendment, as I understand, is in lieu of Clause 8 which you struck out, and to which I ask leave to refer.

Clause 8 ran as follows )"The Council of Ireland shall have power to make orders with respect to matters affecting interests both in Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland, in any case where the matter—

  1. (a) is of such a nature that if it had affected interests in one of those areas only it would have been within the powers of the Parliament for that area: and
  2. (b) is a matter to effect which it would, apart from this provision, have been necessary to apply to the Parliament of the United Kingdom by petition for leave to bring in a private Bill.

(2) The provisions contained in the, First Schedule to this Act shall have effect with respect to the procedure for making such orders.

(3) Any order so made by the Council of Ireland under this section shall be presented to the Lord Lieutenant for His Majesty's assent in like manner as a Bill passed by the House of Commons of Southern Ireland or Northern Ireland and on such assent being given the order shell have effect in Southern and Northern Ireland respectively as if enacted by the Parliament of Southern inland or Northern Ireland, as the case may be."

That clause having been removed in order to give effect to the Amendment in Clause 2 which has been passed, and the consequential Amendments, it is necessary to transfer those powers to the Joint Senate, and that is the object of my proposed new subsection (3), which will read as follows (3) The Irish Senate may originate any Bill which, if the subject-matter thereof relate exclusively to Southern Ireland or Northern Ireland, the Senate of Southern Ireland or the Senate of Northern Ireland would be competent to originate, and such a Bill if passed by the Irish Senate shall be submitted to the Houses of Commons of Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland, and if passed by both the Houses of Parliament of Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland on receiving His Majesty's Assent as provided by this Act shall have effect as identical Acts passed by the Parliaments of Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland,

Then come the words transferred from Clause 8— (4) Bills which relate to matters affecting interests both in Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland in any case where the matter

  1. (a) is of such a nature that if it had affected interests in one of those areas only it would have been within the powers of the Parliament for that area; and
  2. (b) is a matter which it would, apart from this provision, have been necessary to apply to the Parliament of the United Kingdom by petition for leave to bring in a Private Bill;
shall be originated in the Irish Senate, and the provisions contained in the Schedule to this Act shall have effect with respect to the procedure for the introduction and consideration of such Bills in the Irish Senate. The only doubt which I had was whether the Clause as drafted would work all right. I did not anticipate that we should reach Clause 11 to-night, and I thought I should be able, with the assent of the Lord Chancellor, to make any alterations in form. If that course were at all possible, I should ask the leave of the House to do it, but if not I should move the clause as it stands, allowing the necessary alterations to be made on Report.

Amendment moved— Page 14, line 6, after subsection (2). insert the slid new subsection (3).—(Lord Shandon.)

LORD ORANMORE AND BROWNE

Will the noble and learned Lord explain exactly his proposal. I did not gather what were the powers of this Joint Senate over Private Bill legislation. As the Council of Ireland stood in the Bill those matters came before the elected representatives of the people; or, at all events, the great bulk of them. It seems to me there is this objection to what the noble and learned Lord put forward, that this legislation would come before what is more or less a nominated body.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

It would come before the Archbishops.

LORD SHANDON

My object in these Amendments was not to create difficulties but to avoid them if possible. If your Lordships decide to go no further to-night I could redraft the whole clause in the manner in which I understood it would be accepted. Otherwise I do not know that I can do anything other than put down the matter to be dealt with afterwards. I apologise to your Lordships, but it was not intentional on my part.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

What is certain is that the noble and learned Lord has involved us in very great difficulties. Indeed, I contemplate, I confess, with respectful disquiet the results of the Amendments which your Lordships have thought it necessary to introduce into the Bill to-night. The Bill in its original conception may have been a good Bill or a bad Bill, but it was at least a Bill which had been carefully thought out, and which, if one admitted certain postulates might, I think, have been afforded a fair opportunity. The Council played a great part in this scheme. It was a vital, an essential part of it.

When the noble and learned Lord in an Amendment sweeps away the Council and makes an ill-considered and utterly un-thought-out substitution for it of a Joint Senate which may never come into existence at all, he took a responsibility which I venture to think your Lordships, having no such duty as the author of this proposal, do not assume. The noble and learned Lord was by his action involved in a deep responsibility to see that he had appreciated all the functions which were discharged by the Council, and to see that he was prepared with a substitute by means of which all those functions could be satis- factorily discharged. It is a lamentable Amendment which stands in the name of the noble and learned Lord, an Amendment which I think staggered even the noble and learned Lord who in these matters is not so easily shocked. The terms of the proposal illustrate to all of us the recklessness with which they have been made. My experience teaches me—and I think that your Lordships will confirm it—that it is a. most difficult thing to amend a very complicated Bill in respect of matters which run through I lie whole fabric of a Bill.

The noble and learned Lord has persuaded your Lordships to substitute an Irish Senate for the Irish Council. I cannot tell your Lordships how deep a blow I think that Amendment has given to the whole fabric of the Bill; I do not know whether the Rill will survive such a blow. But what is so alarming is to discover that the noble and learned Lord has taken that step without even working out for himself the question as to whether the authority which he is substituting for the Council is a suitable body for carrying out the functions. The Council was a suitable body because it consisted of the representatives elected by the constituencies.

I certainly do not demur to the suggestion made by the noble Lord—I understand it was his suggestion; he will correct me if I am wrong—that he should withdraw his present proposal until the Report stage. But if your Lordships think fit to give him permission to withdraw it, I beg him to apply his mind to the real difficulty that awaits him. I am not in a position to give him the slightest assurance that it is the intention of those who ask for this Parliament in Ulster to undertake the burden of setting up a Second Chamber for themselves. They may or may not be prepared to do it as the result of what has happened in this House to-night. I am neither authorised nor able to give such an assurance.

I desire to speak in the most respectful way of the decision which I am sure was not lightly taken, but let us realise what it is your Lordships have undertaken. We had failed in this problem so far as the Constitution of the two Second Chambers was concerned. It may be we merited some degree of censure at the hands of the noble Earl and others because we were too sanguine in the expectation of that which we thought we could do. We failed, and I can assure your Lordships that the task in which we failed was no easy one, and men of great experience applied themselves to its solution. Let us realise quite clearly what your Lordships have undertaken. I greatly hope that your Lordships will be more successful than we have been, though the body for drafting is, perhaps, rather larger, numerically, than is commonly accounted convenient. Your Lordships have undertaken the burden of making a suggestion for the constitution of the Chamber in the South and more. I should not be in order if I discussed in any great detail the proposals which stand in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Oranmore and Browne, but I think I can show when I conic to them how utterly inapplicable they are to the situation. He told the House to-night, after discussion with the noble Lords from Ulster, that lie proposed to make himself responsible for the proposals for Ulster. I shall be delighted to leave in the hands of your Lordships a matter which has taxed the ingenuity of the Government and its advisers to the utmost, without success.

In reference to the suggestion of the noble Lord, as far as I am concerned, subject to the permission of your Lordships' House that he be allowed to postpone this Amendment until he has considered it more carefully, I only desire very respectfully to ask those of your Lordships who have been responsible for the fundamental change which has been made in the character of the Bill, between now and the Report stage, to work out the consequences of that change. Because I am sure the Government will require all the assistance the House can give them.

THE MARQUESS OF CREWE

I cannot think that the whole situation is quite so desperate as it is painted by the noble and learned Lord.

NOBLE LORDS

Hear, hear.

THE MARQUESS OF CREWE

It occurs to me that the wisdom of the suggestion which some of us ventured to make on the Second Reading, and which was so greatly derided and objected to by noble Lords opposite—namely, that matters of this kind could have been more properly discussed privately by a great number of people of all sorts of divergent views interested in this Bill, rather than across the Table in Committee—has been confirmed by what has just now occurred. A matter of this kind is one which would have been properly the subject of friendly discussion between the people holding the different views which exist about the possibility of substituting a Second Chamber or Senate for the proposal contained in the Bill.

As regards this particular point, the matter does not seem in itself to be very difficult. It was proposed by the Bill that the Council should possess certain powers. The noble and learned Lord opposite has in general terms desired to transfer those powers to the Senate, which your Lordships, by a very large majority, have preferred to the Council suggested. I confess a great many of us never thought very much of the Council; we had no great hopes of it, or believed that it would work very efficiently. But it did, no doubt, represent an elected body, and in that capacity it might, if it ever came into being, be empowered to exercise certain functions which a largely nominated body of the type which has been substituted for it might not properly exercise. There is nothing, however, very dreadful in that; it is only a question of a little consideration to see which powers, as contained in the original Bill, could be profitably transferred to the newly designed body.

In subsection (3) as proposed by Lord Shandon, it was suggested that the Irish Senate might originate any Bill relating exclusively to Southern Ireland or Northern Ireland. It occurs to one at once that, if that clause were passed as it stands, it would enable the Senate to originate Money Bills, which would be contrary to the practice here, or indeed, anywhere else. That is not a very important point, and I cannot conceive that it will be in the least difficult for the noble and learned Lord, Lord Shandon, to frame his Amendment, retaining, as I hope he will, the suggestions contained in his proposed subsection (1), and to bring that up again. Therefore I do not think there is any necessity to be tragic over the whole business.

LORD ATKINSON

May I make a suggestion to my noble friend, that, if he is going to re-draft his clause, he should make it clear what powers he intends to confer upon the Senate. Because, if it is intended that the Senate should have power either to throw out a Bill, to repeal a Bill, or to oppose the passage of a Bill originating with the local Legislatures, in my humble judgment, considering the composition of the Senate, they are only courting disaster. Having listened to the debate with very great interest, and being most anxious, if it were possible, to devise some protection for the inhabitants of the South of Ireland, I was nevertheless not able really to catch whether it was intended to give legislative powers to the Senate or no. If it was merely to give them an opportunity of coining and ventilating their views, that would be an entirely different matter. But I do not know whether it is intended that Bills should originate in the Senate, and should subsequently require to be passed by the legislative body before they become valid; or whether they should originate in the legislative body and require then the consent of the Senate, as the consent of this House is required to the passing of a Bill—all is obscure as far as I am concerned, and I would certainly recommend my noble friend, if he comes to re-cast his Amendment, to make all those things clear, so that one may see exactly what it is he proposes.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I think on one point I can answer a question in the very important contribution to the debate which has just been made by my noble and learned friend. Upon no single one of the points—the vital and fundamental points—upon which he has insisted has apparently one moment of thought been given (if I may say so without disrespect) by the mover of the Amendment which substituted a Senate for the Council. Every one of those points is vital, A Senate has no meaning at all unless you define its functions, unless you state where is its initiative, what its powers are in relation to the Legislature, and what its powers are in relation to finance. The noble Marquess, Lord Crewe, says that nothing tragic has happened. As there is a Report stage, certainly nothing irrevocably tragic has been done, but what has been done is this. A proposal has been put in substituting for the Council, whose constitution is at least clear and its functions clearly defined, a Senate without any attempt to define its powers and functions on the legislative or executive side.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

I do not think there is any such formidable difficulty as the Lord Chancellor makes out. We have put in a Second Chamber as a protection to the minority in Ireland and to perform the general functions of a Second Clamber.

LORD ATKINSON

Will the noble Marquess say in what way it protects the minority? Is it by passing Acts or refusing to pass Acts?

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

Its functions may well be required to be elucidated by further amendments. That is always the case when an important Amendment is inserted in a Bill, and I can assure Lord Atkinson that those who are responsible for the proposal will perform that elementary function and make it quite clear what are the duties of the Second Chamber. I want to point out that it is one thing to have a Second Chamber for the North and South of Ireland and another thing to legislate for it; for making provisions that these Second Chambers should sit together and act in place of the Council. The two are totally different points. When you are dealing with a self-contained Parliament in Southern Ireland, or a self-contained Parliament in Northern Ireland, it is a very reasonable proposal, and one which I had tremendous confidence in supporting, that the constitution of each should not consist of one chamber but of two. We are familiar with it in every part of the world under the British Empire, and it is not unreasonable that it should be reproduced in Ireland. Upon that there is an additional proposal by Lord Shandon that the Senate should sit together for certain purposes and supersede the Council. Your Lordships have approved of that as far as the Bill has gone, and we have now reached a point when Lord Shandon proposes to invest the general body with still further functions. I confess I have some doubt as to whether it is a wise proposal, and I think Lord Shandon does not intend to proceed with the Amendment at the present time.

LORD SHANDON

I think it would be better not to proceed with it now, but bring up another Amendment dealing with the matter on Report.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

I do not want to interfere with the noble Lord's discretion, but I would suggest to the Government that we have now reached a stage, particularly as some confusion has arisen, at which it would be convenient to bring our proceedings to-night to an end. We shall not get much further to-night, and it will be better for Lord Shandon if he has a few hours for consideration. I move that the House be resumed.

Moved accordingly, and, on Question, House resumed, and to be again in Committee to-morrow.