WAYS AND MEANS.—REPORT. (Hansard, 7 May 1861)

§ MR. DISRAELI
said, I hope the noble Lord does not intend to press this matter at this late hour. (Twenty minutes past twelve o'clock.) ("Oh, oh!") If hon. Gentlemen are prepared to go on with the discussion, it makes no difference to me. I do not care how late we sit, as far as I am concerned. I leave it to the noble Lord to decide whether it is convenient that we should proceed now.

§ VISCOUNT PALMERSTON
I think this matter is quite as important as the Irish Tramways Bill, and I do not see why we should not go on with it.

§ LORD JOHN MANNERS
Some little time ago I think the noble Lord said the Irish Tramways Bill was much too important a subject to be proceeded with at so late an hour as half-past eleven o'clock. I hope he is prepared to carry out that principle in regard to this matter.

§ MR. R. P. LONG
I beg to move that this House do now adjourn.

§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER
After what has fallen from the right hon. Gentleman, it is right that the House should understand that the course which the Government propose is the regular, usual, and, I believe, the invariable course. I do not recollect any occasion on which, when a Resolution had been agreed to in Committee of Ways and Means, the practice has not been to propose to the House to proceed with the Report on the next evening, and that proposal has never been resisted, I believe, whatever might be the hour at which it was brought on. Of course, if we had proposed to diverge in any respect from the usual proceeding at this stage, that 1728 would have been a fair reason why we should have taken care to make our Motion at an early hour. I do not deny that it is the right of the House, if it thinks fit, to discuss all measures, and particularly financial measures, at any stage, but, at the same time, it is usual for the House to have some regard for the public convenience, and for the interest of trade and commerce in dealing with these matters. Acting on that principle it has been the custom of the House to allow the Report of Resolutions which have been fully discussed in Ways and Means to be proceeded with even at a late hour of the night, in order that the Bill may be introduced and placed on the notice paper. It is perfectly true that an hon. and learned Member has given notice of his intention to call attention to the course which the Government proposes to pursue, but that notice raises no particular issue, and has no particular relation to the stage with which we are at present concerned. It is entirely in his power, if he thinks fit, to call the attention of the House to the subject at any future stage. I trust, therefore, that the House in the division which is about to take place will mark its sense of the fact that the Government are not departing from the usual course.

§ LORD ROBERT CECIL
Sir, often as I have heard the strongest and strangest statements from the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I am absolutely aghast at the audacity which he has exhibited on the present occasion. What the Government are now proposing is to subdue the House of Lords. This is the stage at which the Government intend to obtain power to take a course hitherto unprecedented in our financial legislation for half a century. It has been the practice, hitherto, to divide all measures of finance into separate Bills, and to send them up separately to the House of Lords; but now, for a special political object, to avenge a special political defeat, to gratify a special pique, and to gain the doubtful votes of a special political section, it is proposed to vary the practice of half a century, and yet the right hon. Gentleman stands at that table and tells us he is proposing to take the usual and invariable course. At this hour—half-past twelve—it is not the proper time to discuss whether the right hon. Gentleman has taken the proper method to override the independent judgment of the House of Lords, nor whether that attempt is likely to succeed, 1729 or to reflect credit on the House of Commons, or the Government that proposes it. This, however, is the lever that is to alter the Constitution. I believe that the measure will be utterly futile, that it will leave the Constitution exactly as it finds it, and that the power of the House of Lords to check the infatuation of the House of Commons will be entirely unaltered. Whether the course we are asked to take is wise or not, it is too important, and goes too deeply into the principles of the British Constitution, to be discussed at this late hour of the night. I, therefore, only rise to protest against the right hon. Gentleman's attempt to impose this proceeding upon us as the ordinary routine financial proceeding. He is, on the contrary, taking a course which is perfectly unusual, and to which I am persuaded the House will not give its consent.

§ SIR GEORGE GREY
Sir, the noble Lord is singularly unfortunate to-night. He has displayed an utter ignorance of the practice of the House. He has used language which I will not characterise, since I suppose it was within the strict rule of Parliamentary debate. But it was language that we, happily, hear from few Members of this House. However, I pass that by; but the noble Lord has imputed to the Government a settled design of trenching upon the independence of the House. He saw this design in the Resolutions moved by my noble Friend at the head of the Government, who, however, acted in moving these Resolutions as the organ of the Select Committee, composed of men entitled to the respect even of the noble Lord. Having imputed to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer conduct which he said would not have been becoming to an attorney, the noble Lord now imputes to him a design of subverting the privileges of the House of Commons. If the noble Lord had any acquaintance with the forms of the House, he would have known that if the Resolution now before the House is agreed to, the only Motion that can be put is that which is identical with the Motion always put on receiving the Report of the Resolutions in Ways and Means. That Motion is that leave be given to bring in a Bill or Bills founded on those Resolutions. These are the terms of the Motion invariably put from the Chair. If the noble Lord objects to the form of the Bill or Bills when brought in, he 1730 can take the objection at the proper time, but no course that he can now adopt will effect the object that he professes to have in view.

§ SIR JOHN PAKINGTON
The right hon. Gentleman complains of the language used by my noble Friend the Member for Stamford, but he ought to have recollected that my noble Friend spoke under the not unnatural excitement caused by the unusual course adopted by the Government in pressing forward this Motion at this late hour of the night. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer emphatically contradicted my noble Friend when he said the course now proposed to be pursued was without a precedent for fifty years. But the right hon. Gentleman was utterly unable to state that it was not a most unusual course. Upon the statement of the right hon. Gentleman himself, an hon. and learned Member on this side of the House has expressed a desire to avail himself at this stage of the opportunity of expressing an opinion on the proposal of the Government. Her Majesty's Government must, surely, have some very special reason for pressing the reception of the Report. And we have some ground to suspect this when we find them endeavouring to hurry over in this indecorous manner this stage of the proceeding, in order to prevent my hon. and learned Friend from stating his views. I cannot help expressing a hope that the right hon. Gentleman will himself see the impropriety of pressing forward the present Motion at this late hour.

§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER
Sir, I do not think it will he any advantage to the progress of public business to endeavour to press further the proposal of the Government, if there is a disposition on the part of the minority not to allow us to pursue the usual course. It is our business to construe in the most favourable manner the course of the Opposition, and I feel quite sure it does not indicate any intention to obstruct the progress of public business. I shall, therefore, propose that further progress on this Order of the Day be adjourned until Thursday. It has this special advantage, that it will allow the noble Lord the Member for Stamford (Lord Robert Cecil) time to reconsider the vocabulary in which he has addressed us.

§ MR. DISRAELI
I am glad my noble Friend the Member for Stamford has received this public acknowledgment from the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the efficiency of his powers of expression. I confess I have listened with satisfaction to the noble Lord both last night and tonight, as it appeared to me that I never heard more constitutional opinions expressed in more effective language. I hope that on Thursday the noble Lord the Member for Stamford will be prepared to take that part in our debates in which I think he has greatly distinguished himself. I was extremely pleased by the meek tone in which, with this exception, the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer conducted the business. I hope the right hon. Gentleman and all his colleagues have found out that the best way to manage the House of Commons is to defer to any reasonable request. It may be very well to bully a colleague; but there is one body in the world which I can assure her Majesty's Government can not be bullied, and that is the British House of Commons. As the Chancellor of the Exchequer has made reference to the opportunities which the House has had to consider these questions, and to the urgency of the questions themselves, let me remind the House that a measure of this great importance was never yet placed before the House in a form like this, which, according to the authentic statement of a Minister of the Crown, abridges the privileges of this House, and abolishes altogether the power of revision of the other House of Parliament. If all these measures were brought in in different Bills, there would be the opportunity of discussing them on all the preliminary stages. We are not to have those opportunities, but still some occasions are reserved, and what has happened on bringing up the Report? No one can say that the occasion has been abused. Only yesterday the Chancellor of the Exchequer was so imperfectly acquainted with the conduct of business that he said it was unnecessary to move a Resolution in Committee, and to-day he says that is a mistake. If Ministers who have all the advantage of the advice of experienced men make these errors, surely the House of Commons ought not to be grudged an opportunity of considering these questions in every form. ("Oh, oh!") I say that is a sound constitutional doctrine which has been asserted by great men without fear of any 1732 one impugning its truth, and it is not to be answered by cries of "Oh, oh!" I do not wish now to enter into a discussion of the justice, policy, or expediency of the mode in which these measures are placed before us, but the result is that we are deprived of many opportunities of debate which we should have had if the usual form of conducting the public business had been followed. Is it unreasonable that we should wish to discuss important Resolutions on the Report? Is it a strange or unusual circumstance that there should be discussion, or even a Motion, upon the report of Resolutions? In my own time and experience I have known instances upon instances. I remember the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself delivering a very long speech, and, I believe, ending with a Motion on the report of Resolutions. Whether he did or not, it is a notorious fact that it is the custom and right of Parliament to discuss the policy of measures upon the report of Resolutions; and if the hour had been different, or if early in the evening the Government had expressed a wish that the discussion should not be unnecessarily protracted, I could have understood the objection; but that at one o'clock in the morning they should try to stifle the opinion of the House appears to me as unwise as it is uncourteous. It is said that we have no right to assume that these measures will be placed before us in a form unconstitutional and impolitic, but surely the House does not forget the authentic announcement that it is the intention of the Government to treat all these subjects in the same Bill. It would, therefore, not only be hypocritical but pedantic to affect total ignorance of the alarming policy which has been so ostentatiously announced. It is perfectly legitimate for the hon. and learned Member for Sligo (Mr. Macdonogh) upon the occasion of the Report to raise the question for discussion. Let it be fairly raised, and fairly answered. The right hon. Gentleman says that the convenience of trade requires that we should pass these measures without thought. Last year the right hon. Gentleman kept the paper duty question for three months open, and we never heard of the inconvenience to trade. As to paper and sugar, the legislation of this Session can not come into play for a considerable interval; and as to the income tax, if there is any inconvenience, as I 1733 told the right hon. Gentleman last night, he can meet it at once by bringing in a separate Bill. I am very glad the right hon. Gentleman has now taken the course which he ought at first to have pursued. I must say that the attempt which has been made tonight to stop the free discussion of this question has been one of the least disguised I have ever seen. It began by the hon. Baronet, the Member for Reading (Sir Francis Goldsmid), who may be excused for his general ignorance, having been only a short time in the House, accusing Gentlemen on this side of the House of coming down in unusual numbers. That was quite improper and unparliamentary, for it is assumed that a Member ought always to be in his place. It happens, however, that the benches on this side were not so full as they might have been, while on the benches opposite the number was legion. I could not conceive why that great attendance was occasioned by the Tramways Bill until we witnessed those fine acts of diplomacy which have had the effect of wasting two or three hours and causing a great sacrifice of Irish interests, without accomplishing the somewhat illegitimate object which the Government had in view. However, I understand that the Resolutions are to be reported on another night, when there will be a fair opportunity for discussion. No one will then be able to say that the Resolutions have been smuggled through the House; and I think, therefore, that the Government have taken a wise and prudent course.