BILLS OTHER THAN MONEY BILLS.

HC Deb 13 April 1910 vol 16 cc1251-321

Considered in Committee.

[Mr. EMMOTT in the Chair.]

(IN THE COMMITTEE.)

Question again proposed,

"2. That it is expedient that the powers of the House, of Lords, as respects Bills other than Money Bills, be restricted by Law, so that any such Bill which has passed the, House of Commons in three successive Sessions and, having been sent up to the House of Lords at least one month before the end of the Session, has been rejected by that House in each of those Sessions, shall become Law without the consent of the House of Lords on the Royal Assent being declared: Provided that at least two years shall have elapsed between the date of the first introduction of the Bill in the House of Commons and the date on which it passes the House of Commons for the third time.

" For the purposes of this Resolution a Bill shall be treated as rejected by the House of Lords if it has not been passed by the House of Lords either without Amendment or with such Amendments only as may be agreed upon by both Houses."

Earl WINTERTON

I beg to move to insert, after the word "than" ["as respects Bills other than Money Bills"], the words "Bills affecting the duration of Parliament and."

Those who like myself have put down this Amendment attach considerable importance to it, because we think it raises a point not hitherto discussed in the course of these Debates, and I would preface the few remarks I have to make by stating that, having listened to the Debates which have taken place in the course of this week, I have noticed—and I do not suppose anyone will be disposed to disagree with this—that the main line of argument adopted by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite is directed against the unfairness under the present Constitution of the House of Lords towards Liberal Bills. In fact, the argument has been that when the scales of the Constitution are tested, it is found that they weigh considerably against Liberal legislation. It would not be in order to discuss that on this Resolution. While there may be something to be said in favour of that contention, it is undoubtedly a fact that as regards this Amendment that argument affects it in no degree whatever. There is no question of Liberal legislation being unfairly treated if the Amendment is adopted. There is no question of a permanent Tory majority in the House of Lords preventing the passing of any social legislation which may be proposed by hon. Members opposite. I do not really imagine that there will be much difference of opinion on this Amendment. I say that without the Amendment there is very great danger that a serious attack will be made upon what I believe is a valuable safeguard of the freedom of this country, and that safe guard is that this House cannot by itself alter the duration of Parliaments. I say that is a very real danger if the Amendment is not accepted by the Government. That safeguard may be removed. It is a real danger, because in the first place it is agreed by hon. Members on both sides of the House that there has been during the past nine or ten years among Cabinets and caucuses a desire- that the Government of the day should obtain more power for themselves, and that less time should be available for private Members. It is a lust for power which is absolutely insatiable. I think the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Sir Henry Dalziel) will appreciate the value of the contention that the tendency of Cabinets to try to get into their hands, as against private Members, the power of legislation has grown in the last ten years. It would be perfectly possible, if you had not the safeguard with respect to the duration of Parliament, at some future date for a Government in moribund condition, or one with a transient majority, to pass a Bill in, say, its sixth year of office to prolong its term of office to the eighth or ninth year.

The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Churchill)

A Resolution is to be proposed restricting the duration of Parliament to five years.

Earl WINTERTON

Then it would be possible for a Government in its fifth year to pass a Bill to prolong its term of office. I do not say that the Government of the day would do it in order to indefinitely prolong its period of office. I am not suggesting that either party or that any Government would be likely to be so grossly dishonest as to wish to prolong its period of office merely to get the loaves and fishes of office; but I do say that a Government which had lost credit in the country might endeavour under this Resolution to force through Parliament a Bill to prolong its period of office to nine or ten years. There is nothing in the Resolution to prevent that being done. I have no doubt that the right hon. Gentleman opposite when he replies may be inclined to say that, after all, it is unthinkable that any Government should do such a thing, and that no Government would risk the consequences in the country of having to face the public opinion which would be roused by such action. I am sorry to say that I do not think such an argument is a sufficient argument to warrant us in interfering with the Septennial Act. I think public opinion is profoundly unimpressed by the political crisis in this House. I think the evidence of the last six months has proved it. We have had hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite making speeches both in this House and on the platform, and we have had writers in the Press telling us that we are in the greatest political crisis which has occurred for generations. The placid stream of business, sport and pleasure has gone on unruffled, notwithstanding what is going on in this House. People have been profoundly unstirred by all the great speeches which have been made from both Front Benches and by the party pressure which has been brought to bear in regard to this Question, and I say, therefore, there is real danger that the force of public opinion might not be sufficient to prevent the life of a Parliament being prolonged for nine or ten years. I do not think the safeguard of public opinion is at all sufficient to check the possibility of that being done.

Another point which arises in connection with Amendment is that in the present Resolution there is contained a provision that this House shall in future only sit for five years. It may be held by some that that Resolution is a sufficient guarantee against any possibility of a violent alteration of the Septennial Act. I regard that provision as a very ineffective barrier against the abolition of the Septennial Act, because if these Resolutions are passed in their entirety this House and the Government of the day in particular, I do not care which Government sits on that bench—I believe the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and the hon. Members below the Gangway will agree with me—will be given an enormous increase of power, and the dictatorship of the Cabinet will be enormously strengthened. The mere fact that there is in these Resolutions some reference to five-years Parliament in future is not a sufficient safeguard against the abolition of the Septennial Act or against increasing the five years period to a period of nine or ten years. I think it a very serious danger to this House and to the country that the Government should be permitted in these Resolutions to pass over the heads of the House of Lords without the possibility of any appeal to the country, a Bill which will enable them to remain in power, eight, nine, ten, or eleven or twelve years. The main argument put forward in favour of these Resolutions is one which I agree should have weight, and one in which I have considerable sympathy with hon. Members opposite. The argument is that at the present time the scales are unjustly weighted against Liberal legislation and against social legislation. But having regard to that argument, which I do not go into now, I feel that the proposal in this Amendment has no bearing on the main question, and as the Resolution in its present form will mean putting into the hands of the Government of the day a weapon which it would be dangerous for the country for them to have, I cannot see any reason why the Government should not, accept this Amendment. If they do refuse to accept it it will be for the reason that, having, like the man-eating tiger, once tasted blood, they will never rest until they have destroyed every individual liberty and every protection which we have in this country against the abuse by Governments of their power and against the tyrannous overriding of the people by majorities in this House.

The SECRETARY for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Churchill)

His Majesty's Government cannot accept the Amendment which the Noble Lord has moved. I do not pretend to deny that it may be urged with a fair show of reason, and certainly I do not pretend to deny that the Noble Lord has assembled his arguments with an effect which was not diminished by the moderation of his language, excepting his reference to the man-eating tiger. That goes a little beyond the smooth level of the arguments which he used in moving the Amendment. Let me tell the House in one or two sentences why it is that the Government do not propose to accept this Amendment and do not feel themselves convinced by the arguments that have been advanced. We consider that the procedure that we are setting up under these Resolutions, that is to say, the procedure of three Sessions and of two years' Debate and discussion, is a procedure adequate for the discussion even of the gravest matter. When it is conjoined with a provision such as appears in our Resolution, which is an integral part of our policy, and which will be incorporated in the operative clauses in our Bill, a provision for the reduction of the duration of Parliaments to a period of five years, we consider that that procedure and that period will be adequate for the discussion by Parliament of the gravest matters. In the second place, we consider that if you begin making Amendments and exceptions you would certainly have to put in a great many. If you are going to except everything which you consider is of extraordinarily or highly important constitutional character, you could not stop only at provisions limiting the duration of Parliament. You would have to include an enormous number of subjects in your category of exemptions. That, as I had to indicate to the House last night, is not a policy to indulge in, but I quite recognise what the Noble Lord has said as to the danger of the Government in the declining years of its power seeking to make itself immortal by prolonging indefinitely the life of its Parliament. But we have all been through that danger; we have all passed through that danger during the years of Conservative predominance when the party opposite had a majority in this House. It is well known that they would find no difficulty in procuring from the House of Lords their assent to any measure which they might wish to propose, and I can well conceive a case in which the party opposite would be engaged in prosecuting, say, some great Colonial or foreign war when the ordinary Parliamentary life had come to an end, and when the Liberal party would be strongly divergent from the policy in which they were engaged, and I certainly /should feel that there was no great assurance that they might not conceivably attempt to prolong their life. If they were to attempt it I am quite certain they would find no difficulty in persuading or converting the House of Lords that the demand which they were putting forward was a very reasonable demand which the paramount interests of the State required. We have to fight all these dangers when the Conservative party is in power. It is quite true that they do not seem very real dangers to anyone who faces the problem calmly, and they will be no more real and no more present when the Liberals are in power than they have been all these years when the Conservatives have enjoyed a majority in this House.

I should like to point out that the dangers, whatever they are which have existed in the past of the Conservative party utilising the single-Chamber system which is in force when they are in power to perpetuate their hold upon the Government will, at any rate, be substantially mitigated by the third Resolution, which limits the life of a Parliament to five years. The Noble Lord has not given, I think, full weight to that Resolution. He said we had made some reference to five years' Parliaments. We have done more than that. We have put a definite Resolution on the Paper, and we shall have a definite I clause in the Bill making five years' Parliaments necessary and inseparable from our constitutional system. And when the Noble Lord speaks of Parliament in its sixth year prolonging its existence it is quite clear that he was not bearing in mind the provision of quinquennial Parliaments, which, after all, in the first instance, will be established by the Resolution which we are now asking the House to assent to. Even if he had been bearing that in mind the period required to pass legislation through the House would, in addition, be so long that legislation could not be passed within the time. It would only be in the third year at the very latest that some step of this kind would be taken, whereas all these years in which the Unionist party had a majority we have been exposed to their taking this step, which they would be much more likely to take towards the end of their tenure of office than in the earlier period. As I said last night on another Amendment, when that is the position the Government take up with regard to all these exemptions from the scope of the Veto, certainly it would be well worth considering if the party opposite were ready to be reassured by the insertion of any particular stipulation of this character whether in return for any such stipulation they would join hands with us to make an effective constitutional settlement on the lines we propose. And if they would, and would give us the guarantee, which, after all, they can supply easily, that when our discussion in this House is ended there shall be no upsetting of our decision in another place, then, I say, it might be well worth our while to see if we could reassure them. But I do not think it a necessary part of our procedure, and we do not, as at present advised, see any need to make exemptions from the broad general scope of the Resolution, which rests on the principle that Parliament, a newly elected House of Commons, fresh from contact with the country, shall under the procedure which we prescribe in the earlier years of its existence have full power to give effect to decisions which its Members conceive they are empowered to give by the constituencies which have lately returned them to the House of Commons.

Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN

The right hon. Gentleman concluded his observations by repeating his somewhat ambiguous offer to the Opposition, which, as he said, he made on another Amendment last night. The hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Sir Henry Dalziel) drew his attention to what he had said; but the hon. Member for Kircaldy need have no apprehension, because he knows that we are not going to accept any arrangement such as the right hon. Gentleman proposes. That arrangement is that, in return for the acceptance of the Amendment of my Noble Friend, we should accept the whole of the Government Resolutions. Of course, that is preposterous, and it is only put forward as a pleasant piece of Parliamentary humour. The right hon. Gentleman himself would be more surprised than anybody else if it received serious attention. The attitude of my Noble Friend and those who support his Amendment is quite different. I think he put it forward only as a touchstone to try the true intentions of the Government, as something by which he might try the real meaning, and intention, the real effect of the Resolution, rather than as being, if standing by itself, a very important change in the scheme which they have proposed. He first asks what are the objects and intentions with which they are making these Resolutions? I confess I am astonished that for their own sake and in their own interests the Government do not accept the Amendment without more ado. Let us examine for a moment the reasons which the right hon. Gentleman adduced as being those which govern the Government in their refusal. In the first place he recited the mystic procedure of three and two arrangements. He said that the Government proposed three Sessions in two years, or three Votes in three Sessions in two years, and that by that mystic combination of figures all would be wall; and it was a sufficient guarantee against any abuse of power, the right hon. Gentleman said, and he repeated it again in the latter portion of his speech, that whatever the House of Commons is pleased to Vote in its first and repeat in its next two Sessions shall become law without more ado. The proposal to extend their own lifetime and to deprive the country of the ordinary appeal, nominally to be set up by this Bill, is to be treated exactly like any small legislative change, and is to be subject to the will of a single House of Commons exercised in that way. The Government not only contemplate this as a thing which is possible, but they deliberately say that if the House of Commons choose to do it, it ought to be done. We entirely differ. But does it not cast a very valuable light upon their notion of what democratic government in this country really is? His next objection was—and I confess, from the point of view of the Government, I can see it is a more serious one—that if he gives way to the Amendment of my noble Friend by necessary parity of reasoning, he would have to give way to a great many other Amendments, and that would become very troublesome. But if you chose to put the Constitution, which has been hitherto unwritten, into writing, into the form of Resolutions, and still more into the form of a Bill, it will become complicated, and you cannot make a good piece of work without taking the trouble to deal with those complications and introducing securities where necessary. His third objection was that at the present time the Septennial Act really afforded no safeguards.

Mr. CHURCHILL

Not whenever you are in power.

Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN

Exactly, whenever a Unionist Government is in power. The right hon. Gentleman has never lacked boldness of statement about matters which are not capable of proof. I differ from him, and venture to say that if a Conservative or Unionist Government should at any future time, for purely party purposes, seek to repeal the Septennial Act, and continue Parliament for a longer period, they would no more be able to get that Bill through the other House of Parliament than right hon. Gentlemen sitting opposite. And my assertion is at least as good as that of the right hon. Gentleman opposite. No proof is possible—unless some day a Conservative Government were to attempt to take this action—of either assertion, but I say that the whole action of the House of Lords, their whole attitude of mind on public questions—

Mr. CHURCHILL

It has already been done. Parliament has extended its life from the triennial to the septennial period, presumably with the consent of the House of Lords, and without consulting the electors.

Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN

I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman means the repeal of the Triennial Act and the substitution of the Septennial Act, which, if I remember rightly was passed by the Whig party, the Whigs of the glorious revolution, in order to maintain that glorious revolution, because they did not dare to go to the country at that moment, and it was a House of Lords with a big majority. On the whole a Unionist House of Lords behaves better. I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman's historical reminiscences have served him in good stead on this particular occasion. But suppose that the allegation was true, or let me suppose, what is far more reasonable, that hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite honestly believe that there is nothing that a Conservative majority could ask in this House in the way of constitutional change for their own party purposes, which at any particular moment the Conservative majority in the House of Lords would not grant. That is the opinion of some hon. Gentlemen opposite. If that be so, what is the remedy? Alter the constitution of the House of Lords, produce a reform scheme, but do not pass Resolutions which detract from or destroy powers which are necessary to the proper exercise of the functions not merely of the present Second Chamber but of any Second Chamber that may at any time be set up. It is still more foolish to do that with the knowledge, as the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy pointed out last night, that the moment you come to your reform, if you ever do, and if it is anything more than a mere pretence and sham, you have to recreate the powers which you are now seeking to destroy. I say that if the theory is worked out your proper remedy is to alter the composition of the House of Lords, and not to destroy its power or to make this House absolute. I suggest that the danger which my Noble Friend's Amendment seeks to guard against is a much more real one than the Home Secretary would have us believe. I am not alone in that view, and I shall trouble the House with a short extract from an article written in the "Contemporary Review," in 1895, by Lord Justice Fletcher Moulton, who at that time, I think, was a Member of this House, and who was then known as Mr. Fletcher Moulton, Q.C. He was a Liberal Member, and I have no doubt his views will weigh with hon. Member's opposite. He says:— There are many Members of the Liberal party who think that there is no alternative between the abolition of the House of Lords or depriving it of its Veto. And then he goes on to say, after discussing reform and the plan of abolishing the Veto:— Indeed, the plan of abolishing; the Veto alone and leaving the House as a formal though not practical part of our Constitution, is of the two the more drastic change, for it precludes the substitution of another more popular Chamber in its stead, and effectually ensures that our Legislature shall be reduced to a single Chamber. Then he goes on to speak of what a single Chamber might do, and what it means:— To allow a single Chamber to govern a great country like ours without a written Constitution, cannot surely be seriously proposed. Each House of Commons would be in the position of an absolute dictator, with the difference that it could determine the period of its power and the mode of choosing its successor. I would remind the Committee that the hon. Member for Salford (Mr. Belloc) the other day said that the Government, if they were wise, would not dissolve until they had prepared the constituencies and made them more favourable.

Mr. BELLOC

What I said was that they should appeal to the people, which they cannot do now.

Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN

Exactly. In plain language, they are not to appeal until they have altered the electoral law and the constituencies; otherwise, until they had altered them, they would continue their own existence until, in Mr. Moulton's words, they had had an opportunity of fixing the mode of choosing their successor. Mr. Moulton went on to say: — No such House need ever be dissolved, for it would have the power of prolonging its own existence. But whether it came to an end or not, its nets would be the laws under which the realm would be governed until some future House (of Commons) had varied them. It would thus be easy for any political party which was for the moment in a small majority to secure, without exceeding this legal power, that future Houses should be chosen in such a way as to give it the upper hand. There you have a danger pointed out by a Liberal when arguing, I think, in favour of reform of the Upper House and of considerable changes in the Constitution; and there you have a. danger against part of which at least my Noble Friend seeks to guard. Is this a purely imaginary danger? The Home Secretary likes historical questions. May I take him back to the Long Parliament? The Long Parliament passed, as is well known, the declaration that the House of Lords was an unnecessary and useless part of the Constitution which ought to be abolished, and that the Bills which received the attention of this. House should have the force of law. What followed? We had single-Chamber Government for a time; then within three years of the passage of the Resolution this House was actually engaged in discussing a, Bill called the Perpetuity Bill, the object of which was to continue for life as the representative voice of his constituency every Member then sitting in the House, and to give the House the right to choose the successor of a Member if he died, or the right to veto anyone chosen by the constituency. That is our experience in this country of single-Chamber Government, and is it not worth while, when setting up single-Chamber Government again, at least to provide against such a gross abuse of its legal authority toy an autocratic and arbitrary majority in a particular House of Commons? Is it not worth while even in the interests of the House of Commons itself? These measures are apt not to succeed. The arbitrary exercise of power leads to the exercise of other arbitrary powers, and the House of Commons which so conduct themselves are apt to have a summary end put to their existence, either by a popular uprising or by putting an end to their authority. So it happened in this case to which I refer. While the Perpetuity Bill was under discussion, Cromwell came down the floor of the House, and told the Corporal to take away "that bauble" which was on the Table, and bade the gentlemen who sat there "to get them gone from hence." I think I may put my historical precedent against that of the Home Secretary, and I think I am more fortunate in the support which mine gives to the case I am upholding.

Mr. BELLOC

I will detain the Committee only for a few moments on a point which is a little novel, and I apologise to hon. Members for its novelty. It is as to the way in which the Amendment is moved. This, like many Amendments moved by the official Opposition against the Government of the time being, is merely a verbal Amendment—I mean a verbal Amendment which gives rise to a discussion without any real intention of dealing with the case. Does the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Austen Chamberlain) seriously think that the modern House of Commons is going to make itself perpetual? Does he think we shall run the physical risk which such a piece of folly would involve, or does he think that sitting in this House is so pleasant a task that one would desire to endure it for the whole of one's natural life? I do not think honestly that interest in this Amendment will go so far as the Harmsworth Press will probably make of it to-morrow morning. That does not mean far, very far down, and I do not think the interest of the population would go so far down as that.

Quite apart from its effect as far as public interest is concerned, there does, as the Opposition suspects, lurk one vary real point. In the near future, if the battle is continued which is now going on between professional politics, and what I may call real politics, we have got them on the run, and, if private Members on both sides keep official Members on the run, the great weapon against making this place the representative and deliberative Assembly which it ought to be, may be destroyed. The great weapon against the power of the private Member to represent his constituents, which is now almost lost, is the power of the Government by arrangement with the Opposition Front Bench to have a dissolution when it chooses. It is that which makes false voting; it is that which makes a man say, "I must vote against my Constituents, against my convictions, and I will vote in such and such a way, because if I do not vote in such and such a way, the Government will fall, and that will mean a new election." Everyone remembers the scene—I do not call it pitiful or disgraceful, but comical—in which the Labour Members were compelled to vote, if I remember rightly, that 23s. per week was more than enough for working men in Greenwich, having moved an Amendment to the effect that it was not enough. I am not here to criticise their action. They are politicians, and they are tacticians, and I am not. I do not know how I should have acted if I were in their place, and, therefore, it is not for me to quarrel with the way they voted. At any rate, no one will deny this whether the Labour party on that famous occasion were right or wrong, their motive was that, if they had not voted as they did, the Government would have fallen.

The reform which will perhaps be brought about in the near future, and which will be attempted whether it succeeds or not, and as to that no one can tell or prophesy, the democratic reform will be to attempt to make the House of Commons independent of that power on the part of the official and professional politicians, and to make it a place which meets for a fixed term of years, and a short term of years, so that the Executive must bow to the opinion of the majority, and not to the old antiquated machinery of that co-opted Executive, which no one has nominated, and which is responsible to no one, and which is necessarily master of the House of Commons. When that reform is attempted, a Second Chamber, no matter how you constitute it, will be against reform. However it is nominated, it will be nominated by the power of the professional politicians, and however it is framed, it cannot be framed upon a basis more democratic than that of universal and equal suffrage, which we desire, and which will very soon be obtained for this House of Commons. It cannot be more democratic, because you cannot prevent the professional politician from interfering with the freedom of debate. It is because we do not leave this right to insist on the limitation of its own powers, or the Second Chamber the will to thwart that reform, that I shall oppose this Amendment. I shall oppose it merely because it is a verbal Amendment, and only requires that opposition.

As a personal point was raised by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Austen Chamberlain) I would like to explain more fully than I could in an interruption what I meant. It is perfectly true that I said the other day that it would be unwise and unjust to appeal to the people, as both Front Benches have agreed, I believe, to appeal in the near future on the present basis, because on that present basis you are not appealing to the people at all. What gave the huge Liberal majority in the last Parliament? It was the abstention of the plural voter who was frightened by Tariff Reform, which at that moment appeared to have some reality. Now, having discovered from his point of view that there are worse things even than Tariff Reform, such as Licensing Bills and the Licensing Clauses of the Budget, and other things, he came back to vote Conservative this time, and vote against the Government of the day. I do not think, with the character of the English people and of the Press especially, and with our power of preventing anything from getting out that the governing classes do not want known, I do not think universal suffrage and equal suffrage, and one vote having one value, as well as one man one vote, with a disfranchisement of the rural part and an extra enfranchisement of the urban part, that that would make necessarily for the power of the democracy—

The CHAIRMAN

I allowed the hon. Member to proceed, inasmuch as he said it was a personal explanation; but he is now travelling wide of the Amendment.

Mr. BELLOC

I bow to your ruling, and I have nothing more to say.

Mr. LAWSON

The hon. Member for Salford (Mr. Belloc) denied that there is substance in the Amendment now before the Committee. I cannot claim to speak for the Harmsworth Press in any way, but may I point out to him, and to hon. Gentleman opposite, that the importance of this Amendment that has not perhaps been specifically pointed out is that it is one of a series of Amendments which removes proposals affecting the structure of the Constitution from the ordinary run of legislation, and places them in a category by themselves. If the Government refuse to put what are called Amendments of the Constitution in a special category, they are acting against the Parliamentary light of the whole civilised world. There is hardly a single country, there is hardly one of our own Colonies, which has not considered the question of constitutional Amendments as separate and distinct from other questions before Parliament. The Secretary for War, speaking the other day on the general question, said that we had very little to learn from foreign countries. I think he was rather appealing to the baser passions of those behind him, because nobody can deny that we have at this stage a good deal to learn from the founders of the American Constitution, which was at the time it was formulated intended to be a copy and reflection of our own Constitution. The Committee knows perfectly well that, in the case of a constitutional amendment, the two Houses in America are called together, and in the Senate and House of Representatives only a two-thirds majority can be effective. I may point out, however, that it is not only a question of the way in which constitutional amendments are dealt with in the United States. I may mention that Mr. Bryce, who is our Ambassador there, and who was a very prominent Member of the Liberal party, is entirely in favour of it. In addition to that, the other day, when the House of Commons gave Australasia a new constitution they provided special machinery by which constitutional amendments were to be treated differently from all other questions that were brought before Parliament. They are referred to the votes o£ the electors. Under those circumstances I cannot think that the Front Bench and the Home Secretary can justify putting constitutional Amendments on an exact part with every other question, however small, which may be brought before Parliament.

Nobody imagines that these Resolutions spell finality. We all recollect that a former Leader of this House was nicknamed "Finality"' because he described the Reform Act of 1832 as finality. Every time that the House of Lords in the future sets itself up and makes use of the procedure we are now providing for the delay of Bills there will be a cry, whether it is an effective cry or not, for the taking away from that House of the powers which, under these Resolutions, we now propose to give them. Therefore I say most emphatically that a good case has been made out for putting Amendments of the Constitution in a category of their own. If we do not do so we shall be neglecting the example of the whole of the Parliamentary world. If we do not do so we shall be taking a step which we have said is wrong in the case of our own Colonies when we turned them into Dominions. We are doing it in a worse way still, and with bigotry against, the House of Lords. Anybody who has sat through these Debates must have noticed that on the other side there is an atmosphere of intense, deep-rooted, and unreasonable prejudice against the House of Lords. It comes out in every speech. In the speech by the hon. Member for the Newton Division of Lancashire (Mr. Seddon) delivered last night, he said that the House of Lords never acted except from the meanest self-interest. I should like to know what would the hon. Member have said if we cast any general reflection on hon. Members on the Labour Benches—

The CHAIRMAN

As I pointed out to the hon. Member at the time, the hon. Member (Mr. Seddon) was travelling very wide of the Amendment.

Mr. LAWSON

I bow to your ruling, and I only say that it is an atmosphere of prejudice against the House of Lords in which these Amendments are being considered. That is surely not the way in which a great Amendment of the Constitution ought to be considered. Whatever is the case now, I do appeal to the great reasoning powers of the Home Secretary, of which he gave us so brilliant an example yesterday, as to whether he cannot see that there is a broad distinction between Amendments of the Constitution under these Resolutions and of other measures which might be submitted to Parliament. That is founded on history. It is founded on the dictum of Cromwell, that certain things are fundamental in Parliament, and because they are fundamental, and because it has been recognised by this House that they are, I ask that this Amendment and the other, which proposed to put Amendments of the Constitution on a different footing to all other questions, should be recognised, and Should be admitted, and that some way should be prepared for them by the Government. I am afraid what Johnson said of Priestley is true of these Resolutions, that they tend to unsettle everything, and settle nothing. All those who really agree with the Constitution as it exists, and who agree much more that in remodelling it we shall have some regard for the lessons of the past, and the reasonable views of the future, must see that these Amendments, of which this is one, and perhaps not the most important, should be seriously considered by the Government, and not put aside as if they were merely brought forward from party motives, in order to obstruct the passage of this curious programme through the House of Commons. It is for that reason I do hope we shall have something more than we have yet heard indicating what course the Government intend in future to pursue in regard to amendments of our Constitution, when it is remodelled.

Mr. RYLAND ADKINS

It is impossible not to notice in every speech from the opposite side, and even from the speech of the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken, the suggestion that he is not acting from party motives, and that every suggestion made on this side of the House, every speech in defence of these Resolutions, is actuated by the most unworthy motives, and is distorted by evil feeling. I think it might be possible for a few minutes to discuss this Amendment without either claiming for oneself a pharisaical virtue, or imputing to one's opponents any kind of evil desire. Here is an Amendment similar in character—as has been pointed out by the hon. Member (Mr. Lawson)—to others on the Paper, which seek gravely to limit the Resolution before the Committee, and to prevent the supremacy of this House in legislation concerning the duration of Parliament. There are two ways in which one would approach consideration of an Amendment like this, and one is as to its intrinsic importance. Was the attempt made by those who support it to draw some marked and exceptional distinction between measures affecting the duration of Parliament and other measures which may be equally, if not more, important, made out? I think the Committee will agree that little, if any, attempt has been made to mark out this Amendment from other Amendments in that way. In fact the point of the hon. Member (Mr. Lawson) was that this was like other Amendments, and to a less degree than others it does make constitutional change. If that be so it is because the action of the other House has imposed upon this the duty of making a constitutional change. I trust hon. Members on this side of the House are united in opposing any Amendments, and this no less than the others, which would seek to limit the supremacy of this House in connection with constitutional reform.

5.0 P.M

The analogy drawn from other countries is singularly inept. I am surprised to hear the hon. Member (Mr. Lawson) quoting the American Constitution as an illustration in favour of his argument. Whoever heard before that the fathers of the American Constitution were bent on a slavish imitation of the English Constitution at that time? No one knows better than the hon. Member how largely their inspiration was from Continental sources, and how entirely their action was conditioned by the federal character of the State with which they were dealing. He also referred to the Constitution of the Commonwealth. But that did not arise out of, and was not conditioned by a constitutional struggle, and it did not come about, as these Resolutions do, as one stage and only one in a great constitutional conflict. To ask us to imitate in these Resolutions or in Amendments to them something entirely different in other parts of the world is to attempt to divert the attention of the Committee and of the country from the particular circumstances in which these Resolutions are proposed and from the real character of the constitutional crisis with which they have to deal.

Another way of regarding this Amendment is by keeping in mind the character and position of the House for which the retention of this power is advocated on the other side. After its acts of the last few years, is it in accord with the welfare of the country that the House of Lords as now constituted, after its power in other matters has been restricted, as it would be by these Resolutions, should still be allowed to have the last and determining voice in matters affecting the duration of Parliaments? Not a little have the events of the last few years been conditioned by the interposition of the House of Lords in matters having reference to the duration of Parliament. When hon. Members opposite are in power, we understand what the Septennial Act really means; and when Members on this side are in office we know how the influence of the House of Lords can be used, as it was used last November, to shorten unduly the duration of Parliament. If this Amendment were allowed, and that power were retained to the House of Lords of having the last word in any legislation affecting the duration of Parliaments, you would preserve for it a power in that particular department which, to judge from the past, has been and would be used for the same purposes which have dictated the action of the House of Lords during the last few years. This Amendment, and any other which substantially affects the value and extent of the Resolution, will, I am sure, be decided upon by the view taken by the Committee as to the character of that Assembly for which the Amendment seeks to retain further power. It is not a question, as it might have been years ago, of a Second Chamber representing caution and stability, and whose sanction therefore should be obtained before any alteration was made in the duration of Parliaments. That old character, never really fully existing, but constantly claimed for the House of Lords years ago, has entirely departed from it during the last ten or twenty years. It is no longer representative of things as they are against attempts made by the Liberal or the Labour party to alter them; it is the unabashed champion of one group of innovators, against another. The action it would take supposing this power were retained, if it be the House of Lords that we know to-day, would be dictated not by the interest of postponing innovations, but by the question whether or not it suited the quite different kind of innovation to which Gentlemen opposite are so deeply pledged. The real fact lying behind this constitutional conflict is that it is a contest, not between this House and an impartial independent revising body, but between this House, which after the last two elections has represented the predominant desire of the country for progress on certain lines, and another House equally anxious for legislative alterations, and even more anxious to alter entirely the financial system of the country—a House just as much pledged to and interested in change as this. Therefore, when you have a Second Chamber, not of the truly revising character, and still less of the retarding character, which Second Chambers in constitutional text-books are supposed to be, it is highly unfitting to bring in aid of this or any similar Amendment the argument that the constitutional change proposed ought not to be effected without the Second Chamber having special powers of prevention. The other House is just as partisan as this, with the great difference that the partisanship there is permanent and excessive, always on the one side. Therefore, if these Resolutions were passed, in regard to any constitutional changes which might be initiated by this House, before the other essential part of the Government programme for reconstitution is carried out—any measure such as one for altering the duration of Parliaments—it would be better to trust to the action of this House with the safeguards contained in these Resolutions. If there is one kind of proposal more than another which would be certain to receive the fullest attention, and which it would be the least possible to drive through this House against the will of the country, it is a proposal for altering the duration of Parliaments. Of all possible proposals that is the one in regard to which the two years' interval would be most thoroughly used, and in regard to which there would be the least possible danger of any permanent harm following.

This Amendment is put forward in the supposed interests of constitutional stability, in the interests of what in the days of Wellington and Peel would have been called the Conservative party. But it is put forward as part of the plan of the Opposition to impair the strength and completeness of the Resolutions before the Committee. There is to-day no Conservative party in this House or in the other. There is a Protectionist party and a Jingo party, and I fully admit that there, are more parties than one on this side of the House. My point at present is not to attack Protection, or to enlarge on the dangers of jingoism, but to emphasise the fact that the cleavage between parties is not between those who wish to preserve and those who wish to alter. The competition is between two parties each with its aggressive or, if you like to call it so, progressive programme, quite as much as in the case of America or France. That being so, there is no appropriateness in defending or extending the powers of the so-called revising Chamber when those powers are now being exercised in the interests of a party bent on innovation quite as much as against a party in favour of great and important legislative changes, such as the party on this side of the House. By reason of the real character of the present constitutional crisis, and because no-reasonable case has been made out why this particular Amendment should receive exceptional treatment, I oppose it, and I shall have the greatest pleasure in giving my vote in favour of the Resolution being carried in its entirety, because while this Resolution alone would be inadequate to deal with the constitutional crisis it is a first and necessary step, and I hope the Government will use every effort to carry it into law as soon as possible.

Sir FREDERICK BANBURY

The hon. Member opposite (Mr. Adkins) has made the startling assertion that this Resolution is inadequate to meet the crisis with which we are face to face. Does he mean that when we have passed this Resolution it is to be only the beginning, and that we are to have all sorts of other Resolutions, with a view to further strengthening the Radical party, and to further diminishing the power of the constitutional party? The hon. Member is silent; therefore I presume that there is some such idea in his mind. The hon. Member also stated that the House of Lords was not a retarding Chamber as a Second Chamber ought to be. I thought that one of the complaints against the House of Lords was that it was a retarding Chamber, and that it had rejected measures brought in by hon. Gentlemen opposite. Apparently, whatever the House of Lords does, whether it passes Bills or whether it rejects them it does wrong. The hon. Member for Salford (Mr. Belloc) said that he did not intend to discuss the Amendment at length, because it was dead. That seems to me an extraordinary reason to give, because it means that since he and his party happen to be in a majority, and therefore can destroy any Amendment, any such Amendment is dead, and it is not worth while discussing it. What a commentary upon the state of things which would exist it the House of Lords were deprived of its power, and there were a large majority in this House of hon. Members opposite. Everything that the Opposition brought forward would be dead, because hon. Members opposite were in a majority, and therefore they would deem it not worth while discussing them. Then the hon. Member went on—and I followed his second argument very closely —to give an illustration' showing how the Labour party voted against giving a man more than 23s. a week, although they approved of that proposal. They voted against their convictions and against their own proposal, according to the hon. Member's illustration, because they desired to keep the Government in office. That is just what we are afraid of. If this Amendment is not inserted hon. Members opposite would do exactly what, according to the hon. Member for Salford's illustration, the Labour party did. They would vote against their convictions in order to keep their own side in office, and if they want to do that there is nothing to prevent them doing it. The hon. Member who has just spoken said there were safeguards, and that such questions would have to be discussed for three years in two Sessions. We all know what that means. We had an experience of it on the Scotch Land Bill. It was discussed in 1907, but it was not discussed in 1908. It was closured at once, and I say the same thing would happen again. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that hon. Members opposite came in again in 1911 or even 1910 with these Resolutions passed, what is to prevent the introduction of a Bill at the beginning of the Parliament and the passing of it into law, which would perpetuate their power for all time, or for ten years or fifteen years, or any time that suited their convenience? What would be the use of discussing that three times in two years? What power would the party opposed to them have of preventing an overwhelming majority, or any majority they had, from going into the Division Lobby and carrying that Bill into law? It would be quite impossible to stop it if this Resolution were passed, unless, as one of my hon. Friends has said, it was stopped by force of arms and we brought in the military. It has been said that hon. Members will pay some regard to the feelings of the country. I do not think they would pay the slightest regard to that, once they got the power. That Is absolutely absurd, and nobody knows it better than the hon. Gentleman himself.

The Home Secretary did not take quite the same line as the hon. Member for Salford did. He admitted that the Amendm0ent was an important one, but he said he could not accept it. One has to be extremely careful in listening to the utterances of Ministers, because they do not always explain themselves with sufficient clearness, but I understood the Home Secretary to say that he would accept this Amendment provided we did our best to allow the Resolutions to become law, and I understood him also to say he would reassure us. But reassurance is a different thing from the Amendment. The reassurance of the Home Secretary might hot meet with the approval of the Chancellor of the Duchy, and the Home Secretary, in that case, might have to swallow his reassurance. In any case, he gave no reason why hon. Members on this side should accept that assurance. He also attempted to show that there were the safeguards mentioned by the hon. Member—the three Sessions and the two years—and he went on to say, if you are going to put in everything that you think is acceptable you will have to put in a great deal more than this. No doubt we must deal with one thing at a time, but it is no use refusing an Amendment which is reasonable and wise because afterwards you may have to accept some other Amendment. He went on to say that the Conservatives, if they were in power, and if this Resolution was passed, would endeavour to perpetuate their own term. What grounds had he for that assertion? Everybody, including the hon. Member opposite, knows that such a statement is an absurd one with regard to this party, but I think I can show you that there are grounds for thinking that the Liberal party would do the same thing. What happened in the Long Parliament? The Radicals were in power at that time, and it is the only time that the House of Lords was abolished. They took that opportunity to keep themselves in office—I think it was for twenty years—until Cromwell came down with a battalion of Guards—fortunately they are not far off at the present moment — and removed what he called "the bauble." Then the next instance was the alteration of triennial Parliaments into septennial Parliaments. That was done by a Whig Government, just after the Revolution of 1715, and at that time the Whig party had given the country some experience of their legislation, and they were afraid to go to the country for its support, and therefore they extended the period from three years to seven. At that time there was a Radical majority in the Lords, and, unless I am misinformed, the ancestors of a Noble Friend of mine, who at that time had the same patriotic feelings which animate his descendant, endeavoured to stop what he considered to be a breach of the Constitution. What did they do? Why, they put him into the Tower. He ventured to differ with them, and so they put him into the Tower. I do not know what is going to take the place of the Tower after the House of Lords has been abolished; but I am sure something of that sort will be used by hon. Members opposite if they get too much power. Coming to later days, what happened in 1884? The Radical party was returned in 1880, and they had so disgusted the country that they felt that if they appealed to the same electorate as in 1880 they would be turned out. So they jerrymandered the Constitution, and extended the franchise, so as not to appeal to the same people, and to try to retain office. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no."] That is a fact. How can anybody deny it? The franchise was extended in 1885 to the agricultural labourer solely because Mr. Gladstone had made a mess of things in the case of Gordon and in other things, and he knew the country would not return him. The same thing was tried in the last Parliament. The Plural Voting Bill was introduced merely because it was assumed by the party opposite that the richer and more respectable members of society were always against them. So in the last 200 years the Radical party have always sought, when going out, to endeavour to so alter the electorate as to give them a better chance of returning.

Mr. JOSEPH KING

Is the hon. Baronet in order in discussing electoral reforms proposed by the Radical party?

The CHAIRMAN

The hon. Baronet was not discussing electoral reforms; he was saying that certain changes in the Constitution had been made, and that possibly that might be done again; and I think he is in order.

Sir FREDERICK BANBURY

Quite so. We can only judge of the future from the past, and history always repeats itself. If this Amendment was not put in to restrain their ardour, hon. Gentlemen and right hon. Gentlemen opposite would probably do in the future what they tried to do in the past and failed to do because they had not the power. That was the point of my argument. I believe it is a good point, because the hon. Gentleman who interrupted could not listen to it for a few moments for fear the House should be converted. I think I have shown it is extremely important that the Amendment should not be rejected without due consideration. I think I have shown that the country does not desire that either party should have the power of extending their term of office for an indefinite time. One of the reasons given by the Home Secretary was that they were prepared later on to pass a Resolution which would alter the Septennial Act to five years. That is no argument against the Amendment. It is rather one in favour of it. It shows what is in the minds of hon. Gentlemen opposite, and that they intend to change the duration of Parliament. If they can reduce it from seven years to five, why not increase it from five years to nine? I can see nothing to prevent them doing that if they thought it was necessary, and I am sure they would think it necessary, because they believe you can only get the country properly governed when they are in power. This Amendment does not affect Money Bills. It does not allow the Lords to interfere with Money Bills. If the Resolution is passed the period of Parliament will be fixed, I presume, at five years, but we think that period should not be altered unless the House of Lords concur—that is to say, unless the people are consulted. Here we have another instance of the fear which hon. Gentlemen have of ever consulting the people if they can possibly avoid it. The Chancellor of the Duchy shakes his head; he did not appear to be very anxious last year, and I am certain he is not very anxious now. Where is the harm in the people being consulted? If this Amendment was carried nothing more would happen than that, if it was again necessary to alter the Constitution, there would have to be an appeal to the people. Another hon. Gentleman said it was no use quoting America In America there are safeguards against alteration of the Constitution, and if hon. Gentlemen, as they admit, are going to further change the Constitution of this country, they ought either to accept an Amendment of this sort, or on the next Resolution frame an alternative that would keep the power in the hands of some Supreme Court that would compare with the Supreme Court in America. I have endeavoured to put moderately and calmly my views with regard to this Amendment. Personally I am rather glad that hon. Gentlemen opposite have refused to accept the Amendment, because it shows what their real object is, and I think it would be a lesson to the country if, as the hon. Member for Salford said, the people did read the "Daily Mail." I hope the "Daily Mail" will publish everything that has taken place, and if the people read it they will see what hon. Gentlemen are driving at. They cannot even accept an Amendment of this sort, because they are afraid it might cause an appeal to the country, which is the last thing they want.

Mr. BYLES

I shall be very curious to see, when we reach the next Resolution, whether the hon. Baronet and other Members sitting beside him are ready to accept the proposals which the Government are making to shorten the duration of Parliament. One would imagine so, from the arguments they have been using.

Sir FREDERICK BANBURY

I did not say anything about the duration of Parliament.

Mr. BYLES

If the hon. Baronet did not, several other Members told us we were constantly showing an undue terror of the House of Lords. It seems to me that speakers upon the other side of the House are constantly showing their fear of the House of Commons, and I am surprised at Members of this distinguished and august Assembly casting so much discredit and so much suspicion and so much doubt upon the character of the House of Commons to which they belong and which many of them adorn. We have been told in these Debates that the Resolution of the Government would be a weapon which would enable them to do something dreadful, I forget exactly what. This Amendment, and all these series of Amendments, are attempts to attack the Resolution of the Government bit by bit. Hon. Gentlemen opposite cannot defeat it in the aggregate, and so they are trying to pull it to pieces bit by bit. I think the hon. Baronet said that this House never need be dissolved if this Resolution was passed. Perhaps it was the speaker who preceded him who said it.

Sir FREDERICK BANBURY

I am quite willing to say it now.

Mr. BYLES

Let me point out the other House may never be dissolved. We are only providing against the very same evil here which the hon. Baronet and his Friends are anxious to provide against in another place. Hon. Gentlemen opposite uphold claims which we dispute, namely, that the House of Lords is to have the power of dissolving us. We are told that it is to provide against gross abuse that this Amendment has been proposed, but we have got a gross abuse existing now, and the proposals in these Resolutions are an endeavour to provide against it. The gross abuse is that the people cannot get the legislation they want. The Liberal party cannot do that which they were sent to this House to do because of the interference of the House of Lords, and it is that we are trying to stop. In all these Debates in the last two weeks the same spirit of distrust of the House of Commons, and especially of the electorate which created the House of Commons, has been manifested in speeches from the Opposition Benches. We have heard talk of the predominance of the House of Commons. Why should not the House of Commons be predominant? After all, "if two men ride a horse one must ride behind," and the question is in this instance whether it is to be the House of Commons or the House of Lords. I think we will have decided that point when the Division is taken. Another favourite phrase that has constantly cropped up in these Debates is that the House of Lords is a cheek upon the House of Commons, and that without the House of Lords there would be no check upon the abuse that might arise in the House of Commons. But there is a check, and a much more real check, and a much more just and justifiable check, upon the House of Commons, and that is the check of the General Election. If Members of this House go wrong they are made to feel it when they come before their constituencies, and quite rightly so.

The CHAIRMAN

That argument would be all right if we were discussing the Resolution, but it does not seem to me to bear upon the Amendment.

Mr. BYLES

I thought that all these words and phrases had arisen in speeches upon this Amendment, but, of course, I will not pursue that line of argument one moment further. I hope I may be allowed, at any rate, to refer to the word "tyranny" which has been used—"the tyranny" of the House of Commons. I repudiate that word, and I maintain that hon. Members should never speak of the tyranny of the House of Commons. [HON. MEMBERS: "The tyranny of the majority of the House of Commons."] The Government is subject to its supporters, and its supporters are subject to their constituents. I am a little in doubt whether to deal with all the arguments, because I am extremely desirous not to go beyond the four corners of the Amendment before us, which is in reference to the shortening of the duration of Parliament. I deprecate the limitation proposed by this Amendment, and I support the Resolutions because I am anxious that the will of the people should prevail. It was pointed out to us last night that none of the great subjects which the people wish to have dealt with can be dealt with under present conditions. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Worces- ter (Mr. Austen Chamberlain) said that whenever the will of the people was clearly- expressed it would, and could, and did prevail with the House of Commons. I maintain that, with regard to these Veto Resolutions, the will of the people has been clearly expressed. We have had a very recent General Election—

The CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member is back again upon the general question. He must keep to the Amendment. It is not sufficient to reply to incidental observations that may have been made in an argument upon the Amendment. They may have been perfectly relevant to the argument, but the hon. Member's own arguments should be made relevant to the Amendment.

Mr. BYLES

Then I will only say that I shall support the Government right through. I believe that the party behind" me, if strongly led, will double the verdict of the last General Election. I am not afraid of the people; I am only afraid the Government will go astray.

Mr. GEORGE FABER

The hon. Gentleman who has just sat down concluded his interesting speech by saying, amongst other things, that what he was afraid of was the Government. That is exactly what a great many Members of this House fear. When I first saw these Resolutions put upon the Paper of this House, I thought that all the Radical party desired was to get the Veto of the House of Lords out of the field for the purposes of ordinary legislation. It never entered into my mind that the Government intended to put the House of Lords out of the field not only for the purposes of ordinary legislation, but to put them out of the field if a constitutional change or further Amendment of the House of Lords should be attempted, and that the House of Lords were to have no voice whatever after a period of three Sessions or two years in any proposals that might be made for the further Amendment of the Constitution itself. I cannot believe that in such a vital matter as a further Amendment of the Constitution this Resolution No. 2 should apply—after three Sessions or two years, and that, so long as that period had elapsed, the House of Lords are to be out of it altogether, although the proposal might be for some vital amendment of the Constitution. The. Home Secretary said, in the course of his interesting speech, that at any rate that could only occur when Parliament was young and fresh, and in the first vigour of its manhood. But under this Resolution the duration of Parliament could be altered without the House of Lords having a voice in the matter, for this period of three Sessions or two years could itself be altered. The Resolutions themselves could be altered, and not in the first years of Parliament's strength and manhood. It might be done in a decaying Parliament. It might be done in a Parliament that had outstayed its welcome and that feared to meet the verdict of the country. Under this Resolution as it stands any alteration in the Constitution could be put into effect. The House of Commons might alter this very provision of two years. A senile, decaying Parliament, no longer in touch with the people, afraid to rush perhaps upon certain disaster at a General Election, might alter the Resolution and say two years or three Sessions are no longer necessary.

The CHAIRMAN

That is the matter we were dealing with last night, and not now.

Mr. GEORGE FABER

Very well, I will confine myself to the Amendment before us. I cannot imagine that the country as a whole realises that in such a matter as the fundamental alteration of the Constitution—to take as an illustration the prolongation of the duration of Parliament— that the House of Lords ought to be excluded from any real voice in the matter. The idea is alarming, and the Home Secretary and Gentlemen upon the other side of the House ought really to give serious consideration to this Amendment. It looks to me as if in certain circumstances the temptation to prolong the duration of Parliament by means such as those I have indicated, might become a serious matter for consideration. From the point of view not of a party man but of a citizen, I do not think it is wise to exclude from our consideration the dangers that may arise if the Resolution is passed as it stands, and if this Amendment is refused consideration.

Mr. H. T. CAWLEY

I wish to point out that the danger of the life of a Parliament being extended under a Conservative Government is a danger which already exists, and is a more real danger than any that might arise under this Resolution in its unamended state. As the Home Secretary pointed out, we have already had a case in which a subservient House of Lords did agree to the extension of the life of a Parliament by the House of Com- mons. The answer to that from the other side is quite fallacious. The hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury) referred to the Whigs of the days of Queen Anne as Radicals. I am sure nothing would have surprised the Whigs of those days more than to hear themselves described as Radicals.

Sir F. BANBURY

They were not as bad as the present Radicals.

Mr. CAWLEY

I do not suppose the hon. Baronet would think anything quite as bad as the present Radicals, but I do not think there is any more resemblance between the Whigs of the days of Queen Anne and the present Radicals than there is between the present Radicals and hon. Members upon the other side of the House.

The only difference between the case I have alluded to and the case of the present time is that the House of Lords in those days was not as subservient to the Government of the day as is the present House of Lords when the Conservative Government is in office. We have seen a subservient House of Lords agreeing to the House of Commons prolonging its existence, and what has happened in the past may happen again in the future. I do not say that is a danger. It is a real possibility when a Conservative Government is in office, but is it a possibility under these Resolutions? Under these Resolutions it is only during the first two years of the life of a Parliament that it can possibly do anything to extend its life. That point has already been met by the hon. Member who last spoke, who said that the Resolutions themselves might be altered. Let me point out that the Amendment might be altered just the same as the Resolutions. What we are told we have to be afraid of is a Government which has exhausted its mandate and outstayed its welcome. A Government might desire also to prolong its life from worthy motives. It might be a Government in the presence of a great crisis, and that Government might regard it as essential for the safety of the country that it should carry on the government of the country during that crisis. Those are the possibilities under which a Government might wish to prolong Parliament. It might be a demented and revolutionary Government, of which hon. Gentlemen opposite are so much afraid, that desired to prolong its life, but it could not do so under these Resolutions, because the consent of the House of Lords would be required. During the first two years when a Government comes into power it does not think so much of the time when it will have to meet the electorate. I think this Amendment is entirely unnecessary, because the only time when there is a real danger, and when it is likely that a Government will desire to prolong its life, is during the last two years of its existence, and during those two years it has not the power of prolonging its existence under these Resolutions without the consent of the House of Lords.

Mr. WILLIAM PEEL

I am afraid speakers on the other side of the House have fallen into the habit of treating these matters purely from a party point of view, and they have taken advantage of this opportunity for making some of their belated attacks upon the Second Chamber. I wish to speak on this question from the constitutional point of view, because this Amendment really raises the vital and important question as to whether or not in the procedure we are now altering you ought to draw a distinction between constitutional and other changes. I consider that that is a matter well worthy of serious consideration, and I am astonished that the Front Bench seems to be so indifferent on this question that there is only one Member of the Government present, and he is conversing with a Scotchman. [HON. MEMBERS: "Order, order."] I think I am entitled to have the attention of the only Member of the Government on the Front Bench. An hon. Member has referred to his studies in constitutional law, but he seems to have forgotten the lesson to be drawn from those studies, because he said he was unable to draw any distinction between the constitutional changes now proposed and other changes. He seems to think that in regard to proposals altering the whole machinery under which the administration of this country is carried on, no distinction should be drawn. He seems to think that a measure which might alter the relations between the two Chambers is exactly on a par with some small measure dealing with the number of children attending elementary schools.

It is precisely because we have not got in our present Constitution a marked distinction in our procedure between these two classes of measures that when we are trying to improve our Constitution some change of this kind should be made. This is of the utmost importance as regards the public, when you are going to rely upon the influence of public opinion, and when you are going to have a single Chamber through which this opinion is going to be expressed. You should be able to show the people of this country that there is a difference between ordinary Bills and constitutional Bills. If you look at the Rules under which this House is conducted you will see that we draw some distinction of this kind already. Hon. Members opposite seem to sweep all Bills into their net. Look at the distinction already drawn between the financial and other Bills. Take a Bill of enormous importance, like the Education Bill of 1902, altering the whole system of education in this country and arousing the deepest and strongest passions which it is possible to arouse on questions of education. The procedure in that case is entirely different from the procedure in the case of any Money Bill, however petty or small the sum, because it has an elaborate procedure in order that you may draw the attention of this House and the country to the enormous importance of questions affecting finance. And yet how great is the discrepancy between the magnitude of the two subjects dealt with. I protest against any attempt to confuse the issue, and I regret the Home Secretary did not take a more serious view of the subject. I think, after all, the Home Secretary showed some sympathy towards the Amendment. After listening to his speech, I felt that if the right hon. Gentleman had been left to his own unaided genius it is not impossible that he would have been prepared to accept this Amendment. I should like to know if orders have gone forth that no Amendment is to be accepted to these Resolutions?

Mr. JOHN WARD

Of course.

Mr. PEEL

Is it contended that any change in these Resolutions would spoil their symmetry and prevent the scheme for dealing with the House of Lords having the desired effect? I do not know whether I am right or wrong in that supposition, but this is another instance of the difficulties into which you are led by this attempt to write part of your Constitution. You are now proposing a most important step, in which you are departing from the old system of an unwritten Constitution. You are now trying to write a part of it, and you see at once the enormous difficulties in which you are plunged. We are met by the difficulty that you are compelled to pretend that there is no difference between the machinery of your Constitution and the laws that can be turned out under it. The Home Secretary said that a Noble Lord on this side had made a mistake in talking about seven - year Parliaments when we are going to have five - year Parliaments. The mistake is on the other side, because if your Parliaments are going to be for the shorter period the temptation will be greater to lengthen the life of those Parliaments. Hon. Members opposite talk about new Parliaments having the feeling of immortality upon them, but they have a great deal more than that. They have a feeling of glorious self-confidence, and if you look at the Parliament which met four years ago you will find it was imbued so much with a sense of its own importance that hon. Members hardly had time to speak to you because they thought the millennium had arrived. I submit that an untrammelled power to double its own life and to give to Parliament a bifarious existence of that kind is a greater power than should be given to any body under our Constitution. Hon. Members say that the force of public opinion governs everything. Public opinion is not that constant, steady, active pressure which some hon. Members seem to think it is, because you cannot turn a nation of shopkeepers into a nation of electioneering agents. The people have other things to do than to bear the storm and stress of public affairs, and that is why in a deep, constitutional sense it is very necessary that the intelligence of the country and the will of the people should be settled in other great institutions. For these reasons great constitutions in other countries have provided that this complete, unlimited, legislative power to prolong its own existence shall not be placed in the hands of any body which they know is liable to the faults of mortality.

6.0 P.M

Mr. A. H. SCOTT

The hon. Member who has just addressed the House told us that the Government are treating all these Amendments entirely in a party sense. I have listened to speeches from the other side, and hon. Members have waxed eloquent, not so much for party as for the other House. If we were discussing any limitation to be placed on the House of Lords we should find that the arguments advanced would be entirely the other way. If we were considering whether five years were quite long enough for the House of Lords to sit, all the eloquence from the other side would be directed to showing that it was not right or proper that this House should consider the length of that House. Our position is that if we have to consider the length of Parliament and the length of the House of Commons, the question rests with the House of Commons itself and not with the Lords. I cannot conceive why hon. Members on the other side of the House should not have enough feeling with regard to this House, regardless altogether of the party composition of the other House, to join with the Government in getting all the control they possibly can in this House.

The object of the Amendment is to give the House of Lords power to alter the length of Parliament. Why should they be interested? If they are not a party machine in the other House, of what interest is it to them what Government is in power? If the Conservative party are in office, they are not anxious for a General Election; they are not anxious that the country should be disturbed, but from the very first day of that 1906 Parliament they were anxious to have us out. The leaders of the Opposition have pointed out that we could not carry in this Parliament the Bills we carried in the last Parliament. Do they think that in 1906 they could have carried their Educational Bill of 1902?

The CHAIRMAN

I do not see how this arises on the Amendment.

Mr. SCOTT

We are asked by these Resolutions to retain the power in this House of declaring how long Parliament can sit, and the Opposition, by the Amendment, ask us to say this House cannot be trusted with such a decision without giving the House of Lords the voice to decide.

Mr. MACKINDER

The hon. Member who has just spoken appears, it seems to me, to have represented some constituency in the time of the Long Parliament. The hon. Member feels that it ought to rest with this House to determine the length of the period for which this House is to sit. He is evidently anxious that we should again have a Cromwell in this country, but as the hon. Gentleman has left the House I will refer to other hon. Members.

Earl WINTERTON

Bad manners.

Mr. MARKHAM

On a point of Order. Is the Noble Lord entitled to say that the hon. Member who has left this House is guilty of bad manners because he did not stay to hear the next speech?

Earl WINTERTON

On a further point of Order. I desire to ask whether it is not in accordance with precedent and the ordinary custom of this House that an hon. Member who has just spoken and is being referred to by name, should remain in his place?

The CHAIRMAN

I do not like accusations of want of manners made between one side of the House and the other. As a matter of fact, I believe it used to be much more common in days that have gone by for hon. Members who have just spoken to remain in this House than it is now.

Mr. WILLIAM REDMOND

Not at all.

The CHAIRMAN

At any rate, I have no power at all to keep them in their places.

Mr. MACKINDER

There are two points, and two only, which I would like to make in regard to this discussion, One has reference to a point put by the hon. Member for South Salford (Mr. Belloc) when he said he should vote against this Amendment because he regarded it as verbal. I regard this Amendment, and I may say the whole group of Amendments to which it belongs, as something far more than verbal, as something of the deepest significance at a time when we are turning our unwritten Constitution into a written Constitution. If you determine to have a written Constitution, then you must obey the ordinary laws of written Constitutions the world over. All those written Constitutions distinguish between the fundamental constitutional laws and other laws, and the object of our group of Amendments —the Amendment before the House at the present moment, that very important Amendment regarding the Prerogative of the Crown, and the Amendment with regard to the reform of the House of Lords— is to lift the body of laws relating to the law-making machine above the ordinary level of other laws. If we cannot prevent you doing the great harm to the Constitution which we believe you are doing by these Resolutions, then at least by this group of Amendments we seek to limit the damage which you are doing.

It seems to me that when hon. Gentlemen opposite decry our distrust of a House of Commons with unlimited power, and when they say to us, "You are imagining a demented House of Commons and something which no sane people would send to Westminster," those hon. Gentlemen are forgetting that Constitutions, and the respect which is paid to Constitutions, are for troublous times and not for the ordinary peaceful times which we in this country have fortunately experienced now for so long. The position in regard to such an Amendment as is now proposed, and in regard to the attitude of hon. Members opposite in criticising that Amendment, is very similar to the position which we have in this country at the present moment in regard to the danger of war. We have enjoyed freedom from attack and invasion so long that we underrate the significance of defence against the ultimate danger of invasion. So it is with regard to constitutional changes. We have lived under conditions of internal peace so long, we have been free from revolution and from any attempt by the Legislature to prolong its own existence for the past two centuries, we have been free from all these attempts so long that we forgot that the ultimate test of party government is civil war. They know it better in the United States than we do. They 'have brought their party government to the ultimate test—civil war— within the lifetime of some living. It is two centuries since we were in that position in this country, and nobody knows the indescribable value of an ancient, well-established, and firmly respected Constitution until you come to troublous times, when civil war is threatened, when passions are deep, and when threats run high. Therefore, when we are criticised, because it is said that we are imagining a demented House of Commons, we are criticised because we are imagining precisely that condition of things which did arise two centuries ago, and which has arisen in other countries within our own time.

I want to make only one other point with regard to this Amendment. Such a change as is resisted in this Amendment is made with extraordinary ease. You are concerned in these changes of Constitution, not with complicated measures such as your Budget last Session, but with changes that can be effected in a single clause of an Act of Parliament. You have nothing to do but to substitute "five" for "seven" or "none" for "seven," and you can accomplish your change, a change deep and great, going to the root of the Constitution, almost without the closure, by a very simple and short Act of Parliament, and for that very reason you have great danger in the particular Acts of Parliament which we axe attempting to remove from the category contemplated by these Resolutions. We resist these changes because we believe that no question of deep importance is really put before this country until it has been discussed on the floor of the House of Commons and discussed at some length. You may have in the country an education, journalistic and platform, but there is no security that both sides of the question have been placed before the same people. In the House of Commons hon. Gentlemen must face one another across the floor. The lie direct can be given—of course, with due respect for Parliamentary forms—and, in consequence, the country can judge to a degree they cannot judge when an agitation is engineered skilfully in the country.

Mr. JOHN WARD

Hear, hear.

Mr. MACKINDER

An hon. Member says "Hear, hear." He evidently assumes that all engineering agitations come from this side of the House. He is welcome to that assumption. I do not know whether it is honestly held.

The CHAIRMAN

Order, order!

Mr. MACKINDER

I withdraw that observation.

The CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member has withdrawn, but it is also irrelevant.

Mr. MACKINDER

My point is simply this. You contemplate in these Resolutions changes of extraordinary simplicity so far as the form of them goes, but of extraordinary importance so far as the effect of them goes. Those changes could be effected without any consultation with the people, and that consultation is essential, after discussion in this House. I believe that by these Resolutions—and we are attempting to limit them by these Amendments—you are damaging the House of Commons in one great and important aspect of its work—its educative work in the country. You cannot have a question before the country until it has been discussed in the House of Commons, and until, therefore, you have had a Dissolution.

Mr. BARNES

I suppose the speech we have just listened to was meant to be a sort of blood-curdler. If that was the object of the hon. Member, I must say it leaves me unaffected. He led us to believe that we might expect something like rapine murder and sudden death to occur in this country in the event of the Amendment not being adopted by the House. I have no such fears at all. So far as I can gather, the object of the Amendment is to take it out of the power of the House of Commons to prolong its own life, and to take it out of the hands of the Government to prolong its life except by leave of the House of Lords. The hon. Baronet representing the City of London (Sir F. Banbury) said that we of the Labour party had, as a matter of fact, voted for the Government a week or two ago because we wanted to prolong the life of the Government. I should like to tell the hon. Baronet that we had no such thoughts in our heads. I did not vote at all, and so far as votes were given by Members of the Labour party, the intention or desire was not to prolong the life of the Government, but the votes were given in that particular direction because hon. Members were satisfied with the reply given by the Government.

Sir F. BANBURY

The hon. Gentleman imputes to me a statement which I did not make when he said that I suggested that the Labour party voted in a certain way because they wished to prolong the life of the Government. I was merely quoting certain words uttered by an hon. Member a few moments ago.

Mr. BARNES

And I was simply taking advantage of the opportunity presented to-me for removing a misapprehension. I do-not want the "Daily Mail" to add to its many misrepresentations of the Labour and other parties in the House. I come now to the Amendment before the Committee. The object is to prevent the Government prolonging its own life except by leave of the House of Lords, and through some extraordinary process of reasoning, the hon. Member who has just sat down has apparently come to the conclusion we ought to entirely separate the Resolution as bearing upon what may be-called its constitutional issues from the aspect which affects ordinary legislation that might be passed by this House. I take it that what the Amendment essentially aims at is limiting the power of the House of Commons. It prevents the House of Commons doing something, and, from what I can gather from the arguments adduced, hon. Members who support the Amendment believe that the House of Commons cannot be trusted on great constitutional issues. The suggestion is that it may be interested in prolonging its own life—that the Government may be interested in prolonging its own life—and whatever the cause of the interest may be it is necessary that some outside authority—some disinterested authority— should have the power to stop such a thing being done. What I would like to point out is that there is an assumption in the minds of hon. Members which seems to me altogether unwarranted by the facts. The assumption is that we have in the House of Lords a disinterested authority that might prevent the House of Commons doing something of the character which we have just been told it ought not to be allowed to do. I do not accept the House of Lords as a disinterested authority, and I would point to what has taken place in the past. The experience of the years from 1895 to 1905 has been repeatedly referred to. But there was nothing to prevent the Government of that time doing as is feared may be done if this Amendment is not adopted. They went to the country certainly in the year 1900, but supposing instead of going to the country they had taken it into their minds to insist, instead of having a General Election, on extending the life of Parliament. Is there any sane man in this House who thinks they would not have got the sanction of the House of Lords? That is the whole point.

Let us get down to facts. I say that, according to recent experience, and I want to direct the attention of the House to what has taken place within the memory of all of us—I do not think it necessary to go back to ancient history—the House of Lords has existed as an institution which has said "Ditto" to one party in the State and which has been a drag on the other party in the State. Therefore one cannot agree with the arguments adduced from the other side that it might be desirable we should somehow or other safeguard the position, so that it would be in the power of some disinterested authority to prevent the House of Commons prolonging its own life. I do not agree for one moment that in the House of Lords, as it at present exists, or in a Second Chamber under any circumstances, you will have a body calculated to prevent that taking place. Therefore I do not accept the Amendment now proposed, neither do I accept the argument that has been adduced by the last speaker in support of it, when he speaks of the experience of other countries, and when foe rather suggests to us that if we do not accept the Amendment civil war may ensue. The hon. Member pointed to the experience of America.

Mr. MACKINDER

On a point of explanation, I certainly did not intend to suggest that civil war would ensue from the non-passing of this Amendment.

Mr. BARNES

I understood the hon. Gentleman rather led us to believe that this Amendment was intended to prevent arising such a set of circumstances as might lead to civil war. If there was any conclusion of a practical character to be drawn from what the hon. Member said it was that this Amendment was to prevent us lapsing into some condition of things which might result in civil war, and he instanced America that had gone through the experience of civil war fifty years ago. The fact of their having a written Constitution, the fact of their having something which, I suppose, in the mind of the hon. Member corresponds to this Amendment, did not prevent civil war. As a matter of fact, before you can have civil war you must have the mind of the people brought to a point which culminates in civil war, and no Amendment of this character, no paper Constitution, no Constitution, written or unwritten, will then prevent that civil war.

Lord HUGH CECIL

I think the hon. Member who has just sat down did not quite understand the point urged by the hon. Member for Glasgow. The point was this, that if there was a possibility of the extension of the life of Parliament by an Act of Parliament no one would seriously imagine that either the Unionist party or the Liberal party would be likely in ordinary times to propose such a measure or help to carry it. But we may not always have a Parliament in that frame of mind. We may approach a period of such tension that civil war may be in sight or even taking place, and it is in circumstances like that that such an essentially revolutionary proposal might be made. I deprecate the contemptuous tone in which the hon. Member for the Blackfriars Division of Glasgow spoke of the study of history as enabling one to form a judgment on critical events. It is really not uninstructive to know something about the history of one's own country.

Mr. BARNES

I am sure the Noble Lord does not want to misrepresent what I said. I hope I did not convey to the House—at any rate I did not intend to do so—the view that I deprecated the study of history. What I said or what I meant to say was that so far as considerations surrounding this Amendment are concerned, all we had to do in my judgment was to go back to our own experience.

Lord HUGH CECIL

I suggest we have to do something more. We ought to know what has actually taken place in the past. We ought to remember that it was within two years of civil war that the Septennial Act was passed, and the only other case in which a like set of circumstances obtained was that of the Long Parliament. But conceive the atmosphere that would reign in these times. We should be far away from existing party divisions, and from considerations such as have been repeatedly mentioned in these discussions about the House of Lords being Conservative in a party sense, or this House being Radical in a party sense. It would be a different place altogether under those conditions, and it is quite certain that the line of division in civil war would not correspond with the line of division in the House between Conservatives and Radicals. There would be no party stability. There would be—shall we call it— a party of anarchy and a party of disturbance. In those days there would be such a division. You must suppose a great emergency like that which led to the passage of the Septennial Act, preceded by the possibility that there would be an immediate disturbance and an immediate appeal to force if a General Election took place at the particular time fixed by Statute. You must suppose that Parliament was anxious to avoid that disturbance. Who is it safest to trust with the discretion to use this highly exceptional and revolutionary power? Surely it is the Assembly which may be relied on to be on the side of stability rather than on the side of disturbance? However you constitute your Second Chamber it would be, I assume, on the side of stability. Certainly the existing House of Lords or any descendants of the. existing House of Lords would be on the side of stability rather than on the, side of disturbance, when an appeal to force was immediately in prospect, or in retrospect in the country. It is safer and more reasonable to have whatever security a Second Chamber gives to you guarding the exercise of this peculiar and revolutionary power of extending the term of Par- liaments and preventing its misuse. I can understand the Leader of the Labour party not thinking so, because he is opposed to a Second Chamber, and thinks that Second Chambers are of no use whatever, but how the Government, who, in their speeches, if not in their acts, express devotion to the principle of a Second Chamber, can resist this Amendment I cannot imagine. If there is any desirability, if there would be any need for a Second Chamber at all, it would be at the time and under the conditions which I have sketched.

Does anybody pretend that you want a Second Chamber except for the reason that it adds stability, and do you ever want the power of stability more than when it is a question of using a revolutionary power in the face of a near approach to an appeal to force. It is just then that you do want these great securities if you want them at all. Then why do the Government resist the Amendment? All reason is on the side of accepting the Amendment, but there is something which tells very much more than reason with the Government, and which prevents them accepting the Amendment. Is their motive that it would not suit the tactical arrangements which they have in prospect, and that they would find it very difficult to resist other Amendments which are quite as reasonable? Parliamentarians know very well that as soon as you begin to amend proposals it becomes very much more difficult to resist Amendments which can be shown to stand on something like an equal footing. Therefore there is an end to all reasoning on the part of the Government, and they are resolved not to accept Amendments because it does not suit their tactics. Therefore there is an end of the matter, and they refuse to accept the Amendments just as much as they are resolved not to tell us about the prospects of reform. On this Amendment it is almost essential that we should know what prospect there is of attaining a reform of the Second Chamber, and over and over again on this Amendment, as on every Amendment, we find the extreme inconvenience of having to discuss the powers of the Second Chamber without knowing what is to be its composition. But all these considerations are thrown away upon the Government. They have set before themselves a party object and a system of party tactics by which they propose to achieve that object. Nothing can turn them away a hair's- breadth from that object or from those tactics, and we are wasting our time in reasoning in this House on any other topics.

The CHANCELLOR of the DUCHY of LANCASTER (Mr. Joseph Pease)

I have listened to the Debate on this Amendment and the speeches which have been delivered, and I think that the matter has been fairly well threshed out, but there is one point which must be made before we go to a Division. Hon. Members have argued that by the insertion of these words some additional safeguard would be created, in regard to the object for which they are contending. I would venture to point out, however, that if the situation arose in which the House of Commons in its sixth Session was under the impression that it was necessary that it should remain in power and a Bill had previously been passed which contained words such as are suggested in this Amendment, the course of the House of Commons in those circumstances would be very simple. It would only have to do two things. It would have to repeal what may be a Septennial Act or a Quinquennial Act, or any other Act fixing the duration of Parliaments, and at the same time repeal the very words of this particular Bill, and it would be quite a simple process. It is certain that if they could repeal the Septennial Act they could also repeal at the same time any words appearing in this Bill, and if they could secure the passage through the House of Lords of a Bill repealing the Act, they could also secure the passage of a measure repealing these words. The real and true safeguard, as has been over and over again repeated from this side of the House, is that we are really a stable people, and we do not rely upon the House of Lords for stability. We believe on this side of the House that the Lords by their action or inaction are more likely to create disturbances than anything else. Their action in throwing out the Finance Bill goes to show that they are not really a constitutional body, but that they are revolutionaries. We believe that the House of Lords cannot be trusted, but that the people of this country can, and we believe, as representing the people, that it is impossible for any repeal of the Septennial Act to be undertaken if it is opposed to the wishes of the people.

Sir ALFRED CRIPPS

I think the right hon. Gentleman who has addressed us has not appreciated the position, and at any rate he has not appreciated what the effect would be if the present Amendment were adopted. The point we make is this, that there ought not to be any power in this House to alter any organic law of the Constitution in the sense of increasing the power of this Chamber. That is a point with which hon. Members may agree or not, but it is quite easy to understand it. I wish to point out that the right hon. Gentleman is also under a misapprehension as to the other terms of this Resolution, because just in the same way the other terms of it could be altered so as to take away existing safeguards if you give to this House, and this House alone, the power of altering the organic law of the Constitution. An hon. Member who represents the Labour party spoke as though this Amendment had to do with the power of the Government or of this House in regard to a dissolution. It has nothing to do with that matter at all, and the power of the Government or of this House will be exactly the same as to a dissolution whether this Amendment is adopted or not. What this Amendment aims at is not allowing this House, and this House alone, to alter an organic law of the Constitution by increasing its duration beyond the five years which are allowed at the present time. I think it is quite true that the good sense of the people of this country may be very well trusted as regards ordinary times, but why is it that every other country as well as our own country for the last five centuries has desired to have the additional guarantees beyond that which they have got by a single-Chamber system? I am not going to discuss what I may call prejudice against the existing House of Lords, and I think it is a great pity that a constitutional question should be discussed either with prejudice against the House of Lords or with prejudice against this Chamber; but the reason why all the countries of the world, our own amongst them, have adopted the precaution of a Second Chamber, as regards these matters of organic constitutional law, is twofold. First of all, as has already been pointed out, it enables the question of any change in an organic law to be discussed in this House, and therefore threshed out by the two parties face to face, before it goes to the determination of the electorate.

I look upon that as an extremely important point, and so long as you have representative government in the true sense of the term it seems to me to depend entirely upon the important questions being discussed in such a way that when the decision is given it may be a national decision, given with a true knowledge of the issues involved. That would be brought about if we adopted this present Amendment. Without this Amendment you might have a change in the organic law of our Constitution without the electorate ever being consulted, or without their having understood in any way at the previous election what the real issue is, and really, very much as we may trust the common sense of the English people, they are, after all, endowed with human nature, with the same human nature as other countries and other peoples, and we are depriving ourselves of this security which all other peoples and all other constitutions have demonstrated to be necessary. We are depriving ourselves of that in the first instance, because our Constitution is to be an unwritten one. We acknowledge here none of the safeguards such as are adopted even in the American Constitution, but if we have the advantages of the unwritten Constitution and the flexibility of it, and I think there are enormous advantages under both those heads, we must consider what the disadvantages are, and one of those disadvantages, and perhaps the greatest, is the ease with which you may carry cut organic changes without having suitable security. We see upon the discussion of this Amendment, as upon every other Amendment, how easy it is for a question of a constitutional change and one of the greatest possible questions of that character to really become a party question and a question of party advantage, but questions of constitutional change ought not to be embarked upon in that spirit. In the discussion in the future I do not say they will be dominated by the party spirit, but you will not have a large proportion of the party spirit. I wish we could leave these discussions out of the party sphere altogether, but we cannot do that, that is a quixotic hope. But if you will not accept this Amendment you give to a party majority at any time the power without any proper supervision, without any security of altering the organic law. I will not go back to the musty precedents of the past, but when you are dealing with human nature you do not find much difference over the period of centuries. In past times this House has twice exercised its power of extending its life. I hope it will never take such a step again, but I want security at least, and in all these constitutional matters we ought to have that security, and I look upon this Amendment as extremely important if we are to have our revised Constitution on anything like a satisfactory and non-party basis.

Mr. JOSEPH KING

I should like to appeal to both sides of the House not to waste any more time in historical parallels which do not apply, and especially I would appeal to hon. Members opposite to have done with the rusty precedents raked up from previous centuries. In my opinion, they have two very good reasons why they should not deal with the historic past— first of all, because it is always against them, and, secondly, when they quote it they always quote it wrongly. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Austen Chamberlain) gave us a little discussion on the question how, in 1715, Parliament, as he said, repealed the Triennial Act. There was no such Triennial Act, and they never repealed it. His history, it seems to me, is about as bad as one may sometimes learn even from University representatives. The main argument that has been put before us both by the Noble Lord who moved the Amendment and the right hon. Gentleman who supported it from the Front Bench is that single Chambers—and they argue that we are tending, at any rate, to set up a single-Chamber Government—will inevitably be disposed to prolong their own existence, and, therefore, you want a House of Lords with undiminished powers in this respect to see that they do not do so, and it seems to me that the argument of the hon. Member (Mr. Cawley) has completely met that whole contention. It seemed to me logically cogent and absolutely unanswerable. His point was that under these Resolutions it must be in the first two years of the Parliament, which we propose by this Resolution should only last for five years, that it should desire to prolong its own existence, that before half its life has gone it must already be proposing to prolong the existence of its term of office. How absurd it is that such a thing should ever occur. A very distinguished living Statesman some years ago adduced a totally opposite argument in connection with the House of Lords question. Lord Rosebery argued that a single Chamber would be unwise, because it would inevitably tend to annual Parliaments. That is an argument which some few years ago was frequently urged by Conservatives in dealing with this question. I should like to quote the words of Lord Rosebery, because they are very significant of the change of mind which opponents of the abolition of the Veto have taken up. Speaking about fifteen years ago, he said:— A single Chamber, in order to be in direct touch with the people, which it would always desire to be, would almost logically become a Chamber annually elected. There are many in favour of annual Parliaments, and there are arguments which may be used in its favour, but I think that the great traditions and manifold interests of the foreign and Colonial policy of this Empire could not be well conducted by a single annual Chamber. That is exactly the opposite of the argument which has been chiefly urged by Members on the other side, and it seems to me that in probability and in reason it is a great deal better, and that in its foresight it indicates the probable course of things much better than the miserable vaticinations and melancholy prophecies, degenerating even into a lugubrious account of civil war, which we have heard from the other side. I want to appeal to the right hon. Gentlemen on the Front Bench in connection with the argument which was used last night, and which has been brought forward again this afternoon, the suggestion being then made that if our Veto proposals are passed into law, and if, as is the intention of the Government, they are to be followed up by a reconstituted Upper House, then we shall see these restrictions on the Veto pass away. I listened very carefully to the remarks of the hon. Gentleman (Sir Henry Dalziel) yesterday, and I could not share his suspicions that the right hon. Gentlemen on the Front Bench having established the power and authority, as they have all along declared they would do, will be a party in a short space of time to whittling away and belittling those powers. But in view of the possibility of misrepresentation—and hon. Members opposite are always, very good at that game. [HON. MEMBERS: "Order."] Of course, I mean nothing offensive. I gladly withdraw. In view of the possibility of hon. Members opposite being so unable to appreciate the situation properly and to follow the cogent line of argument which we put forward, and in view of the suspicions which are rather natural in Radical breasts, which are very loyal and true, but always somewhat suspicious of Members who are enjoying the fruits of office on the Front Bench, I want to ask some Member of the Government, possibly I may appeal to the Home Secretary, whose interventions in this Debate have been generally of such a powerful and satisfactory character, that he, at any rate, will be no party to the whittling away of the new power and authority which we intend to establish for the House of Commons.

Sir ROBERT FINLAY

The hon. Member has, in effect, told the House that he considers history of as much use as an old almanac.

Mr. JOSEPH KING

Not that history, but that the arguments adduced from history by the other side are of no more use than an old almanac.

Sir ROBERT FINLAY

I think the hon. Member will find that he went a little further. I was about to congratulate him, assuming that he made that statement, on having acted most thoroughly on his own principles. It is quite clear that he has himself carefully abstained from making himself acquainted with some of the most elementary facts of history. He told the House of Commons that there never was a Triennial Act, and that, therefore, it is impossible that it could have been repealed. If the hon. Member will refer to any elementary book on the history of Parliament or to the copy of the revised statutes on the Table of the House, he will find that the Septennial Act was passed in the first year of George I., that it begins by citing the Triennial Act passed in the sixth and seventh year of William and Mary, and that it goes on in these terms:—"And whereas it will be found by experience that the said clause has proved very grievous and burdensome by occasioning much greater and more continued expense in the election of Members to serve in Parliament, and more violent and lasting heats and animosities among the subjects of this Realm than were ever known before the said clause was enacted." I hope I have succeeded in convincing the hon. Member that there is some advantage in the study of history if he intends to address the House upon the subject.

But I really rose to take notice of the observations which the Chancellor of the Duchy made, and which he said ought to be brought to the notice of the House before we proceed to a Division. He said this Amendment would be absolutely useless because all that the House would have to do would be, at the same time that they brought in a Bill for extending the duration of Parliament, to introduce another Bill repealing the limitation proposed to be introduced by this Amendment. That is really a most extraordinary misapprehension, because, before they introduced the Bill for the purpose of extending the duration of Parliament so as to take advantage of this new procedure by which they would get it through without the consent of the House of Lords, they would have had to get rid of the limitation contained in the Act, and that would take them two years and three Sessions. Parliament would, under the cases which are contemplated, have generally come to an end by the operation of the limitation of the duration of Parliaments which was in force at the time, before they would be in a position to take advantage of the

change which the Chancellor of the Duchy seemed to think might so easily and so expeditiously be made. I think that observation on the part of a Member of the Government shows with how very little consideration these Resolutions, dealing with matters vital to this country at present and in the future have been thrown on the Table of the House.

Question put, "That the words proposed be there inserted in the proposed Resolution."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 188; Noes, 317.

Division No. 27.]	AYES	[7.2 p.m.
Adam, Major W. A.	Eyres-Monsell, B. M.	MacCaw, Wm. J. MacGeagh
Anson, Sir William Reynell	Faber, Georgs Denison (Clapham)	Mackinder, Halford J.
Arbuthnot, G. A.	Falle, B. G.	Macmaster, Donald
Archer-Shee, Major M.	Fell, Arthur	M'Arthur, Charles
Arkwright, John Stanhope	Finlay, Sir Robert	M'Calmont, Colonel James
Attenborough, W. A.	Fisher, W. Hayes	Magnus, Sir Philip
Bagot, Captain J.	Fitzroy, Hon. E. A.	Middlemore, John Throgmorton
Baird, J. L.	Flannery, Sir J. Fortescue	Mildmay, Francis Bingham
Baker, Sir R. L. (Dorset, N.)	Fletcher, J. S.	Mills, Hon. Charles Thomas
Balcarres, Lord	Foster, J. K. (Coventry)	Moore, William
Banbury, Sir Frederick George	Foster, P. S. (Warwick, S.W.)	Morpeth, Viscount
Banner, John S. Harmood-	Gardner, Ernest	Morrison, Captain J. A.
Baring, Captain Hon. G.	Gastrell, Major W. H.	Newdegate, F. A.
Barnston, H.	Gibbs, G. A.	Newman, John R. P.
Barrie, H. T. (Londonderry, N.)	Gilmour, Captain J.	Newton, Harry Kottingham
Bathurst, Hon. A. B. (Glouc., E.)	Goldman, C. S.	Nield, Herbert
Bathurst, Charles (Wilton)	Gooch, Henry Cubitt	Norton-Griffiths, J. (Wednesbury)
Beach, Hon. Michael Hugh Hicks	Gordon, J.	O'Neill, Hon. A. E. B. (Antrim, Mid)
Beckett, Hon. W. Gervase	Guinness, Hon. W. E.	Orde-Powlett, Hon. W. G A.
Benn, I. H. (Greenwich)	Gwynne, R. S. (Sussex, Eastbourne)	Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William
Bentinck, Lord H. Cavendish	Haddock, George B.	Peel, Hon. W. R. W. (Taunton)
Beresford, Lord C.	Hall, D. B. (Isle of Wight)	Peel, Capt. R. F. (Woodbridge)
Boyle, W. L. (Norfolk, Mid)	Hall, E. Marshall (Toxteth)	Perkins, Walter F.
Boyton, J.	Hamersley, A. St. George	Peto, Basil Edward
Brackenbury, H. L.	Hamilton, Marquess of (Londonderry)	Pollock, Ernest Murray
Brassey, Capt. R. (Banbury)	Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashford)	Pretyman, E. G.
Bridgeman. William Clive	Harris, H. P. (Paddington, S.)	Proby, Col. Douglas James
Brotherton, E. A.	Harrison-Broadley, H. B.	Quilter, William Eley C.
Brunskill, G. F.	Helmsley, Viscount	Rankin, Sir James
Burdett-Coutts, W.	Hickmann, Colonel T.	Ratcliff, Major R. F.
Butcher, J. G. (York)	Hill, Sir Clement	Rice, Hon. Walter F.
Butcher, S. H. (Cambridge Univ.)	Hoare, S. J. G.	Ridley, Samuel Forde
Calley, Colonel T. C. P.	Hohler, G. F.	Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)
Campbell, Rt. Hon. J. H. M.	Hope, Harry (Bute)	Rolleston, Sir John
Carille, E. Hildred	Hope, James Fltzalan (Sheffield)	Ronaldshay, Earl of
Castlereagh, Viscount	Horner, Andrew Long	Royds, Edmund
Cave, George	Houston, Robert Paterson	Rutherford, Watson
Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)	Hume-Williams, W. E.	Salter, Arthur Clavell
Cecil, Lord Hugh (Oxford University)	Hunt, Rowland	Samuel, Sir Harry (Norwood)
Chaloner, Colonel R. G. W.	Hunter, Sir C. R. (Bath)	Sanders, Robert A.
Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. j. A. (Worc'r.)	Jardlne, E. (Somerset, E.)	Sanderson, Lancelot
Chambers, J.	Jessel, Captain H. M.	Sandys, G. J. (Somerset, Wells)
Clay, Captain H. H. Spender	Kerr-Smiley, Peter	Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert
Clive, Percy Archer	Kerry, Earl of	Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.)
Colofax, H. A.	Keswick, William	Stanley, Hon. Arthur (Ormskirk)
Cooper, R. A. (Walsall)	Kimber, Sir Henry	Stanley, Hon. G. F. (Preston)
Courthope, G. Loyd	King, Sir Henry Seymour (Hull)	Staveley-Hill. Henry (Staffordshire)
Craig, Captain James (Down, E.)	Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement	Steel-Maitland. A. D.
Craig, Norman (Kent)	Knight, Capt. E. A.	Storey, Samuel
Craik, Sir Henry	Lane-Fox, G. R.	Strauss, A.
Cripps, Sir C. A.	Law, Andrew Bonar (Dulwich)	Sykes, Alan John
Croft, H. P.	Lawson, Hon. Harry	Thompson, Robert
Dairymple, Viscount	Lee, Arthur H.	Thynne, Lord Alexander
Dalziel, D. (Brixton)	Llewelyn, Venables	Tobin, Alfred Aspinall
Dixon, C. H.	Locker-Lampson, G. (Salisbury)	Tryon, Capt. George Clement
Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-	Locker-Lampson, O. (Ramsay)	Tullibardine, Marquess of
Du Cros, Alfred (Tower Hamlets, Bow)	Long, Rt. Hon. Walter	Walker, Col. W. H. (Lancashire)
Duke, H. E.	Lowe, Sir F. W. (Birm., Edgbaston)	Walrond, Hon. Lionel
Duncannon, Viscount	Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. A. (Hanover Sq.)	Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid)
Wheler, Granville C. H.	Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm	Younger, George (Ayr Burghs)
White, Major G. D. (Lanes., Southport)	Worthington-Evans, L. (Colchester)
Willoughby, Major Hon. Claude	Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart-	TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Sir
Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E.R.)	Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George	Alexander Acland-Hood and Vis-
Winterton, Earl	Yerburgh, Robert	count Valentia.
NOES
Abraham, William	Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne)	King, J. (Somerset, N.)
Addison, Dr. C.	Edwards, Enoch	Lambert, George
Adkins, W. Ryland D.	Elverston, H.	Lardner, James Carrige Rushe
Agnew, George William	Esmonde, Sir Thomas	Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, W.)
Ainsworth, John Stirling	Esslemont, George Birnie	Layland-Barratt, Sir Francis
Alden, Percy	Falconer, J.	Leach, Charles
Allen, Charles Peter	Fenwick, Charles	Lehmann, R. C.
Anderson, A.	Ferens, T. R.	Levy, Sir Maurice
Armitage, R.	French, Peter	Lewis, John Herbert
Ashton, Thomas Gair	Flavin, Michael Joseph	Lincoln, Ignatius T. T.
Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry	France, G. A.	Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David
Atherley-Jones, Llewellyn A.	Furness, Sir Christopher	Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas
Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury, E.)	Gelder, Sir W. A.	Low, Sir F. A. (Norwich)
Balfour, Robert (Lanark)	Gibbins, F. W.	Lundon, T.
Barclay, Sir T.	Gibson, James P.	Luttrell, Hugh Fownes
Barnes, G. N.	Gill, A. H.	Lynch, A. A.
Barran, Sir J. (Hawick)	Glanville, H. J.	Macdonald, J. M. (Leicester)
Barry, E. (Cork, S.)	Glover, Thomas	Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs)
Barry, Redmond J. (Tyrone, N.)	Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford	Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.
Beale, W. P.	Greenwood, G. G.	MacVeagh, Jeremiah
Benn, W. (Tower Hamlets, St. Geo.)	Grenfell, Cecil Alfred	M'Callum, John M.
Bethell, Sir J. H.	Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward	M'Curdy, C. A.
Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine	Griffith, Ellis J. (Anglesey)	McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald
Black, Arthur W.	Gulland, John W.	M'Laren, F. W. S. (Linc, Spalding)
Boland, John Plus	Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway)	Mallet, Charles E.
Bowerman, C. W.	Hackett, John	Manfield, Harry
Boyle, D. (Mayo, N.)	Haldane, Rt. Hon. Richard B.	Markham, Arthur Basil
Brace, William	Hall, Frederick (Normanton)	Marks, G. Croydon
Brady, P. J.	Hancock, J. G.	Meagher, Michael
Brigg, Sir John	Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvil)	Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.)
Brocklehurst, W. B.	Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)	Meehan, Patrick A. (Queen's Co.)
Burke, E. Haviland-	Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, W.)	Menzies, Sir Walter
Burns, Rt. Hon. John	Harvey, W. E. (Derbyshire, N.E.)	Mlddlebrook, William
Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas	Harwood, George	Millar, J. D.
Buxton, C. R. (Devon, Mid)	Haslam, James (Derbyshire)	Molloy, M.
Buxton, Noel (Norfolk, N.)	Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)	Molteno, Percy Alport
Buxton, Rt Hon. Sydney C. (Poplar)	Havelock-Allan, sir Henry	Mond, Alfred Moritz
Byles, Wiliam Pollard	Haworth, Arthur A.	Montagu, Hon. E. S.
Cameron, Robert	Hayden, John Patrick	Mooney, J. J.
Carr-Gomm, H. W.	Hayward, Evan	Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen)
Cawley, Sir Frederick (Prestwich)	Hazleton, Richard	Morton, Alpheus Cleophas
Cawley, Harold T. (Heywood)	Healy, Maurice (Cork, N.E.)	Muldoon, John
Chancellor, Henry George	Healy, Timothy Michael	Munro, R.
Channing, Sir Francis Allston	Helme, Norval Watson	Murray, Captain Hon. A. C
Chapple, W. A.	Henderson, Arthur (Durham	Muspratt, M.
Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S.	Henderson, J. McD. (Aberdeen, W.)	Nannetti. Joseph P.
Clancy, John Joseph	Henry, Charles S.	Neilson, Francis
Clough, William	Herbert, Col. Sir Ivor,	Nicholson, Charles N. (Doncaster)
Clynes, J. R.	Higham, John Sharp	Nolan, Joseph
Compton-Rickett, Sir J.	Hindle, F. G.	Norton, Capt. Cecil W.
Condon, Thomas Joseph	Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H.	Nuttall, Harry
Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow)	Hodge, John	O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)
Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.	Hogan, Michael	O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)
Cowan, W. H.	Hope, John Deans (Fife, West)	O'Doherty, Philip
Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)	Home, C. Silvester (Ipswich)	O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.)
Crawshay-Williams, Eliot	Howard, Hon. Geoffrey	O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.)
Crossfield, A. H.	Hudson, Walter	O'Dowd, John
Crossley, Sir W. J.	Hughes, S. L.	Ogden, Fred
Cullinan, J. '	Hunter, W. (Govan)	O'Grady, James
Daiziel, Sir James H. (Kirkcaldy)	Illingworth, Percy H.	O'Kelly, Edward P. (Wicklow, W.)
Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.)	Isaacs, Sir Rufus Daniel	O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N.)
Davies, M. Vaughan- (Cardigan)	Jardine, Sir J. (Roxburgh)	O'Malley, William
Dawes, J. A.	Johnson, W.	O'Neill, Charles (Armagh, S.)
Delany, William	Jones, Edgar (Merthyr Tydvil)	O'Shaughnessy, P. J.
Denman, Hon. Richard Douglas	Jones, H. Hiydn (Merioneth)	O'Shee, James John
Devlin, Joseph	Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)	O'Sullivan, Eugene
Dewar, Sir J. A. (Inverness)	Jowett, F. W.	Parker, James (Halifax)
Dickinson, W. H. (St. Pancras, N.)	Joyce, Michael	Pearce, William
Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles	Keating, M.	Pease, Rt. Hon. Joseph A.
Donelan, Captain A.	Kelly, Edward	Phllipps, Sir Owen C. (Pembroke)
Doris, W.	Kemp, Sir George	Phillips, John (Longford, S.)
Duffy, William J.	Kennedy, Vincent Paul	Pickersgill, Edward Hare
Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness)	Kettle, Thomas Michael	Pirle, Duncan V.
Duncan, J. Hastings, (York, Otley)	Kilbride, Denis	Pointer, Joseph

Pollard, Sir George H.	Seddon, J.	Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton)
Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.	Seely, Col., Right Hon. J. E. B.	Wardle, George J.
Power, Patrick Joseph	Shackleton, David James	Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.
Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)	Sheehy, David	Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)
Price, Sir Robert J. (Norfolk, E.)	Sherwell, Arthur James	Wason, Rt. Hon. E. (Clackmannan)
Pringle, William M. R.	Shortt, Edward	White, Sir George (Norfolk)
Radtord, G. H.	Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.)	White, J. Dundas Dumbartonshire)
Rainy, A. Rolland	Snowden, P.	White, Sir Luke (York, E.R.)
Raphael, Herbert H	Soames, Arthur Wellesley	White, Patrick (Meath, North)
Reddy, M.	Soares, Ernest J.	Whitehouse, John Howard
Redmond, John E. (Waterford)	Spicer, Sir Albert	Whittaker, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas P.
Redmond, William (Clare)	Strachey, Sir Edward	Whyte, Alexander F. (Perth)
Rees, J. D.	Summers, James Woolley	Wiles, Thomas
Rendall, Athelstan	Sutherland, J. E.	Williams, J. (Glamorgan)
Richards, Thomas	Sutton, John E.	Williams, P. (Middlesbrough)
Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)	Taylor, John W. (Durham)	Williams, W. Llewelyn (Carmarthen)
Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)	Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)	Wilson, Hon. G. G. (Hull, W.)
Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs)	Tennant, Harold John	Wilson, Henry J. (York, W.R.)
Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradford)	Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E.	Wilson, John (Durham, Mid)
Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside)	Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.)	Wilson, J. W. (Worcestershire, N.)
Robinson, S.	Thomas, James Henry (Derby)	Wilson, T. F. (Lanark, N.E.)
Robson, Sir William Snowdon	Thorne, William (West Ham)	Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)
Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke)	Toulmin, George	Winfrey, Richard
Roche, Augustine (Cork)	Trevelyan, Charles Philips	Wing, Thomas
Roche, John (Galway, East)	Twist, Henry	Wood, T. M'Kinnon (Glasgow)
Roe, Sir Thomas	Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander	Young, Samuel (Cavan, E.)
Rowntree, Arnold	Verney, F. W.	Younger, W. (Peebles and Selkirk)
Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter	Vivian, Henry	Yoxall, Sir James Henry
Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland)	Wadsworth, J.
Samuel, J. (Stockton)	Walker, H. D. R. (Leicester)
Scanlan, Thomas	Walsh, Stephen	TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Master
Schwann, Sir C. E.	Walton, Joseph	of Elibank and Mr. Fuller.
Scott, A. H. (Ashton-under-Lyne)	Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent)

MARQUESS Of TULLIBARDINE

In the absence of my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Mr. Arbuthnot) I have been asked to move after the word "than" ["as respects Bills other than Money Bills"] to insert the words "Bills affecting the Parliamentary franchise and."

The Amendments with which we have been dealing so far have been intended to prevent any future Government jerrymandering the Constitution of the country for the sake of any one particular party. The particular Amendment which I now move is to try to preserve the rights of those who have at the present moment got the franchise. I approach this subject with some diffidence because during the last few days from the very instructive speeches we have had from hon. Members opposite, and especially the speeches of the hon. Member for Stockport (Mr. S. L. Hughes), the hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. Markham), and the hon. Member for the Ince Division (Mr. Walsh), I have learned that the chances are that the peers at the present moment, and of course, as a consequence, their eldest sons who may possibly succeed them, are tuberculous, scrofulous, albinotic, or insane. It is possible that hon. Gentlemen opposite may be correct, but at the same time I do not think they ought to put the whole of this charge particularly on the eldest sons of the peerage. We had a most interesting speech the other day on the enormities of another place from the Home Secretary, and I must say that he did not seem to agree with the hon. Member for Stockport. He dealt with the matter with very great sobriety, and he did not make a point of the charge that eldest sons were of necessity insane. The whole point of the Home Secretary's speech was that he is most anxious to try to get fair play and impartiality in the new House which the Government are proposing to make, and I want to examine the question from that point of view. If it is going to be a question of fair play and impartiality in the future, and if we are to get justice and freedom, I think it would be interesting to know how hon. Members opposite are going to give us either justice or freedom in the new Constitution they are proposing to make.

I quite agree with hon. Members opposite, that the best argument they have got is that the present House of Lords is perhaps too Tory in character, and it is a very strong argument against them. But I would like to remind them that Second Chambers must to a certain extent be rather conservative in policy. By that I do not mean conservative in a party sense, but in the true sense. Hon. Members opposite boast that they are the party of progress. We will grant, for the sake of argument, that they are the party of progress. In that case they must realise that, being, so to speak, in the forefront of the battle, they are rather ahead of the other parties in the State, and possibly ahead of the people whom they ought to be lead- ing, and by whom of necessity they ought not to be driven. The result is naturally that a Second Chamber which has not the benefit of being returned as the party of progress must naturally look at legislation as it comes up. It must be a party of people who are trying to revise legislation and to see that the progress does not develop into a mad gallop, which is not desired by the people. That is the real use of a Second Chamber. Therefore, I do not think that they ought to complain of the Second Chamber being perhaps conservative in character, but that, I quite admit, is a different thing from being too Tory in character. I think if they look at the question, as it is admitted now we are to have a Second Chamber, they will see that the question of reforms would be best dealt with by that Second Chamber itself, while we were left in the position of critics.

The CHAIRMAN

The Noble Lord is travelling very wide of the Amendment.

Lord HUGH CECIL

Is not my Noble Friend entitled to deal with the whole subject of the Resolution until the Amendment is put from the Chair?

The CHAIRMAN

Certainly, the Noble Lord is entitled strictly, if he desires to do so. I cannot prevent him. But once the Amendment is put from the Chair other Members cannot discuss it in the way in which the Noble Lord has done.

MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE

During the last two or three days we have been discussing an Amendment which was intended to give the House a chance of appealing to the nation on the question of constitutional changes, and this Amendment is intended to give the Second House a chance of referring any measure to the country by which a Government—it may be a Tory or Radical Government—maybe endeavouring to jerrymander the electorate shortly before the election, for the purpose of securing votes for themselves. The hon. Member, I think for Ince, stated last night his desire for fairplay and justice. Does he think it fair play to tie up the feet and hands of the House of Lords, so as to prevent them from taking any action in a matter of this kind. The present idea is to prevent a Government interfering with the franchise of the people as it stands at present without the people's own consent. The question of plural voting cropped up the other day. I have my own opinion of its merits, but that is a question a3 to which it might happen that the Government might possibly get in on a perfectly different question altogether by the aid of the great mass of middle-class people—who are the mass of the plural voters in this country, and not the rich— and they might wish to pass something else, and their first step might be to disfranchise these very people after being in for two or three years or four or five years, without anybody else being able to say a single word on the subject, in order to suit some popular cry at the election; and this would be done without the country being able absolutely to say a word upon the subject. The Home Secretary yesterday, in a very powerful speech, stated that the Second Chamber was going to be stronger than the present one, and was going to have enormously increased powers, but there was a difference between one part of his peroration and another part. I do not want to say anything offensive to him. We are very old friends. At the same time it was almost like a bandmaster conducting his band. When he wanted a double bass he had only to look over his left shoulder and it was all right. When he wanted to get the music a bit louder he looked over his right shoulder. When he wanted a drum beaten he turned to the Nationalists and said that the House of Lords was going to be abolished. Sometimes it was a single Chamber, sometimes a double Chamber, and sometimes a Chamber to suit the convenience of a certain handful of Englishmen who try to represent, more or less successfully, the unhappy country to which I belong.

The result of these Resolutions, so far as the present Amendment is concerned, is simply to give this House absolute power over franchise, without giving the people a single chance of saying whether they want it or whether they do not, and to enable them then to go to the electorate, possibly on a new register which has been arranged in consequence of the wishes of some party that brings in that particular measure. I would remind hon. Members below the Gangway that probably it will be a long time before they are likely to-be the party actively in power. But there is a chance that this Tory party, this party of landlords and other criminals of that sort—I am one myself; I know all about it, or I am two thirds of a criminal at all events—may possibly be in power here, and these hon. Members are doing everything they can to make that party absolutely masters of the State; to make them able to bring in any legislation they choose, simply because they want to get a snatch vote for some subject for the next Parliament. They quite forget that the Liberal party is not going to remain always in power, and that all the strength and all the power they are giving the Liberal party will some day be handed over to the Tories, who, I may say I am confident, will make a better use of it. So I appeal to hon. Members to support this Amendment, not as a party Amendment, but in the interests of the great body of electors in this country, because I do not think, however representative the House of Commons may be of the people, that the House of Commons should have the power of passing, possibly in its dwindling days, a measure dealing with the franchise of the people, a, measure which surely ought to be laid before the people themselves—and I am not speaking of workmen or anything of that sort, but of the great body of electors, who are the people. They ought to be consulted as to whether they are to have votes or the right of retaining the votes they have got or not.

Mr. CHURCHILL

The Noble Marquess has treated us to a discursive speech embracing a great number of topics and enlivened by a singular variety of metaphors. But there was one point in the Noble Marquess's speech to which he referred over and over again with very persevering iteration, and which also was a point which happened to be strictly relevant to the Amendment which he was moving. The Noble Lord's argument which he wishes the Committee to endorse is that all measures affecting franchise should be referred to the electorate before they are carried into law.

MARQUESS Of TULLIBARDINE

That it should be possible that they should be referred.

Mr. CHURCHILL

I am quite sure the Noble Lord realised that as a fact the invariable constitutional practice has been exactly the opposite. Franchise Bills, Bills for the extension of the franchise, are necessarily passed before the electorate can be consulted upon them, and the constitutional rule has always hitherto been that immediately after the Bill has been passed, and not before it, there shall be a dissolution, and Parliament should be immediately brought into close contact with the new electorate. It is for that reason that Reform Bills of all kinds, according to the practice which has long prevailed, are brought in in the Session of Parliament immediately preceding an appeal to the country. So I am bound to say that it seems to me a startling innovation to establish, as this Amendment would, according to the Noble Lord, that the country must first of all be consulted before an extension of the franchise was to take place. Then the Noble Lord said it was desirable to prevent the Government jerrymandering with the electorate before an election. That no doubt is a great evil, and no doubt is a danger, but it is a danger we are exposed to at the present time, and it is not one of those remote and visionary dangers which the Noble Lord delights to conjure up of civil war and guillotines. It is not an unreal or fanciful peril; it is an actual peril to which we were all exposed five years ago. I remember well that in the closing days of the last Unionist Parliament the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition came down with the proposal to jerrymander, if I may use such an expression, the constituencies before the election. A brand new proposal was put forward for redistribution, and his party were eager that he should proceed with that proposal. It was not a proposal to extend the franchise to other electors, or to other classes, or to remove, in any fair sense, electoral anomalies. It was a proposal which included, among other things, the disfranchisement, to a very large extent, of Ireland. It included a large reduction in the Irish representation, which, it is always contended, is fixed by treaty, and is part of the settlement of the Union. I am not arguing as to the merits of that proposal, but it is quite clear that the Conservative party, the Leader of the Opposition, and the Government then in power, contemplated doing the very thing which the Noble Marquess so severely condemned, and which he desires, by his Amendment, to prevent.

MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE

Is not that a very good reason for trying to prevent it?

Mr. CHURCHILL

Does anybody suppose that the House of Lords, as at present constituted, would have been the slightest barrier to the passage of such a Bill, introduced by the Conservative party in the Session of 1905, if the Government had had the-strength and the determination to carry their measure to the House of Lords? Everybody knows that the Bill altered all the conditions of the electors, altered the constituencies of the country, and affected the political foundation of every single Member in the House, restricting in very large areas of the country the rights which they had enjoyed for many generations. That Bill would have been passed through both Houses of Parliament if only the nerve of the Government of the time proposing it had not failed them, and if only the detection by the hon. Member for King's Lynn of some fault of procedure in their Resolution had not at the last moment induced them to desist from proceeding with the measure. As I say, we had no protection whatever from the House of Lords against such treatment as that. I do not know that it would be a very wicked thing if a future House of Commons were to use these Veto Resolutions to alter the franchise. I am inclined to think that the Parliamentary franchise would be a very proper matter for Members of the House of Commons to keep in their own hands, to consider and discuss as they may.

MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE

And keep it out of the hands of the people?

Mr. CHURCHILL

I do not think that we should be taking the franchise out of the hands of the people if we were to use these Resolutions for the purpose of abolishing plural voting. Certainly the Government would not consent to the insertion in their Resolution of any Amendment designed to prevent them from altering at any future time any existing electoral anomalies which prevail in the country, and which, as I say, distort the representation, unless they have first of all been able to obtain the consent and agreement of the House of Lords, which "we complain in all matters has been partisan, and which on no subject would be more partisan than on the subject which affects the direct electoral power of the party opposite. The acceptance by the Government of such an Amendment would be a clear admission on our part that we desire the continuance of plural voting for all time, because the House of Lords, as we all know, has repeatedly refused to allow the House of Commons to alter the machinery of its own election in regard to that gross abuse. I say this on the special question to which the Amendment refers. Let me say that, generally, the same arguments against this Amendment were used against the previous one, and I think that the Debate could not very well avoid being to some extent a repetition of those arguments. The power of Parliament, under the procedure which is finally settled as the constitutional procedure, is sovereign and is absolute. If you are to assume that a Parliament of 670 Members, elected by the constituencies, so differently constituted as they are, so varying in their character, so balanced in their divisions—if you are to assume that such a Parliament is going to go mad and do acts which will lead you to the very verge of civil war, it is quite clear that the insertion of a few words, which I am told would be nugatory in their effect for the Bill founded on them, would afford no protection from those dangers.

Whether you like it or whether you do not like it, you are at the present moment committed in all the vital elements of national security to the will of the majority in the House of Commons, and the attempt to restrict the sovereign power of Parliament by the insertion of phrases such as the Noble Lord proposes would be ineffective in their result, even if they were necessary. In these circumstances, I must ask the Committee to treat this Amendment in the same manner as they have treated the other, with this difference, that if there is one subject more than any other that the House of Commons has the right to keep in its own hands, it is the method by which its own Members are elected and the system on which the franchise is extended throughout the country. What does the House of Lords know of these matters? It knows nothing, except the information which it gets from the Conservative party agents at headquarters. We certainly are not inclined to put our right to redress electoral anomalies, now or at any future time, upon the good graces of an un-reformed and partisan. Second Chamber, with which, after the Veto Resolutions have been passed, we will still have to deal.

Mr. WALTER LONG

The Home Secretary, I think, has altogether failed to meet the case put by my Noble Friend. With the exception of the usual cheap sneer at the House of Lords towards the end of his speech, and to which we are now becoming well accustomed when he has to deal with that Assembly in this House, the arguments of the Home Secretary appeared to me to justify the Amendment. One set of his arguments justified the Amendment, and the other set went to show that what the House ought to be asked to do is exactly what the Government are not attempting to do. The right hon. Gentleman told us that they could not trust the House of Lords with the alteration of the franchise. That may be a very good argument in support of a Bill for the reform of the constitution of the House of Lords, but I submit that it is no argument for resisting this Amendment, which is of very great importance, and which was moved by my Noble Friend in a speech of very great ability and great fairness. I was surprised to hear the Home Secretary's observations in regard to the historic aspect of this matter. He is generally very ready to take to task anybody who on this side makes a statement about the past which he thinks he can show to be inaccurate, but no very great knowledge is required to show that in the case of two of the most far-reaching of our recent Reform Bills the people were consulted, the whole case being put before them in the fullest possible way before they were passed.

As to the Reform Bill of 1832, nobody would say, in that case, that the people were not abundantly consulted. Again, as to the Reform Bill of 1884, everybody who remembers the General Election of 1880 knows that the reform of the franchise was made a leading question by hon. Gentlemen opposite, and that, when their Parliament began, everybody knew, if it lasted its ordinary time, it would be followed by a Bill extending the franchise. Therefore I submit that in those two cases the great Reform Bill of 1832, and the next Reform Bill, which takes rank with it in the largeness of its effects on the country, the argument of my Noble Friend behind me is abundantly sustained by historical precedent. In both these cases the country had been consulted before the time came to extend the franchise. May I take it a step further? It is not only in regard to the extension of the franchise that this Amendment is of importance. My Noble Friend has only moved it with regard to the mere extension of the franchise itself, but everybody knows that the part of a Reform Act which is quite as important as the extension of the franchise is the way in which the electorate is dealt with afterwards in a Redistribution Bill, which really gives effect to the new arrangement. I ventured to say, speaking the other day in the general discussion on these Resolutions, that I believed in what took place under the Reform Bill of 1884 you will find a precedent, not merely for these Resolutions, but for this particular case, which the Government would have done well to follow. Lord Morley, whose Liberalism and whose attachment to democracy-nobody will doubt or question for a moment, in his "Life of Gladstone" shows how admirable was the suggestion made in other quarters that there should be an arrangement between the two Houses. I do not think the Home Secretary will maintain that the House of Lords, bad though he thinks it may be, are not entitled to have a voice in the re-arrangement of the constituencies after the franchise has been carried. Why? Because on that depends the returns to this House, and by your own desire you are trying to make this House paramount, and however bad you may consider the Lords to be, you are trying to deny them the elementary rights of citizenship by having some voice in the way in which they and those who belong to them are to be governed.

The way in which they are to be governed depends a good deal more upon the Redistribution Bill itself, on the way in which you redistribute power, than it does on the actual way in which you create the power itself. That I say would be an inevitable consequence of this Amendment, and it forms very good ground for its acceptance by the Government. The Home Secretary seemed to me to give the whole case away, as has been done before in the remarks that he made, when he said: "We have no protection." You may differ from the views of my Noble Friend who moved this Amendment, and you may criticise his arguments, but he submitted his proposition on broad grounds and in no sense as a party Amendment. The Home Secretary meets it by arguments which, it seems to me, as to one set of them, justify the Amendment, while the other set may justify the reform of the constitution of the House of Lords, but not this particular kind of legislation that we are now engaged upon. The Home Secretary said: "We have no protection." What does he mean? Does he mean the party to which he belongs, the party on whose behalf he is speaking, have no protection in the existing House of Lords? I say that the Government and hon. Members opposite make a profound mistake in the interests of the country, if they persist in looking at this question solely from their own immediate party point of view. In this Amendment, and the resistance offered to it, the same thing has occurred as happened in the other Debate. The Government, when they talk about the people and use the word "We," confuse themselves with the people. I think that in that remark we had the real reason for the opposition of the Government and not in the arguments to which I have referred, nor in those to which I am going to refer.

The Home Secretary referred to what happened when the Government, of which I had the honour to be a Member, was responsible for certain Resolutions. He taunted us on this side with having been guilty of the very offence which my Noble Friend indicated might happen—that of dealing with reforms without consulting the people. The Home Secretary may be perfectly justified in giving that as an answer to my Noble Friend, but if it is an answer in any sense it at once forms an argument in support of my Noble Friend. If the Home Secretary established that Resolutions were brought in to which reference had not been made, and I do not remember whether that was so, then he has justified, even by their own action, that it was necessary to guard Parliament against this. I at all events believe, and I think my view is shared by a good many people both in and out of this House, whatever may be the effect of this Resolution and of this Debate, one thing will certainly follow, and that is that the House, in trying to pass such Resolutions, will increase rather than decrease party feeling.

The whole credit of the Government will depend in so framing the Resolution as to bring it within the statutory limitation, and so secure it the advantage under this Resolution. I believe in what was said on a preceding Amendment, namely, that this is one of the questions which should, if possible, be kept outside the limits of ordinary party controversy. If you are going to secure that the adoption of this Amendment is a necessary precedent, we say if you leave it to be dealt with in the ordinary manner, and in the manner which will become universal if this Resolution is adopted, you will be forcing these franchise and electoral questions into, the ordinary rut of party politics. Therefore, on the arguments of the Home Secretary quite as much as on the arguments of the Noble Lord, a case has been made out for the adoption of this Amendment, which they refuse to accept, not for good cause shown, but because the party on that side regard it as one that would be injurious to them.

Question put, "That those words be there inserted."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 138; Noes, 273.

Division No. 28.]	AYES	[7.50 p.m.
Acland-Hood, Rt. Hon. Sir Alex. F.	Craig, Norman (Kent)	Kimber, Sir Henry
Adam, Major W. A.	Dairymple, Viscount	King, Sir Henry Seymour (Hull)
Anson, Sir William Reynell	Dixon, C. H.	Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement
Arbuthnot, G. A.	Douplas Rt. Hon. A. Akers-	Law, Andrew Bonar (Dulwich)
Arkwright, John Stanhope	Duke, H. E.	Lawson, Hon. Harry
Attenborough, W. A.	Faber, George Denison (Clapham)	Lee, Arthur H.
Bagot, Captain J.	Fell, Arthur	Llewelyn, Venables
Baird, J. L.	Finlay, Sir Robert	Locker-Lampson, O. (Ramsay)
Baker, Sir R. L. (Dorset, N.)	Fisher, W. Hayes	Long, Rt. Hon. Walter
Balcarres, Lord	Fitzroy, Hon. E. A.	Lowe, Sir F. W. (Birm., Edgbaston)
Banner, John S. Harmood-	Flannory, Sir J. Fortescue	MacCaw, Wm. J. MacGeagh
Baring, Captain Hon. G.	Fletcher, J. S.	Mackinder, Halford J.
Barnston, H.	Foster, P. S. (Warwick, S.W.)	M'Arthur, Charles
Barrie, H. T. (Londonderry, N.)	Gardner, Ernest	Magnus, Sir Philip
Bathurst, Charles (Wilton)	Gastrell, Major W. H.	Mildmay, Francis Bingham
Beckett, Hon. W. Gervase	Gibbs, G. A.	Mills, Hon. Charles Thomas
Bentinck, Lord H. Cavendish-	Goldman, C. S.	Moore, William
Beresford, Lord C.	Gooch, Henry Cubitt	Morpeth, Viscount
Bird, A.	Gordon, J.	Morrison, Captain J. A.
Boyle, W. L. (Norfolk, Mid)	Guinness, Hon. W. E.	Newman, John R. P.
Boyton, J.	Gwynne, R. S. (Sussex, Eastbourne)	Newton, Harry Kottingham
Brackenbury, H. L.	Hall, D. B. (Isle of Wight)	Nield, Herbert
Brassey, Capt. R. (Banbury)	Hamersley, A. St. George	Norton-Griffiths, J. (Wednesbury)
Brotherton, E. A.	Hamilton, Marquess of (Londonderry)	Orde-Powlett, Hon. W. G. A.
Brunskill, G. F.	Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashford)	Peel, Capt. R. F. (Woodbridge)
Campbell, Rt. Hon. J. H. M.	Harris, H. P. (Paddington, S.)	Peel, Hon. W. R. W, (Taunton)
Carlile, E. Hildred	Helmsley, Viscount	Perkins, Walter F.
Castlereagh, Viscount	Hickman, Colonel Thomas E.	Peto, Basil Edward
Cave, George	Hill, Sir Clement	Pollock, Ernest Murray
Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)	Hills, J. W.	Pretyman, E. G.
Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. A. (Worc'r.)	Hope, Harry (Bute)	Proby, Col. Douglas James
Chambers, J.	Hope, Jamet Fitzalan (Sheffield)	Rankin, Sir James
Clay, Captain H. H. Spender	Horner, A. L.	Ratcliff, Major R. F.
Clive, Percy Archer	Houston, Robert Paterson	Rice, Hon. Walter F.
Colofax, H. A.	Hume-Williams, W. E.	Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)
Ceilings. Rt. Hon. J. (Birmingham)	Hunt, Rowland	Ronaldshay, Earl of
Cooper, R. A. (Watsall)	Jardine, E. (Somerset, E.)	Royds, Edmund
Courthope, G. Loyd	Koswick, William	Rutherford, Watson
Salter, Arthur Clavell	Strauss, A.	Willoughby, Major Hon. Claude
Samuel, Sir Harry (Norwood)	Sykes, Alan John	Willoughby de Eresby, Lord
Sanders, Robert A.	Terrell, H. (Gloucester)	Worthington-Evans, L. (Colchester)
Sanderson, Lancelot	Thompson, Robert	Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart-
Sandys, G. J. (Somerset, Wells)	Thynne, Lord Alexander	Yerburgh, Robert
Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.)	Tryon, Capt. George Clement	Younger, George (Ayr Burghs)
Stanley, Hon. G. F. (Preston)	Valentia, Viscount
Steel-Maitland, A. D.	Walrond, Hon. Lionel	TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Marquess
Storey, Samuel	Wheler, Granville C. H.	of Tullibardine and Captain Craig.
NOES
Abraham, William	Flavin, Michael Joseph	Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs)
Addison, Dr. C.	France, G. A.	Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.
Ainsworth, John Stirling	Furness, Sir Christopher	MacVeagh, Jeremiah
Alden, Percy	Gelder, Sir W. A.	M'Callum, John M.
Anderson, Andrew Macbeth	Gibson, James P.	M'Curdy, C. A.
Armitage, R	Gill, A. H.	Mallet, Charles E.
Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry	Glanville, H. J.	Markham, Arthur Basil
Atheriey-Jones, L.	Glover, Thomas	Marks, G. Croydon
Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury, E.)	Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford	Meagher, Michael
Balfour, Robert (Lanark)	Greenwood, G. G.	Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.)
Barclay, Sir T.	Grenfell, Cecil Alfred	Meehan, Patrick A. (Queen's Co.)
Barnes, G. N.	Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward	Menzies, Sir Walter
Barran, Sir J. (Hawick)	Gulland, John W.	Middlebrook, William
Barry, E. (Cork, S.)	Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway)	Millar, J. D.
Barry, Redmond, J. (Tyrone, N.)	Hackett, J.	Molloy, Michael
Barton, William	Haldane, Rt. Hon. Richard B.	Molteno, Percy Alport
Beale, William Phipson	Hall, Frederick (Normanton)	Mond, Alfred Moritz
Benn, W. (Tower Hamlets, S. Geo.)	Hancock, J. G.	Montagu, Hon. E. S.
Bethell, Sir J. H.	Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvil)	Mooney, J. J.
Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine	Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)	Morton, Alpheus Cleophas
Black, Arthur W.	Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, W.)	Muldoon, John
Boland, John Plus	Harvey, W. E. (Derbyshire, N.E.)	Munro, R.
Boyle, D. (Mayo, N.)	Haslam, James (Derbyshire)	Muspratt, M.
Brace, William	Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)	Nannetti, Joseph P.
Brady, P. J.	Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry	Neilson, Francis
Brigg, Sir John	Haworth, Arthur A.	Nicholson, Charles N. (Doncaster)
Brocklehurst, W. B.	Hayden, John Patrick	Nolan, Joseph
Burke, E. Haviland-	Hayward, Evan	Nuttall, Harry
Burns, Rt. Hon. John	Hazleton, Richard	O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)
Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas	Helme, Norval Watson	O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)
Buxton, C. R. (Devon, Mid)	Henderson, Arthur (Durham)	O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)
Buxton, Noel (Norfolk, N.)	Henderson, J. McD. (Aberdeen, W.)	O'Doherty, Philip
Buxton, Rt. Hon. Sydney C. (Poplar)	Herbert, Col. Sir Ivor	O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.)
Byles, William Pollard	Higham, John Sharp	O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.)
Cameron, Robert	Hindle, F. G.	O'Dowd, John
Carr-Gomm, H. W.	Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H.	Ogden, Fred
Cawley, Sir Frederick (Prestwich)	Hodge, John	O'Grady, James
Cawley, Harold T. (Heywood)	Hogan, Michael	O'Kelly, Edward P. (Wicklow, W)
Chancellor, H. G.	Hope, John Deans (Fife, West)	O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N.)
Channing, Sir Francis Allston	Horne, C. Silvester (Ipswich)	O'Malley, William
Chapple, W. A.	Howard, Hon. Geoffrey	O'Neill, Charles (Armagh, S.)
Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S.	Hudson, Walter	O'Shaughnessy, P. J.
Clancy, John Joseph	Hughes, Spencer Leigh	O'Shee, James John
Clough, William	Hunter, W. (Govan)	O'Sullivan, Eugene
Clynes, J. R.	Illingworth, Percy H.	Parker, James (Halifax)
Compton-Rickett, Sir J.	Isaacs, Sir Rufus Daniel	Pearce, William
Condon, Thomas Joseph	Jardine, Sir J. (Roxburgh)	Phillips, John (Longford, S.)
Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow)	Johnson, W.	Pickersgill, Edward Hare
Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.	Jones, Edgar (Merthyr Tydvil)	Pirie, Duncan V.
Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)	Jones, H. Haydn (Merioneth)	Pointer, Joseph
Crosfield, A. H.	Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)	Pollard, Sir George H
Crossley. Sir W. J.	Jowctt, F. W.	Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.
Cullinan, J.	Joyce, Michael	Power, Patrick Joseph
Dalziel, Sir James H. (Kirkcaldy)	Keating, M.	Pringle, William M. R.
Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.)	Kelly, Edward	Radford, G. H.
Dawes, J. A.	Kemp, Sir G	Rainy, A. Rolland
Delany, William	Kilbride, Denis	Raphael, Herbert H.
Denman, Hon. Richard Douglas	Lambert, George	Rea, Walter Russell
Devlin, Joseph	Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, W.)	Reddy, Ml.
Dickinson, W. H. (St. Pancras, N.)	Layland-Barratt, Sir Francis	Redmond, John E. (Waterford)
Donelan, Captain A.	Leach, Charles	Redmond, William (Clare)
Doris, W.	Lehmann, R. C.	Rees, J. D.
Duffy, William J.	Levy, Sir Maurice	Rendall, Athelstan
Duncan, C, (Barrow-in-Furness)	Lewis, John Herbert	Richards, Thomas
Duncan, J. Hastings (York, Otley)	Lincoln, Ignatius T. T.	Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)
Edwards, Enoch	Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David	Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)
Elverston, H.	Low, Sir Frederick (Norwich)	Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradford)
Esslemont, George Birnle	Lundon, T.	Robinson, S.
Falconer, J.	Luttrell, Hugh Fownes	Robson, Sir William Snowdon
Ferens, T. R.	Lynch, A. A.	Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke)
French, Peter	Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester)	Roche, Augustine (Cork)

Roche, John (Galway, East)	Sutton, John E.	White, Sir George (Norfolk)
Roe, sir Thomas	Taylor, John W. (Durham)	White, J. Dundas (Dumbartonshire)
Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter	Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)	White, Sir Luke (York, E.R.)
Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland)	Tennant, Harold John	White, Patrick (Meath, North)
Samuel, J. (Stockton)	Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.)	Whittaker, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas T.
Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel)	Thomas J. H. (Derby)	Whyte, Alexander F. (Perth)
Scanlan, Thomas	Thorne, William (West Ham)	Wiles, Thomas
Schwann, Sir C. E.	Toulmln, George	Williams, J. (Glamorgan)
Scott, A. H. (Ashton-under-Lyne)	Trevelyan, Charles Philips	Williams, P. (Middlesbrough)
Seddon, James A.	Twist, Henry	Williams, W. Llewelyn (Carmarthen)
Shackleton, David James	Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander	Wilson, Henry J. (York, W.R.)
Sheehy, David	Verney, F. W.	Wilson, John (Durham, Mid)
Sherwell, Arthur James	Vivian, Henry	Wilson, T. F. (Lanark, N.E.)
Shortt, Edward	Wadsworth, J.	Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)
Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.)	Walker, H. De R. (Leicester)	Wing, Thomas
Snowden, p.	Walsh, Stephen	Wood, T. M'Kinnon (Glasgow)
Soares, Ernest J.	Walton, Joseph	Young, Samuel (Cavan, E.)
Spicer, Sir Albert	Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent)	Yoxall, Sir James Henry
Strachey, Sir Edward	Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton)
Summers, James Woolley	Wardle, George J.	TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Master
Sutherland, J. E.	Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.	of Elibank and Mr. Fuller.

Bill read a second time, and committed to a Standing Committee.

Mr. JAMES HOPE

moved, after the word "than" ["as respects Bills other than"], to insert the words, "Bills affecting the prerogative rights and powers of the Grown and."

I do not pretend to be a constitutional authority, but I have taken some pains to find out what is covered by those words, and, although the list may not be exhaustive, it is long enough to cover a great number of cases of first-class importance. The Crown represents the Nation before the world, the Crown makes Peace and War, the Crown makes treaties, the Crown acquires and cedes territory, the Crown exercises jurisdiction over English subjects abroad, the Crown appoints and dismisses Ministers, the Crown exercises the prerogative of mercy, the Crown opens, prorogues, summons, and dissolves Parliament, the Crown appoints to spiritual and executive offices, and confers dignities and grants charters, the Crown authorises the spending of public money, and sets in motion our judicial circuits. The exercise of these powers at different times led to much discussion and friction, and of course there will be a great number of cases, some of which no doubt will occur to other Members of the Committee.

8.0 P.M

There was the question of the distribution of Privy Council grants other than by an Appropriation Bill in 1839. That was considered to be a great stretch of the Royal Prerogative, and led to much discussion. Then there was the famous case of the abolition of purchase of Army commissions in 1872, which again led to much controversy and denunciation. With regard to treaties, the precedents are numerous and conflicting. In connection with the agreement with Germany in 1890 a very interesting Debate took place. That matter was brought before Parliament, and the Government of Lord Salisbury justified their action; but Mr. Gladstone pointed out that it was really unnecessary for them to have done it at all, and that there were numerous precedents of territory having been either ceded or acquired simply by the power of the Crown, without any reference to Parliament at all. Other jurists have drawn a distinction between what may be done in time of peace and what may be done at the end of a war. The question has been very warmly debated at different times. In connection with the dismissal of Ministers by the Crown, there is the famous case of 1834, when the great Reform Ministry, which came into power in triumph two years before, were, after having once been reconstructed, dismissed by the direct act of the Crown, an act no doubt warmly resented, but from which at that time no evil consequences followed. There is also the dismissal of Lord Palmerston by the Queen in 1851. That was a dismissal not of the whole Ministry, but of one Minister. What has occurred in the past might easily occur again. It is possible to conceive similar cases, not so much of the dismissal of a Minister as of the Veto on the appointment of a Minister, an act which, if rumour is correct, occurred on more than one occasion during the last reign.

It is easy to prove the proposition that the powers of the Crown are very extensive, that their exercise in the past has lead to much controversy in particular instances, and that fresh controversy might arise in the future. I have fully in mind the constitutional doctrine of the unity of purpose and responsibility between the Crown and the Ministers of the day. Controversy might arise in the future on one or two grounds. The allegation might be either that Ministers had made an unwar- ranted use of the Royal Prerogative, when in the ordinary case legislation would have been necessary, or that the Crown had acted independently of Ministers, and yet involved Ministers in responsibility; and that the Ministers, although resenting the position, were, for more important reasons, unable to show their resentment by resignation or by advising Dissolution. Within the last year or two there have been points of some interest, if not of first-rate importance, connected with the powers of the Crown and their exercise. I would refer to the memorable and interesting Debate in the last Parliament on the occasion of the Czar's visit. In that instance the Crown represented the nation in conference with the Russian nation. There were circumstances at the time which led to that meeting of two friendly sovereigns being regarded as unfortunate by a large section of opinion in this House, and a Debate ensued. About the same time the hon. Member for Donegal (Mr. MacNeill), whose absence from these Debates we all regret, took the point that it was a departure from constitutional practice for the Sovereign to have any interview with a foreign sovereign without the Foreign Secretary being present. His contention was not taken up by any large body of opinion, and I cite it only as showing that points of this kind which have arisen in the past might easily arise again, and perhaps on some more important occasion. Whatever the power of the Crown has been in the past, it is certain that fresh difficulties may be expected to arise in the future if this Second Resolution passes as it stands. If there is a large section of public opinion bitterly hostile to a measure which passes through this House they have an appeal to another Chamber; but if that appeal is ineffective, and if the House of Commons so long as it remains of the same mind for two years together can override the wishes of the opposing section, there will be only one appeal, and that will lie to the Grown. Some hon. Members speak as if the Veto of the Crown on legislation were dead. Until it has been repealed it cannot be dead. If it is enforced it will be valid, and the Courts will recognise it, and all the declamations in the world will not stop that Veto from being effective. The Crown has only to send a Commissioner to say in another place, "Le roi s'avisera," and the Bill in question is dead. It may be said to be very unlikely that this procedure will ever be adopted, but, after all, there are other means of obtaining the same result. The Crown has undoubtedly the Prerogative of Dissolution without reference to the advice of the Ministry of the day. That is another way in which a Bill violently resented by a strong body of public opinion might be destroyed until the people had pronounced upon it. Then there is the precedent of 1834 for the dismissal of a whole Ministry—a course which may conceivably be urged on the Crown.

Consider what the position of the Crown would be in a matter of this kind. There would be a long discussion, which necessarily would last two years, the statutory period prescribed by these Resolutions. Men's passions would be inflamed during that period. It would be contended that the measure was not really endorsed by a majority of the people, and possibly by-elections might take place giving colour to that theory. When the Government of the day had persisted and forced their measure for the third time through this House those who were opposed to it would bring all manner of pressure to bear in order that the Crown might be induced to take one of the three courses open to it. It might easily be that the Crown would find itself in this position—that if the Sovereign refused to consent to the measure he would be denounced for making use of an old arbitrary power which was thought to be dead; while if, on the other hand, he did not make use of that power, he would be denounced, openly or otherwise, by another strong body of opinion, who considered their dearest interests to have been betrayed. That is not a position in which the Crown ought to be placed. A great merit of the last two reigns is that the position of the Crown has been kept above the whirlpool of party politics, and the splendid influence for good, especially abroad, that the Crown enjoys at the present time, has arisen from that detached attitude which for some seventy years has been so faithfully preserved. But will it be possible to preserve it in future? When the country is convulsed by contending factions on some vital issue, and appeals are made, whatever may be done by the Crown will give bitter offence to some great body of public opinion. The position will not be one as between party interests. The whole position of the sovereignty will be assailed and menaced.

Apart from the lustre conferred by the present and the late Sovereigns, the question must be considered from the point of view of what may be termed cheap popular criticism. The Crown is not elective; it is hereditary. The Crown is not technically representative, nor is it amen able or responsible to any other power. Eighty or ninety years ago the Crown was excessively unpopular in the country, and though we hope we shall not live to see any recurrence of that feeling, still, viewed from the standpoint of history, such a recurrence is possible. No one reading the old memoirs of Greville and others can doubt that in those days the position of the Crown was very different from what it happily is now, but the pre sent happy state of things, which rests on the fact that the Crown is above and detached from party politics, cannot be expected always to continue. Perhaps in the times of our children, in less happy days, even apart from the danger of these Resolutions, the position of the Crown may be seriously menaced. And I say when you have these natural elements of weakness which are in modern conditions, and which must touch the sovereignty it is a grave and serious danger if you do anything to aggravate it, and to make that position more difficult in future. I have been speaking of the possibility of Bills—

And, it being a quarter past Eight of the Clock, further Proceeding was postponed, without Question put, in pursuance of Standing Order No. 4.