§ Resolved, That no Peer of the Realm, except such Peers of Ireland as shall for the time being be actually elected, and shall not have declined to serve, for any county, city, or borough of Great Britain, hath any right to give his vote in the election of any Member to serve in Parliament.
§ Motion made and Question proposed: "That it is a high infringement of the liberties and privileges of the Commons of the United Kingdom for any Lord of Parliament, or other Peer or Prelate, not being a Peer of Ireland at the time elected, and not having declined to serve for any county, city, or borough of Great Britain, to concern himself in the election of Members to serve for the Commons in Parliament, except only any Peer of Ireland, at such elections in Great Britain respectively where such Peer shall appear as a candidate, or by himself, or any others, be proposed to be elected; or for any Lord Lieutenant or Governor of any county to avail himself of any authority derived from his commission, to influence the election of any Member to serve for the Commons in Parliament."
§ Mr. LAURENCE HARDYI desire to move the omission of the central words of the Order, so that, in the future, it shall stand as applying only to Lords Lieutenant, who, I think, occupy a different position to other peers and prelates.
Sir H. DALZIELOn a point of Order. I propose to move that the whole Order be not passed, and I would ask your ruling, Mr. Speaker, whether it would not be better to do so now, and whether, in the event of the hon. Member's Amendment being carried, I shall be ruled out of order.
§ Mr. SPEAKERI must take the Amendment first, but, after the Sessional Order has been amended, supposing that it is amended, I shall have to put it as a whole, and it will then be my duty to call on the hon. Member.
§ Mr. LAURENCE HARDYI think it is quite time—in this new Parliament—that we abstained from passing these Orders. I do not desire to enter into the arguments which have been addressed to this House in times past, because, so far as old Members are concerned, they know them extremely well. But I should just like to say one word to those who are new Members, 17and it is, if they have any hesitation in voting against this Rule, which has formed part of our Rules for something like 200 years, they may find consolation, at all events, in being informed that I do not suppose there is any old Member of this House who has not during the period of his being in the House, voted both for and against the Rule. And, so far as the Front Benches are concerned, I believe, with hardly an exception, this has been the case. I am not quite sure whether there may not have been one exception in the case of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dundee, who, I believe, on this point, has been absolutely consistent during the time he has been in this House. But the point we are discussing to-day really is affected by matters which have arisen since the House last passed this Rule, and therefore I think we ought to consider three questions in regard to it. First, is this House willing to put the Rule in force; secondly, is it able to put it in force; and, thirdly, in what way at present does it enforce the Rule?
So far as the willingness of the House is concerned, we have had three occasions within recent years when Members have tried to bring the matter of this Rule to a definite issue. On two of those occasions the Government of the day carried the House with them in refusing to allow it to come to an issue on the Question. They moved in one case the Previous Question, and the Motion on the other occasion was to proceed to the next business. Therefore they have shown unwillingness to approach this Question. Last year, however, we had a third occasion, when the House did proceed a little further and referred the matter to a Committee of Privileges. I should like to ask anybody who has read an account of what took place in that Committee as well as the Report made by the Committee, if they think it is an easy matter for this House to carry this Rule into effect? At all events, for myself, I think the proceedings of that Committee were in no way an encouragement or defence of those liberties for which you asked last week in the House of Lords and which were so freely granted to you. I think, therefore, great unwillingness to carry out the rule has been demonstrated. And so far as we are able to carry it out in regard to the larger matters concerned, I think the evidence of last year's inquiry shows it is very unwise for us to enter upon this course. It is not one which in any way makes our rules respected either by18ourselves or by others. There is the third question, how far this rule is enforced at present? I believe the utmost point reached at present is that after the writs have been issued Peers do not actually appear on public platforms. I think that was called by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition last year a "very arbitrary and technical distinction," and everybody who witnessed the course of the last election must agree with that description. How can it, in view of what has occurred, and without going into current politics, how can it, when a General Election is taken upon practically two issues, as to what the Peers have done in the past and what is to be their position in the future, how can it be possible, in accordance with ideas of liberty of speech or with the rights of Englishmen, that those who are so clearly put on their defence shall not be allowed to say a word on behalf of their own case. I am quite sure there is not a Member of this House who would not say it was perfectly right that the Peers should have taken part in public discussions in the country during the Election. And when we knew that they practically did appear on public platforms in nearly every constituency in connection with the party to which I belong, as well as in connection with the other side—when we know it cannot be denied that they took part in the election and yet not a single voice of protest was raised against it, nor did anyone say they were not perfectly within their rights to do as they did, surely it is an absurdity for us, on the first day of the first Session of this new Parliament to pass a Rule which we cannot enforce, which we are unwilling to enforce, and which we admit to a great extent we do not intend to enforce. It is in the belief that we are only exposing our Orders to contempt that I ask leave to move the omission of these words, and I trust it is the last time it will be necessary to take this course.
§ Mr. H. E. DUKEI rise to second the Motion which has just been made by my hon. Friend, and I do so because it seems to me that when this House is about to deal, on the invitation of His Majesty, conveyed in His gracious speech from the Throne, with the most vital constitutional question which has arisen since the time of the Great Rebellion we ought at any rate to begin our proceedings with a note of sincerity. I venture to say that to adopt any Resolution now which condemns, with the authority of this House, the 19 intervention of Peers in the proceedings of elections, intervention which notoriously took place in every one of the keenly contested elections from which we have just come, cannot be looked upon as a note of sincerity in our proceedings. Let me give the House an illustration of what I mean. In the election from which I have just come the colleagues of the right hon. Gentlemen opposite, I think the leader of his friends in the other House, came down to the Constituency for which I happen to have been elected to support the claims of my opponent and described him as a gentleman who was almost Member for the City of Exeter. On the other hand a member of the party to which I have the honour to belong, who sits in the other House, and who had been Member for Exeter, came down to support the cause with which he had been so long associated. Nobody doubted for a moment that each of these Peers had done public service in advancing the cause of one party or the other, and it certainly did not strike any elector in the City that there was any incongruity in their action. Yet each of these Peers, if, in substance, this Sessional Order is passed to-day, will have been guilty of a grave infraction of the liberties of this House. Nobody believes anything of the kind because everybody knows and everybody expects, and perhaps approves, that in the election which may take place next month, or may take place at the end of this year, the question at issue will be the future fate of the Peerage in the Constitution of this country. That will be the question which will be submitted to the arbitrament of the final tribunal in all our great public questions. As I understand, those who are to be indicted upon this occasion before the electorate for a long course of misdemeanours are to be gagged in advance. I think there was, something more than a 100 years ago, a tribunal on the other side of the water where it was found necessary in the interests of injustice to gag the accused and render them incapable of being heard, but the genius even of the French Revolution revolted at its height against a measure of that kind, and everybody knows that if this Standing Order is passed every Peer who desires to appeal to his fellow-countrymen with regard to the great issues which have to be decided will be heard with eagerness as well as with respect. I observe there was a jarring note from some hon. Members of the House, but not 20 from this side of the House, but I venture to say that there is something to be said on both sides of this matter with regard to the intervention of Peers, and if I may presume to apply a touchstone to the sincerity of those who will decide whether this is to be a Sessional Order or not, I should apply that touchstone to the recent proceedings of a Peer, not a supporter of the Party who sit on this side of the House, which I suppose is the most highhanded interference by a Peer in the proceedings of an election which has taken place since this Sessional Order ever came into being.
There is a constituency in Lancashire known to most of us who know the country pretty well—the Lancaster Division. There was a Member who sat for the Lancaster Division who had special advantages for representing it. He was the greatest employer of labour in Lancaster, and his works were in the constituency. He was a man of very great wealth; he was an exceedingly generous man; he endowed Lancaster with all sorts of advantages, and he was a man of great personal popularity. He sat for Lancaster for nearly 10 years, and he was translated in what at that time seemed to be the ordinary constitutional course of conduct to another place, and those who knew his merits and abilities congratulated him upon that. Now there was a keenly contested election in that division of Lancashire a few weeks ago, and the constituency had come to the eve of the poll. The day before the actual polling, so that there were none of those niceties raised which it is customary to raise on these occasions of distinction between the day after the issue of the writ or the day on which the writ has been received, or the day before; nothing of the sort. The Noble Lord had an election impending and an election in which he was keenly interested, and on the day before the polling, when it was impossible for anybody else whatever to say a word on the matter subsequent to that which the Noble Lord was to speak, he unbosomed himself with regard to the coming contest, and with regard to his future relations with that constituency, in which he was almost the only or universal employer, and in which he appears to have been a very great public benefactor. The message which the Noble Lord delivered was in the form of a circular which I have here. The usual sort of letter on the eve of an election if it had come from the candidate.
21 The message in which the Noble Lord unbosomed himself was a message to this effect, that Tariff Reform—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh"]—I am bound to explain in order to see whether hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite are in earnest in deprecating the interference of Peers at elections, no matter from what side it comes or with what object. The Noble Lord's first message was with regard to Tariff Reform, and it was a declaration by a man who is the proprietor of great works in the constituency, the master of a great industry, the employer of very many people in the district, and his message was that it would be ruin to them. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I will read it, if I may, Mr. Speaker, and it comes very appositely from any man who had the right to address the electors, and I am dealing with the question of whether the Noble Lord had the right, and ought to be permitted to say this. Hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite may think he had the right, and that he should be permitted to say it, and then, of course, they will vote for the Motion of my hon. Friend and myself. The Noble Lord on the day before the polling said this:—
My views on political questions are widely known. I have openly declared my firm belief in Free Trade, and I have emphatically asserted that Tariff Reform would seriously injure the trade of Lancaster and the neighbourhood, and consequently every class of inhabitant and that without Free Trade it would have been impossible for my business to have attained to its present position.This is not a matter of opinion, but is one of absolute and indisputable fact, and I take this opportunity with all the earnestness at my command, of warning the electors of this division to have no hand in what is foolishly called 'Tariff Reform.'["Hear, hear."] Hon. Members opposite think that the Noble Lord ought to be allowed to do that, and then there is an obvious course for them on this Motion, but what one wants to know is not what is thought at a corner below the Gangway, but what is thought on the Front Bench opposite. The Noble Lord struck that which, under the circumstances, was a strong political note, and then the Noble Lord proceeded to refer to the other aspect of his relations with his old constituents, that of the Maecenas of the constituency, and he referred accurately and properly to the benefits he had conferred, and he warned the electors that those benefits were about to cease if the course which he recommended to them was not followed. The Noble Lord referred to the benefits he had conferred, and to the criticism which he had undergone on the occasion when it was said there had been the feeding of 22 20,000 persons during the period of an election. This was an absolutely non-political matter, and nobody suggests here that the feeding of 20,000 persons by an old representative could possibly affect the election. The question was with regard to the future, and this is the paragraph from the circular:—I may as well say that over and over again surprise has been expressed that I should continue in the face of such treatment, to trouble myself any further about the affairs of Lancaster, but hitherto I have always steadily refused to be influenced by the conduct of my slanderers to depart from my usual course.I have now, however, made up my mind that if this sort of thing is to continue. I shall not take any further interest in Lancaster or the neighbourhood, and thus save myself from a repetition of those disgusting exhibitions of political rancour as well as from an expenditure of many thousands a year.Here, when the Noble Lord has been drawn from his privacy—a privacy which the Constitution appears to have imposed upon him—by the criticism of his political opponents upon acts which were supposed to be acts of political generosity, it is suggested that we should have a Standing Order to warn the Noble Lord and all others in like case on both sides in politics that they must not interfere with elections in that way. Whether it is desirable that the Noble Lord should throw the personal element so strongly into a contest where he is not a candidate as it appears to have been thrown in this election circular is, of course, a matter of personal taste. The real question is whether the House should lend itself to the annual farce of declaring beforehand that such a benevolent and kindly interference as that of the Noble Lord in the affairs of Lancaster is a high breach of the privileges of this House, with the intention subsequently of not acting upon any such principle.
§ Mr. N. W. HELMEI think it is a matter of regret that so much time has been expended upon the letter which the hon. and learned Gentleman has quoted, but which he did not read in its commencement. I, being the candidate for the division, knew nothing about the letter, and had nothing in the world to do with it. It was sent to the Constituency by a Noble Lord who is a resident in it, and who has been properly described as our greatest citizen, who sat for some years in this House, and now occupies a place in the House of Peers. The letter begins with this expression:—
It is with the greatest reluctance that I address this letter to you, but in justice to myself, I feel compelled to do so. Only on one occasion during the whole of my life have I taken the slightest notice of the lying and slanderous attacks which have been made upon me during Parliamentary elections, made, even though I was not the candidate, by those who knew their statements to be absolutely false.23 We unfortunately have had in the Constituency a spirit of malevolent motive. We have had outrageous attacks made persistently upon the most honoured citizen. Lord Ashton has enjoyed the confidence of the people as representative in this House, and upon many occasions has been assured of it since, and when he is charged with practically corrupt and improper action arising out of the generous present of a new Town Hall, and municipal buildings, it is monstrous that this should be pressed into such a persecution, for that is what it is. Surely any man, be he Peer or peasant, may defend his own honour, and it is a cruel wrong that has been done to represent the facts by the statement that has been made, as it was a cruel wrong to impute such unworthy motives. The facts are these. Some four years ago Lord Ashton was good enough to offer the town of Lancaster a new set of municipal buildings at his own cost, and these buildings have been erected at a cost of some £150,000, and it was Lord Ashton's desire that they should be opened without the slightest public ceremony. This was done in accordance with his usual quiet spirit. The corporation persuaded him to allow it to be publicly opened, and the ceremony was fixed for 27th October, but on the 16th October, by medical advice, he was obliged to withdraw from the arrangements, and they had to be postponed, and they were not completed until December, and then, because of that postponement, his Lordship is charged with practically a corrupt motive in withholding and postponing the opening in order that he might influence the election. It is disgraceful that that should be done. If Lord Ashton had desired not to have any public opening, how could it be held that he was guilty of any corrupt motive in postponing the opening that he personally never desired to have? We have had in that town of ours a new Tory newspaper established, and one of its placards contained this expression: "Food and Politics. Feeding 20,000 persons," attributing the generosity of the donor to corrupt motives. It is impossible for Gentlemen opposite to believe that this was anything but a generous gift on his part, and I trust the House will not for a moment believe that his Lordship had such a motive in such action as he took.
§ Mr. T. M. HEALYI have only one friend in the Peerage of the United Kingdom 24 and that friend is Lord Ashton. I have known him for 25 years and I have stayed at his house frequently. I know the town of Lancaster very well, and I am quite sure that if my hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Duke) knew the facts connected with Lord Ashton or remembered him in this House as Mr. Williamson, where he sat and where he was one of the most generous friends of Ireland, perhaps, that ever came into this Assembly, I am sure my hon. Friend would not have introduced his name in the spirit in which he has done. Lord Ashton probably has conferred more benefits upon his native town than any other citizen of this Kingdom. I do not know any man who has shown the same interest in his town or expended the same benefactions upon it. What are the facts? Having spent upon the town £400,000 or £500,000, and it being known that there is not even a man out of work at any time in the whole district that he does not give employment to, last October, long before the General Election was thought of, long before the Lords had thrown out the Bill which caused the election, and long before any man in this House supposed that any election would take place, everything was ready for the opening of the Lancaster Town Hall and for the generous entertainment which Lord Ashton was about to give. He fell into ill-health. The doctor forbade him, and he did not recover sufficiently to have it done until this month of December. What happened? Every Conservative in Lancaster who knew the facts condemned the attack which was made upon him. Nearly every Conservative in Lancaster took part in the entertainment. The entertainment was organised by a Committee on which the Conservatives of Lancaster had a leading share, and the idea that Lord Ashton intended by his action upon that occasion to practice bribery is one of the most absurd which could be levelled against him. Why did he write the letter? He wrote the letter because he was charged with bribery which the hon. and learned Gentlemen insinuated, but did not dare to make.
§ Mr. DUKEThe hon. and learned Member is in error. I made no accusation. I carefully abstained from any accusation of corruption against the Noble Lord. I know nothing about his relations with Lancaster. What I directed attention to was the fact that on the eve of an election the Noble Lord had written a strong address to the electors.
§ Mr. T. M. HEALYIf the hon. and learned Member did not insinuate it, then I do not know what provoked the laughter which followed upon his remark. But a newspaper in Lancaster said: "Lord Ashton took no part in the election, and remained absolutely neutral in the matter." The "Lancaster Mail" placarded and replacarded the town with this statement: "Food and politics. Feeding 20,000." It was only when this man, who is the benefactor of almost every citizen in the community, came out and defended himself, he having been attacked for issuing this circular, that he stated what everybody knew that he had long been connected with Lancaster, had long been a friend of the town, and that it was unjust to him at a moment like that to connect his name with such a thing as bribery or corruption. Lord Ashton was not the aggressor. He was the attacked, and I think it is a monstrous thing for anybody who knows him to introduce his name into a Resolution of this kind for purely party purposes. I only wish that every Member of the House of Lords was like Lord Ashton. I only wish that every Member of the House of Lords had done as much good to his town as Lord Ashton has done, and, for my part, in the case of such an old and staunch friend of Ireland as he is, and such a convinced friend of our cause, I am very proud to have this opportunity of raising my voice to-night.
Sir H. DALZIELI hope that the Division taken to-day will be taken upon the broad merits of the Standing Order, and not as expressing any view of the conduct of Lord Ashton or any other individual Peer. I recognise that the Mover and Seconder of this Amendment are in favour of Peers being allowed to take part in elections. I am sorry they have not found it to be their duty to oppose the Standing Order as a whole, for in that way I think we would have had a clear and fair issue, not complicated as to any particular view as to the contents of the Standing Order. I welcome the two hon. Gentlemen who moved and seconded the Amendment, because I take it that we may now consider that they have arrived at the conclusion that the party opposite are going to support them in their opposition to the Standing Order, and I suppose we may take it that this is the first part of the reform of the House of Lords believed in by the party opposite.
26 For my part, I oppose the Standing Order as a whole. In the first place I do so because I think it is wholly useless, entirely inoperative, and only lends itself to a position whereby this House can be made to look ridiculous. Hon. Gentlemen opposite want Peers to have the power to speak right up to the eve of the poll. So do I. The more Dukes and Peers take part in elections the better I like them. Therefore, on that issue, I am glad to see that there is so much unanimity in the House. I know that if I had had a duke writing a letter against me at the election my majority would have been 1,000 more than it was. So far as Scotland is concerned, the action of the Peers who took part in the elections did nothing but good to our side of politics. A letter was written by the Duke of Sutherland in which he warned the poor pensioners on his estate that if they voted Radical they would have poverty overtaking them. That formed an excellent topic for orations on the part of every Liberal candidate throughout Scotland. Scotland gave him his answer. Then, again, we had the Duke of Devonshire and Lord Curzon taking part in a Manchester contest. The Duke of Devonshire delivered a soul-stirring oration, and Lord Curzon, with that modesty which characterises him, approved of the expression which the Duke had made. What was the result? It won the seat for my hon. Friend the Member for North Sal-ford (Mr. Byles), and incidentally it led to the disappearance of one of their most distinguished and trusted leaders. Mr. Joynson-Hicks. Another distinguished Peer wrote a letter in the midst of the election—I refer to Lord Rosebery. He only wrote one letter in support of one candidate, and unfortunately it was addressed to my esteemed friend, Mr. Harold Cox. The result was that he was at the bottom of the poll. In another case our friend Mr. Dumphreys, who won such a magnificent fight for the Tory party in Bermondsey, and who expected to win again, was defeated; and I understand that he puts the defeat down to the fact that a duke lent him a motor-car.
From our point of view I say that the more speeches we have from Peers the better, in the course of an election. Therefore, I contend it is a simple farce to pass this Standing Order. We had a brilliant example of how the House was made to look ridiculous in connection with a recent case. We had the action of the Duke of Norfolk brought under the notice of the House. The House decided that his action 27 raised a question of Privilege. What was the result? A Committee met, and was presided over by the Prime Minister. There were many other distinguished Members on the Committee. They communicated with the Duke of Norfolk, and asked him to give evidence or express his views on the subject of the complaint which had been made. The Committee was made to look perfectly ridiculous. The Duke of Norfolk wrote a letter, in which he said, "I do not feel that I am in a position to comply with the suggestion which you are so good as to communicate to me." The result was that the Committee met and decided, after due consideration, that they did not think a breach of privilege had been committed.
I say that we are forced to draw the conclusion that by retaining this Standing Order we are making ourselves ridiculous in the eyes of the House and the country. I say that, especially from the House of Commons point of view, it is time that this Standing Order was repealed. You will have incidentally throughout the whole Session this point again brought forward, and the opinion of the House will be taken upon it. Surely this is the time when we ought to deal with the question, when we are going to take, as I suppose we are going to do in a few short weeks, the legislative power from the House of Lords. I think we ought to associate with that procedure a fuller opportunity for the Members of the House of Lords to take part in the discussion of public questions at the time of an election. I hope the Government on this occasion will not make this a party question. I hope that the Prime Minister, recognising that it is a matter for Members of the House to decide, will not put on the party Whips, and that he will leave it entirely to the House itself, so that in that way we shall get a free and un-fettered vote, irrespective of party.
§ The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Asquith)I rise to respond to the appeal addressed to me by my hon. Friend, and I assure him that on this occasion, as on the last occasion when the matter came up, the Government will leave it a perfectly open question for the decision of the House. I can make that statement with the more sincerity because I am one of the people who, in the course of some 25 years of Parliamentary life, have voted in every possible way in regard to this Order. I have voted for the retention of the Order, 28 I have voted for the rejection of the Order, and I have voted for its amendment, and therefore I may fairly claim the privilege of an open mind. I do not think the matter can be fairly disposed of without the House remembering what an enormous change there has been in the condition of things since this Order originally became part of our procedure. In those days constituencies were small, and to a very large extent, in many parts of the country, the electors were at the mercy, or could be placed at the mercy, of territorial magnates or persons exercising proprietary influence. That was the state of things to guard against which this Order was originally passed; but, with the growth in the size of constituencies, the extension of the franchise, and the growing consciousness on the part of the people that, whatever Peers may say, questions are really in their own hands, it seems to me that the original foundation for the Order has to a large extent disappeared.
We had experience in the last Session of the last Parliament, when the matter was brought under the consideration of the Committee of Privileges. I sat on that Committee, and the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition was also a member of it. We carefully examined all the precedents, and I think the conclusion at which we all of us arrived was that there might be conceivable cases in which this House might legitimately resent and take notice of the action of Peers; yet, under modern conditions, these cases were likely to be so few, and even when they did occur action was likely to be so impotent in the result, that it was hardly worth while to legislate against them. Let me add that the experience of the General Election through which we have passed reduced this Sessional Order to a farce. I do not suppose there was a single election in any part of the country in which one Peer or another did not take part. The artificial cessation of that activity on the issue of the writs was, after all, an artifice of the most transparent and flimsy description. I have practically boxed the compass in regard to this matter, and I have come to the view which I held on the occasion of the first Division in which I took part—namely, that it is not worth while maintaining this Order. But that is only my own personal opinion. The matter is entirely one for the decision of the House at large.
§ Mr. A. J. BALFOURThe case with respect to my experience has been different 29 from that of my right hon. Friend who has just addressed you (Mr. Asquith). I believe I have consistently voted in favour of retaining the Standing Order, not because I thought it could be defended in logic; not because for a moment I supposed that you could draw any distinction in reason between the day which precedes the issue of the writ and the day which succeeds the issue of the writ, but because, being a rather old-fashioned person, I could not see why this House should deliberately invite the occupants of another place to alter a practice which, if not universally observed, was generally observed. And I was prepared to maintain the status quo. Two things have happened since last I spoke on the subject. The first of those things has been referred to already by the Prime Minister. I mean the Committee, of which he and I both were members, which sat upon the Duke of Norfolk's case last October. The results of that investigation came, I confess, as a surprise to myself, and I believe as a surprise to most of my colleagues on the Committee, because we really discovered that the intention of the House, when it originally passed that Standing Order, was not in the least to prevent Peers writing letters to candidates or making speeches. I do not believe that in the days when this Standing Order was made it was the practice for anybody, Peer or Commoner, to write letters to candidates, nor did the modern methods of electioneering prevail in those days in the shape in which they prevail at present. The House of Commons was not concerned with letters from Peers to candidates, or with speeches made by Peers to candidates. What it was concerned to prevent was intimidation by Peers, owing to undue pressure exercised by Peers upon electors, in the election of Members of this House. That was the whole object in view. It that was the whole object in view it is idle, and it is an entire historic misconception to suppose that objection was taken by this House to the expression by a Peer of his individual views on the political questions of the day. That was not the objection. If that was not the objection, why should we invent a new and very absurd objection in favour of a Standing Order which never occurred to the minds of those who originally framed it? I think that the result of the investigation which the Attorney-General and the Prime Minister undertook, and which they shared with us on the Committee, proved conclusively that this House has been under a misconception as to the object of the 30 Standing Order, and its purpose was not served, and cannot be served, by endeavouring to apply to Members of the House of Lords a rule allowing them to make as many speeches as they like before the writ is issued and preventing them making any speeches afterwards. In view of what was shown by the investigations of the Committee, I do not see that there is a single defence to be made for the Standing Order in its present shape. There may be cases of interference by Peers which might invalidate an election. Certainly I know nothing about the case of Lord Ashton at all, except what passed in the House to-day. But I may say that the very generous defence which has been made by the learned Gentleman the Member for Louth missed the real point. I do not know whether it is of importance or not, but the real point was that on the eve of the election a great, a very generous benefactor of a constituency said: "If these things go on my generosity must necessarily be dried up."
§ Mr. T. M. HEALYHe has been attacked.
§ Mr. BALFOURMy whole sympathy would be with Lord Ashton if he was grossly misrepresented, and that what he gave out of his free generosity had been by his political opponents represented as something to secure a political advantage.
§ Mr. BALFOURIf that is what was done, I can quite understand Lord Ashton's resentment. But it is put forward that the letter was a threat on the part of a great benefactor in a constituency in which he was the most important member, as if he said "I hold certain opinions. I have been subject to certain attacks, and if this sort of thing goes on I will dry up those streams of generosity which have flowed so freely." I do not offer any opinion about the matter at all, but if that be an interference at all it is different in kind and in character from that of some Peers who have come forward. My Noble Friend Lord Ribblesdale came forward after the writs were issued and went down and made a speech in Preston which I have no doubt materially diminished the majority by which his friends were thrown out immediately afterwards. With the exception of that, I do not believe that any Peer has spoken in the Constituency itself after the writ was issued. I remember once Lord Rosebery spoke in Edinburgh when there was 31 an election in Leith, but I think that Lord Ribblesdale set an example at Preston of a Peer speaking in a constituency after the writ was issued. I may be wrong, but no such case was before the Committee. After the investigation of the Committee and all that occurred at the late election, and after the manifest feeling on both sides of the House, it seems to me that the old grounds have been really abandoned, and as we freely admit that Members of the other House can take part in the election by speeches and letters in the newspapers, or by any other means of influencing public opinion every month of the year except the weeks after the writ has been issued and before the election takes place, that this very arbitrary exception must now be fully expunged from our Standing Orders, and that we must revert to the more rational and more defensible position of affair's. My right hon. Friend has asked me to say something about the position of the Lords Lieutenant which would be left in if my hon. Friend's Amendment were carried in its present shape. I must say that there is something to be said for it, because the House must bear in mind the case of a Lord Lieutenant or a governor of his county availing himself of any authority derived from his position to influence an election. He is, as I understand, to be precluded from taking part in an election, but he is not to lose this authority. That is increased by the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War (Mr. Haldane).
§ THE SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Mr. Haldane)They have no control over the troops.
§ Mr. BALFOURNo, they have no control, but I am not sure that it is not that a Lord Lieutenant may not make a speech. It is not that he may not give his arguments on any question of public policy to his friends and neighbours, but it is that he must not use any authority that he happens to possess from that position to influence the election. I do not believe that it is a matter of any great importance. I do not believe that the authority which the Lord Lieutenant derives from his office is very great. I do not think he has any greater power qua Lord Lieutenant. But, still, on the whole, though I do not take a strong view about it, I rather accept the suggestion of my hon. Friend not to adopt the more drastic proposal with regard to them also.
§ Question, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question," put, and negatived.
§ Main Question, as amended, put, and agreed to.
§ Resolved, That it is a high infringement of the liberties and privileges of the Commons of the United Kingdom for any Lord Lieutenant or Governor of any county to avail himself of any authority derived from his Commission to influence the election of any Member to serve for the Commons in Parliament.