§ Colonel GRIFFITH-BOSCAWENI beg to move in Sub-section (1) after the second word "Bill" ["If any Bill other than a Money Bill"] to insert the words "or a Bill affecting the establishment of the Church of England or the temporalities thereof, or the Church of Scotland and the temporalities thereof."
Earlier in the evening we discussed whether Home Rule was to be excluded from the purview of this Clause. The pressing necessity of that Amendment was due to the fact that the Government announced their intention to rush a Home Rule Bill through directly the Parliament Bill was carried, but there is also a proposal in the interregnum between the carrying of the Parliament Bill and the reconstitution of the Second Chamber for the dismemberment and disendowment of four Welsh dioceses. The other day in reply to a deputation the Prime Minister said it was the intention of the Government to give the Welsh Disestablishment Bill such a position as would enable it to override the veto of the House of Lords during the present Parliament.
§ Mr ELLIS GRIFFITHHear, hear.
§ Colonel GRIFFITH-BOSCAWENThe hon. Member and his friends are determined if they can to get such a measure through in the interregnum. We have seen an amusing scramble between hon. Members for Ireland and hon. Members for Wales as to who are to have preference. It was amicably settled at Holyhead the 1520 other day. The hon. Member for Anglesey (Mr. Ellis Griffith), and the hon. Member for Waterford (Mr. John Redmond) met and talked about the brotherhood which existed between the two kindred Celtic people. Even that little friendly gathering was rather marred by the fact that the hon. Member for East Denbighshire (Mr. John) found himself unable to be present, because he did not agree with the policy of the hon. Member for Waterford. At all events he was not allowed to take the chair, for that would not have conduced to the brotherhood of two kindred peoples. I am at all events right in saying that it is perfectly clear that it is the intention of the Government and of the various parties who support it by a process of marvellous log-rolling to rush both Welsh Disestablishment and Home Rule through the present Parliament without either matter ever having been properly discussed by the country at all.
We heard a good deal this evening from the Prime Minister as to what mandate the Government had for Home Rule. The Prime Minister told us how he spent his Easter holidays driving through a beautiful part of the country in Surrey, and saw everywhere on the hoardings posters telling the people that if they voted for the Government it would mean Home Rule for Ireland; and he built from that theory that the country had been consulted on Home Rule and had agreed to it. Can the Prime Minister really suggest that in the case of Welsh Disestablishment the country was consulted at all? In what way? Take the election addresses. First of all I take the election 1521 addresses of the members for Wales who support the Government. Twenty-one of the Government candidates for Welsh constituencies issued election addresses. Of those only eight mentioned the subject at all. [An HON. MEMBER: "Will the hon. Gentleman give the names?"] I am sure the Committee would not wish me to read all the names if I had them. Of two other hon. Members out of the total number, one referred in vague terms to the great advantages of what he called religious equality. What religious equality may be I do not know, except if you are going to equally confiscate endowments of other religious bodies besides those of the Church.
1.0 A.M.
On this great and burning question at all events the Welsh people are supposed to have made up their minds, yet only eight out of twenty-one candidates thought fit to mention the subject at all, and two others spoke about religious equality. [An HON. MEMBER: "Will the hon. Gentleman give the names of the twenty-one candidates? "] The hon. Member knows the names perfectly well. This election, which is supposed to have settled the question in Wales, resulted in our winning two boroughs in Wales, including the most important of all, namely, Cardiff. If you go back to the election of a previous Parliament, the only election at which there was anything like a referendum on the question of Welsh Disestablishment, which took place in 1895, and was directly upon the Welsh Disestablishment Bill, we then won seven seats. I am perfectly certain that if the question were put to the Welsh people again as clearly as it was in 1895 we should win at least all these seven seats.
Let me refer to another point. This, after all, is not only a Welsh question. You are seeking to dismember the Church of England as a whole. You are seeking, if the Government proposals be carried out, to cut away four dioceses, and these the oldest dioceses of the Church of England, to divide the Church of England into two parts. You are seeking to do what you would never propose to do for a moment in the case of Nonconformists. I should like to see what kind of reception you would get if you brought in a Bill to seperate the Wesleyans in Wales from the Wesleyans in England, or if you sought to separate the Calvinists in Wales from the Calvinists in England.
§ Colonel GRIFFITH-BOSCAWENThat is not the fact. There is, I know, in the North of Wales a separate Calvinist Methodist body, but what is it? It is the "Liverpool and North Wales." I know the Welsh people are very ambitious, and I am one of them myself, but I never before heard it suggested that Wales included Liverpool. Apart from that, take the case of the Free Church Council. Is there a separate Free Church Council in Wales apart from England? There is nothing of the kind and hon. Members know that perfectly well. They know that if a proposal were made to separate, to tear away from any religious body in England those adherents who happen to be living in Wales any such proposal would be resented by every single Nonconformist authority in the whole country.
§ Colonel GRIFFITH-BOSCAWENI appeal to hon. Members to give me a hearing, and at all events it is a matter that affects England. We have a right to say in England whether we want the Church dismembered or not. I take the question of a mandate in England. Is it seriously contended—I appeal to the Home Secretary or to any English Member—that the question was before the English electors at the last election?
§ Colonel GRIFFITH-BOSCAWENAn hon. Member opposite says "Yes." Well, there are 210 supporters of the Government returned for English constituencies. How many of these mentioned Welsh Disestablishment on their election addresses? Only four. There are also six who spoke about religious equality. Granting that the whole of these six intended to convey disestablishment in England or Wales, or both, only ten out of 210 thought fit to mention this matter at the last general election. Yet you now come before this House and propose a Bill of this sort for which there can be no pretence of any mandate whatever, which has never been before the country at all, and has never been considered by the country, which was rejected by the country on the only occasion on which it was brought before them at all. Is it seriously contended that this Bill has got a mandate and that it is to go through the House of Commons and not to be revised in another place and become law at once. Whatever may be the 1523 case of Home Rule—I admit it is a very strong case—I mean a very strong case on my side—for exemption from the Clause I say the case of Welsh Disestablishment is even stronger, and I do appeal to the Government in this matter to give us some justice. They must see how manifestly unfair it is to force a measure of this sort through when it has never been before the country in any shape whatever.
Let one take another point. When the Government some years ago first came in I know they had to deal with the aspirations of hon. Members from Wales. They appointed a Royal Commission to inquire into the real facts about the Church in Wales, and the Prime Minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, said:—
That owing to the absence of official information on the questions which were now being submitted to the Royal Commission, the Government of the day were exposed to a good deal of embarrassment in the framing and conduct of the measure.Well, the Royal Commission sat and reported, but, mark the fact, that it never reported until the very moment when the general election took place. It was quite impossible for this Report to be before the country at all. My belief is that the Report was deliberately held back in order that the people should not know what the nature of the Report was. The facts are that the Report absolutely smashed all the old arguments in favour of Welsh Disestablishment, it proved that far from being the miserable minority which it was alleged to be, it was the largest and strongest religious body in the Principality, and proved also that it was the only religious body showing any real life or progress. That Report destroyed absolutely the old theory that it was an alien Church. It destroyed all the old arguments that were used in this House fifteen years ago, and further showed that these proposals for disendowment would take away from the Church all it had got in the way of endowment except 1s. 5½d. in the £.
§ Colonel GRIFFITH-BOSCAWENIt is a fact, and these are the figures. If the hon. Member chooses to contest the conclusions of the Royal Commission let him do so, but he will find that these are the figures. Yet that Report was never put before the public, because it was brought out too late for the people at the last election to have an opportunity to judge it, and we are told that a mandate has been given in 1524 favour of Welsh Disestablishment, and that this matter must be rushed through over the provisions of this Clause.
I want now to look at the question from a broader aspect. I have been dealing so far with the specific proposal which the Government have made to the House, and I say further that a great question affecting the establishment and endowment of the Church ought, whether it be the Church in England or the Church in Wales or the Church in Scotland, to be exempt from the provisions of a clause like this. Of course, I am aware, so far as the church in Scotland goes, there is no direct attack upon it at the present moment, not at any rate in the form it took a few years ago. But I remember that in the first Parliament in which I sat a Suspensory Bill was brought in with regard to the Church in Scotland, and at any moment a similar action might be taken by the Government of the day, and either a Suspensory Disestablishment Bill or a Suspensory Disendowment Bill forced through this House with regard to the Church in Scotland without any control on the part of the Second Chamber.
A question of this sort ought to be exempt from the provisions of this Clause, and I will remind the House of this, that when the Act of Union was passed between England and Ireland the churches of England and of Ireland were united, and it was enacted "that the continuance and preservation of the said united church shall be deemed and taken to be an essential and fundamental part of the union." Of course, I am aware it suits them because the Church of Ireland has been disestablished. Yes, but that was by the concurrence of both Houses. [Some laughter.] Surely the House of Lords assented to the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland, otherwise it could not have become an Act of Parliament. Therefore I submit that in the same way any measure of this sort affecting the Church of England or the Church of Scotland should not be carried by the fiat of one assembly, but should be submitted to the Second Chamber. For these reasons I move my Amendment.
§ Mr. CHURCHILLThe Government and, I think, the Committee will recognise very readily that the hon. Gentleman and his friends have full justification for bringing forward an Amendment of this character. They, as a party, feel very strongly—it is an old and long tradition of their party—the importance of the 1525 maintenance of the endowed and Established Church. We can quite understand that they would wish that an Amendment excluding that church from the provisions of the Parliament Bill should be discussed and voted upon during the course of our debates to-day. Therefore I do not in the least quarrel with the hon. Gentleman, nor should I attempt to reply in any controversial spirit to his painstaking speech though I think there were one or two points—for instance, that where he tried to prove, by analysing election addresses, that the Welsh representatives were not in favour of Welsh Disestablishment. There were one or two such passages which might under more favourable circumstances have aroused considerable feelings of controversy. But this is not the time to discuss the merits of Welsh Disestablishment or the scope and character of such a measure as that.
I do not think the hon. Gentleman would feel that we could with much advantage discuss the subject of mandate on this subject. After all, he knows perfectly well that the Liberal Party and other Liberal Governments have brought forward Bills dealing with the disestablishment of the Church of Wales. He knows perfectly well, experienced politician as he is, that the principle of disestablishment and the actual measure of Disestablishment of the Welsh Church has been an essential part of the political programme of every Member, I think, who has been elected to support a Liberal administration or a Liberal Party in opposition. Therefore, I do not think the question of the merits or of mandate require discussion at the present time. We are again at the same question we have been discussing during these past two days of our debates—of whether organic or Constitutional questions of a peculiar character should be exempted from the scope of the Parliament Bill. To that we have only one answer. We consider that the machinery of the Bill and the safeguards this Bill provides are adequate and sufficient for the discussion and passage into law of all measures and all legislative proposals and changes which may be made to Parliament and which may receive the assent of the House of Commons. That being so, I trust I have carefully endeavoured to avoid anything like a controversial tone, because we have got a good deal of work to do. An agreement having been reached, I do not think we should sit unduly late. With every desire to avoid anything which may 1526 cause hon. Gentlemen irritation, I am bound to meet this Amendment as we have met so many others which produce the same argument in the same tone.
§ Mr. LONGThe right hon. Gentleman tells us that in face of the agreement we have arrived at we should avoid controversy. He certainly has done so. But it is not a question of agreement at all. This is a very simple matter. It is within the power of the Government to lay down what shall be the limits of debate and discussion. It is within the power of the Government to say whether we shall do our business within certain time. The Government may do so, but it is not a question of agreement. It is a question of our having to bow to those who are in authority. We have studied to make the best use of the time at our disposal and my hon. Friend has moved an Amendment which is of first-rate importance. The Home Secretary meets it by telling us that the Government have got a mandate and that it has been part of the policy of the Liberal party from time immemorial and so on. I suppose I am an old Member of the House of Commons. I remember when this question was not only controversial between the two Parties but was extremely controversial in the Party opposite. Within quite recent times a great many Members opposite thought it necessary to state that although they were ardently in favour of Radical measures one thing they were not in favour of was the disestablishment of the Church. In the late Parliament there were distinguished Members of the Party opposite who more than once on the floor of the House said that while they were Radical in everything else they resisted the disestablishment of the Church.
§ Mr. LONGNo. Parliaments under the present regime follow so rapidly that I should have said the last Parliament but one. I am not talking of Welsh Members. My hon. Friend in moving his Amendment referred to the question of addresses, and his reference was met with laughter on the part of Gentlemen opposite. It seems to me we come in Debate every day to some fresh Parliamentary doctrine. It used to be understood quite recently that Members seeking to enter the House of Commons put into their addresses references to the subjects they thought to be of importance, and which they thought ought 1527 to be dealt with by Parliament; but now, apparently, the reverse is the doctrine. Now it is not the thing which is in the address, but which is left out of the address that matters in the eyes of hon. Gentlemen opposite. They argue: we do not put this into our addresses not because it is not important, but because we think something else is important. That makes it difficult to understand what legislation hon. Gentlemen who have adopted that doctrine wish to carry out. So far as the Amendment is concerned, I think it is a very proper one, and one which I think in different circumstances we might well have discussed for a very considerable time. But we are up against a brick wall. The Government are determined to carry their legislation in their own way. I do not think it would be much good to pursue at any great length the Debate, because I think what we are called upon to do is to realise and to ask the Government to realise what is their new policy. They ask us to agree to their view, that they have a mandate for every kind of legislation, and that they are therefor entitled to use the Parliament Bill to give effect to these measures. It is not worth while arguing that. What we are entitled to say is that is not a question of mandate, it is not a question of the will of the people, it is not a question of democratic legislation.
Let us put all that nonsense on one side. It is a question of what the Government or what the Members on the Front Bench for the time being desire to carry into law. Having laid down their conditions their party are bound to support them or turn them out. They do not want to turn them out because they would possibly find someone else in their places. Therefore the legislation of the Government becomes the legislation of the day. Let us have no nonsense about the mandate of the people or the will of the people. What you are really doing is to give to the Government of the day power to carry any legislation they choose. They choose to include Welsh Disestablishment. We cannot resist it, but we can protest against it and my hon. Friend is justified in moving the Amendment, and we are justified in making our protest. But beyond that we cannot carry the contest. But we are entitled to ask in the first place that hon. Gentlemen opposite who are unwilling to take part in the Debate should at all events be courteous and be governed by the ordinary rules 1528 which have governed Debates ever since I have been a Member of this House and not to interrupt with interruptions not known under the old Parliamentary law. We are also entitled to say that in accepting the conditions in which we find ourselves we do not do so because we agree with the position the Government take up, but because we realise that to prolong the controversy is futile and that the Government are really seeking for themselves the right to carry legislation to which we object, for which they have not the mandate of the people, and which is not the legislation the people desire, the Government being the authority on what shall be done or what not.
§ Mr. ELLIS GRIFFITHIf I follow aright the speech of the right hon. Gentleman his argument is that there is no mandate to justify the Government. The hon. Member for Dudley was once a candidate for a Welsh seat. I am sure no Welsh constituency could have withstood the political charm of his arguments had it not been that he was wrong on this particular question. If I ask him whether the real cause of his defeat was his attitude upon this question, I am sure he will not get up in his place and contradict me.
§ Colonel GRIFFITH-BOSCAWENI do entirely contradict that. The cause of my defeat was the miners, and not the Church question at all—particularly on Chinese labour.
Mr. GRIFFITHI was wrong then in attributing the failure of the hon. Member to only one reason. He had many, no doubt, but the chief and main reason of his defeat is the question to which I have referred. I am not going to follow the hon. Member into the merits of this controversy, and I do not think it would be in order to do so. He is not quite well informed on the subject of the Welsh Commission. As he is now a Member for Dudley it does not matter very much, but the hon. Member who sits next to him is an authority on the matter. I am sure if he cares to get up and contradict his hon. Friend on his left he will do so. The Welsh Commission proves this: the Welsh Church is in a minority as compared with the Free Churches of Wales as one to three or one to four. I take silence to mean consent on that point. So it really comes to this, that at any rate the Church of England in Wales is in a substantial or unsubstantial minority; and the real point we are discussing now is granted.
1529 Most hon. Members will agree that for forty years in Wales this has been the main paramount issue to the people of Wales in deciding general elections. At eleven general elections the Welsh people have returned a majority of five to one in favour of this question. Since 1886 the National Liberal Federation has put it in a foremost place in its programme, and with regard to the general election of 1906, the late Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman said it remained an integral part of the Liberal programme. In 1909 it "was promised in the session of 1910. What was said by the leaders of the Liberal party at the last General Election? The Liberals ran the risk of being in favour of Disestablishment and if the Conservatives lost in many cases it was because they resisted the proposal. The Prime Minister said on 25th November, "In a speech I made at the Albert Hall nearly a year ago I dwelt on some of the causes that we believe are in our keeping. I adhere to everything I said then. I spoke of Welsh Disestablishment "—the very first question he mentioned—"of the abolition of the Parliamentary veto, of a better licensing system, and of a national system of education." Curiously enough the hon. Member for East Worcester was speaking on the same day at Glasgow and he said, "Any of the changes once discussed might be passed into law over their heads. It would have a right to disestablish as many churches as it liked. [A VOICE: 'Not of Scotland.'] Yes, of Scotland, and without consulting the Scottish people." That was what your leaders told the people. In spite of that threat the Scottish people again supported the Liberal party.
But I have a still higher authority than the Prime Minister and an ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer. I have a Bishop, and I will quote his words. Writing to "The Times" newspaper of 3rd December, 1910, the Bishop of St. David's said:—
As a Bishop whose diocese Mr. Asquith is pledged to deprive of 87,500 out of 94,000 a year of endowments, I appeal to churchmen to vote for the Unionist proposal of a Referendum on all matters of great gravity.The Bishop wanted the Referendum. Well we have had the Referendum, so far as this matter is concerned, in Wales for forty years. [HON. MEMBERS: "When?"] At every general election. I venture to tell anyone who does not know anything about Wales that not a single Liberal Member for Wales has not been in favour of Welsh Disestablishment. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for St. George's, 1530 Hanover Square (Mr. A. Lyttelton) in his election address said:—The Parliament Bill once passed, a Radical Government, if faithful to its pledges, would carry Home Rule, Disestablishment and Disendowment of the Welsh Church, and destroy religious education in Church schools.In these circumstances can anyone come to any other conclusion than that the Prime Minister, as leader of the Liberal party, made this question part of the programme on which he appealed to the country? Leaders of the Conservative party, with their Bishops and other supporters, made it perfectly clear to the country that if they voted for a Liberal they were running the risk of having the Welsh Church disestablished and disendowed. The people have taken the risk. It is clear that this question is within the ambition of the Government's mandate. We have already waited too long. We in Wales who voted for the Parliament Bill did not vote for it as an end in itself, but as a means to an end. That is its real justification. It would be in accordance with the decision of the voters at the general election that the Parliament Bill shall apply to the disestablishment in Wales, and that the veto hitherto possessed by the peers shall be overridden.I think that in this Parliament we shall have religious equality. It is a strange thing to me that the hon. Member (Colonel Griffith-Boscawen) in his brief candidature was not told by one of the miners what religious equality meant in Wales. Religious equality and disestablishment are really the same thing. [HON. MEMBERS: "And disendowment?"] It is a little late to begin a lesson on these elementary points, but really it is so. The hon. Member for Dudley (Colonel Griffith-Boscawen) compared the establishment in Wales to the position of the Wesleyan body in the Free Church Council. However that may be we have been sent here by the electors of Wales to support this Bill not because we believe in it by itself, but because we have always found the House of Lords has been directly antagonistic to all Welsh reforms, not only in connection with our schools, but in every direction, and because we believe in the pledge of the Government that in this Parliament we shall at least have religious equality.
§ Mr. ORMSBY-GOREI will restrain myself from endeavouring to enter with any heat into the controversy started by my hon. Friend (Colonel Griffith-Boscawen), into which the hon. Member 1531 for Anglesey (Mr. Ellis Griffith) rather naturally leads me. I should like to controvert one or two of his points, but I will refer to them later. I wish in the first place to say I would rather follow the path of the Home Secretary and desire that at this hour of the morning that we should, in discussing this particular Amendment assume as uncontroversial an attitude as possible. In fact in discussing the question of Welsh Disestablishment I would far rather cross swords with the hon. Gentleman opposite with the Bill in front of us, and on the specific proposals for what he once termed the bread and butter policy for the people of Wales. The point I wish to raise on this Amendment is the constitutional aspect of the question. We have been discussing this afternoon Amendments dealing with a Home Rule Bill, and with specific Acts of Parliament. This Amendment raises an altogether different category of constitutional questions. After all can the hon. Member for Anglesey (Mr. Ellis Griffith)—I know he is a learned lawyer—point one to any Act which establishes the Church of England? It cannot be done. The establishment of the Church either in England or Wales is not like the establishment of the Church in Ireland under the Act of Union, but is one of more ancient constitutional usages which had grown up before Parliament itself came into existence.
§ Mr. EDGAR JONESOn a point of Order. If the hon. Member is allowed to discuss the question of the different types of establishment we shall be here for a very long time. [HON. MEMBERS: "Order."] I have risen to a point of Order. I should like to ask you, Sir, whether it is in order to discuss upon this Amendment the different types of establishment.
§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN (Mr. Whitley)It is only in order so far as it affects the special case of exemption from this particular sub-section. I cannot allow hon. Members on either side to enter upon a general discussion of the question. I do not think so far as he has gone that the hon. Member is out of order.
§ Mr. ORMSBY-GOREI wish to be brief and have no desire to go outside the rules of order and follow the path into which I might have been easily led by the hon. Member for Anglesey and discuss the actual merits of the question of the Disestablishment of the Church in Wales. 1532 I wish to point out here that there is a special case for allowing the question of disestablishment, especially Welsh disestablishment, to remain outside the provisions of the Bill owing to the peculiar constitutional position of that establishment. I was endeavouring to prove that, according to my own notion, following upon the words of the Prime Minister spoken the other day, it is not strictly constitutional for Parliament to dismember the Church of England. I was endeavouring to point out that the question of disestablishment is an exceedingly difficult one to discuss, because there is no Act of Parliament establishing the established Church. It is a product of certain constitutional usages which date back to the time before Parliament existed and which resulted in this, that the Church of England is represented specifically in a body known as Convocation. Since before Parliament all the Welsh dioceses have been represented in the Convocation of Canterbury. Since before Edward I summoned Parliament the representatives of the Welsh Church were summoned to the Convocation at Canterbury. I suggest—adopting the Prime Minister's statement the other day—that whatever the difference between the legal powers of the two Houses of Parliament, we can make out a particularly strong case on the question of disestablishment for maintaining that if ever the Government does take it in hand it should take it as a whole, and that it should not go in for disestablishing a part of the Church or taking away part of its temporalities.
That is one point which I would urge most respectfully upon the Government. The relation between Convocation and Parliament is a particularly interesting one historically, and it is one which shows that the Church has historically, and by the constitutional usage of this House, a free and exclusive right to its own position, and to draw up its own composition in Convocation and things of that kind. That has been the constitutional usage. I know an Act of Parliament can do anything, legally. An Act of Parliament can turn a man into a woman. It can do anything; but the question is whether it is constitutionally feasible or constitutionally right. Under this Bill you could destroy and dissolve a Constitution as old as that of Parliament itself, one absolutely separate from that of Parliament, and which exists, not subordinate to Parliament, but parallel with it. I submit that is not a highly controversial point, and does not raise any 1533 purely controversial question such as those raised on the opposite side of the House.
I wish to say a few words next on the subject of the mandate. I absolutely agree with other Members on this side of the House that the Amendment should be accepted because the question has not been submitted adequately or fully to the electors either of Wales or of England or Scotland. It is a question which in many places is far more keenly felt than the question of Home Rule, and of Ulster and other parts of Ireland. People feel very keenly in this House on the matter as they do in Wales. Churchmen everywhere feel very keenly upon this point, and I do submit that if you examine the records of the last two elections it is perfectly plain that the great religious questions were absolutely avoided. In January, 1910, the question of the Budget and the question of the Constitution, and questions like Tariff Reform, were prominent, and the same at the last election. I remember two nights after my own election coming into the street in one of the Montgomery boroughs: I remember distinctly having the Liberal candidate's last word given into my hands as I went to address a meeting, and I remember distinctly there was never a mention of disestablishment or disendowment, but there was a flaring placard, "Vote for Humphreys-Owen and no Bread Taxes." That was the sum total. Was this question properly put before the electors of Wales? Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who has been mentioned by one speaker, mentioned this question in a speech in England, but when he came to Wales he never mentioned it. He came down to Wales and spoke at Wrexham, and he was specially warned not to mention it by the hon. Member who now sits for East Glamorgan.
§ Mr. ORMSBY-GOREThe hon. Member will not dispute—
§ Mr. ORMSBY-GOREI will withdraw the statement, but the hon. Member stated—and he was reported in the Press on January, 1910, in that constituency—that disestablishment and disendowment were not the issue. I have kept the paper in which he is quoted as saying that. He refused to answer a question on the platform, and he did all he could to avoid and shirk and burke that issue. No doubt some 1534 hon. Members from Wales will say that is why he was beaten. That is a matter entirely neither here nor there. I have not long been electioneering, but all my electioneering experience has taken place in the principality of Wales, but I know that the Liberal party leaders in England and the Liberal Members talk about anything rather than disestablishment and disendowment. It is never put—
§ Mr. ORMSBY-GOREWell, not in North Wales. They never put it fairly and squarely before the electors, and if we try to put it before the people we are always told "that is not the case." The gentleman who stood against me at the last election said would I give the concrete figures and I gave them showing how much was to be taken away under the Bill last introduced by the Liberal Government. What did he say? He said, "Oh, but I am certain the Liberal party will not take away any of the endowments of the Church to which the Church could show a title."
§ Mr. ORMSBY-GOREThe hon. Member says, "hear, hear," but I tell him we can produce titles in Wales to the property and revenues now enjoyed by the Church.
§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANThe hon. Member is now getting away from the subject of the Amendment.
§ Mr. ORMSBY-GOREI regret that I was led into a thorny and highly controversial topic. I hope it is not entirely my fault. I have spoken of the two main reasons why this Amendment should be accepted by the Government. They are, in the first place, that the question has not been properly put before the electors, so that the electors might give their voice and vote on this issue, and that they had before them far more prominent issues for the time being, and that this is one of the great fundamental questions which arouses the feelings and opinions of the people most keenly; and, secondly, that when we examine these historical foundations the Government proposal to dismember and disestablish the Church, apart from disendowment, is, according to the Prime Minister's use of the term, unconstitutional, and should not be carried out under this Bill.
§ Lord HUGH CECILI wish to be very brief and to carry with me, as far as I 1535 can, the opinions and sentiments of hon. Members on that side of the House as well as on this side. I think I can put a proposition which will not meet with much opposition on that side of the House. Here is a proposal which weighs very hard and heavily upon our feelings. We feel very deeply and warmly upon it. We say, "You may ask us to make this sacrifice, but in any country ruled over by methods of self-government we cannot be asked to do it except in obedience to the will of the people." I can see the answer, and I am purposely putting my finger upon it. I can see the answer which the hon. Member for Anglesey (Mr. Ellis Griffith) will give. He will say, "The Welsh people are against you on that point." Well, I do very earnestly protest against the doctrine that this matter can be determined solely by the population of Wales.
Observe what happened in the case of the Irish Church. In the case of the Irish Church the matter was certainly submitted to the whole of the United Kingdom, and the whole of the United Kingdom was deeply interested because beyond all doubt the question dominated the issue alone at a General Election. We have now no mandate on this question, but certainly in that case there was as near a decision on that great question as you could hope to get, though not to my mind a very satisfactory one. In this case no one will pretend that outside Wales, or even inside Wales, according to my hon. Friend who has just spoken on that point, the question of Welsh Disestablishment was given that sort of decision or anything distantly approaching to it. It was altogether a subordinate matter and was not an issue at all in Scotland and Ireland, and was altogether a subordinate matter in England.
I will not put it so far as that the whole of the constituencies of the United Kingdom should give their views. It is perfectly plain that England and Wales are entitled to be heard, and I will not repeat the arguments of my hon. Friend. Look how deeply it strikes into the organisation of the English Church. The Province of Canterbury would be dismembered. The Convocation of Canterbury would be broken up, and, indeed, there are other points—like the districts which lie over the Welsh border in England, and which it would be necessary to legislate for. Supposing you 1536 had Welsh Home Rule and English Home Rule you would have to pass a Bill for Welsh Disestablishment either through the Imperial Parliament or through both the English House and the Welsh House. Therefore it is an English issue. It is a matter in which we have a right to say the English people have a right to pronounce upon. I may not carry hon. Members with me, but it is my strong opinion that a very decided majority of England and Wales taken together are against disestablishment. I think they have always been against it, and I think the feeling is moving in a direction away from Welsh Disestablishment. Take the broader ground than the mere technical and legal ground. Cannot hon. Gentlemen sympathise with what we feel when we are told that the opinion of the English people should not weigh in this matter? Why, it is our church; it is the church of which we are members.
Hon. Members go so far sometimes as to say it is an alien church. I think they are wrong. You cannot, however, say it is an English church, and at the same time say the English people are not concerned in the faith of it. I do appeal to hon. Members, and especially to Nonconformists. I have never doubted that great respect ought to be had for Nonconformist wishes. I put it to them, accepting as they do democratic self-government as the common basis, is it honest or fair to assume consent from the English and Welsh people taken together, which, in the circumstances, you cannot be sure of, and which, I am confident, does not exist; is it fair, when the whole country has been thinking of the fiscal, the constitutional and other issues, to slip through this Bill without any further appeal—a matter which touches so deeply the conscience and spiritual feelings of your countrymen? Would Nonconformists like themselves to be so treated? If our mother church is to be turned into the street at least give us, her children, a voice in the matter. It is, indeed, bound to us by the tenderest ties of affection. It is not the case that the English people do not feel for the common church. We say that this church is neither of the Church of England or of Wales, it is the common heritage of both people. What I would plead for is that the will of the people should be consulted and that a matter of this kind, which cuts so deeply into our hearts, should be carried only by the will of the people. The course 1537 hon. Members opposite are upon is a course repellant to them as good Christian men and honest men. It is a course which I am sure is neither Christian nor honest.
Mr. CLEMENT EDWARDSI intervene because statements have been made by the hon. Member for Denbigh Burghs which are not accurate. The fact is that during the Election of 1910 I made eight or nine speeches on this question in my Constituency, and, as some hon. Members know, I took a very strong stand in this House against the then Government on this question, and took an active part in a big campaign throughout the whole of Wales. Indeed, I made it a definite and paramount issue in the fight of 1910, and shall continue to do so.
§ Viscount WOLMERIn face of the stolid refusal of any compromise or Amendment of the Government proposals, perhaps further discussion at this late hour may seem somewhat of a farce; but at any rate an Amendment of this sort is not to be rejected without emphatic protest from these benches. I more deeply regret the decision of the Government not to exempt this subject from the clutches of their transient majority, because on this question they are dealing with the deepest feelings and the deepest conscience of hundreds of thousands of people in this country. It is a matter which stands apart from mere constitutional arrangements or mere fiscal devices; it is an Act which cuts at the bedrock of the religious belief of the inhabitants of this country. When hon. Members opposite are embarking upon that course they are treading upon very dangerous ground. There is nothing in the course of history which has moved the passions of men more than the great question of religion, and, to whatever party you may belong, a question of this importance is not to be dismissed by a House of Commons that, after a hard day's Debate, is now in the small hours of the morning, and upon which the great mass of the electors and the country have not been consulted.
I have listened in vain for a common-sense, reasonable plea that this question was put forward in a straight
§ forward and honest manner by the Liberal party at the last two elections. I am glad I see several hon. Members from Lancashire on the benches opposite. How many of them mentioned disestablishment in their election addresses? How many of them mentioned it in their speeches when they were addressing the small towns? How many mentioned it in the small card which was sent to every elector when he had an opportunity of weighing carefully each separate item and proposal. [A MINISTERIAL MEMBER: "I did."] I challenge hon. Members to go down to Lancashire and press that our Church should be disestablished without even a reference to the people of this country. The hon. Member for Anglesey has said, calmly and coolly, that the Church in is in a minority of one to four. Does he substantiate that statement?
Mr. GRIFFITHOn the standard of communicants it is one to four. If I am wrong I should be sorry to mislead the House in any way.
§ Viscount WOLMERIf the hon. Member attaches so great importance to the relative numbers as to religious opinion in Wales will he consent to a religious census in order that—
§ The DEPUTY - CHAIRMAN (Mr. Whitley)The hon. Member is getting wide of the Debate.
§ Viscount WOLMERI was misled by the hon. Member. After all it is only part of the general question of referring these measures to the people of this country—by census, a referendum, it does not matter which, but the essential point is that this proposal above all which goes to the bedrock of human conviction and all we hold dear as members of the Church of England—the important point is that that should be submitted to the people of England and to the people of Wales before it is passed into law by the House of Commons which, after all, has only a transient majority, elected on wholly separate and different issues.
§ Question put, "That those words be there inserted."
§ The Committee divided: Ayes, 119; Noes, 206.
1541| Division No. 174.] | AYES. | [2.5 a.m. |
| Aitken, William Max | Baker, Sir Randolf L. (Dorset N.) | Barrie, H. T. (Londonderry, N.) |
| Archer-Shee, Major Martin | Baldwin, Stanley | Beach, Hon. Michael Hugh Hicks |
| Ashley, Wilfrid W. | Baring, Capt. Hon. G. V. | Benn, Arthur Shirley (Plymouth) |
| Baird, J. L. | Barnston, Harry | Benn, Ion Hamilton (Greenwich) |
| Bennett-Goldney, Francis | Greene, Walter Raymond | Orde-Powlett, Hon. W. G. A. |
| Bigland, Alfred | Guinness, Hon. W. E. | Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William |
| Boscawen, Col. Sackville T. Griffith- | Haddock, George Bahr | Paget, Almeric Hugh |
| Boyle, W. Lewis (Norfolk, Mid) | Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashford) | Peel, Captain R. F. (Woodbridge) |
| Boyton, J. | Helmsley, Viscount | Pole-Carew, Sir R. |
| Brassey, H. Leonard Campbell | Henderson, Major H. (Berks, Abingdon) | Pollock, Ernest Murray |
| Bridgeman, William Clive | Hickman, Colonel Thomas E. | Pretyman, Ernest George |
| Bull, Sir William James | Hill, Sir Clement L. (Shrewsbury) | Pryce-Jones, Col. E. |
| Burn, Colonel C. R. | Hillier, Dr. A. P. | Ratcliff, R. F. |
| Campion, W. R. | Hills, John Wilier (Durham) | Ronaldshay, Earl of |
| Carlile, Edward Hildred | Hill-Wood, S. (High Peak) | Rutherford, W. (Liverpool, W. Derby) |
| Cassel, Felix | Hohler, G. F. | Sanders, Robert A. |
| Castlereagh, Viscount | Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield) | Sanderson, Lancelot |
| Cator, John | Home, W. E. (Surrey, Guildford) | Sandys, G. J. (Somerset, Wells) |
| Cautley, Henry Strother | Horner, Andrew Long | Stanley, Hon. G. F. (Preston) |
| Cecil, Lord Hugh (Oxford University) | Hunt, Rowland | Starkey, John Ralph |
| Chaloner, Col. R. G W. | Jardine, Ernest (Somerset, East) | Steel-Maitland, A. D. |
| Clay, Captain H. H. Spender | Kebty-Fletcher, J. R. | Stewart, Gershom |
| Clive, Captain Percy Archer | Kerr-Smiley, Peter Kerr | Sykes, Alan John |
| Cooper, Richard Ashmole | Kerry, Earl of | Thomson, W. Mitchell (Down, N.) |
| Courthope, George Loyd | Kirkwood, John H. M. | Thynne, Lord Alexander |
| Craig, Captain James (Down, E.) | Lane-Fox, G. R. | Tobin, Alfred Aspinall |
| Craig, Norman (Kent, Thanet) | Law, Andrew Bonar (Bootle, Lanes.) | Touche, George Alexander |
| Crichton-Stuart, Lord Ninian | Locker-Lampson, G. (Salisbury) | Walker, Colonel William Hall |
| Croft, Henry Page | Locker-Lampson, O. (Ramsey) | Ward, Arnold (Herts, Watford) |
| Dalrymple, Viscount | Lyttelton, Hon. J. C. (Droitwich) | Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid) |
| Dixon, Charles Harvey | Macmaster, Donald | White, Major G. D. (Lancs., Southport) |
| Duke, Henry Edward | Malcolm, Ian | Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset, W.) |
| Fisher, W. Hayes | Meysey-Thompson, E. C. | Willoughby, Major Hon. Claude |
| Fitzroy, Hon. Edward A. | Mills, Hon Charles Thomas | Winterton, Earl |
| Fleming, Valentine | Morrison-Bell, Major A. C. (Honiton) | Wolmer, Viscount |
| Foster, Philip Staveley | Mount, William Arthur | Wood, John (Stalybridge) |
| Gibbs, George Abraham | Neville, Reginald J. N. | Younger, George |
| Gilmour, Captain J. | Newman, John R. P. | |
| Goldman, Charles Sydney | Newton, Harry Kottingham | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr. Forster and Mr. Pike Pease. |
| Goldsmith, Frank | Nicholson, Wm. G. (Petersfield) | |
| Gordon, John | O'Neill, Hon. A E. B. (Antrim, Mid) | |
| NOES. | ||
| Abraham, William (Dublin Harbour) | Elibank, Rt. Hon. Master of | Johnson, William |
| Abraham, Rt. Hon. William (Rhondda) | Esmonde, Dr. John (Tipperary, N.) | Jones, Edgar (Merthyr Tydvil) |
| Acland, Francis Dyke | Esmonde, Sir Thomas (Wexford, N.) | Jones, William (Carnarvonshire) |
| Adamson, William | Essex, Richard Walter | Jones, W. S. Glyn- (T. H'mts., Stepney) |
| Addison, Dr. Christopher | Falconer, James | Jowett, Frederick William |
| Agar-Robartes, Hon. T. C. R. | Ferens, Thomas Robinson | Joyce, Michael |
| Alden, Percy | Ffrench, Peter | Keating, Matthew |
| Allen, Arthur A. (Dumbarton) | Field, William | Kelly, Edward |
| Allen, Charles Peter (Stroud) | Fiennes, Hon. Eustace Edward | Kennedy, Vincent Paul |
| Baker, H. T. (Accrington) | Fitzgibbon, John | Kilbride, Denis |
| Baker, Joseph Allen (Finsbury, E.) | Flavin, Michael Joseph | King, Joseph (Somerset, North) |
| Barry, Redmond John | France, Gerald Ashburner | Lambert, George (Devon, Molton) |
| Barton, William | Gelder, Sir William Alfred | Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade) |
| Beck, Arthur Cecil | Gill, Alfred Henry | Lawson, Sir W. (Cumb'N'nd, Cockerm'th) |
| Benn, W. (T. H'mts., St. George) | Glanville, H. J. | Levy, Sir Maurice |
| Bentham, G. J. | Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford | Lewis, John Herbert |
| Booth, Frederick Handel | Goldstone, Frank | Lundon, Thomas |
| Bowerman, Charles W. | Greenwood, Granville G. (Peterborough) | Lyell, Charles Henry |
| Boyle, Daniel (Mayo, N.) | Griffith, Ellis Jones | Lynch, Arthur Alfred |
| Brace, William | Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway) | Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester) |
| Brocklehurst, W. B. | Hackett, J. | Maclean, Donald |
| Brunner, John F. L. | Hall, F. (Yorks, Normanton) | Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J. |
| Burke, E. Haviland | Hancock, John George | McNeill, John Gordon Swift |
| Burns, Rt. Hon. John | Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose) | MacVeagh, Jeremiah |
| Carr-Gomm, H. W. | Hardie, J. Keir (Merhyr Tydvil) | M'Laren, F. W. S. (Linc, Spalding) |
| Cawley, Harold T. (Heywood) | Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale) | M'Laren, Walter S. B. (Ches., Crewe) |
| Chancellor, H. G. | Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, West) | Markham, Arthur Basil |
| Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S. | Harvey, W. E. (Derbyshire, N. E.) | Marshall, Arthur Harold |
| Clancy, John Joseph | Harwood, George | Mason, David M. (Coventry) |
| Clough, William | Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry | Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.) |
| Clynes, John R | Haworth, Arthur A. | Meehan, Patrick A. (Queen's County)' |
| Condon, Thomas Joseph | Hayden, John Patrick | Millar, James Duncan |
| Cornwall, Sir Edwin A. | Hayward, Evan | Morgan, George Hay |
| Crumley, Patrick | Helme, Norval Watson | Money, L. G. Chiozza |
| Cullinan, John | Henderson, Arthur (Durham) | Muldoon, John |
| Dawes, James Arthur | Henry, Sir Charles S. | Munro-Ferguson, Rt. Hon. R. C. |
| Delany, William | Higham, John Sharp | Needham, Christopher T. |
| Denman, Hon. Richard Douglas | Hinds, John | Nolan, Joseph |
| Dillon, John | Hodge, John | Norman, Sir Henry |
| Doris, William | Home, Charles Silvester (Ipswich) | Nugent, Sir Walter Richard |
| Duffy, William J. | Howard, Hon. Geoffrey | O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) |
| Duncan, J. Hastings (York Otley) | Hughes, S. L. | O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.) |
| Edwards, Allen C. (Glamorgan, E.) | Hunter, William (Lanark, Govan) | O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool) |
| Edwards, John Hugh (Glamorgan, Mid) | Isaacs, Sir Rufus Daniel | O'Doherty, Philip |
| O'Dowd, John | Richards, Thomas | Thomas, J. H. (Derby) |
| Ogden, Fred | Richardson, Thomas (Whitehaven) | Toulmin, George |
| O'Kelly, Edward P. (Wicklow, W.) | Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln) | Ure, Rt. Hoi. Alexander |
| O'Malley, William | Roberts, George H. (Norwich) | Verney, Sir Harry |
| O'Neill, Dr. Charles (Armagh, S.) | Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs.) | Walsh, Stephen (Lancs., Ince) |
| O'Shaughnessy, P. J. | Robertson, John M. (Tyneside) | Walters, John Tudor |
| O'Shee, James John | Robinson, Sidney | Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton) |
| O'Sullivan, Timothy | Rowlands, James | Wardle, George J. |
| Palmer, Godfrey | Rowntree, Arnold | Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney) |
| Parker, James (Halifax) | Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland) | Wedgwood, Josiah C. |
| Pearce, Robert (Staffs., Leek) | Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees) | White, Sir Luke (Yorks, E. R.) |
| Pease, Rt. Hon. Joseph A. (Rotherham) | Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel) | White, Patrick (Meath, North) |
| Phillips, John (Longford, S.) | Scott, A. MacCallum (Glasgow, Bridgeton) | Whitehouse, John H ward |
| Pickersgill, Edward Hare | Seely, Col. Rt Hon J. E. B. | Whyte, A. F. |
| Pirie, Duncan V. | Sheehy, David | Wiles, Thomas |
| Pointer, Joseph | Shortt, Edward | Wilkie, Alexander |
| Pollard, Sir George H. | Simon, Sir John Allsebrook | Williams, John (Glamorgan) |
| Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H. | Smith, Albert (Lancs., Clitheroe) | Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarthen) |
| Power, Patrick Joseph | Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.) | Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) |
| Price, C. E (Edinburgh, Central) | Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N. W.) | Winfrey, Richard |
| Primrose, Hon. Neil James | Strauss, Edward A. (Southwark, West) | Wood, T. M'Kinnon (Glasgow) |
| Pringle, William M. R. | Summers, James Woolley | Young, W. (Perthshire, E.) |
| Raffan, Peter Wilson | Sutton, John E. | |
| Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough) | Taylor, John W. (Durham) | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr. Illingworth and Mr. Gulland. |
| Reddy, Michael | Tennant, Harold John | |
| Redmond, William (Clare, E.) | Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E.) |
§ Mr. JAMES HOPEmoved, in Sub-section (1), after the word "Bill" ["If any Bill other than a Money Bill"], to insert the words "or a Bill affecting the independence of the judiciary or restricting the rights of the subject to trial by jury or appeal to a higher court."
The point I would make is, that the independence of the judiciary and the safeguarding of the subject for the independent determination of his case are the very last matters that ought to be the subject of any hasty change by any drastic constitutional procedure. The position at which we have arrived is the result of very slow evolution. Formerly the independence of the judiciary was, as is well known, affected by the prerogative of the Crown, and certain Acts to restrict that independence may be found during the Tudor period and part of the Stuart period. In the time of the Civil Wars this House took it upon itself to review judicial decisions and even to pass criminal sentences. These abuses were the subject of controversy, and gradually the independence of the judiciary was I established by placing them as far as possible away from the direct review of Parliament. That was the reason for the salaries of the judges being placed on the; Consolidated Fund, so that their decisions might not be reviewed in the ordinary course of Debate.
I submit to the Committee that there is a real need that something of this kind should be maintained, and that this House should not directly or indirectly take upon itself, except for the most formal procedure and after due deliberation, to take: any steps that would lessen the complete I 1542 independence of the judges. It must be their duty occasionally to give unpopular decisions, and being men, they may occasionally give unfortunate decisions, and decisions that arouse a considerable degree of popular passion. These things are not of the same gravity and do not have the same consequences they would have if the judges were directly subordinate to and amenable to this House, and therefore any measure which places them in that position is one that ought to be assented to only after the strictest constitutional procedure, and is not fitting to be brought about by the summary changes proposed in this Clause. We have seen symptoms of great restive-ness against judicial decisions, so much so that a Minister of the Crown—
§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANThat question ought not to be discussed on this Amendment.
§ Mr. JAMES HOPEI do not think I am out of order in saying that I was not present during the whole of that discussion, but, so far as I was present, I did not hear the remarks of the Minister of the Crown—the President of the Board of Education—referred to in the course of that discussion. The President of the Board of Education, as I understand the tenor of his remarks, did say that the conduct of the judiciary was a proper subject for the ordinary animadversion of this House and that they might be made accountable to this House. That is what I want to guard against by this Amendment. Although resentments might be felt in the ordinary course, it would be most unfortunate if, in the heat of the moment, if the judges were abused by a 1543 discussion in this House, and if their status and independence were threatened by debates in this House. I want to preserve the independence that has been won by many a hard struggle in the past. There are symptoms in the criticisms of to-day which seem to threaten them. That is the first point.
As regards the right of the subject to trial by jury and appeal to the High Court it is a kindred subject, though I do not think there is any pressing, any immediate, attack upon the right of the subject to trial by jury. With regard to the right of appeal, we have seen some matters in the first draft of the Finance Act of 1909, in which it was proposed that there should be taxation practically imposed without appeal, except to a court which was immediately amenable to the Government. It was evidence of a very dangerous tendency of the times, and one against which it is necessary to guard. Once the appeal from the ordinary Court of First Instance is done away with the jurisdiction of that Court of First Instance becomes itself impaired. It is essential to its judicial authority that its decisions should be open to be revised by a higher court, and any measure to take away that appeal should not be passed by any hasty or drastic procedure, and ought only to be accepted on the whole authority of Parliament as understood in the past. It is on these grounds that I move the Amendment.
§ Sir RUFUS ISAACSDuring the discussions earlier in the evening I dealt with the first question raised by the hon. Member, and although the terms of that Amendment did not actually raise the questions in this Amendment, they were nevertheless covered by the arguments which took place on both sides of the House during that Debate. I do not think I can usefully add anything to them except to say that one could hardly expect that this Amendment would be accepted in view of what had taken place with regard to the other. It is no doubt a very important point, but it has been discussed very fully in the House. The hon. Member has raised two other questions, the right of trial by jury and the right of appeal from a Court of First Instance to a High Court. He said quite rightly as regards the first of these that there has been no suggestion from either side of the House that there should be 1544 any interference with the right of trial by jury, and therefore I do not think it requires special attention from me. With regard to the last point, the right of appeal, the hon. Member gave one instance, which was what took place during the discussion of the Finance Act of 1909–10. We all remember what took place. The House compelled the Government to alter the Bill as introduced, so as to give the fullest right of appeal in that Act which now stands. I do not think really there is any reason to fear that the right of appeal will be taken away or any ground of misapprehension should this Amendment not be accepted.
§ Mr. SANDERSONI desire to support the Amendment. I do not quite understand some of the arguments of the learned Attorney-General, because this is a different point from the point covered in the discussion which took place this evening. I would like to make one or two remarks on one point. I think everybody will agree that the judges in this country have won for themselves a position that has not been attained by the judges of any other country. That has been attained by their absolute independence and integrity, and it would be a most unfortunate thing if that were to be interfered with in any shape or form. The result is that so long as the integrity and independence are maintained everybody throughout the length and breadth of the country will continue to feel that the liberty of the subject in these islands is perfectly safe. A year ago I should not have thought it necessary in the slightest degree to raise this question in the House of Commons because up to that time everybody would agree that the position and independence of the judges must be safeguarded by every possible means, but I submit to the House that there has been lately shown to be a tendency not to accept that position. It seems to be the fashion nowadays where an election petition has gone against a candidate that he should immediately make a speech addressing the constituents, and telling them they will get rid of "unjust judges."
§ Mr. SANDERSONEverybody knows who has had any experience of judges who try election petitions that their integrity 1545 is undisputed and their independence absolute. I see the Home Secretary shaking his head as if to contradict my remarks.
§ Mr. CHURCHILLI did not venture to contradict the hon. Member's remarks. I was only shaking my head with regard to the fact that such a controversial topic should be introduced.
§ Mr. SANDERSONMy interpretation of the Home Secretary's action was wrong. I am afraid he was going to join some other Members of the House who apparently do not think that the integrity of the learned judges is undisputed.
§ The CHAIRMAN (Mr. Emmott)I do not think we can discuss this question on the Amendment. It can only be discussed on a specific Motion dealing with the matter.
§ Mr. SANDERSONI was merely saying that a short time ago, a year ago, it would never have been necessary to raise this question in the House of Commons, but having regard to certain recent incidents, I submit that it is necessary. One thing we are anxious about, at all events on this side of the House, is to maintain, without the slightest chance of being attacked in any shape or form, the independence of learned judges, as to whether those who have any familiarity of practising before them or any real knowledge of the way they go about their business never had the slightest doubt.
§ Mr. NEWTONI desire to support this Amendment. We are considering whether a safeguard should be provided for the most ancient of the rights and privileges of the people of this country, the right of trial by jury. I consider that it is very necessary that this right should be safeguarded. I consider it to be necessary for this reason, that towards the end of the discussion the hon. Member for the Strand Division (Mr. W. Long) was referring to the fact that the Government were now proposing measures upon which they had not consulted the electors at the last election, and he made that point strongly, and he drew from a Member of the Irish Nationalist party sitting behind me an interjection to which a little more prominence should be given—" Hang the people!"
§ Mr. NEWTONI do not know the hon. Member's name. I can only say that 1546 statement was made. If the people are to be hanged, let us have a trial by jury before that is done.
§ Mr. JAMES HOPEI think the learned Attorney-General really glossed over the point rather lightly, because a former Amendment dealt with the position of the judges once appointed and the right of the Grown to appoint them. This is a new point about decisions in this House. There is the point about trial by jury. Though it has not been directly refused, new powers have been given to Government Departments to this effect, "On any question arising under this Act the decision of the Board shall be taken, and shall be final," or the decision of the Commissioners, or of somebody else. Is there not a danger of putting such words into an Act that they may take away the rights at common law previously enjoyed? I cannot help thinking there is. Of course, in the Education Act of 1902 the wording was so limited that the interpretation put by the Government Department in that case was upset by the judges on various grounds. But I do say there is very serious danger from the constant attempt to confer some judicial powers on Government Departments, and it is one that ought and must be resisted. It is in view of this that I think the Amendment should be pressed to a division.
§ Mr. SANDYSI cannot quite understand the position which the Government have taken up on this Question. It appears to me, in view of the fact that they evidently intend to carry changes of an exceedingly revolutionary character, that once this Bill is passed into law there is no reason why we should suppose that some of these Constitutional rights of the British people could not possibly under this new scheme be attacked in the future. Therefore I think my hon. Friend was quite justified in bringing forward this Amendment in order to make perfectly certain that some of our most important privileges, namely, trial by jury and the preservation of the inviolability of the Court of Appeal, should be definitely provided for and maintained. Therefore I support the Amendment, and I hope the Government may see their way to reconsider it and allow it to be passed.
The arguments the Attorney-General brought forward in his somewhat brief speech did not impress me very much. He asked us not to accept this Amendment because of the action o£ the Government at the time when the original Finance Act 1547 was under consideration. He pointed out that under the Finance Act the fullest possible appeal was given to His Majesty's judges, but at the same time he incidentally mentioned that that right of appeal was only granted if a Debate had taken place in the House of Commons. Therefore he must acknowledge that it was the original intention of the Government, if they had been allowed to do so to abolish that right of appeal. I think that admission is sufficient to justify this Amendment and to justify my hon. Friend in pressing it to a division.?
§ certainly hope before that takes place the Government may reconsider their decision on this point and make it clear that, whatever may happen in the future in regard to other questions of very great importance, at any rate so far as trial by jury is concerned, that Constitutional liberty will be assured British subjects in the future as in the past. I have the greatest possible pleasure in supporting the Amendment.
§ Question put, "That those words be there inserted."
§ The Committee divided: Ayes, 94; Noes, 189.
1549| Division No. 175. | AYES. | [2.40 a.m. |
| Archer-Shee, Major Martin | Duke, Henry Edward | Nicholson, Wm. G. (Petersfield) |
| Ashley, W. W. | Fitzroy, Hon. Edward A. | O'Neill, Hon. A. E. B. (Antrim, Mid) |
| Baird, J. L. | Fleming, Valentine | Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William |
| Baker, Sir R. L. (Dorset, N.) | Forster, Henry William | Paget, Almeric Hugh |
| Baldwin, Stanley | Gibbs, Geoge Abraham | Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington) |
| Barnston, Harry | Gilmour, Captain John | Peel, Captain R. F. (Woodbridge) |
| Barrie, H. T. (Londonderry, N.) | Goldman, C. S. | Pole-Carew, Sir R. |
| Beach, Hon. Michael Hugh Hicks | Goldsmith, Frank | Pretyman, Ernest George |
| Benn, Arthur Shirley (Plymouth) | Gordon, J. | Pryce-Jones, Colonel E. |
| Benn, Ion Hamilton (Greenwich) | Guinness, Hon. W. E. | Ratcliff, R. F. |
| Bennett-Goldney, Francis | Haddock, George Bahr | Ronaldshay, Earl of |
| Bigland, Alfred | Helmsley, Viscount | Rutherford, Watson (L'pool, W. Derby) |
| Boscawen, Col. Sackville T. Griffith- | Hickman, Colonel Thomas E. | Sanders, Robert A. |
| Boyle, W. Lewis (Norfolk, Mid) | Hill, Sir Clement L. (Shrewsbury) | Stanley, Hon. G. F. (Preston) |
| Boyton, J. | Hills, John Waller (Durham) | Steel-Maitland, A. D. |
| Brassey, H. Leonard Campbell | Hohler, G. F. | Stewart, Gershom |
| Bridgeman, William Clive | Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield) | Sykes, Alan John |
| Bull, Sir William James | Home, W. E. (Surrey, Guildford) | Thynne, Lord Alexander |
| Burn, Col. C. R. | Horner, A. L. | Tobin, Alfred Aspinall |
| Campion, W. R. | Kebty-Fletcher, J. R. | Touche, Gerge Alexander |
| Carlile, Edhard Hildred | Kirkwood, John H. M. | Ward, A. S. (Herts, Watford) |
| Cassel, Felix | Lane-Fox, G. R. | Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid) |
| Castlereagh, Viscount | Law Andrew Bonar (Bootle, Lanes.) | White, Maj. G. D. (Lancs., Southport) |
| Cator, John | Locker-Lampson, G. (Salisbury) | Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset. W.) |
| Chaloner, Col. R. G. W. | Locker-Lampson, O. (Ramsey) | Willoughby, Major Hon. Claud |
| Clive Captain Percy Archer | Macmaster, Donald | Winterton, Earl |
| Cooper, Richard Ashmole | Meysey-Thompson, E. C. | Wolmer, Viscount |
| Craig, Captain James (Down, E.) | Mills, Hon. Charles Thomas | Wood, John (Stalybridge) |
| Craig, Norman (Kent) | Morrison-Bell, Major, A. C. (Honiton) | |
| Crichton-Stuart, Lord Ninian | Mount, William Arthur | |
| Croft, H. P. | Neville, Reginald J. N. | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr. Sandys and Mr. Sanderson. |
| Dalrymple, Viscount | Newman, John R. P. | |
| Dixon, Charles Harvey | Newton, Harry Kottingham | |
| NOES. | ||
| Abraham, William (Dublin Harbour) | Chancellor, H. G. | Ffrench, Peter |
| Acland, Francis Dyke | Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S. | Field, William |
| Adamson, William | Clancy, John Joseph | Fiennes, Hon. Eustace Edward |
| Addison, Dr. Christopher | Clough, William | Fitzgibbon, John |
| Agar-Robartes, Hon. T. C. R. | Clynes, J. R. | Flavin, Michael Joseph |
| Allen, Percy | Condon, Thomas Joseph | France, Gerald Ashburner |
| Allen, Arthur Acland (Dumbartonshire) | Cornwall, Sr Edwin A. | Gelder, Sir W. A. |
| Allen, Charles Peter (Stroud) | Crumley, Patrick | Gill, A. H. |
| Baker, Joseph Allen (Finsbury, E.) | Cullinan, J. | Glanville, H. J. |
| Barry, Redmond John (Tyrone, N.) | Dawes, J. A. | Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford |
| Barton, William | Delany, William | Goldstone, Frank |
| Beck, Arthur Cecil | Denman, Hon. Richard Douglas | Greenwood, Granville G. (Peterborough) |
| Benn, W. W. (T. H'mts., St. George) | Dillon, John | Griffith, Ellis J. |
| Bentham, G. J. | Doris, W. | Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway) |
| Booth, Frederick Handel | Duffy, William J. | Hackett, J. |
| Bowerman, C. W. | Duncan, J. Hastings (York, Otley) | Hall, Frederick (Normanton) |
| Boyle, D. (Mayo, N.) | Edwards, Allen C. (Glamorgan, E.) | Hancock, J. G. |
| Brace, William | Edwards, John Hugh (Glamorgan, Mid) | Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose) |
| Brocklehurst, W. B. | Elibank, Rt. Hon. Master of | Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvil) |
| Brunner, J. F. L. | Esmonde, Dr. John (Tipperary, N.) | Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale) |
| Burke, E. Haviland- | Esmonde, Sir Thomas (Wexford, N.) | Harvey T. E. (Leeds, W.) |
| Burns, Rt. Hon. John | Essex, Richard Walter | Harvey, W. E. (Derbyshire, N. E.) |
| Carr-Gomm, H. W. | Falconer, J. | Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry |
| Cawley, Harold T. (Heywood) | Ferens, T. R. | Haworth, Arthur A. |
| Hayden, John Patrick | Morgan, George Hay | Robinson, Sidney |
| Hayward, Evan | Muldoon, John | Rowlands, James |
| Henderson, Arthur (Durham) | Munro-Ferguson, Rt. Hon. R. C. | Rowntree, Arnold |
| Henry, Sir Charles S. | Needham, Christopher T. | Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland) |
| Higham, John Sharp | Nolan, Joseph | Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees) |
| Hinds, John | Norman, Sir Henry | Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel) |
| Hodge, John | Nugent, Sir Walter Richard | Scott, A. MacCallum (Glasgow, Bridgeton) |
| Horne, C. Silvester (Ipswich) | O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) | Seely, Col. Rt. Hon. J. E. B. |
| Howard, Hon. Geoffrey | O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.) | Sheehy, David |
| Hughes, S. L. | O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool) | Shorn, Edward |
| Hunter, W. (Govan) | O'Doherty, Philip | Simon, Sir John Allsebrook |
| Isaacs, Sir Rufus Daniel | O'Dowd, John | Smith, Albert (Lancs., Clithero) |
| Johnson, W. | Ogden, Fred | Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.) |
| Jones, Edgar, R. (Methyr Tydvil) | O'Kelly, Edward P. (Wicklow, W.) | Stanley, Albert (Staffs., N. W.) |
| Jones, William (Carnarvonshire) | O'Malley, William | Summers, James Woolley |
| Jones, W. S. Glyn- (T. H'mts., Stepney) | O'Neill, Dr. Charles (Armagh, S.) | Sutton, John E. |
| Joyce, Michael | O'Shaughnessy, P. J. | Taylor, John W. (Durham) |
| Keating, M. | O'Shee, James John | Tennant, Harold John |
| Kelly, Edward | O'Sullivan, Timothy | Thomas, James Henry (Derby) |
| Kennedy, Vincent Paul | Palmer, Godfrey Mark | Toulmin, George |
| Kilbride, Denis | Parker, James (Halifax) | Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander |
| King, J. (Somerset, N.) | Pearce, Robert (Staffs., Leek) | Verney, Sir Harry |
| Lambert, George (Devon, S. Molton) | Pease, Rt. Hon Joseph A. (Rotherham) | Walsh, Stephen (Lancs., Ince) |
| Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade) | Phillips, John (Longford, S.) | Walters, John Tudor |
| Lawson, Sir W. (Cumb'rl'nd, Cockerm'th) | Pickersgill, Edward Hare | Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton) |
| Levy, Sir Maurice | Pirie, Duncan V | Wardle, George J. |
| Lewis, John Herbert | Pointer, Joseph | Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney) |
| Lundon, T. | Pollard, Sir George H. | Wedgwood, Josiah C. |
| Lyell, Charles Henry | Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H. | White, Sir Luke (Yorks, E. R.) |
| Lynch, A. A. | Power, Patrick Joseph | White, Patrick (Meath, North) |
| Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester) | Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central) | Whyte, A. F. |
| Maclean, Donald | Primose, Hon. Neil James | Wiles, Thomas |
| Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J. | Pringle, William M. R. | Wilkie, Alexander |
| MacVeagh, Jeremiah | Raffan, Peter Wilson | Williams, J. (Glamorgan) |
| M'Laren, F. W. S. (Lincs., Spalding) | Reddy, M. | Williams, Llewellyn (Carmarthen) |
| Markham, Arthur Basil | Redmond, William (Clare, E.) | Wilson, W T. (Westhoughton) |
| Marshall, Arthur Harold | Richards, Thomas | Young, W. (Perthshire, E.) |
| Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.) | Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln) | |
| Meehan, Patrick A. (Queen's Co.) | Roberts, G. H. (Norwich) | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr. Illingworth and Mr. Gulland. |
| Millar, James Duncan | Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside) |
Question put, and agreed to.
§ Sir WILLIAM BULLmoved in Sub-section (1) after the word "passed" ["is not passed"] to insert the words "with a majority of at least one hundred."
§ Question put, "That those words be there inserted."
§ Mr. CHURCHILLI beg to move, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."
§ Committee report Progress; to sit again to-morrow (Tuesday).
§
And it being after half-past Eleven of the clock on Monday evening, Mr. Deputy-Speaker adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
Adjourned at Twelve minutes before Three a.m. Tuesday, 25th April.