PARLIAMENT BILL. (Hansard, 24 July 1911)

§ Mr. SPEAKER
I must ask the two hon. Members sitting immediately above the Gangway not to interrupt but to pursue the ordinary Parliamentary practice. [HON. MEMBERS: "Name," and renewed cries of "Traitor."]

§ Mr. CROOKS
On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker. After your ruling a moment ago an hon. Member sitting here— [HON. MEMBERS: "Sit down," and "Divide."] After your ruling as to the decencies of this House an hon. Member of this House—

§ Mr. SPEAKER
I have already appealed to hon. Members to afford the usual courtesy to the Prime Minister, and I am sure after my appeal that it will be granted. No doubt there is a good deal of excitement on both sides,' but the speakers will be heard in due course. I am sure hon. Members will find it in the interests of the House in general that the speakers should be listened to with as much attention as possible, and especially would I ask hon. Members sitting below the Gangway on either side not to interject interruptions. I have already asked hon. Members above the Gangway, and I hope they will fall in with my suggestion. I am now extending my appeal to hon. Members below the Gangway, and I would ask them, as this is a. serious occasion, to treat the occasion seriously and let the conduct of the House be worthy of its traditions.

§ Lord HUGH CECIL
On a point of Order. I was among those—

§ Mr. SPEAKER
Does the Noble Lord rise to a point of Order?

§ Lord HUGH CECIL
I rise to respond to your appeal. [Interruption.]

§ Mr. CHIOZZA MONEY
On a point of Order. [Interruption.]

§ Mr. SPEAKER
The best way to respond to my appeal would be to listen in silence.

The PRIME MINISTER and Lord HUGH CECIL
simultaneously rose. [Interruption.]

§ Mr. SPEAKER
I would again ask the House to allow the Prime Minister to proceed.

§ The PRIME MINISTER
again rose. [Interruption.]

Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT
On a point of Order—[Interruption].

§ Mr. SPEAKER
If hon. Members constantly rise to points of Order the Debate cannot proceed.

§ Mr. SPEAKER
I would also point out that nothing will create greater disturbance than to point to a particular Member.

§ Mr. SPEAKER
I must call on the Noble Lord (Lord Hugh Cecil) to desist from constant interruption.

§ Lord HUGH CECIL
Mr. Speaker, the right hon. Gentleman [Interruption] … King's name [Interruption] … House of Commons … [Interruption] has prostituted ordinary Parliamentary usage … [Interruption]. Therefore, there is no-discourtesy to him.

§ Mr. SPEAKER
The House has not yet heard what the Prime Minister has to say. It would only be according to the ordinary rules of courtesy to hear him.

§ Lord HUGH CECIL
This is not an ordinary occasion.

§ Mr. SPEAKER
The ordinary rules of courtesy are that hon. Members should hear what is said.

§ Mr. F. E. SMITH
On a point of Order. Am I and my Friend not entitled to apply treatment given to my right hon. Friend the Member for St. George's, Hanover Square (Mr. Alfred Lyttelton) if we think the Government has degraded the political life of the country?

§ Mr. SPEAKER
That is a precedent which should not be followed. [HON. MEM-BEES: "Hear, hear."]

Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT
On a point of Order. [Interruption.]

§ Mr. SPEAKER
There is no point of Order. I have called on the Prime Minister.

§ The PRIME MINISTER
Mr. Speaker, In offering—— [Disorder.]

§ Sir E. CARSON
I beg to Move the Adjournment.

§ Mr. SPEAKER
I cannot take any notice of the Motion of Adjournment of the right hon. and learned Gentleman as we have not yet began on the Debate.

§ The PRIME MINISTER
This proposal— [Disorder.]

An HON. MEMBER
Write another letter.

§ The PRIME MINISTER
Once more— [Interruptions.]

§ Mr. SPEAKER
I should like to point out to such Members of the Opposition as are interrupting that it is far more important to them than it really is to the Government that free discussion should be preserved in this House, for they belong to the minority, who must be anxious that their views should be heard in this House. Surely, then, it is more important to them that the ordinary decencies and decorum of debate should be observed in this House. I appeal to the hon. Members to deal with this matter in a more serious light. [HON. MEMBERS: "We are serious."] Let hon. Members hear the arguments of the Government and the reply to them. Then the question can be put from the Chair.

§ Lord HUGH CECIL
The House is— [Interruption.]

§ Mr. SPEAKER
My appeal is that the decencies of debate shall be observed on both sides of the House.

§ The PRIME MINISTER
The principles, on which this Bill is drawn were all affirmed and approved by the House of Commons as long ago as the year 1907. [An HON. MEMBER: "It ought to have known better."]

§ Mr. CROOKS
Many a man has been certified as insane for less than half of what the Noble Lord (Lord Hugh Cecil) has done this afternoon.

§ Mr. GOULDING
The whole thing depends on the Irish Vote. Let us have Redmond.

§ The PRIME MINISTER
This proposal then took its place in the forefront of the party controversy. It was debated on every platform in the country, and it became the predominant issue of the day. [HON. MEMBERS: "What about the Osborne judgment and Chinese slavery?" The new House of Commons— [Interruption.]

§ Mr. SPEAKER
I call on the hon. Member for Central Finsbury (Major Archer-Shee) by name to abstain from interruption.

§ Mr. REMNANT
and other hon. Members of the Opposition: We are all of the same view.

§ Mr. SPEAKER
I want to point out to. hon. Members that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. Balfour) will probably follow the Prime Minister, and hon. Members will be anxious to hear what he has to say. What chance will there be for the right hon. Gentleman if the Prime Minister does not get a fair hearing? I am sure the House will be anxious to hear both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition.

§ Mr. COOPER
Cannot we have the "Dictator" first?

§ The PRIME MINISTER
In the new House of Commons, which met in February, 1910, Resolutions embodying all the detailed principles were carried in this House by large majorities; the Bill itself was introduced, and no one can doubt that but for the death of the King— [HON. MEMBERS: "Leave out the King: who killed him?"]— but for the death of the King and the temporary truce which ensued it would have been passed in that Session through all its stages and sent to 1471 another place. The constitutional Conference which followed proved that, with the best will, settlement by agreement was impossible. The Bill was then presented to the House of Lords in 1910.—[Interruption, and HON. MEMBERS: "Give it up."] It was laid aside in favour of an alternative scheme put forward by Lord Lansdowne on behalf of the responsible leaders of the Opposition, and in which, so far as the conflicts between the two Houses are concerned—

§ Mr. GOULD1NG
You said you would not hold office—you could not hold office without the Irish vote.

§ The PRIME MINISTER
We were to have the application of the Referendum. [Hon. MEMBERS: "Let the people decide." "Trust the people."] Another General Election followed in December, 1910. [Hon. MEMBERS: "On the old Register."] The electors of this country had before them— [Hon. MEMBERS: "Black bread."] —the Bill itself with all its details— [HON. MEMBERS: "And the Preamble."] the whole principle and machinery— [Hon. MEMBERS: "And the Preamble."] On the other hand, they had before them the counter proposals— [Hon. MEMBERS: "Limehouse."]— of the Opposition, which, especially with regard to the Referendum, were vigorously defended and as vigorously attacked in every constituency in the country. What was the result?

§ Mr. HAROLD SMITH
"Sods and souls." [An Hon. MEMBER: "That is from Lloyd George."]

§ The PRIME MINISTER
What was the result? The result was that for the Government in Great Britain we had some-think like sixty of a majority. That was in Great Britain. [Hon. MEMBERS: "What about England?"]

§ Mr. REMNANT
England is against you.

§ The PRIME MINISTER
In the United Kingdom as a whole we had something like 120. It is true to say of this Bill, and it would not be true to say of any other Bill in our Parliamentary annals—[An Hon. MEMBER: "It has not the support of the people."]—that it was the main issue of two elections. [Hon. MEMBERS: "NO, no," "Home Rule," and "Votes for women."] By no form of Referendum that could be devised could the opinion of the electoral body be more carefully ascertained.

§ Mr. CROFT
I thought you had a mandate for Free Trade. [An HON. MEMBER: ''American dollars.'']

§ The PRIME MINISTER
The Bill was before them in all its principles and machinery. The main purpose of these Amendments made in the House of Lords is in regard to matters of the gravest importance—[Interruption.]—to set that machinery aside and replace it by a new—[HON. MEMBERS: "When; when?" and interruption.]—by a new and worse edition of the very expedient which the electors when consulted had deliberately rejected. [An HON. MEMBER: "That is untrue."] It is a miss representation to say—[Interruption]— we should not be disposed to accept changes in the Bill which were consistent with its main principle and purpose. On Clause 1, in Committee, we consented to amend the Definition Clause, excluding— [HOST. MEMBERS: "Home Rule," and interruption]—all matters of local taxation and amplifying and rendering more precise the enumeration of the classes of Bills which alone were to be entitled to be in a relatively privileged position. In the same spirit, on Clause 2 we accepted an Amendment protecting the machinery against possible, though, as we thought, extremely improbable risks. In the Amendments made by the House of Lords—[Interruption.]

§ Mr. GOULDING
Your own forty creations "ratted"—

§ The PRIME MINISTER
Strangely described by a most reverend prelate as "safeguarding" Amendments, they were in effect, whatever may have been their intention, a substitution in the Bill in its main features of the alternative repudiated less than a year ago. [Interruption.] We should be prepared to ask the House of Commons even now—[Interruption.]—I see it is said in some quarters that these Amendments are not voluminous, and do not cover a great deal of paper, nor are they expressed in a large number of words. Some people say, indeed, that there are few verbal changes made by the House of Lords in the structure and form of the Bill as it left this House. That is not a very decisive consideration. It would require very few verbal changes to omission of the word "not," for instance, to alter the whole sense of the Bill.—[Interruption. HON. MEMBERS: "Redmond."]—Let me make good. [HON. MEMBERS: "You can- 1473 not make anything good."] [Hon. MEMBERS: "Redmond !"] The description I have just given.

§ Mr. GOULDING
You would not listen to us at all.

§ The PRIME MINISTER
As to the general effect of the Lords Amendments, their most novel feature was the creation of a new tribunal which was to be predominant over the House of Commons and over both Houses. [HON. MEMBERS: "Redmond."]—[Interruption, followed by loud cheering from the Ministerial side]— matters of great gravity should be considered by the electors of the country. [Hon MEMBERS: "YOU dare not consult the country."] I will not dwell on that —[Interruption.]—I will not dwell in detail—[Interruption.]—I will not degrade myself—by attempting to address arguments to Gentlemen who are obviously resolved not to listen, further than to state in two or three sentences the conclusion at which the Government have arrived, and to which, after due time has been given for deliberation, they are going to ask—the assent of the House of Commons. A situation has been created from which there is only one constitutional way of escape, and that is unless the House of Lords will consent to restore this Bill, if you like with reasonable Amendments consistent with its principle and purpose, we shall be compelled to invoke and exercise the Prerogative of the Crown. I am anxious not to do so, but if we are forced—it is the determination of the Government, and, as I believe, the vast majority of the people of this country, that without further delay this Bill should take its place on the Statute Book.

Mr. BALFOUR
I frankly regret that I have not been able to hear the speech of the Prime Minister. Everyone, I think, will understand that such a proceeding as that in which His Majesty's Ministers have indulged cannot but excite deep and passionate feelings in the great mass of the community. Nevertheless, my own view is that, however deep and however passionate be the resentment produced by any line of policy, however great and however just may be the indignation we feel for those who are responsible for it in this House, at all events it 'is desirable, I do not say that we should discuss these matters without heat, for that is impossible, I do not say that we should discuss 1474 them even without the expression of passionate feeling, for that is beyond the power of human nature, but at all events that we should discuss them. I think I heard the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary pass on me a very undeserved taunt. I remember well enough when he was the ringleader in a gang of disturbers on one occasion when no great constitutional issue was involved. It was merely a question whether one Minister or another should speak first in Debate. That, and that alone, and he kept my right hon. Friend (Mr. Lyttelton) standing for a whole hour without allowing one single interval in which he could speak a word. Whoever else has a right on that side, and there are Gentlemen on that side who have a right, to criticise adversely any disturbance of a Minister who speaks for the majority, certainly it is not the right hon. Gentleman. The Prime Minister urged again the often-told tale which does duty for history in the mouths of hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite, and led us to believe that the country had over and over again given a distinct verdict upon the issue which now divides the two Houses. There never can be a greater political fiction. We think—we have never disguised our opinion—that the Bill, even as it came down from the House of Lords, is not the proper constitutional method of dealing with differences between the two Houses. We think, and we have always thought, that you began at the wrong end. We still think that your own professions should have had more weight with those who framed your Bill, and that you should have begun with the reform of the House of Lords and gone on to find some rational method of dealing with the differences between the two Houses rather than adopt the course you have in the Parliament Bill.
But at all events the Parliament Bill, in its main outlines has not been rejected by the House of Lords. They felt, I suppose, that in its main outlines there had been a great deal of popular support for the Bill, but there never was any popular support for the method of settlement of differences between the two Houses which you seem to consider is enough to justify a revolution. Remember that is what you are doing. The right hon. Gentleman almost seemed to assume that the Constitution has provided the method of the creation of peers at the bidding of a Minister as the ordinary legitimate issue of a deadlock between the two Houses. It is nothing of the kind. The right hon. Gentle- 1475 man, in bringing in the whole machinery of revolution to deal not with the Bill in its main principles but with one Amendment to the Bill, which he might have referred to the people in isolation if he had liked, has shown himself utterly regardless in mv opinion, of the greatest and most responsible duties which the adviser of the Crown has to perform. I should like to remind the House of what has occurred in our constitutional history with regard to this matter of the creation of peers to deal with the situation. The right hon. Gentleman had intended to deal with this aspect of the question, but he did not do so. May I remind the House of the way these revolutionary methods have been dealt with before. Twelve peers were created to bring about peace after one of the most sanguinary wars in which we ever engaged, a war, which so far as this country was concerned, had lost all its utility and which it was vitally necessary to bring to an end. I do not think the course was justified, but consider the occasion of the proceeding and compare the remedy which was thought to be pro vided by the Tory Government of that day. The object was to put an end to a war which ravaged Europe. The remedy was to raise a few eldest sons, and one or two gentlemen who were not eldest sons, to the peerage and increase the total number of the House of Lords by, I think, twelve gentlemen. That revolutionary course never was justified in later years even by its authors and, as for the Whigs of that day, may I read what the Whig House of Commons thought of it? They accused the Minister responsible for giving that advice in these words: He had prevailed on Her Majesty to exercise, in an unprecedented and dangerous manner, the invaluable and undoubted prerogative which the wisdom of the laws of this Kingdom has entrusted to the Crown for the reward of signal virtue and distinguished merit, by which desperate device he did not only, so far as in him lay deprive Her Majesty of the continuance of this wholesome counsel in a critical juncture but wickedly perverted the true and only end of that great and useful prerogative to the dishonour of the Crown and irreparable mischief to the constitution of Parliament. That is what our ancestors thought, not of a revolutionary expedient like that which is actually proposed by the Government, but of a far smaller measure adopted in a far greater necessity and which is no true parallel for what is now being done. I quite admit that revolutions may be necessary. There was a great revolution 200 years ago and more in which the great majority of the country cordially concurred. It was the only issue 1476 from an absolute deadlock. It was one of the greatest episodes in our history, but this that the right hon. Gentleman is now invoking—this new tribunal—is entirely destroying the prerogative of the Crown and the independence of the Upper House. Both are done by this one stroke. He is misusing the prerogative of the Crown and destroying the independence of the Second Chamber, not to avert a great war, not to carry a measure which the masses of the people are passionately desirous of seeing passed into law, but for one object, and one object only, to prevent the people of this country expressing any verdict—any new verdict I ought to say—on a question on which they have twice expressed a verdict before—I mean the institution of Home Rule in the Sister Island. Was ever such a revolution suggested for such a cause? When such revolution has been tried, when it was actually carried in 1711, and when it was threatened in 1S32, at all events, there were great causes at stake, and it seemed impossible to find any other issue from a problem on which in one case the whole interests of peace and war were on one side, and on which in the other case—I mean the Reform Bill of 1832—it was abundantly and manifestly clear that the immense mass of opinion of all classes throughout the community was passionately desirous of seeing the Reform Bill carried into law.
What is the parallel now? Those who-recommended, or thought of recommending, the elevation of a few eldest sons to the Upper House trembled almost at the magnitude of the step they were taking in 1711, and bitterly repented it afterwards. The right hon. Gentleman with a light heart asks the Crown to do that which has never been done in the history of this country. He advises the Crown to do that which no Sovereign of this country has ever been asked to do before, and on an excuse so trumpery and so contemptible that it would not justify the making of a single peer, not even a baronet. I need hardly say I mean no insult to baronets. Here I should like to ask when was this advice given to the Crown, and in what circumstances? I notice in a paper devoted to the interests of the right hon. Gentleman and his friends—the "Morning Leader"—that Mr. Harold Spender says, with the confidence which usually, though not always I admit, betokens authentic information, states quite explicitly that these pledges were obtained before the last General Election. Whether that be true or not, is it not, at all events, clear from what 1477 we know has been happening—[HON. MEMBERS: "You have been had" and "Cheated."] If the hon. Gentleman means by that concise expression that it never entered my head that any Minister under such circumstances could possibly give such advice he is right. Whenever this advice was given, if, as I believe, it must have been given some months ago, at least whether Mr. Harold Spender be right or wrong in his particular date, at all events hon. Gentlemen have been thundering about the country during all that period against the hereditary principle, while the Prime Minister was carrying in his pocket a blank cheque for creating as many representatives of the hereditary principle as might suit him at the moment. He asked us to discuss in this House Clauses of this Bill, and he invited the Upper House to discuss the Clauses of the Bill as if they had been free agents, knowing all the time what they, of course, did not know, that at some remote date, under some unknown circumstances, he had advised his Sovereign to make him the absolute dictator. [An Hon. MEMBER: "I thought it was Redmond."] I say that it is almost incredible for a Government to come down in the middle of a crisis, in order to bring a crisis to an end, to ask for these unconstitutional powers. I think that is beyond pardon. But that he should in cold blood, months before the crisis arose, before they knew how it. would be used, and, above all, before the King could have known how it would be used— surely that will mark the present administration in the history of all administrations, as the one least sedulous to keep intact the treasure committed to them and most utterly regardless of all the duties which devolve upon the advisers of a Constitutional Monarch. It was an amazing, a most unqualifiable proceeding. What was the reason for it? The only reason—

§ The PRIME MINISTER
The right hon. Gentleman has not heard the reason because I was not allowed to state it.

Mr. BALFOUR
Do I understand the right hon. Gentleman to say that he was prevented from stating why he had asked months ago, if that was the fact—

Mr. BALFOUR
I doubt whether he was going to deal with that.

§ The PRIME MINISTER
I was going, had I been permitted the courtesy never before refused the Leader of this House, to give a detailed and reasoned argument as to the grounds of the advice which His Majesty's Government have tendered to the Sovereign. [HON. MEMBERS: "When?"] I decline absolutely to answer any questions now. I was not allowed to do so. I was prevented by the right hon. Gentleman's Friends from doing so, and he has had the advantage of a courtesy which has been denied to me.

Mr. BALFOUR
I admit that that is the fact. I admit that hon. Gentlemen have listened to me with great courtesy, but I rather think I was not going to traverse the course of anything the 'right hon. Gentleman would, under happier circumstances, have laid before the House. I was going to give what I conjectured to be the reason of this course, and it is not a reason at all discreditable to the right hon. Gentleman or to those who act with him. I believe—I may be quite wrong— that this premature procedure was due to the right hon. Gentleman's conscience, and, after all, it would have been too cruel to introduce into the Coronation festivities any source of discord such as that which now must inevitably tear asunder all shades of public opinion. The right hon. Gentleman told us of the majorities which he thought supported his policy. He knows well enough that had this policy been announced before the Coronation festivities it would have been a most cruel trial to the Sovereign of this country, to know that by the advice of his Ministers he had been made the instrument of driving through a policy which the majority of Englishmen profoundly dislike, which nine-twentieths of the whole country violently dislike, and of which even then they did not know the full iniquity, because they did not know that the difference between the Houses had been narrowed down to this one question, practically— shall the people of this country or shall they not be consulted before a Single Chamber and an autocratic Ministry compel them to adopt a policy which they have twice rejected with indigation? The right hon. Gentleman talks of the Referendum, but he himself has been always careful to state that there are cases where the Referendum may properly be invoked, and his colleagues in the other House have maintained the same wise caution. Could there be a better occasion for settling the differences between the two Houses without a revolution, without compelling the King 1479 to destroy the whole system under which the House of Lords exists—could there have been a better case than that of referring to the people of this country this specific difference which divides them than the subject of Home Rule? By all means say that the people of the country were in favour of the general principle of the Bill. I will not argue the point. Grant it if you like. That is not the question. That has been passed a first time, a second time, and a third time in the Upper Chamber. [HON. MEMBERS: "NO."] The general principle of the Bill has unquestionably been passed. All you would have to refer to the people is not the principle of the Bill—take that, if you will, as decided— but the one point—which you think an adequate justification for destroying the Constitution—whether the country would or would not like to have some voice in the Home Rule Bill which is going to be brought in.
As it is, does the House realise what is the whole meaning of what the Prime Minister has done? He has arrogated to himself, by the advice which he has given to the Crown, powers which no Republican dictator in the world possesses. He has elevated himself on a pinnacle of arbitrary power which the President of the United States and the President of the French Republic would regard as utterly impossible. He has put himself above the Constitution. He has broken the spirit of the Constitution by tendering the advice to the Crown to make all the Peers necessary to carry a certain Bill; and by doing that he has placed himself and his friends above the Constitution. We now have it apparently, as the doctrine laid down on high authority by the whole Liberal party, and I need not say joyfully accepted by the Radical party and the Irish party, that it is within the province of a constitutional Minister to go to the Crown and say: "I am the Prime Minister of the day: I have the confidence of one Chamber: give me all the powers required to coerce the other." Tell me of any head of a State, any foreign King, President, or Prime Minister, or what you please, any executive head of a State, who has ever claimed or received from any free people power so intolerable as that?

§ The PRIME MINISTER
They are powers in the possession of every Tory Prime Minister.

Mr. BALFOUR
Can confusion of thought go further than that? The right 1480 hon. Gentleman actually wishes the House to believe, what I do not believe, that he is the dupe of so flimsy and shallow a sophistry. He arrogates to himself the power of making the House of Lords, by mere executive decree, exactly what he wishes it to be in respect of any particular measure. No Tory Prime Minister—

§ Sir WILLIAM BYLES
made an observation which was inaudible.

Mr. BALFOUR
I am very sorry I could not quite catch what the hon. Member has said. I was upon the subject upon which, if rumour speaks true, he may speak with some authority.

§ Sir WILLIAM BYLES
made another remark which was inaudible.

Mr. BALFOUR
And on which he will be able to express an opinion perhaps in a few days in a more peaceful atmosphere, but unfortunately I have been prevented from catching the full gist of his remarks. I quite understand, everybody will understand, that it gives satisfaction to a majority to impose its will for the time being. Therefore, from that point of view I suppose, everybody I am addressing on the other side looks on the step of the Prime Minister with satisfaction. I cannot believe that everybody I am addressing looks at it with satisfaction if he will consider its ulterior consequences. I cannot believe that some of the excellent Gentlemen above the Gangway who have honoured me with their attention really think that the Constitution is improved by laying it down that it is just and right that the Sovereign should be required by the advice of his Prime Minister to flood the Upper House whenever it suits the convenience of his party. There are two parties in the House which, I suppose, do congratulate themselves not merely upon the immediate issue of the controversy, but upon its ulterior consequences. There is the Labour and the Radical party below the Gangway opposite, and they always have, whether they quite know themselves or not, a strong liking for a central tyranny under a democratic form, and nothing more carries out such a scheme of Government than the policy now pursued by the Government, which has all the airs of a House of Commons elected by the people, a Prime Minister having the confidence i the House of Commons, the Prime Minister tendering advice to the King, and all through the attractive formulae which come so glibly to our tongues, but which 1481 pre-eminently and essentially creates the Prime Minister, or rather the Cabinet of the day, into a tyrannical junta. I am sure that hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway have a certain sneaking liking for that form of Government, and some even cherish the view, perhaps rightly, that the time may come when this new theory of the Constitution may be the accepted one, and when they who sit for the time being the transient and fleeting occupants of that Front Bench, may, while they are there at all events, exercise a tyranny quite unknown either to this Constitution or to any other free Constitution in the world. But after all the real heroes on this occasion—

§ Mr. SWIFT MacNEILL
made an observation which was inaudible.

Mr. BALFOUR
I think that the hon. Gentleman when a constitutional issue is raised cannot easily remain silent. The real heroes of the engagement are there. They have waited long. They have waited patiently; and they have been successful. What have they waited long for? [An HON. MEMBER: "Home Rule."] What they have waited long for is to find the British parties so divided that they hold the balance. What they have patiently desired through all these years is that position which they now hold, and which they are now using with such remorseless dexterity. It is no invention of contemporary controversy to enunciate the doctrine which I have just stated, because I have heard it a hundred times from those very benches. I have heard representatives of the Irish party say the time will come when the two parties will not either of them be in an absolute majority. I have heard Mr. Gladstone lament the necessity; I have heard Mr. Gladstone foretell the dangers. A generation has passed; the moment has come; the foreseen dangers are upon us, and hon. Gentlemen above the Gangway, as well as we here, may think they belong to a party triumphant for the moment. They are for the moment, with us, the defeated party, and well they know it. Hon. Gentlemen who hold the balance between us have issued their decrees that the Constitution shall be trampled upon and the Crown dragged into the dust, and they have been humbly and obsequiously obeyed.
Those who boasted, and rightly boasted, of the advantages of a flexible Constitution that moves and changes according to the necessity of the times, never foresaw 1482 that that Constitution would become the mere plaything of contending factions in this House as it is now. They never for a moment thought that the technical rights, the prerogative, of the Sovereign, misused by the Minister of the day, would entirely subvert and uproot the ancient Constitution of this country. I do not think that that state of things can be permanent. I do not think that that is even conceivable. But it is a sad and tragic thought, when the ancient Constitution of this country has thus under the advice of this Government been brought to ruin, that we know that it is not the sense and the feeling and the constitutional view of those who sit on that bench that have determined the issue. We know that in this respect, if in no other, they are the puppets of forces which they cannot control and cannot resist. It has been in the power of hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway, who have never protested love, either for the United Kingdom or for the Constitution under which the United Kingdom has grown and flourished, to compel the Ministers of the Crown to abuse the confidence which the Sovereign reposes in them, and to compel him to break an immemorial tradition and to destroy and utterly subvert the real principles on which the Constitution of this country for all these centuries has stood unshaken.

§ The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir Edward Grey)
I beg to move "That the Debate be now adjourned." The right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down has had extended to him the courtesy of a majority of the House which was not extended to the Prime Minister. Under those circumstances, he himself can hardly expect that his arguments will carry weight or will seem of importance in face of the scene which we witnessed before he arose. Never did a leader of a party, with a majority in the House of Commons, have behind him more chivalrous personal loyalty and more united political support than my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has at this moment. The feelings of the majority are deep and strong on this question, as well as those of the minority. Hon. Members opposite may easily imagine whether those feelings are less strong after the scene we have just had. So far as it was personal discourtesy to the right hon. Gentleman, the Prime Minister, every one of us resents it. The right hon. Gentleman spoke of the ulterior 1483 consequences of our action. What are to be the ulterior consequences of conduct such as that of this afternoon? They are ulterior consequences which undermine and destroy the House of Commons. The Prime Minister has announced the course of the Government. If arguments are to be used in support of that course they are arguments to be used by the Prime Minister as representing all of us. If arguments are not to be listened to from him, there is not one of us who will attempt to take his place. It is for the minority to decide whether they are willing to listen to arguments; it is for us, the majority, to decide by whom those arguments must be presented. If they will not hear the arguments of the Prime Minister they put an end to Debate in this House, and the ulterior consequence of such action, unless it be controlled, and if it be repeated, must be to bring the Debate to an end. The Prime Minister has announced the course which the Government propose to take. That is all that is necessary for us to do this afternoon. He has announced that course, and the majority of the House has demonstrated its opinion upon that course and its feeling with regard to it. I trust on some future occasion that even the most extreme section of the minority may feel that it is the House of Commons which is at stake when the Debate is resumed; but, for the moment, we have nothing that we can do now but to endorse the course which the Prime Minister has announced, which we are all prepared to do, and I propose that our proceedings this afternoon should close by moving the adjournment of the Debate.

§ Mr. SPEAKER
I beg to remind the House—

§ Mr. HUNT
On the point of Order—

§ Mr. SPEAKER
The hon. Member will perhaps allow me to finish my sentence. I beg to remind the House of Standing Order 21, which is as follows:— In the case of grave disorder arising in the House, the Speaker may, if he thinks it necessary to do so, adjourn the House without question put, or suspend any sitting for a time to be named by him. 1484 In my opinion a case of grave disorder has arisen, and, under the authority of the rule, I now adjourn the House.