HC Deb 26 June 1911 vol 27 cc357-61
Mr. WEDGWOOD BENN

I beg to move "That this House do now adjourn."

Mr. KING

May I ask, Mr. Speaker, whether the St. Mary, Radcliffe, Bill will be taken at 8.15 to-morrow?

Mr. SPEAKER

It may come on tomorrow at the usual time—2.45.

Mr. KING

Will it be put down for 8.15?

Mr. SPEAKER

If opposed when called on at 2.45 it can be put down for 8.15.

Mr. PIRIE

I understand it would not be in order at the present moment to continue to discuss the Motion we were discussing which was interrupted by Private Business?

Mr. SPEAKER

The Motion we were discussing was "That the House do now adjourn," and under Standing Order No. 1 that lapses at Eleven o'clock. Then we went on with the Orders of the Day, and now another Motion has been made "That the House do now adjourn."

Sir HENRY CRAIK

I wish to take this opportunity of renewing my protest against the action of the Scottish Education Department in regard to the teachers. The Lord Advocate complained of the strength of my language in regard to the postponement of the teachers' superannuation scheme. I have not one word to withdraw of the language I used. If the Lord Advocate would read the letters I have received from Scotland on this subject, he would know that the language I have used only faintly represents the indignation of Scotland. I thank hon. Members opposite who have joined with me in protesting against this act of injustice. I am not going to be led into any side-track by the discussion of Home Rule, and I shall not discuss the question whether this scheme should be carried out by a Minute or by an Act of Parliament. The Government passed an Act of Parliament, which distinctly laid down how this superannuation is to come into operation. The lines were laid down in an Act of Parliament for which the present Government are responsible. That scheme was laid before us. You had no alternative, except when the scheme was drawn in draft, to proceed with the further steps of embodying it in a Parliamentary Paper to bo laid on the Table of the House.

I am not going to waste time about the legal quibble which the right hon. Gentleman raised as to the small difference in the phraseology of Section 14 of the Act. The right hon. Gentleman says, "I am not suspending, I am only postponing." We know quite well that one of the fiercest struggles in our Constitutional history was precisely over this power of the Executive to suspend Bills. Are you prepared to set aside the deliberate decision on a Constitutional point and to say now, "No, we do not claim the power of suspending a Bill; we only postpone its action." What, in the name of common-sense, is the difference between the two? Would anyone but a lawyer, driven against a wall to find out some fictitious defence, ever resort to such a trick of verbiage? I agree with the hon. Member for the Central Division of Glasgow (Mr. Scott Dickson) that this is not a party measure. Yet, I am afraid I cannot go with him in divesting responsible Ministers of the Crown of their primary responsibility for it. I am not going to turn, like some hon. Members opposite, or even like my hon. Friend, upon the permanent officials. I am perfectly convinced the permanent officials are not in the slightest degree responsible for this action. Even if they were, is it honest or is it courageous for Ministers to turn their responsibility on to permanent officials? I do not believe any such responsibility rests on the permanent officials. I believe they resent as much as—

The LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. Ure)

I never did so.

Sir HENRY CRAIK

I am sorry to say some hon. Members behind the Lord Advocate did, and I wish to disssociate myself from any such suspicion from whatever quarter it comes. I do say the Ministers responsible for Scotland had a remedy in their own hands. If they were not, by their colleagues in the Cabinet or elsewhere, able to find the means of carrying out an Act of Parliament for which they were responsible and of which they were the promoters and the sponsors, then I say plainly the only thing for them in that case was to resign their offices. In that way, and in that way alone, can Scottish administration be properly carried on. Does anybody believe that if the Scottish Secretary or the Lord Advocate, who grieves, as ho tells us, over the decision, had brought the Government to the ultimate tribunal of their resignation, that this iniquity would ever have been carried out? It is for that I blame them, and I am not prepared to absolve them from that blame or to free them from their responsibility. I believe they made themselves a party to an unconstitutional act which English, as well as Scottish, Members may sometimes find put into force. I believe they have raised a great body of indignation in Scotland, and I think they will have to answer for their action, not merely by turning it off—and I am sure the Lord Advocate would not himself do so—upon the permanent officials, but either by taking the blame themselves or by laying it upon their colleagues who have disregarded the just claims of Scotland.

Mr. J. A. BRYCE

I wish to associate myself in the protest made by the hon. Gentleman opposite and by various hon. Members on this side of the House against the injustice which I conceive is being done to Scotland by holding back this superannuation scheme.

And, it being half-past Eleven of the clock, Mr. Speaker adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at Half after Eleven o'clock.