§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Gulland.]
§ Lord HUGH CECILI am anxious to take this opportunity of asking the Prime Minister a question which, I think, is of some public interest. It has been often pointed out in Debates in this House that eleven years ago the Prime Minister said that he was against the Liberal party proceeding with Home Rule in dependence upon the Irish vote, and when this matter was brought up in the House both he himself and the Foreign Secretary have given an explanation of these words which seem to us a very artificial and unreal explanation. That explanation is, in fact, this: that if you eliminate the Irish vote altogether the Government have a majority, and therefore that the case contemplated by the right hon. Gentleman had not arisen. The Prime Minister, almost in the form of a taunt, said to the Opposition, "You are relying on the Irish vote to turn us out." That has been the case put forward. But upon the Division which determined the question whether Ulster should or should not be included in the Home Rule Bill, if you had eliminated the Nationalist party altogether the Government would not 1797 have had a majority. [HON. MEMBERS: "And Ulster."] The proposition is that the Ulster men were not to be reckoned, although they were the persons principally concerned; and the Nationalist party were the persons accused in the Amendment leaving out Ulster of probable unfairness. Their votes are votes on which the Government rely for including Ulster. When the right hon. Gentleman used the expression referred to eleven years ago, nobody had any serious doubt then that he was referring to the Nationalist party. It was the Liberal party dependent upon the Nationalist party. It is perfectly plain that you do depend upon the Nationalist party, because if the Nationalist party had not been there you would have been beaten. The Ulster vote is not part of the Nationalist party. If the Liberal party had stood on its own resources last night they would have been beaten. The whole case of the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs is that the Liberal party must be in a position of independence, and it is clear if they had been in a position of independence last night they would have been beaten if they had depended on their own resources, because they would have been in a minority. [An HON. MEMBER: "Not in Great Britain."] I think the Government would probably have had a majority of about five or six if that is what you are depending upon. The Government are in a strange position, because their moral authority on this question, by their own account, is about five or six votes even in this second time amended edition of the Prime Minister. Would it not be better to leave the traditions of the Liberal League off the slate altogether? Is there any advantage in this exercise of elaborate casuistry of the right hon. Gentleman by which the Prime Minister breaks a pledge which all the world knows he has broken. The point is also one of substance. The Government are relying upon the Nationalist vote on the very point on which the Nationalist party are accused. They are making the Nationalist party judges in their own case. Although it is the action of this party that makes the people of Ulster unwilling to be placed under the authority of the Nationalist party, yet they are relying on Nationalist votes. They are forcing the Ulster people under Nationalist authority by Nationalist votes. That is something more than a point of consistency; it is a 1798 point of substance and of reality. The Prime Minister, of course, was dealing with a particular body of opinion, and he gave that opinion because it commended itself to that particular body of opinion.
§ The PRIME MINISTERIt was long before the existence of the Liberal League.
§ Lord HUGH CECILI think the right hon. Gentleman is mistaken. It is at any rate part of the programme which the Liberal League carried out. It was said in 1901, and the movement ended in the creation of the Liberal League. I invite the Prime Minister to give an explanation. Does he think it right now for the Liberal party to go on with this Bill and go on forcing Ulster under the domination of a Nationalist Parliament, even though eleven years ago he and his Friends thought the Liberal party ought not to undertake this matter dependent upon Irish votes? Does anyone doubt they are now truly and really dependent upon the Nationalist vote, dependent actually and arithmetically, so that if the Nationalist vote were withdrawn they would be in a minority? It is a mere matter of arithmetic. He can see it for himself. If the Nationalist vote had been withdrawn last night, he would have been in a minority. I think the country ought to have its attention called to it. They ought to understand two things: first, the subserviency of the Government, and then the unscrupulousness of the Prime Minister. They ought to understand the Government are here the creatures of the Nationalist party, and they ought to understand the Prime Minister will stick to office whatever his pledges have been in the past.
§ The PRIME MINISTERThe Noble Lord has occupied in an unusual way the opportunities of the Motion for Adjournment, which have always been confined to urgent matters of administrative business. I do not complain the least. It has afforded me the opportunity of saying two or three simple words on this matter. The Noble Lord talks about casuistry, but before he talks about casuistry he had better learn the elements of Parliamentary arithmetic. He has quoted a remark which I made eleven years ago, long before there was any movement for the formation of the Liberal League or anything of the kind, in which, referring to our experience of 1893, when there was a majority against Home Rule in Great Britain, and when it was impossible to carry the Home Rule 1799 Bill either through its Second Reading or any of its other stages except by the aid of the Irish vote, I said, and hoped, the Liberal party would not repeat that experiment. They have not repeated it; and I have carried out in the letter and the spirit the declaration I then made. There is a majority in this House at this moment, and a large majority, in favour of Home Rule, if you eliminate the Irish vote altogether. The suggestion that when you are dealing with a matter like Ulster you are to count the Ulster Members and subtract the Nationalist vote is really worthy of "Alice in Wonderland." What is all this talk about? Because the Government majority dropped—
§ Lord HUGH CECILOn a vital Amendment.
§ The PRIME MINISTERBut if that Division is analysed, and you subtract the Irish vote on one side and the other, the majority in Great Britain is in favour of the Government. It is a matter of simple addition. What has been going on to-night? We have seen to-night most remarkable evolutions on the part of the Unionist party. They began by a tremendous demonstration in favour of Single-Chamber Government. Their calculation was that the Labour party and some of my hon. Friends who sit behind me would join with the Opposition to put us in a minority. What happened? We had a majority of 89.
§ Lord HUGH CECILThere is nothing new in that.
§ The PRIME MINISTERThe Unionist party voted to-night in favour of Single-Chamber Government. They were defeated by a majority of eighty-nine. In the next Division we had—I do not know if it will afford the Noble Lord any satisfaction— the Opposition were defeated by a majority of 132. This is the Government which is dependent on the Irish vote.
§ Lord HUGH CECILrose—
§ The PRIME MINISTERThe Noble Lord has made his speech, he has taught us many lessons in Parliamentary manners. Since that Division we have been discussing an Amendment proposed from the Unionist Benches to delete from this Clause the words which assert the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament. They started the evening with a tremendous 1800 demonstration in favour of Single Chamber Government, and they finished up by asking the House to omit a declaration inserted in a former Bill at the instance of an eminent Unionist, Sir Henry James—a declaration that the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament shall remain unchallenged and unimpaired. I have nothing more to say.
§ Mr. BONAR LAWThe Noble Lord, in the course of his speech, reminded us that we had had many different forms of explanation with regard to this matter from the right hon. Gentleman, and I wondered what would be the particular form he would adopt to-night. We have had it. The right hon. Gentleman spent exactly a minute and a half in dealing with the subject raised by my Noble Friend, and he devoted the rest of his time to raising issues which have absolutely no more to do with the point involved than the Presidential election in the United States. I can make that point good if hon. Gentlemen opposite will restrain their enthusiasm. The right hon. Gentleman spent the last few minutes in describing the Amendments discussed to-night. Assuming for the purpose of my argument that the Prime Minister was perfectly right in the statements he made with regard to them, what has that to do with the question? The point raised by my Noble Friend is perfectly clear and explicit. It is this: Undoubtedly, by the admission of the right hon. Gentleman himself, he told the country in the most solemn way that, so far as he could advise the Liberal party, that party would never attempt to carry Home Rule while dependent on the Irish vote. That is the point. What was his defence on that subject, which was the only point as issue? He told us that when he used the words, "the Irish vote," or "dependence on the Irish vote," he meant the Ulster vote as well as the Nationalist vote. Unfortunately, I did not know that this subject was to be raised, or I would have taken the trouble to get the exact words used by the right hon. Gentleman. Suppose the words were, and I am not sure that they were not, that the Liberal party would never do it in dependence on the Nationalist vote. Then it is obvious that the right hon. Gentleman is riding off on an issue which is palpably false. Let us assume that I am wrong—I do not know whether I am right or wrong, because I do not know what the exact words were—let us assume that the words were "the Irish vote"—
§ The PRIME MINISTERAn hon. Friend has supplied me with them. They were "an independent majority."
§ Mr. BONAR LAWThat will not do. There is a reference in some part of the speech to the Irish vote. Here is the point of difference between us: the right hon. Gentleman now tells us that when he spoke of a vote independent of the Irish vote, he did not mean the Nationalist Members, but he meant every one returned from Ireland. Was he or the Liberal party ever at any moment dependent upon the votes of hon. Members from Ulster?
§ The PRIME MINISTERThe point, the only point, and the obvious point was that we must have a British majority.
§ Mr. BONAR LAWThat is the point today; it was not the point in the least eleven years ago.
§ The PRIME MINISTERIt was the only point.
§ Mr. BONAR LAWI have read the speech too often, and used it too often, not to know approximately what he did say.
§ The PRIME MINISTERThat is what I said.
§ Mr. BONAR LAWIt was the most clear and explicit declaration on the part of the right hon. Gentleman, not merely as a matter of his duty, but as an expression of the duty of the party to which he belonged, that that party would never attempt to carry a measure of this kind unless it could carry it independently of the dictation of the Irish Members who were interested in it. Now the right hon. Gentleman talks about casuistry.
§ The PRIME MINISTERI quoted the Noble Lord.
§ Mr. BONAR LAWI know he quoted the word used by my Noble Friend (Lord Hugh Cecil). We all change our views, and if the right hon. Gentleman were to tell us that circumstances over which he has no control have now made it necessary to do what he declared eleven years ago he would never do—
§ The PRIME MINISTERI am not doing so.
§ Mr. BONAR LAWWe should all understand it. I ask any hon. Member in this House to put himself again in the position in which the Prime Minister stood eleven years ago. They had had an experience 1802 of trying to carry Home Rule, where, as Mr. Gladstone said, at every point the Nationalists said to them, "Do this, or do that, or we will turn you out."
§ The PRIME MINISTERWhen was this?
§ Mr. CLOUGHWhen did Mr. Gladstone say that?
§ Mr. BONAR LAWIn 1885. I think the right hon. Gentleman knew perfectly well that Mr. Gladstone, speaking of the danger to the Liberal party, said that although he had the greatest confidence in that party he could not trust them if they were in a position where the Nationalists might say to them, "Do this, or do that, or we will turn you out." It was in reference to that situation that the right hon. Gentleman spoke. What everyone understood him to mean was that never again ought the Liberal party to be in a position where they could not freely exercise their judgment.
§ The PRIME MINISTERSo they are.
§ Mr. BONAR LAWThe right hon. Gentleman talks of the Amendments which we are discussing. The real importance of this apart from any question of consistency is that the Government deliberately carried through a proposal which will place the people of Ulster against their will under the heel of the Nationalist majority in Ireland, and he carried that proposal solely by that Nationalist vote.
§ The PRIME MINISTERNo, a British majority.
§ Mr. BONAR LAWI am not going to say anything about the subserviency of the Government. There is no need to tell the country about that. Everybody has seen it. It is impossible to look at any of their actions during the past three years without seeing not only that they are carrying Home Rule at the dictation of the Nationalist party, but that in order that Home Rule may be carried they are turning up everything in the country. As to the other point, I am not going to talk about the unscrupulousness of the Prime Minister. He has been subjected to the very temptation which Mr. Gladstone foresaw. He has met it in the way which most of us have seen—by yielding. I am sorry for it.
§ Adjourned at Twenty-seven minutes after Eleven o'clock.