VACATION OF SEAT (MEMBER HOLDING CONTRACT).

HC Deb 22 November 1912 vol 44 cc685-743

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL (Sir Rufus Isaacs)

I beg to move, "That a Select Committee be appointed to consider whether Sir Stuart Samuel has vacated his seat as a Member of this House in consequence of the firm of Samuel Montagu and Company, in which firm he is a partner, having entered into transactions with the Secretary of State for India in Council: That Mr. Butcher, Mr. Holder, Mr. Alfred Lyttelton, Mr. Ramsay Macdonald, Mr. Swift MacNeill, Mr. Pollock, the Prime Minister, Mr. Solicitor-General, and Mr. Eugene Wason be Members of the Select Committee: That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers, and records. That three be the quorum."

I make this Motion in order that this House may exercise its jurisdiction over its own Members, and the composition of this House. That is a right which exists in this House and a right to which it has always tenaciously clung; which has never been surrendered and which has been exercised certainly within recent years. The matter for the determination of the House must be exercised in a judicial capacity by Members, and therefore following the practice of this House must be referred to a Select Committee which is to investigate the facts and determine what is to be the view of the House on the particular matter. In this instance the Committee will have to decide whether certain tests will bring this particular case within the words of the Statute of 1782, and upon the answer to that question will depend the determination of whether or not the seat is to be vacated. I will call attention, a little later, more particularly to the Statute. Putting the matter in another form, so that the House may clearly appreciate it, the point at issue, is whether a contract made and transaction entered into by a Member of this House, being a partner in a firm which has transactions or made contracts with the Secretary of State for India in Council, are contracts or transactions which come within that particular Statute: that is the real point to be decided. May I say at the outset, so as to make it perfectly plain, that the setting up of this Committee involves no reflection upon the personal honour or integrity either of the hon. Baronet in question or the firm with which he is connected. We are not by instituting this Committee inquiring into anything else or admitting the need for inquiry into anything other than whether or not there has been a breach of the particular Statute, and it is to that matter that I intend to address myself. May I also make this point clear before I go a little more into details that I am not professing to express any opinion upon the question at issue—it would be improper for me to do so—I am moving that this Select Committee should be appointed in order that that Committee may decide, and the only reason I am occupying a little time in placing the matter before the House is that I understand the appointment of the Select Committee is in controversy, and it is necessary for me to establish by precedent why it is that this is referred to a Committee. Let me just state the facts to the House, which are necessary to understand, before I explain what is the law and what should be, according to the view I present to this House, the practice and procedure. The facts so far as they are relevant are very short. The member for the Whitechapel Division of the Tower Hamlets is a member of the firm of Samuel Montagu and Company, and that firm of bankers and bullion brokers are undoubtedly engaged in large transactions in the City. The Secretary of State for India in Council decided that bar silver should be purchased through this firm of Samuel Montagu and Company instead of, as hitherto, through bullion brokers appointed by the Bank of England. As to the reason for this change all that is necessary for me to state is that whenever certain brokers went into the market to purchase bar silver which was to be bought in large quantities for India it was known that these purchases were being made for the Government and it was thought that the prices were put up in consequence. In order that it should not be revealed to the market that purchases were being made—

Mr. BONAR LAW

It seems to me that the Attorney-General is now going quite outside, the scope of the Committee's appointment, and is proceeding to defend the action of the Government. What I wish to ask is, if the right hon. Gentleman continues that line of argument, shall we have the right to criticise the whole attitude of the Government in connection with this contract?

Mr. SPEAKER

A discussion upon the action of the Government would seem to me to be outside the scope of the present inquiry. If the Attorney-General opens up that subject he cannot complain if others follow him.

Sir RUFUS ISAACS

I was not, as I thought, opening up that subject beyond stating certain facts.

Mr. BONAR LAW

The right hon. Gentleman was justifying the Government.

Sir RUFUS ISAACS

No, I was only stating the facts in reference to entering into these contracts. I have said all that it is necessary to say on that point, and I am not attempting to justify the action of the Government now. What I want to do is to state the fact that these purchases were then made by Messrs. Samuel Montagu and Company, acting as brokers and entering into transactions with the Government of India. There may be other transactions of a similar character into which I do not propose to enter for the reason that it is unnecessary. All we want to understand is whether the hon. Member for the Whitechapel Division of the Tower Hamlets, as a partner in this firm, has entered into transactions with the Secretary of State for India in Council. If that be so the question arises whether that constitutes a breach of the Statute of 1782. The whole point with regard to that depends upon the answer given to one particular portion of this Statute to which I shall call the attention of the House, and I want to state the case without attempting to decide either one way or the other. The question the Committee will have to determine is whether under this Statute of 1782 these transactions are transactions which were made for or on account of the public service. That is the broad question. I do not enter into the smaller questions which may be raised, but that is the broad question we shall have to decide. Of course, if this were a perfectly clear and plain matter and admitted to be a breach of the Statute by the hon. Member in question, as I apprehend the practice and procedure of this House, there would be no necessity to appoint a Select Committee. As far as I have been able to judge from a careful examination of this question, the practice has always been in cases which have occurred again and again—for example, at the election of a Member of this House who has found after he was elected that there were contracts existing between his firm and some Department of the Government which came within this Statute that he has not taken his seat because he becomes disqualified by reason of this Statute, and where there is no dispute or doubt the new writ has been issued. Where you have questions of doubt or difficulty, and where a Member does not admit that there is a disqualification by reason of this Statute, the practice always has been to refer the, matter to a Select Committee of the House. It is that practice and procedure which we are now following and which I propose to justify by a short reference to precedents. It is only necessary to trouble the House with two precedents to illustrate the practice which has always existed.

Sir FREDERICK BANBURY

I understand the point is that in this case the hon. Gentleman does not admit that he is disqualified?

Sir RUFUS ISAACS

I think that has been stated quite recently by the Prime Minister in answer to a question. There is some doubt about the point, and conflicting opinions have been expressed by very eminent lawyers. The hon. Baronet will see that I am not exaggerating when I say that this is a matter which requires very serious consideration, and it cannot be decided off-hand without discussion or without a good deal of argument.

Sir F. BANBURY

Does the hon. Baronet deny that he is disqualified?

Sir RUFUS ISAACS

He has not admitted he is disqualified, if he did he would have to follow the precedent of informing Mr. Speaker of that fact. The House knows sufficient of this Statute to make it unnecessary for me to read it in detail, but I may point out that the Statute of 1782 was passed at a time when, as we know from history it was the practice to distribute contracts amongst Members of Parliament in order to get them to vote in a particular way. I am particularly anxious to avoid using any words which will give rise to controversy, but all I wish to say is that any person who becomes a Member of this House who enters into a contract or agreement with any person or persons for or on account of the public service becomes disqualified, and is not entitled to sit or vote, and is subject to certain penalties enacted in that Statute. That is the position of the matter. In order to put at rest any doubts in the minds of other hon. Members which may be aroused by my statement I may say that it would not apply to shareholders in companies, but it is confined to persons who contract. A man may be ever so large, a shareholder in a company, in fact, he may own all the shares except a few nominal shares and he would not come within the Statute.

I said just now that I would justify what I have stated as to the procedure of this House by a reference to two precedents, and I do not anticipate that there will be any controversy with regard to them. There is what is known as the Rothschild case which was decided in 1855. Baron Rothschild was a Member of this House, or, at any rate, he took some part in the proceedings of this House, not being entitled to vote because the Statute of 1858 had not been passed. For a considerable time he was in one sense a Member of this House and in another sense he was not, and he was not allowed to sit and vote in the House. It was during that period, in 1855, that this question arose. His firm, Rothschild and Son, had arranged a loan with the Government of £16,000,000, and the point was raised in this House that in consequence of that, and his being a member of that firm, his seat was vacated. Thereupon, a Select Committee was appointed to consider it, and sat I think on some six or seven occasions. There were complicated questions of fact to be inquired into, and eventually the Committee reported to this House and determined the question. In that case it was decided there was no such contract as came within the Statute. Any hon. Member who is interested in this matter will find it referred to in Sir Erskine May's "Parliamentary Practice," 11th edition, pages 21 to 32, where this Statute is discussed. The next precedent to which I will refer was in 1869. That was the case of Sir Sydney Waterlow. There had been in October a verbal agreement for the dissolution of the partnership of Waterlow and Son by which Sir Sydney Waterlow ceased to be a member of that firm. He had been elected a Member of the House on 23rd November, and the deed of dissolution was only executed on 26th November, and the advertisement in the "London Gazette" only appeared on 27th November. I should say the firm of Waterlow and Son had a stationery contract with His Majesty's Government. The question was raised that in consequence his seat was vacated under this Statute. There again a Select Committee was appointed to inquire into it. Sir Sydney Waterlow took the view that as there had been this-verbal agreement for dissolution he was no longer a firm from 16th October, and was not interested when he was elected on 23rd November, but the Select Committee took a different view and decided that he was disqualified. I can, and if necessary I will give other precedents, but I think the matter is so plainly established by those to which I have referred that I will not trouble the House with any further discussion of these appointments of Committees.

Lord BALCARRES

What about a subsequent precedent?

Sir RUFUS ISAACS

I think I know to what the Noble Lord is referring. I was giving these as instances in which doubt had arisen and in which the Member himself had not admitted he was disqualified. I now come to the last precedent, a precedent the other way. It is a precedent in which the members concerned admitted that in consequence of transactions with the Government they were disqualified. There was the case of Messrs. Alban and Vicary Gibbs, who were partners in the firm of Antony Gibbs and Sons, which in 1904 entered into a contract on behalf of the Chilian Government with His Majesty's Government for the sale of two battleships. No one can doubt for a moment that in consequence of that they did infringe the provisions of this Statute of 1782. They were so advised, indeed one of them stated in terms he had been advised that in consequence of having entered into this transaction his seat was vacated, and they informed Mr. Speaker of the facts. Neither of them raised any difficulty or doubt about it. They themselves took the view that the mere fact of their having entered into this contract vacated their seats, and I do not think anyone can doubt that was the case when I give the facts to the House.

Mr. NORMAN CRAIG

Will the right hon. Gentleman say in what capacity the gentlemen named acted?

Sir RUFUS ISAACS

I think I have said they acted as brokers for the Chilian Government, and executed a contract with His Majesty's Government, and consequently came within the provisions of the Statute of 1782. It is interesting to observe that upon that occasion the point was raised very definitely and clearly by that very vigilant constitutional authority my hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Donegal (Mr. Swift MacNeill), who I see has just received the honour of an appointment recognising his value as an authority in legal matters. The letters having been read by Mr. Speaker from these two Members admitting their seats were vacated, and a Motion for the issue of new writs having been made, the hon. and learned Member raised the point that notwithstanding the admission by them it was not for them to decide a question of this character, but it was for the House itself, and the constitutional practice therefore demanded that there should be a Select Committee appointed to determine the question. That was the point. It was discussed and was put with great force by my hon. and learned Friend, but eventually the view was taken by Mr. Speaker and also by the House that as the point was not raised by the Members themselves and as they admitted their seats were vacated, they stood exactly in the same category as the case of a Member who, having been elected, discovered before taking his seat there was a contract in existence which disqualified him, and therefore did not take his seat. It was ruled by Mr. Speaker their ease came within that category, and the consequence was the House then proceeded to order the warrants for the issue of new writs without referring the matter to a Select Committee. It is that very precedent, which is the last, which justifies me in the distinction I drew in presenting this case to the House between cases in which there was no dispute and no point raised by the Members themselves and cases in which it was not admitted that the seat was vacated. In the one there is no necessity for a Committee, and in the other there is a necessity for a Committee; and it is within the second class of cases this case falls. I think I have given sufficient information to the House to justify the view that I have put except with regard to one point, which is a somewhat difficult one to deal with here in this House in view of the Motion I am now making, that it, should be referred to a Select Committee. The only reason I make any reference to it is in order to show the House that the solution of this question is one of doubt and difficulty. This matter was discussed in the Law Courts in consequence of a petition presented under the Parliamentary Elections Act, which enabled this point to be raised before a judge of the High Court under the practice which then prevailed. In those days election petitions were determined by one judge, and there was the power under that Statute to refer any question of difficulty that arose to the Court for the Court to determine. This matter did arise, and it did come before the Court.

The precise question was whether or not this Statute applied to a contract which was made with the Secretary of State in Council for India—whether such a contract did come within the meaning of this Statute, and whether it was a contract "for or on account of the public service." On that various arguments were raised, but it is sufficient for me to say that as a result of a simple discussion—I have no doubt the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite and others who are interested in this matter will have consulted this, the only authority on the subject, will agree—that what was said was substantially this. The matter came before four learned judges who said the case raised a point which required very serious consideration, but they did not decide the point. It was not necessary for them to do so. There was however, an expression of opinion on it to which I will call attention. The case is to be found in the Law Reports IV., Common Pleas, page 296. I do not want to weary the House with quotations, but I think it is necessary to tell hon. Members what points arose in this case, as it is the only case which bears on the subject, and it was left undecided. It is, the point that will have to be solved by the Select Committee if the House decides to refer it to such a body.

The argument which was put forward was this. It was said, "This Statute, passed in the year 1782, was a Statute passed by the Parliament of Great Britain. The public service there referred to was the public service of Great Britain; it did not extend beyond Great Britain." Then it was said it was manifest that that was true, because in 1801 another Statute was passed which extended the operations of this particular Statute to Ireland. By that time the Act of Union had been passed. Then the argument was put forward, "Why was it necessary to so extend it if the words were sufficiently wide to-cover not only Great Britain, but also Ireland." Another way of putting-it was to say, "Suppose during the period which elapsed between 1782 and 1801, some Member of the British House of Commons had entered into a contract for services or for the supply of goods to Ireland to be paid for by moneys voted by the Irish House of Commons. The question then would arise, would that be a contract made by a Member of this House for and on account of the public service within the meaning of the Statute?" Next it was said, "It is not so, because of this particular Statute having been passed to extend the operation of the Statute of 1782 to Ireland." That was the argument on one side. On the other side it was said, "the words 'for or on account of the public service,' are words of wide meaning, and you must so construe them, because you must remember there was a Preamble to this Act of Parliament which said that the Act was passed to secure the freedom and independence of Parliament. You must look at the intention of the Act, and therefore give it a wide interpretation."

These were the opposite views of this case. Then further arguments were raised. It was said again, in the same way, during the hearing of the case, "Suppose a Member of this House were to enter into a contract with a Colonial Government for some service to be performed which undoubtedly would be a public service for that particular Colonial Government. Is that within the meaning of the Statute because the moneys are voted by the Colonial Parliament and not by this Parliament, just in the same way as moneys which would have to be paid on a contract with the Secretary of State for India are not moneys which are voted by this House, but are moneys which are dealt with in India and are not in any way voted by this House of Commons?" It is quite true under the Statute there is always a statement made with reference to revenue and expenditure of India to this House every year relating to the past, but not to prospective revenue and expenditure. In substance it comes to this: Although we get a statement under the particular Act passed in 1858 dealing with Indian affairs, and transferring India from the East India Company to the Crown, although, in consequence of that, we have this corporate body created under the Statute and the Secretary of State brought in, we do not vote the money for India. Nevertheless there is a statement of its past expenditure and receipts made under the Statute to this House. That is all regulated by this particular Statute which was passed in 1858, and it may be is controlled by subsequent Statutes.

The consequence of the argument which was presented on the one side or the other was, as I said, the Court did not pronounce any decision at all. It may not be so clear to many hon. Members as it is to me, but, when there is a great difficulty raised in a case, it is by no means uncommon, and indeed it is not unnatural, for the judges not to decide that difficult point if they can come to a conclusion on some other point which makes it unnecessary for them to decide the difficult point. That is what happened in this case. It became unnecessary for the judges to decide this point of difficulty because on another point they came to quite a clear conclusion. What they did say was this. Mr. Justice. Wills said, with regard to the contract with the Secretary of State for India in Council, the question was one deserving of much consideration, but it— might not be useful to express a judicial opinion upon that except in a case where it was necessary to dispose of it. Certainly the impression on my mind at first—and I do not say that that impression has been entirely removed—was that a contract with the Secretary of State for India would be a contract of public service. But I do not think it necessary to express an opinion on that. Mr. Jnstice Montagu Smith expressed no opinion. Mr. Justice Brett (afterwards Lord Esher) went further and said he was inclined to think that the Secretary of State for India was such an agent of the Government as would bring him within the precise words of the Statute, but he added— I quite agree it is not necessary to decide that point, at present. So there it was left, and that is how it is left up to this particular moment. I only wish to add with reference to it that I should have thought it became quite clear from that, that this House would not attempt to decide against the hon. Member's contention without his having an opportunity of presenting his case before this Select Committee appointed by the House. I only wish to add that it certainly does seem to be a matter which is peculiarly one for lawyers. If the House will look at the terms of the Motion it will be seen that the appointment of a Select Committee is of lawyers, with one qualification, which is that of my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester (Mr. Ramsay Macdonald) who may be a little suspicious if he finds himself in that company. Except for that, all are members of my profession. I think it right and proper that that should be so in a case of this kind, which necessarily involves difficult points of law. Perhaps I ought to call the attention of the House to this, that there has been a change in the Motion on the Paper since last night, inasmuch as it is not now asked that I should be appointed a Member of the Committee, but that my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General should take my place.

Sir E. CARSON

Will you give evidence?

Sir RUFUS ISAACS

I would not refuse to give evidence at the mere prospect of being cross-examined by the right hon. Gentleman. If he will undertake to cross-examine me I will present myself with alacrity, but, perhaps, with some trepidation. I do not desire to say anything further in regard to this matter, except that I do ask the House to deal with a question of this character, ad it necessarily must, in a perfectly impartial spirit. In dealing with this particular question the House, at any rate, is exercising a judicial function. It has to determine this question, which is really a question of law, but which the House always decides for itself according to the law and according to the best view it is able to form. It is for that purpose that we have thought it right, with the assistance of the Noble Lord (Lord Balcarres), that we should have Members appointed on this Committee who, we think, are eminently fitted to decide a question of this character, and who will bring to bear upon it not only an examination of all the precedents and all the Statutes, but minds which have been trained in the law, and which, no doubt, are capable of giving both legal and judicial interpretation to the question and to the particular Statutes they, may have to construe. I desire to make reference to points that have been raised during the course of this discussion, not in the House, but sometimes outside and sometimes in the Lobbies. It is said, "Why is not this matter referred to a judge and to the Courts of Law?" The hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury) has said it would be better to refer it to a Court of Law because there are questions which eventually a Court of Law may have to decide, and there is nothing in any of the Statutes which makes it imperative upon a Court of Law to come to the same conclusion as a Select Committee of the House of Commons. I quite agree with him. It has always been one of the difficulties which has confronted us, that this House has set up statutory penalties in reference to the disqualification of seats, maintaining, as it always has done, that it is for this House to determine whether the seat is vacant and for the Courts to determine whether or not a penalty has been incurred. That has always been the practice.

Sir F. BANBURY

If the Attorney-General will look at the Statute, he will see that the penalties cannot be enforced unless the seat is vacated.

Sir RUFUS ISAACS

I am not disputing that. If the interpretation which the hon. Baronet seeks to give to it by reference to those words is that the seat must first be vacated and that then only the penalty may be imposed, and it is for the House of Commons to determine whether or not the seat should be vacated, there could be no conflict between the House and the Courts. I am far from saying there is no precedent. If it interests him I will certainly give him a reference—in the year 1704, when the House of Lords said very much what I said just now I would not assert too positively. They said it was a matter for the House of Commons to decide whether or not a man was a Member of that House, and it was a matter for the Courts of Law to decide whether a man who claimed to vote was entitled to exercise it or not. The question had arisen and the House of Commons had asserted its privileges, and certainly the view taken by the two Houses was not exactly the same. There were, as was not uncommon in those days, conflicting resolutions passed by the Commons and the Lords upon this subject, into which I will not enter at the present moment, but which will, no doubt, prove a fruitful source of investigation to the hon. Baronet, if he wishes to inquire further. The answer I wish to make is, as I have already said, that it is for the House of Commons, and only for the House of Commons, to decide whether a seat is vacated. In all the battles that have been fought—and they have, been many, as those who have had to study the history of our Constitution know—between the House of Commons and the Courts of Law, with reference to the privileges of the House of Commons, this has not been contested. It has always been asserted and, so far as I know, never been contradicted. Further, if you were to refer a matter of this kind to a Court of Law—I do not say it would not be possible—obviously it is a most inconvenient course. I will tell the House why. A man who might be subjected to very heavy monetary penalties, would be entitled to take his case to the Court of Appeal, and from that to the highest Court of the land. The result would be that considerable time would be lost.

Mr. BONAR LAW

This will not stop it.

Sir RUFUS ISAACS

I am quite sure the Leader of the Opposition has not quite appreciated the point I am making. I am saying that you ought not to go to a judge, because if you do this considerable time must elapse. I agree that the reference to a Select Committee does not stop it. I will tell you what it does stop. It stops the doubt whether the seat is vacated. That is the question which we have to decide. Whether or not it may be possible to recover penalties is another question.

Sir E. CARSON

Is there any doubt about it?

Sir RUFUS ISAACS

Certainly. I not quite understand the interruption.

Sir E. CARSON

What I mean is, is there any doubt that notwithstanding what the decision of this House may be, or the Select Committee may be, that you can sue for penalties, and that, whatever this House decides, the Court can take its own view?

Sir RUFUS ISAACS

I have already stated, in answer to the hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London, that I quite agree about that.

Sir E. CARSON

Then what the doubt was.

Sir RUFUS ISAACS

The doubt I was expressing was whether he had subjected himself to penalties. That depends upon the answer to the first question. The question of penalties is one which does not concern this House. What we have to do is to determine whether or not the seat is vacated, and if the House considers for a moment what it means it will see that if the House of Commons decides this question it will be decided very quickly. There are no complicated questions of fact to be inquired into to determine whether or not the seat is vacated, and if the answer is in the affirmative an election has to take place. That is a question of a very short time, but if it goes to a Court of Justice obviously a considerable time must elapse before you have the answer.

There is one further suggestion. It has been said that the Law Officers of the down should decide this matter. The Law Officers of the Crown have, of course, to determine a great many points of law, but so far as I know a question of this character has never been determined by the Law Officers of the Crown, and I should have thought it would be quite improper for them to judge this question. They can only express an opinion, and they are not entitled, according to elementary principles of justice, to give a decision adverse to a man without giving that man an opportunity of being heard and presenting his view. They do not sit as a Court. They could not, therefore, hear the arguments, and the only way you can deal with a question of this character is to appoint a Committee. It is quite true, and no doubt all those who have consulted precedent know it is the practice for the Law Officers, or one of them, to sit on that Committee, and that is what is going to take place. I am anxious to make it quite plain, as we have been challenged in regard to this matter, that all that we are doing is to follow what is the practice and procedure of this House, laid down for a very long period, that we are adhering to the precedents of the House of Commons and taking what we believe to be the only right course of asking this House to determine, in its judicial capacity, that question which comes before it for determination, and so answer once and for all whether the seat is to be vacated.

1.0 P.M.

Lord BALCARRES

I am sure the House is indebted to the right hon. Gentleman for having gone so fully into this subject, and I can assure him that, so far as I am concerned, he has completely convinced me of the proposition with which he opened his remarks, that the case is one of extraordinary complexity. I am not going to deal with the legal question. It is not for me to do so. I am going to point out to the House, from the aspect of our procedure and our etiquette and, above all, of our capabilities, that m my opinion we are about to enter upon a course which may really be fraught with danger. In the first place, I am not going to follow the right hon. Gentleman in the two or three sentences of his speech dealing with the motives of the India Council. They have already been very clearly stated both by the hon. Member opposite and by the Secretary of State, and it is really not necessary to go into their motives at the present juncture. But the precedents upon which the right hon. Gentleman has relied are in this matter really not conclusive. The Rothschild precedent is a very unfortunate one. Never has a Committee of the House of Commons been more bamboozled than that Committee was, and the counsel, afterwards a distinguished judge, who represented Baron Lionel Rothschild, actually succeeded in putting the Attorney-General and the Solicitor-General in two different Lobbies. They completely bamboozled the House of Commons. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to bear this in mind when he is talking of precedents. Consider the dates. That was in 1855—before the Act of 1868 and the Act of 1885. A great deal has happened since then. Take the Waterlow case. Sir Sydney Waterlow was elected to this House after the redistribution. He came as a Member to the new Parliament which had itself taken the first step in emancipating the House of Commons for its old, but happily abandoned, privilege of saying who shall and who shall not serve in this House. The great scandal—for it was a scandal I suppose—of party Committees in the House of Commons settling whether Members belonging to one or other of these respective parties should or should not sit in this House was after years of controversy abandoned and deliberately abandoned by Parliament because it was said on matters of this kind a party Committee—and all these Committees must be party Committees—is not a proper tribunal to settle a point of that character.

Now the right hon. Gentleman has been able to quote no case since that of Sir Sydney Waterlow. I should think there have been six or eight cases of this character since then. The only one he mentioned was that of Alban Gibbs and Vicary Gibbs. There was doubt in that case on the part of the Members concerned. I state that on my own personal knowledge and responsibility. But they gave to Parliament the benefit of the doubt, and paid the penalty for it. Then there was the law precedent that he quoted about the same date as the Waterlow case, and he says that does not help us, because the four judges concerned did not give a judgment. Of course, that is true. Naturally they did not give a judgment, because the case was withdrawn before any sufficient evidence had been laid before them to enable them to give a judgment. The right hon. Gentleman, I hope, does not contend that if it had been necessary these four judges would not have given the time and trouble to enable them to come to a judgment. Of course they would have done so. It was the mere passing circumstances of the case that made it unnecessary to give that judgment. Since 1869 the tendency of Parliament is to withdraw from Committees composed by us and of us the duty of settling whether such and such a Member is entitled to sit and vote in the House. I know nothing about the law, and never shall—never can. I am dealing with this on a wholly different ground. I do not claim that the right hon. Gentleman himself did not deal with it from the point of view of practical procedure and, if you like to use the word, etiquette. He lives in the law. I live in anything else but the law. He dealt with it from the point of view of the law while I wish to deal with it from another point altogether. I say the whole tendency of Parliament, and it arises spontaneously from Parliament itself, has been to withdraw these cases from the tribunal of the House of Commons. If any Parliamentary Committee ought to have settled this it is not a Select Committee. I think it is the Committee of Privileges. That is the most solemn Committee we ever appoint in this House—so solemn that, so far as I know, the party Whips have nothing to do with it. I was not asked to nominate any of the members of the Committee of Privileges, although two or three Members in this quarter of the House are upon it. I do not know who nominated them. That is the Emergency Committee of the House of Commons. It is set up at the beginning of the Session, and it is not necessary for the Commons to refer any matter, such as has been referred to in this case, to the Committee of Privileges. The Prime Minister is Chairman of that Committee, and if any Committee was to determine this I should have preferred that it should be sent to this Committee by the Prime Minister. He would not have had to consult the House of Commons on the subject. It is a Permanent and an Emergency Committee, and of all Committees I should imagine that is is one of the best qualified to deal with this subject. Hon Members must not forget that the personnel of the Committee of Privileges happens to coincide very largely with the Committee proposed by the right hon. and learned Gentleman.

Sir RUFUS ISAACS

This question was considered when we were determining whether or not the matter should be sent to a Select Committee. One of the reasons why, I thought, it was better to appoint a Select Committee was that you should have more lawyers dealing with what must be a strictly legal question. I think I am right in saying that the lawyers who are members of the Select Committee on this side of the House are also members of the Committee of Privileges, but I do not think that applies equally to hon. Members on the other side.

Lord BALCARRES

I will not pursue that subject. The hon. and learned Gentleman is quite right. None of the four Members nominated on this side are members of the Committee of Privileges. My right hon. Friend, the Leader of the Opposition, who is a member of the Committee of Privileges, did not desire to serve on this particular Committee

Sir RUFUS ISAACS

Why?

Lord BALCARRES

I am not going to pursue that point. However, I am very glad to know that it has been determined to have an inquiry into the subject. This is a question not of fact, but of law. The right hon. and learned Gentleman has said that they did not send it to the Committee of Privileges because they wanted lawyers on the Select Committee. The facts are not disputed. The hon. Member (Sir Stuart Samuel) is holding a contract to-day, or his firm is. He is a partner of the firm. It is set out in the terms of reference that his firm has "entered into transactions with the Secretary of State for India in Council." I enter into transactions every day with the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury, but there is no profit. These are not transactions with a Government Department. The word "commission" actually occurs in the Act of 1782.

Sir RUFUS ISAACS

The word "commission" is used in the Statute in quite a different sense. [An HON. MEMBER: "Profits or commissions."]

Lord BALCARRES

It is, perhaps, my own fault if I did not understand the sense in which the word was used. I understood that a contract or agreement for profit was a commission; but I am not going to allow myself to be drawn into a legal argument. I am stating my general view that this is a question of law and not of fact. The facts are undisputed. The Attorney-General made some point of the fact that this was an Indian contract, as opposed to a British contract. The Gibbs-contract was with the Admiralty, and the Waterlow contract was with the Stationery Office. This contract is with the Indian Government, but surely the right hon. and learned Gentleman has not carried it quite far enough. What is the view of the Indian Government on the subject? The document containing the formal conditions of the contract has already been quoted in the House. They are the conditions of the contracts relating to shipping and railways. The contract is dated 30th April, 1907, and it is signed by an official of the Department. The words in the contract are:— By the Act 22, George III., chapter 48, no person who is II Member of the House of Commons is competent, either alone or jointly with any other person, to enter into a contract … If no Member of the House of Commons is entitled to deal in railways or shipping or to sell coal to the India Office without surrendering his seat, how can it be contended that a Member of the House is entitled to sell silver? The right hon. and learned Gentleman does not contest that.

Sir RUFUS ISAACS

lam not expressing an opinion. There are two views.

Lord BALCARRES

There is only one view at the India Office. I presume the India Office must apply to all articles they buy from traders the conditions applied in relation to railways, coal, and timber. But that is a question of interpreting the law, and I submit it is not one that should be put on the House of Commons. The Prime Minister stated in the House the other day that the Attorney-General had been unable to give an opinion.

Sir RUFUS ISAACS

No.

Lord BALCARRES

We gathered from the Prime Minister's statement that the matter had been submitted to the Attorney-General, that the right hon. and learned Gentleman said it was one of great complexity, and that he had not given art opinion. If I go to my solicitor and say, "Here I am in trouble," he would not say, "It is a difficult case; I wish fifteen men to talk about it." I say we are entitled to have the Attorney-General's opinion. He is asked for his opinion; he is not asked for a verdict or a judgment. The right hon. and learned Gentleman who is leader of the Bar, says he cannot give an opinion. How awkward the circumstances might become—

Sir RUFUS ISAACS

The matter was referred to me by the Prime Minister in the same manner as I have dealt with it now. I examined the question, and I then advised that in my view this was not a question for the Law Officers of the Crown, but one for a Select Committee. Therefore I expressed no opinion.

Lord BALCARRES

The Prime Minister said it was a matter of great doubt. The Attorney-General has proved to us that in his mind it is a matter of doubt. What I submit is, on a normal view of the duty of the Attorney-General, he is asked to give his opinion. If he gives his opinion he may append the statement, "I am not sure that my opinion will stand, but here is my opinion." The right hon. and learned Gentleman says he is not a Court. Of course he is not a Court. If he were a Court he would be asked to give his judgment, but as, he is not a Court he is asked to give his opinion. A similar case might arise of the unexpected seizure of a British ship by a nonbelligerent Power at the present juncture, and it might be very awkward if the Law Officer of the Crown could not give an opinion. If the Law Officer of the Crown cannot give an opinion, it is no use asking the House of Commons to make up his mind for him. The Attorney-General has recently become a Member of the Cabinet. He has lost his independence by so doing. There is only one man in the world who, I consider, has a right to say to me, "Good heavens, what a fool you have made of yourself!" That is my solicitor. [An HON. MEMBER: "What about the doctor?"] Lots of other people do it. I take it in good part and sometimes profit by their remarks, but I never admit their right to say so. Up to now the Attorney-General has been the father, in law, to the Government and to every Department of the State. He has been entitled to say to the Admiralty, the Board of Education, the War Office, and the Treasury, "You must not do this; you are making a fool of yourself; you are going to do something which is foolish or dangerous." I submit that the right hon. Gentleman is now no longer the legal father of the Cabinet. He is the junior and subordinate partner in the firm. I read to-day in a very distinguished paper, which is quite neutral in politics—the "Jewish Chronicle" or the "Jewish World"—that the reason that this Committee has been appointed is to hold up this question—

Sir RUFUS ISAACS

dissented.

Lord BALCARRES

In order to prevent the vacation of the seat at the earliest possible moment. If that is so, surely it would be very much better if the right hon. Gentleman, as Attorney-General, were advising the Cabinet, not as a colleague, but purely and simply as legal adviser. I do not make that point in any hostile spirit, but it has occurred to me as one which ought not to be overlooked. No Committee is really needed for this matter at all. This is a good Committee as things go. The Prime Minister is not on it because he is a great lawyer, but because he is Leader of the House of Commons. The Attorney-General is not going to serve as was proposed yesterday; the Solicitor-General is going to serve instead. I wonder if he gave any opinion on the subject?

Sir RUFUS ISAACS

I ought to say that he agreed with me. I do not wish to enter into any personal explanation as to why my name does not appear here; but the sole reason is that I have so much public work that it is impossible for me to give proper attention to it and serve on this Committee.

Lord BALCARRES

That is a most material point, but I thought it also applied to the Prime Minister. It certainly applies to the four Members in this quarter of the House who are going to sit on the Commttee, and they would not have been able to serve had it not been for the courtesy of the right hon. Gentleman, the Prime Minister, who has arranged that this Committee shall sit at five or some time after five in the afternoon. The Prime Minister is not put on this Committee qua great lawyer, no more is the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Clackmannan (Mr. Eugene Wason). He is put on because he is Chairman of the Scottish Liberal party. The hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. Ramsay Macdonald) is put on not as a lawyer but as Chairman of the Labour party. These are excellent appointments no doubt, but nobody can tell me that any decision given by this Committee is one that can possibly hope to command the confidence of this House or the country as compared with the judicial and due interpretation of the Statute by judges in the High Court. If we take upon ourselves the duty of giving judgment it is equally incumbent upon us to enforce the verdict. This Committee is not in a position to give any authoritative judgment upon this subject. Our decision, I grant, will be given as the right hon. Gentleman says he expected it to be given in our judicial capacity—whatever that may be, goodness only knows; I do not. It binds nobody, it does not bind any hon. Member in any quarter of the House. If this Committee says unanimously that the hon. Baronet is not entitled to sit in this House, that will not prevent him from doing so if he pleases. If it says unanimously that the hon. Baronet is entitled to maintain his seat in the House that will not prevent any Member in this House from spying strangers whenever he takes his seat or challenging his vote whenever he gives it in the Division Lobby. Above all, it will not prevent any man who likes from bringing an action before the Court, and the Court in this matter, as in every other matter will pay no attention to what is said in the House of Commons and will determine the question solely by its own interpretation of the laws.

I think the modern applications of this law are ridiculous. If I own a million pounds in a company out of a capital of £1,100,000, I can sell everything that I possess to the Government and that does not vacate my seat. If, on the other hand, I am a partner in a firm to the extent of £100 and the capital is a million pounds I may not sell coals to the Admiralty. That is ridiculous, and is on a par with our antiquated law that the Government of the day is not able to select for officers the members whom it considers best qualified to serve in these offices, without taking into account the number of votes which that Member has secured at the last General Election. It is ridiculous, grotesque, obsolete and ought to be done away with, and this law of George III. equally ought to be subject to revision. I wish that hon. Members opposite agreed about the election of Members taking office under the Crown. Unfortunately they do not. [HON. MEMDERS: "We do."] My personal opinion is that a Committee ought to be appointed not to interpret the law, but to suggest revision and amendment of the law. But the procedure of this Committee is not going to be as the right hon. Gentleman said so much more expeditious than the procedure of the Courts. We have had this before us for a fortnight. The Rothschild Committee sat for eight days. This Committee will sit for three or four days—we do not know how many. Then it has got to make its report and to agree to it and then it has to report to this House. It is not going to be so expeditious. The procedure, in my opinion, is not satisfactory, and I do not think that it will command general confidence.

I come, in conclusion, just to one suggestion which I make with hesitation, because it deals with a question of law. Why should not this question be taken to the Courts forthwith? The Attorney-General has merely got to bring a friendly action—and we know it to be a friendly action by the Law Officers—against the hon. Member to recover any sum you please, say, £100, for having voted against the provisions of this Statute. I think that could well be possible. The Attorney-General is in the Cabinet, the Lord Chancellor is in the Cabinet, and it is inconceivable to me that the case could not be brought forward in the Courts and settled in the Courts long before this Select Committee will have reported. This Committee will not sit until Monday next to choose its Chairman and settle its course of procedure, and it will meet on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and so on. I am making a suggestion which may have some technical objection to it, but the objection would be far less if an action were to be brought against the hon. Member to recover a penalty or damages. With the influence of the Lord Chancellor and the Law Officers, an action could be expedited, I am certain, in the public interest. It could be discussed on Monday, and at Question Time on Tuesday t dare say we would have the verdict of the Court, a verdict which would count, and the only verdict which would count on this matter. I may be wrong as to the number of days required, but if it is necessary for the Court to take more than two or three days, still an authoritative decision would be obtained, and such a decision is the only one worth having, while you may be sure that a Select Committee is going to last a fortnight or three weeks. If the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister were here I would appeal to him, not as Prime Minister, but as Leader of the House, to bear in mind that this is not a matter of mere technical procedure based on precedents that have been exercised for forty-five years, and so forth, but really a fundamental matter which does affect the status and prestige of this House, and of individual Members of this House. The one thing we really ought to do is to make it clear to ourselves and the public that we are not proceeding in a dilatory manner, that we are not going to give a decision which cannot be authoritative, but that we are anxious that this matter should be submitted, and promptly submitted, to the only tribunal which is competent to give a verdict.

Mr. BONAR LAW

My Noble Friend has stated exactly what is in my mind, and, if I may be allowed, I would like to emphasise the appeal he has made. There is no one, I am sure, in this House who does not feel that whether it is in accordance with precedent or not the principle is a thoroughly bad one. When I was asked whether I would serve on this Committee, and the Noble Lord mentioned that the Prime Minister would serve, I said at once that I would not do so, mainly for the reason that it is entirely a question of law, and should be decided by lawyers. The right hon. Gentleman the Attorney-General has said so himself. He said it was a question of law; and I do put it to the House that, if he and the Solicitor-General are not able to give an opinion upon it, how in the world can they expect that a Committee such as is to be appointed can give an opinion! But there is far more than that involved. Anyone interested in the history of this House and in the decision of questions precisely the same as this—and the Attorney-General has referred to some of them—must know that nothing can be worse for this House than to take up a position where it can even be supposed that party interests are involved, and still more when nothing can be done which could be binding upon us. If this Committee decides the question, it will not carry conviction, because obviously it is a party Committee, and however anxious they are to give, a judicial verdict, even if they did give a judicial verdict, the composition of the Committee would prevent it from carrying the confidence which it ought to carry.

I do appeal to the Attorney-General, and, if the Prime Minister were here, I would renew the appeal my Noble Friend has made. Precedents are very good, and it is because the Government are acting in accordance with precedent that we have decided not to oppose the appointment of this Committee if they go on. I have said precedents are good, but, after all, it is far more important to have the thing done in the way which is best in the interest of the House of Commons. In principle I do not think the Attorney-General will dispute that what this Committee has to do is to decide a question which is precisely similar to the question of whether or not a Member has been properly elected, a question which long ago this House decided should be referred to the Courts. It is a question which ought not to be settled by this House.

Sir R. ISAACS

So far from that being the case, if the question arises, where a Member accepts an office of profit under the Crown, the procedure is exactly the same; you do not go to the Court, but the matter is referred to a Select Committee, and the penalty follows just in the same way.

Mr. BONAR LAW

I beg the right hon. and learned Gentleman's pardon. I am not looking at it from the technical point of view, but I look at it as a question of principle. The sole question here is whether or not the Member is entitled to keep his seat. The objection applies equally in this case as in the others. Would it not be far better, if possible, and I think it is possible, to make whatever arrangements are necessary to have this question submitted to the Courts of Law in the quickest possible way? If you do so, it will settle the question for all time, and we will not have it constantly coming before the House of Commons, with the danger of decisions being arrived at under party conditions. I do not wish in the least to regard this matter from a party point of view. There is no question of a party point of view with me, because if the Committee gives a decision, obviously the Courts could be applied to, but I do say, in the interests of the House, that we ought now to set up a precedent more in conformity with the dignity of this House, and which the House will be able always to carry out.

Sir F. BANBURY

I am really astonished, after the speech of my Noble Friend, who occupies a prominent position on the Front Bench, and after the speech of the Leader of the Opposition, that not a single Member on the Treasury Bench has risen to reply.

The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Lloyd George)

I was about to rise, but I thought the Debate was going to be carried on.

Sir F. BANBURY

I did not intend to continue the Debate, because I thought the case was so extremely well put by my Noble Friend and by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition that it was not necessary to do so, but as, during the course of the Debate, I saw that an hon. Member below the Gangway is apparently under the impression that this is not a party Committee, may I point out that there is a majority of the Liberal party on this Committee. If, on the other hand, there had been a majority of supporters of the Opposition, hon. Members opposite would have been quite entitled to say that this was a party Committee, just as Members on this side of the House are now entitled to say this is a party Committee. You cannot have a Select Committee which is not a party Committee. I do not care who appoints it, whether it is one appointed by my right hon. Friend or one appointed by the Prime Minister, there must be a majority of one party or the other on the Committee, and, under these circumstances, the Committee must be of a party character. I am not imputing any object to hon. Members, but it remains that the outside public, knowing that there is a majority of one party on the Committee, will look upon the decision as a party decision. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he is going to answer, will endeavour to meet this particular point. The decision of this Committee, whatever it may be, is not binding and will not be binding. Consequently, the hon. Member will be very ill-advised if he sits in this House after the decision of the Committee and takes part in the Debates in this House. That is a point which, from our point of view, is probably a good one. The hon. Member must be perfectly well aware that after the decision of the Committee, if it is in his favour, it is absolutely certain some one will bring an action in a Court of Law. When that action is decided, the opinion of this Committee will be of no value and carry no weight, and the seat will be vacated if the Court of Law says it should be vacated. The question with regard to the different precedents which have been raised, I venture to say, does not bear on this case. In the Rothschild case, Lord Rothschild stated it was impossible for him to enter into a contract for a loan because they thought it could not begin unless the House of Commons had decided there should be a loan, and therefore they had not entered into a contract with the House of Commons, and it was a contract that did not come within the meaning of the Act. That is a very highly technical legal point which does not arise in this case. In the case of Sir Sydney Waterlow, he had terminated his connection with the firm, which the hon. Baronet has not done. I do think that in the interests of everybody the suggestion of my right hon. Friend ought to be carried out. It is really in the interests of this House that people should not think that we are endeavouring to shield one of our Members by setting up a Committee which is a party Committee, and which will be biassed in favour of that particular Member. Therefore I hope that the arguments, which appear to me to be unanswerable, will have convinced the right hon Gentleman.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

I ought perhaps to repeat that the reason why I did not get up immediately was not in any discourtesy to the right hon. Gentleman and to the Noble Lord. I would also like to say I do not think this is as easy to decide as one would imagine at first sight. I was very much attracted with the suggestion made by the Noble Lord when the thing was first considered. I thought there was a good deal to be said for it—that is, a judicial decision upon a matter which is purely one of law—as, of course, the facts are not in dispute in the slightest degree. The Government did not adopt that course for the reasons that have been stated by my right hon. Friend. The first reason was the reason of delay. I am only repeating what he said, but inasmuch as the point has been raised I would point out that if you had an action I am not sure whether that would be the best form of procedure. My right hon. and learned Friend says that there is great objection to that particular method of obtaining the decision of the Court. At the same time it is merely a technical matter, and there are methods undoubtedly by which the Law Officers could obtain a judicial decision upon a question of this moment. So therefore that is purely a technical point. Let us assume that a method which commends itself to the judgment of the Law Officers has been discovered of obtaining the decision of the Court and what would happen. In the first case it would come before a judge of the King's Bench, I think; he would give a decision. If it was against the Crown, would the Crown necessarily accept that?

Sir E. CARSON

If it is against the Member?

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

If it is against the view presented by the Noble Lord, would the Crown necessarily accept it, for it is a question of very great moment indeed? On the other hand, if it is against the Member, is he bound to accept it? I do not wish to say anything about it I have no doubt that who the particular judge was who gave the decision would have something to do with the weight of the judgment which was delivered. The Member probably would be advised to take his case to the Court of Appeal. May I say, as far as the hon. Member is concerned, he is not merely ready but willing to resign his seat, but he was strongly advised by his legal advisers not to do so on the ground that it was by no means clear that he had infringed the Statute. In fact, he did obtain the opinion of very distinguished counsel that he had not infringed it, and that was the reason it was not done. He would probably go to the Court of Appeal.

An HON. MEMBER

Is he present?

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

He is not in the House; he is awaiting whatever the House decides. After the decision of the Court he would probably go to the Court of Appeal, and supposing that the Court of Appeal took a different view, is the Member to be precluded from taking the case to the House of Lords? All that obviously involves considerable delay. The Noble Lord, I take it, from what he said, has very little experience—

Lord BALCARRES

made a remark which was inaudible.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

That does not inconvenience the constituency. After all, until it is decided, this constituency is disfranchised.

Lord BALCARRES

The constituency is not disfranchised. Until the decision of the Court has been got the hon. Member is entitled to be in his place; but on the other hand hon. Members are entitled to challenge him.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

I do not doubt at all that whilst the matter was subject to adjudication in the Courts the Member would be advised by his lawyers, certainly not to take part in any proceeding of the House, because he would be liable to a fine of £500 per day for doing so. Therefore, I have no doubt it would be much wiser for him not to put in an appearance. The Noble Lord who admitted that he had no experience of litigation, and I congratulate him on the absence of experience from what I know of litigation, said that this could be decided in a very short time. I think he rather suggested it might go to the Court on Monday, and that you could have a decision on Tuesday. That is not the way it is done in this country, not by any means. On the contrary the solicitor will want a considerable time to prepare his brief and counsel will want some time to look up precedents. It would certainly take some time and the arguments would take some time; the Court might wish some time to deliberate; that is all going to take a long time. If the judgment is against the Crown, what would be said? Here is an action practically for penalties which have run up to forty or fifty thousand pounds. What would be said of the Law Officers if they were to appear before the Courts and judgment went against them? Something has been said about party; the right hon. Gentleman very fairly said he did not suggest there was any party in it. From what one has seen and the readiness to comment upon matters of that kind, I have no doubt there would be suggestions that there was collusive action and that the case had not been pressed before the Court.

An HON. MEMBER

We cannot hear a word here. Speak up.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

I have to address the Chair. Therefore you have two points: First, that it might be suggested that the action was a collusive one, and had not been properly pressed; and, secondly, that it would take a considerable time, because the subject would have the right to go to the ultimate Court of Appeal, which is the House of Lords, and the House of Lords would have to decide whether a Member of the House of Commons could sit in this House or not. In the ordinary course that would take a year; but the matter might be expedited in this case, and it would not take a year. But it would certainly take a long time, and that would be unfair to the constituency, which has a right to a decision and a prompt decision. The right hon. Gentleman says that this is a party Committee whose decision will carry no weight. But I understood the Noble Lord to say that his view was that the Law Officers ought to decide. Would not that be subject to exactly the same comment?

Lord BALCARRES

The Law Officers never decide. They can only offer an opinion. I stated in my speech that I should attach more value to the Attorney-General's opinion if it was given merely as a Law Officer than if it were given as a colleague of Members of the Cabinet.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

That would be an opinion delivered without hearing the other side. That surely would not be fair upon a matter which involves not merely the presence of a Member in this House, but ultimately a question of £40,000 or £50,000 in the way of penalties. What the Noble Lord says is that while he might take the opinion of the Law Officer given without hearing the other side, he would not attach the same weight to that opinion if it were given by the Law Officer as a Member of the Committee before whom the case had been argued on both sides. That is a position which cannot be maintained. After all, if it is to be said that the opinion of a Committee of this House has no weight because there is a party majority upon it, that applies to every Committee of this House. All the Committees are party Committees, and the Government in power always has a majority.

Mr. BONAR LAW

Those Committees do not decide questions affecting the Government.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

Everything affects the Government. Take the South Africa Committee, on which there was a party majority. That dealt with a matter which most vitally affected the Government. There never has been a question submitted to a Committee which more vitally affected the Government of the day which appointed the Committee. Take the Committee of Privileges. I do not know the composition of it, but I think that the party in power for the time being has a majority. There you have dealt with questions affecting the Government far more vitally than the question with which we are now dealing. Every Committee deals with some business which may vitally affect some interests of the Government, and as long as you have the party system these Committees will be party Committees. When the right hon. Gentleman says that their decisions do not carry weight I do not agree with him. I have not the faintest doubt that when the matter is argued before this Committee there will not be a party division on it. I am perfectly certain that these distinguished lawyers from both sides of the House who will sit on the Committee will put themselves in a judicial position and decide the question judicially, and I am sure they will decide it much more promptly than it would be decided if it were referred to the Law Courts.

Mr. BONAR LAW

^*But the decision is in no way binding.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

The right hon. Gentleman says you are not getting a decision. But you are getting a decision on the only question that concerns this House. That question is whether a Member has vacated his seat or not; whether he has a right to sit and vote here. That is the question which concerns the House. The question which concerns the general public is, after all, one to be decided by the Law Courts.

Lord ROBERT CECIL

The Member cannot sit here until that is decided.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

Of course he can.

Lord ROBERT CECIL

At his own peril.

Mr. BONAR LAW

He can do that now.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

At his own peril. That is quite true. But he will have a decision of the House of Commons and of this Committee, and it will be for him to decide, having that decision before him, whether he will continue to sit. My right hon. Friend the Attorney-General informs me that there is no case on record where the Law Courts have decided and given an opinion contrary to that given by a Committee of the House of Commons.

Mr. BONAR LAW

What about Wilkes and Bradlaugh?

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

I mean on this particular question. That shows that, so far from being treated as party questions, they have always been treated on their merits, as the interpretation of a Statute by a Committee of lawyers in this House. We are following the precedents which have been set before us. We have heard a great deal recently about our violating the traditions of this House. The charge against us now is that we are keeping those traditions. We have followed every precedent that has been set in this matter. If we had taken the course which we have been invited to take by the Noble Lord, it would have been a departure from every precedent established in this matter. In every case the precedent has been justified by the result.

Mr. BONAR LAW

That is really not true. Take the Bradlaugh case.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

The Bradlaugh case is totally different. It decided a great religious controversy.

Mr. BONAR LAW

Whether he had a right to vote.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

I quite agree, but it was decided on a totally different basis. It was not the interpretation of a Statute of this kind by a Committee of lawyers. Everybody knows that the question excited great religious and sectarian feelings, and when you come to a question of that sort Committees of the House of Commons are not above prejudice. That is the real reason why we have not been able to accept the suggestion. It is a very very serious matter for the House of Commons to say that it is going to part with its right to the Law Courts to decide questions of this kind. Up to the present we have maintained this right. The right hon. Gentleman says that we have parted with it as far as election petitions are concerned. That is a totally different matter. A great deal that has happened recently has made some people doubt whether, after all, the change in that respect is such a great improvement. It is by no means an accepted success.

Mr. BONAR LAW

There is a difference of opinion on that. [HON. MEMBERS: "Yarmouth," "Nottingham," "Exeter."]

Mr. JOHN WARD

The judges are always in your favour.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

Let us see what that question was. You had a Committee of the House of Commons sitting to hear petitions, and to hear evidence between rival party agents, the Conservative agents swearing one thing, the Liberal agents swearing another. They were full of party bias. Even the witnesses were strong party men, giving evidence upon party questions as to what party committees and party organisations had done. I agree that there is a good deal to be said in favour of withdrawing from Committees of the House of Commons the power to decide questions of that kind. But that is a totally different matter to this. The facts are admitted here. There is nothing here that involves any party question at all, or any partisanship. It is to lay down the interpretation of a Statute upon accepted facts. We have not to consider whether we are to take the evidence of the hon. Member for Whitechapel: whether we can accept his statements. That I agree to be in some respects a very difficult thing for a Committee of the House of Commons to decide. Party bias might come in. Really it is here only a question of interpretation. Taking into account the desirability of having a rapid decision, taking into account the precedents of the past, and taking into account the undesirability of the House of Commons parting with its rights to any judicial tribunal in the matter of declaring who shall and who shall not be a Member of this House, I think the Government have come to a right conclusion.

2.0 P.M.

Sir E. CARSON

I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman has come to the conclusion that he has done. I think I can show the House in a very few minutes that the reasons he gives are really not conclusive at all in the matter. The right hon. Gentleman wound up his speech by saying that there was nothing here to be decided but the interpretation of Statutes —a pure point of law, nothing else ! He really says to the House that the best tribunal to decide a pure point of law is a Committee partly of laymen and partly of the lawyers in this House. I submit that that very statement really shows that the right hon. Gentleman has not applied his mind in any wise to solving this question. Everybody knows that there is only one tribunal which can decide the interpretation of a Statute properly, and that is a Court of Law. Everybody knows perfectly well that in any tribunal meeting in this House there may be partisanship on both sides; and even though they be lawyers, they know perfectly well that it is the very worst tribunal you could get to decide a point of law. If it was something affecting the honour and dignity of this House, something affecting the privileges of this House, of which this House is the natural judge and custodian, then I think a Committee is probably the proper and only tribunal. In that case the matter ends when the Committee has decided, and the House has really adopted what the Committee has done. The whole vice of what the right hon. Gentleman insists upon doing in this case is that after the Committee has met and after they—the hon. Gentleman, the Member for Leicester, and the hon. Gentleman, the Leader of the Scottish Badicals—have given their solemn judicial interpretation to this legal statute, and after the Committee has probably been divided in opinion as to their interpretation every thing remains exactly as it was. The right hon. Gentleman has told us that the Member whose seat is in question in this House took the opinion of his own lawyer, an eminent lawyer no doubt, and that he was told that he was rightly in possession of his seat, but that there was a doubt—that it was arguable. I do not know. But assuming that the hon. Member has got the opinion of an eminent and unbiased lawyer, why does not he come here and act upon that opinion and vote? It is as good an opinion as the opinion of the Committee would be. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no."] Far better. Because it is simply the opinion of a lawyer asked with out any reference to politics whatsoever, unbiassed by politics. Everybody knows when a lawyer is asked an opinion upon these points, the question of whether it pleases or displeases his clients never enters his head. Therefore, he has got the opinion of an eminent lawyer, unbiassed by politics or by partisanship, and he does not dare to come and vote in this House! When the Committee nominated from the party—

Sir RUFUS ISAACS

What the right hon. and learned Gentleman is saying conveys quite a wrong view as to the attitude of the hon. Member in question. Let me say in regard to his appearances here, I was asked the question at the outset, as to whether he was entitled to come to the House, and vote, and take part. My view—rightly or wrongly—was that so long as this House had not decided he ought not to sit or vote. That is the view I expressed, and that is the reason he has not come.

Sir E. CARSON

Purely a question of etiquette?

Sir RUFUS ISAACS

I did not think it was right.

Sir E. CARSON

Let me proceed. When this Committee of politicians of both sides has Bat to interpret the Statutes, assuming that they have divided opinions when they give their opinion, will it be safe then for the hon. Baronet to come and vote in this House? Of course it would not be safe. You will have opinions on each side. Would it be even decent for him to come and vote in this House? If there is any doubt, by a division of opinion upon the Committee, and if unfortunately the division was in accordance with political opinion—I am not saying it would be, but assuming it turned out that way—does anybody say that in the first place the hon. Member would venture to come here, and in the second place that he ought to come when it was doubtful whether he is really a Member of Parliament or not? The thing really becomes an absurdity. Pray do look at the contest you may get; a contest which from the time of Wilkes to the time of Mr. Bradlaugh, has brought this House into collision with the Courts. According to my reading of history it has always been worst for the House; certainly for the dignity of the House. What happens? The hon. Member incurs £500 for every vote he gives. I believe he has incurred £45,000 fines up to the present time.

What will happen? The matter will go to the Courts and everybody knows the Courts will not pay the slightest attention to what has been done in this House. What has been done here will not be allowed to be referred to even in the Courts. Assuming that the Courts, in the interpretation of the Statute, hold that the hon. Member is not a Member of this House at all, would not this House be in an absolutely ridiculous position in trying to save a Member from having to go to election by setting up a Committee which held something to be legal which was illegal? Anything more ridiculous I cannot imagine. When the right hon. Gentleman tells ns that this is in accordance with precedent, I say that the precedents he has given us are not very satisfactory ones. There have certainly not been any precedents of recent years, for what has been done in cases which we ourselves remember? If there was a doubt arising as to the hon. Members' seats they gave up their seats, and allowed an election. That happened not merely in the case of Messrs. Gibbs, but it happened also in the case of the present Judge Rentoul. When he was appointed there was a grave doubt about whether the appointment, being under a corporation, did not necessitate a vacancy. The issue being in doubt, as in all doubtful matters, one expects when there is a doubt narrowly weighed on one side or the other as to whether the man is or is not a Member of this House, that the natural thing for the Member to say is: "I do not want to stand here in any doubtful position, and I am prepared to resign my seat," and that is why this question has not arisen in recent years in an acute form.

The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer has put this solely on the question of delay. I think he is quite wrong. I think he will find, for the reason I have stated, that he is taking the very longest course, because I think he will find, when this matter comes to be threshed out, assuming that the Committee holds that the seat has not been vacated—of course, if they hold it is vacated the matter is over—but assuming that they hold it is not vacated—and there is the opinion of the India Office in their contract that it does come in, because they have put a provision upon their contract under the tenth Section of this very Act of Parliament—the matter will then go to the Law Courts, and you will find the hon. Gentleman will never take his seat so long as there is an action pending for penalties, until it is decided in the Law Courts; and in the long run there will be more time lost and more discredit attaching to this House for keeping the matter going on in that way. Let me examine the statement about delay. The right hon. Gentleman said this matter would first have to go before a judge, and that a great deal would depend upon whom the judge was as to whether the matter would go further. If this ease is to be decided in the Law Courts upon the interpretation of a Statute, and if it goes to the Court of Appeal and to the House of Lords, does not that emphasise the absurdity of sending it to be tried by a political Committee set up by this House? Could anything be more ridiculous? And then the right hon. Gentleman says it would be taken through these various Courts of Appeal and up to the House of Lords. I ask the right hon. Gentleman is it not time to put an end to that kind of procedure?

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

What kind of procedure?

Sir E. CARSON

The kind of procedure you are setting up here, and, if you please, of the difficulties and delay of the Law Courts. There is an easy way in which it could be determined, and I think a satisfactory way, by passing a one-Clause Bill that the matter should be referred to the Privy Council. That would be a very simple measure and it would be applicable to all future cases. Recollect that one of the powers you have as regards constitutional questions with all your Colonies is, that a mere reference on a sheet of paper may be made at any time to the Privy Council for their opinion upon any question of law that may be put before them. It is a most valuable provision and prevents delay. You hon. Gentlemen sitting in the Privy Council entirely removed from politics, who consider these questions as great constitutional questions, and there could be nothing better than this tribunal for trying this and all future cases of a similar kind under the Statute, and I venture to think if the right hon. Gentleman desired to do that it would not take an hour in this House to get a Bill through, because it is so apparent that you cannot have these two jurisdictions, the futile jurisdiction of this House and the absolute determination of the Courts running side by side without bringing about a collision which must be disastrous to this House. I hope it is not yet too late to appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to have this matter further considered.

Mr. J. WARD

I do not know whether I shall be in order in moving an Amendment to this Resolution, but I wish to make an observation or two with reference to the discussion which has taken place here today. I am sure so far as ordinary lay Members of the House are concerned, we are not anxious in any way whatever that there should be any delay in reference to decisions relating to the matter under discussion. I most decidedly hope that instead of allowing anyone to escape who has anything to do with these matters and appears to have made surreptitious profits out of contracts and matters of that description, the Committee will do everything it possibly can to prevent a continuance of that practice. So far as the public are conceried, and so far as ordinary lay Members of this House are concerned, they view with grave alarm the practice which has introduced itself into this country, and not nearly so much into this country as into others, but still one can see it here, of the directors of railway companies or company promoters or Government contractors for public works using influence in connection with such contracts, and it may be taken for granted that if it is the real object of the Government to hit that sort of thing, they will have the full co-operation of every lay Member of the House behind them. I think myself, where there is the slightest suspicion that the business affairs of a man, or his own personal emoluments depend upon something in this House, so that he is likely to use any influence in this House for the purpose of bolstering up any concern with which he is financially connected, it should be made perfectly clear that that is something that is contrary to the rules and regulations of this House. It is surprising to outsiders that there should be this set made upon one particular man while others are not taken into account, and, therefore, now, when a situation of this description comes up to be decided, I should have wished that this thing should not be dealt with piecemeal, but that we should have some de finite regulation and that this Select Committee should have an opportunity of going into the whole subject, not merely of this case, but of every case. That there are such cases there cannot be the slightest doubt. Even last night a certain Gentle man got up, in a certain place in this House, when the subject of a particular kind of monopoly was under discussion—

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER(Mr. Maclean)

I think the hon. Member is going rather wide of the Resolution before the House.

Mr. J. WARD

The Resolution raises the question of whether a Member has vacated his seat by holding a contract made with the Government.

Sir RUFUS ISAACS

The point which my hon. Friend has put has been engaging our serious attention. The reason why we did not deal with it in this Motion was, first of all, that we did not think it would be in order; and, secondly, it was thought that by so doing it would take a longer time before we got a decision, and it might be thought that we were trying to postpone a decision upon this question. I quite agree that it is a matter which must be considered.

Mr. JOHN WARD

I am delighted to hear that explanation, because it is clear that others are thinking the same as we are on this point. After all, the question whether a man is entitled to be influenced, or should place himself in a position where he is likely to be influenced in this way in the transaction of the business of the nation by some personal interest, is a matter of great importance, and on these benches we consider it of such great importance that we should like the subject specially considered. I want it to be understood that on these benches, at any rate, we do not wish to stretch a point in this case, and I hope everything will be done by the Committee to tighten the matter up, and if there is a ghost of a chance of turning a man out for any part he has taken in any contract, for heaven's sake let us stretch a point and turn him out. We want that principle applied all round, so that we can be sure that our business here is being carried on by men who have no personal interest in contracts with the Government. I intended to move an Amendment, but after the observations which have fallen from the Chair I am doubtful whether it will be in order. The Amendment I wish to propose is to insert, after the word "consider," the words "the question of the position of any Member of this House who may be a director of a public company, or a partner in a firm which makes a contract with any Government Department." If that is in order I shall have great pleasure in moving it.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER

The hon. Member has rightly anticipated my decision. I cannot accept this Amendment, because it is outside the scope of the Motion before the House, which is an ad hoc one.

Mr. BOOTH

May I submit that it is really part of the same problem, because if the hon. Member in question had chosen to turn his business into a private limited company, he might still have retained the same interest as he has got now as a partner, and he would not have been liable. We cannot consider this question in all its bearings unless we can call attention to the fact that an hon. Member who participates in a contract to the same extent being a member of the firm, is liable, and when it is a limited firm, although it may be a one-man company, he is not liable. I submit that that point is not out of order.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER

The Motion before the House is not one under which this question can be considered in all its bearings, because it deals only with the question of the action of the hon. Member. Such a question as that which has been put to me must be raised by a separate Motion.

Mr. J. WARD

Will the Attorney-General take into consideration the suggestion I have made to consider this matter on some future occasion.

Sir RUFUS ISAACS

I certainly will. The matter has been engaging our attention, and it is worth while considering it as soon as we can deal with the matter. I think some alteration ought to be made which will work a little more fairly all round.

Mr. NORMAN CRAIG

The remarks made by the hon. Member for Stoke remind me of some aspect of this case which has been overlooked. When we are considering the best course to adopt in a case like this, surely it is only fair to the House to consider the position of the hon. Member whose seat is imperilled. Apart from the question of precedent, can there be any doubt at all that from the point of view of the hon. Member whose seat is endangered a judicial tribunal would be best, because it would only act when conclusive proof is brought forward. I think that would be a fairer, better, and more desirable tribunal than one consisting of hon. Members of this House, who would be deeply concerned to preserve the prestige of this House even at the cost of individual Members. A Select Committee is not desirable even from the point of view of the hon. Member in question. It is interesting to find the Chancellor of the Exchequer justifying this course as the Attorney-General did on the ground of precedent. It certainly is the case that right hon. Gentlemen opposite are not always so slavish in their adherence to precedent, but precedents of this sort are only in relation to the particular conduct and the particular matters of this House, and they are a small thing particularly when the departure from precedent adds to the prestige of the House. I do not dispute that there are precedents, but there is not one in all the records I have been able to find where a pure point of law was referred to a Select Committee. That point cannot be emphasised too much. We have been told that there is no question of fact in dispute. The hon. Member for the Whitechapel Division of the Tower Hamlets is a member of this firm, which has entered into a contract with the Government, and the only question is was that a contract for the public service? There is no precedent for the appointment of the Select Committee of this House to determine a question of law. You have here all the facts admitted and nothing but a pure question of law, and you are asking a mixed Committee of laymen and lawyers to arrive at a conclusion which the Attorney-General and his colleague the Solicitor-General themselves find perplexing. The more difficult the point of law, the more serious the perplexity, the worse tribunal a Select Committee of this House becomes. It is precisely in such a case that you should depart from precedent. It is not, however, a departure from precedent that matters of this sort should be considered by a Court of Law. I do not say it is contrary to precedent, except in the sense I have mentioned, that it should be considered by a Select Committee of the House itself.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer raised the objection that there might be a difference of opinion among the judges. That is a very unworthy observation; and it is one that can carry no weight. It is an observation that applies to every form of action and every action taken in any Court of the country. As long as human nature is human nature you are not going to get questions of mixed law and fact, certainly not questions of law, inevitably determined the same way by different men. It is not an argument for not having recourse to the Courts, though it might be an argument for extinguishing the Courts altogether. The right hon. Gentleman also said it might be suggested the action was collusive in character. I do not think he need have any apprehension on that score, considering it is from this side of the House the suggestion has emanated and been pressed that the determination should be in legal form. I think the right hon. Gentleman may say no one who disagrees with him, however profoundly, is going to suggest there would be any impropriety or collusion. The only other question raised was that of loss of time resulting from going from Court to Court. That is applicable to any case in any Court, and therefore in principle affords no answer. It still less affords an answer when you bear in mind the fact that you do get a decision from the first Court, and a decision on which the hon. Member could safely act, even if afterwards it was reversed, whereas by the course you are taking he cannot safely act until there has been all this prolonged legal discussion hereafter, because a Select Committee not only does not decide for the time being, and is not only subject to appeal, but it does not decide at all. It does not decide even for the purposes of this House whether the Member is entitled to retain his seat or not. Therefore, by taking this course, you not only do not get a decision, but you hold the eventual decision in suspense, and, however long the attainment of that decision may be, you by that length of time increase the suspense before you can get the matter finally settled. I should have thought the fact that a Select Committee cannot determine this question is good ground against this course being taken. Nothing would be easier, on the contrary, than for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to go to the Courts and ask for a declaration that the seat is vacated by reason of certain facts. The facts are admitted, a legal argument would ensue, and you would at once get on the claim for a declaration a decision of the Court. Surely that would be a far more prompt, definite, decisive, and desirable way of solving a difficult question of law than by referring it to a Committee of this character.

Two points have to be borne in mind with regard to the case to which the Attorney-General made reference. First of all, that case was in the old days before this Clause prohibiting contracts with Members of Parliament was included in the India Office form. There was no such Clause in that case, and there was no decision at all upon it. Three judges decided the case upon other and different grounds, but this, at any rate, is to be found. Of those three judges one definitely expressed the opinion that action similar to the action in the present case was within the mischief of the Act and was in relation to the public service; the second judge expressed the impression that it was equally within the mischief of the Act; and the third judge did not express an opinion at all. Therefore, so far as that case goes, you get one definite and one less definite expression of opinion both adverse to the position of the lion. Member for Tower Hamlets. If there is a doubt, and it can only be a vague doubt, the preponderance of doubt must be against the hon. Member in face of that particular case. You have also the case where it was expressly decided that the position of the standing counsel for the Secretary of State for India in Council was an office under the Crown, and, if it is decided that an office of that sort is held under the Crown, it must almost inevitably follow that a contract in rela- tion to silver for India must be a contract for public service. I think the case which decided that office was an office-under the Crown carries with it the necessary corollary that silver bought or sold for the Government of India is silver bought or sold for the public service, and, if that is so, the point is definitely determined against the hon. Member for Tower Hamlets.

One cannot help expressing the opinion —I wish to do it without any heat or offence—that the easiest solution of this difficulty would not have been either the appointment of a Select Committee or recourse to the Law Courts, but the voluntary resignation of the hon. Member himself, in accordance with the course adopted by other hon. Members in recent times. That course has not been taken, and it is therefore necessary to consider these alternative suggestions. I urge the House to bear in mind you never have had a precedent where a pure question of law on facts that are admitted was referred to a Select Committee. You have the machinery by which a pure question of law on admitted facts can be at once dealt with, and that is by Declaration. The proceeding by Committee carries with it no ultimate and final determination of the question involved, and you have the further inconvenience of postponing the question until there has been a legal decision. Above all, you have the interests of the particular Member to consider, and I am quite certain the House would be better advised to let the matter go to be determined by the judicial authority rather than to leave it to a Committee of this House, which would be quite as much concerned with the privileges of the House even at the expense of the position of the Member.

Sir J. B. JARDINE

As this is a Motion which arises upon an Indian question, I am quite certain the reports of our Debate will be read with the deepest interest by hundreds of thousands of people in India. I am aware, too, that not only in the twenty-second year of George the Third, but in many others, Parliament in its wisdom passed laws to prevent any sort of improper gain by means of contracts or appointments in the administration of India, and that is one reason why this particular case is receiving so much attention to-day. I do not like to give a silent vote on this matter. I have listened with the deepest interest to the arguments which have been put forward by hon. Members. I think that, in assenting to the proposal to refer this matter to a Select Committee, we are undoubtedly following precedent, although the precedent may differ in the one point that the matter which the Select Committee may have to judge will apparently be a pure question of law. But one cannot tell what matters may arise in the discussions in Committee, and, therefore, I would not like to say that there is nothing likely to be dealt with by the Committee except the point of law which apparently, at the present moment, is the only matter for determination. As regards the argument that the decision of this House may come into conflict with future decisions of the Courts of Law, I do not deny that, but it seems to me, looking at the State trials in constitutional history, it is not possible to avoid conflicts of that sort, however careful we may be. I think that the question whether persons who have been elected Members of this House are disqualified by Statute Law, should be kept under the control of this House, and the proper method of doing that is by the appointment of a Select Committee. Again, there is the important point, if it is left to a judicial decision, there are likely to be delays; there will be the original suit, and there may be two or possibly three appeals, and that will leave the Gentleman affected in an uncomfortable position for a long time, and may induce him not to take his part in the service of this House. There is much in the suggestion which was made by the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite that it would be highly convenient to refer this point to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. I know there is a Statute of William IV. which has been applied with great effect when disputes have arisen in Colonial Legislatures. But before we can make use of that procedure we should have to pass a law. I think it would be a serious matter to pass a law of that sort in a hurry. It would require a very long period to pass it, and while recognising the inconvenience which hon. and learned Gentlemen opposite have pointed out, I have made up my mind to vote for the course recommended by the Government because I believe that in so doing we shall be following precedent and upholding privileges of this House.

Sir J. D. REES

The hon. Gentleman who last spoke is apparently satisfied that a Committee would be a fair tribunal, but he did not consider whether it would have any jurisdiction. Anybody may be per- suaded that a tribunal is fair, but the question is: Is it endowed with jurisdiction. The question whether the hon. Baronet opposite is or is not the Member for his constituency is a matter between himself and his constituents, and the Courts only are entitled to pass judgment on that question. Nobody else is competent to decide it. But I did not rise to touch upon legal points. I rose to call attention to a matter which apparently has up to the present escaped notice. I should like to go back to the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and I wish to comment on the objection which he raised to the delay in dealing with this question which would result from referring it to the Courts of Law. Whether there is delay or not in a Court of Law does not in the least degree affect the question whether or not a Court of Law is the only tribunal competent to settle the question. Everything that the Chancellor of the Exchequer said on that point was entirely beside the mark. Nevertheless it is of great importance that this question should be settled without delay, and I desire to point out to the Government that by the composition of their Committee they may lead to a delay which they themselves would regret. The Committee consists of nine Members, eight of whom are learned in the law. It is obvious that there may be an equal division of opinion between the lawyers. There may be four on one side and four on the other. If that happens the decision will actually depend upon the layman, the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. Ramsay Macdonald). I am not commenting upon his appointment at all, as I am aware that it is a root principle with this Government that no Committee, whether of laymen or of lawyers, whether dealing with British or British-Indian subjects, can be complete without the hon. Member for Leicester. It is quite possible that this Committee of which he is a member may fail the Government.

I understand that another Committee of which he is a member is to sail for India in the month of December. In that case, how he is to settle this question; and is it not necessary that it should be ascertained that he will be here as the only layman among eight lawyers to give, if necessary, the casting vote, or whether they may not—on account of the exigiencies of the public service and the absolute necessity of his presence in India to settle matters connected with Indian administration—have to proceed without him, or arrangements made that, if he shall commence to sit, he shall sit throughout and not through his absence defeat the object of the Government in appointing him to the Committee? You do not want to set up a Committee and have one of its members—an important member when he is a layman —suddenly carried away 6,000 miles to another part of the world while this question hangs over. In that case the delay which the Chancellor of the Exchequer feared may occur through their own action, it may be thoughtless or inadvertent action, in appointing that hon. Gentleman as a Member of this Committee. The Attorney-General, in answering the hon. Member for Stoke (Mr. John Ward), spoke in a sympathetic manner respecting a proposal which he made. I wish to make a protest against the view laid before the House by the hon. Member for Stoke. He said that a Member of this House who was a railway director, for instance, would be practically in the same position as the hon. Member whose case is now under consideration. He said that directors of companies, and he chiefly referred to railway companies, should not properly vote upon matters that come before this House because of the interests they have in the matters before Parliament. I submit that if that principle, to which the Attorney-General took no sort of exception, were accepted, it would be necessary that Parliament should be a body possessed of no money, no influence, no capital, and no concern with all the business of this great business country, whose merchants are princes, and whose traffickers are the honourable ones of the earth. They would all be cut out of this House, and we should have nobody here but those who the hon. Member for Stoke represents, or professes more particularly to represent.

I am sorry that the Attorney-General received the suggestion in so sympathetic a manner, and that he did not make it perfectly clear that he was not in sympathy with the hon. Member for Stoke in making a suggestion so utterly unacceptable to any public assembly, and particularly to an assembly representing a country which is the greatest commercial country in the world. It is hardly a step further to hold that no Member of this House who holds any shares in a limited company should be competent to vote, whereas I understand that if we were dealing with the Marconi contract possession of shares in that company would in no way invalidate a vote, or make it improper that a Member of this House should vote. That happens to be a case of interest at the moment, but a similar position must occur whenever a matter of commercial or industrial moment comes before this House. It might easily be argued that in such cases hon. Members opposite, like the hon. Member for Stoke, were themselves disqualified by immediate interest from voting on any such question. I maintain that would be quite as arguable a proposition as that put forward by the hon. Member, which the Attorney-General did not in the least disown or disclaim, that a Member of this House, because he is a railway director, forsooth, or because he has any interest which is greatly to his credit in these great industrial concerns which make the wealth, the glory and greatness of this country, should be disqualified from voting upon questions which arise. There is only one other matter to which I wish to refer. Some doubts have been expressed as to whether this contract for silver was a contract for the public service. I should have thought that there could be no doubt whatever that it was a contract for the public service. The India Office is a Department of State, and the mere fact that the salary of the Secretary of State is not upon the Estimates cannot affect the question. To attempt to hold that it was not a contract for the public service, seems to be the merest quibble, and will be viewed with great disapproval in India and give rise to suspicions and accusations which would be deplorable and, in my opinion, entirely unfounded. I hope it will not be seriously argued that this was not a contract for the public service. That is the direct issue to-day. As the merits of the action of the India Office in dealing with Messrs. Montagu are not in issue to-day, that is a matter into which I do not wish to be drawn.

Sir A. MARKHAM

There is one aspect of this case which I should like to put before the House. I do not think the House really appreciates what has been the position of the Law Officers of the Crown on this question. It appears to be generally the opinion of Members of this House that if they are shareholders in limited companies they can have financial relations with the Government and not in any way invalidate any vote they may give in this House. That is not the opinion which was given in my own case by the Law Officers of the Crown some years ago. I was the owner of a colliery which was trading in the form of a limited liability company. A contract was taken by one of my agents with the Board of Works and, having some doubt whether I should not be disqualified, I wrote to the Board of Works pointing out that I was trading as a limited liability company, and was the holder of a majority of the shares in the company. The matter was referred to the Law Officers of the Crown who advised that, even although a member was trading as a limited liability company, he would invalidate his seat in the House if he accepted a contract with the Government. There are numerous Members to-day who have contracts with the Government who hold the majority of shares in some company, therefore, I think it only right to point out that, although it is not generally understood it is a fact which the Law Officers have decided that any Member who holds a majority of shares in any company which trades with the Government is disqualified from giving a vote and loses his seat. Having taken the wise precaution in my case of seeking the decision of the Law Officers of the Crown the contract was cancelled and I did not invalidate my seat. If hon. Members only recognised that that is the decision of the Law Officers I fear there would be a good many other cases which would immediately come before the House in addition to that of the hon. Baronet whose case we are deciding now. With reference to the point put by the hon. Member (Sir J. D. Rees) I can only say as a Nottinghamshire Member that if he makes a speech at Nottingham about the glory of this country being dependent upon directors making successful businesses he will not be very long Member for Nottingham, because the House has always been jealous, and rightly so, that any vote that is given in this House should always be an unbiassed vote, and I cannot think there is anyone who has considered this particular transaction who cannot see that, however unwittingly, the hon. Member (Sir S. Samuel) has been wrong in entering into financial relations with the Government and without any reference to the Committee he ought to vacate his seat.

Colonel WILLIAMS

The Law Officers of the Crown change from time to time; but I remember a very different case from that which the hon. Baronet mentioned I remember when Sir Weetman Pearson was a Member he wanted to make a contract for the Dover Harbour Works, and he thought he must become a limited com- pany in order even to apply for the contract, and he did become a limited firm and he applied for and obtained the contract.

Mr. HENRY TERRELL

I think the hon. Baronet (Sir A. Markham) must be mistaken in his recollection of what he had been advised, because if it was under this Statute the case which he put could not possibly have come within the Statute. Section 2 of the Statute has a proviso which is contained in Section 4 expressly excluding contracts entered into by incorporated trades and companies, so that any contract entered into by an incorporated trading company does not come within the purview of Section 2 at all.

Sir A. MARKHAM

Not only was the decision given, but the contract was rescinded by the Board of Works on the very reason I have given to the House, and on the advice of the Law Officers of the Crown.

Mr. H. TERRELL

Of course, we do not know the facts of that case, but I will read the proviso. It is quite clear:—

"Provided always, and be it enacted, that nothing herein contained shall extend or be construed to extend, to any contract, agreement, or commission made, entered into, or accepted by any incorporated trading company in its corporate capacity."

3.0 P.M.

It is impossible to criticise the case which the hon. Member has referred to, but certainly, by the express terms of the Statute, any shareholder in a trading corporation who enters into a contract with the Government is not within the disability of that Statute. With regard to the question before the House, I gather from the speeches of hon. Members opposite, and, indeed, it is manifest from the terms of the Resolution, that it is admitted now that the question which is to be referred to the Select Committee is purely and simply a question of the construction of the Statute. The facts are stated in the Resolution. The only question is whether those facts bring the case within Section 2 of the Statute. Upon that question we have no direct judicial decision, but we have the opinion of one of the greatest lawyers who has ever sat on the English Bench (Sir Baliol Brett) to the effect that a contract such as this is within the Statute. What is proposed by the Resolution is to set up a Committee in the House consisting of nine Members to deter- mine whether or not that opinion is sound in law. Can you imagine any worse possible tribunal to determine such a question as that? The question as it arises to-day is one in which every Member of the Committee will have a political interest in the decision which it gives. It will have, according to the proposal, five Members from one side of the House and four from the other. It will be to the political interest of the five Members to find that the contract is not within the Statute, and it will be to the interest of the four Members to find the exact contrary.

In years gone by this House—I will not say in its wisdom—used to reserve to itself the consideration of all questions arising on election petitions. Election petitions used to be referred to Committees of this House. There they were in a better position to determine the question than a Select Committee would be here, for there they had two parties represented by counsel, and all the arguments which would be adduced on either side were put before the Committee. But the House found that, notwithstanding that, such was the force of the political views of the Members that those Committees proved to be wholly unsuitable for the determination of those questions. It was found generally that there were two reports, a majority report and a minority report, in which, wholly irrespective of the evidence, Members voted according to their political convictions rather than as judges deciding judicial questions. The scandal became so great that this House had to pass an Act referring election petitions to the judges of the land. Here we have precisely the same question—whether or not a Member of this House has to vacate his seat. In those cases the question was whether or not a gentleman who had been returned as a Member of the House had been properly returned. The question is precisely the same, the political interests are precisely the same, but here we shall have no assistance given to the Committee by counsel or parties for the simple reason that there are no parties. The Select Committee will no doubt apply to this House, in the ordinary form that they may be entitled to hear counsel on the part of any person whose interests are affected. The hon. Member for Whitechapel would probably apply to be heard by counsel, but no one else could apply as having a personal interest in the matter. That makes it all the more ridiculous when you have a question before the Committee with counsel on one side and nobody arguing the other side. Can anyone imagine a more unsuitable tribunal for the purpose of deciding a simple question of law under those circumstances than the tribunal the House is asked to set up? The probability is that there will be a majority report and a minority report —a majority report of five and a minority report of four —but whatever the result may be, this at any rate is certain, that the judicial body we are setting up will be composed of persons who have a direct political interest in their decision, and that the decision will be given after only one side of the question has been argued before them. Suppose for a moment the result of this were that the majority of five were to decide that the judge was wrong in his law, what would be the general opinion of such a report as that? Inevitably the opinion must be that it was a party affair, when you have five against four Members of the House of Commons saying that the opinion expressed after full argument by one of our most learned judges is wrong in law. It is a most incompetent tribunal to decide whether a great judge is wrong in his law.

If we adopt this Resolution, I believe we are running great risk of bringing the proceedings of the House into ridicule and contempt. The Attorney-General has asked, what is the alternative? I believe in years gone by the Attorney-General did not occupy a scat in this House. The question was raised in this House whether he was competent to occupy a seat in the House. In those days one of the duties of the Attorney-General was to advise the House on questions of law, and if we were to revert to the older practice of the House a real solution of the difficulty would be found, and we could call upon the Attorney-General to give his opinion on this question as a matter of law. For my part, I would much prefer to take the opinion of the Attorney-General on this and act upon it rather than that the House should be probably brought into the contempt of the people of the country by adopting the Resolution which has been proposed, with the possible consequences I have suggested. That is one alternative, which, I believe, would be consistent with precedent. Of course, there may be another course, namely, that of getting a suit brought by the Attorney-General to obtain a declaration of the Courts on the subject. That, I agree, is open to many objections. I am not at all clear that the Courts would entertain such a suit as that. There is no question about what is involved, and it would be merely asking the Courts to give a decision on an abstract matter of law. There are other precedents for the House. We know very well that the House of Lords constantly took the opinion of the judges on judicial matters. It was a common form until comparatively recently, when questions came before the House of Lords as a judicial tribunal for that House to summon the judges of the High Court to give them their assistance and the benefit of their opinion. It seems to me that there would be no reason, following that precedent, why this House should not take the same course, and ask, through Mr. Speaker, the opinion of the judges on this matter. The course proposed by the Attorney-General in this Resolution is one fraught with difficulty with respect to the future, and one fraught with a minimum of advantage to the deliberations of this House.

Mr. MARTIN

I agree with the argument of hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House that the appointment of a Committee such as is proposed in this case is not quite the way of determining a question of this kind. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dublin University (Sir E. Carson), suggested that it would be better to refer the matter to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Only a few weeks ago that Committee sat and heard a question of law on an appeal from the Supreme Court of Canada for the purpose of guiding the proceedings of the House of Commons of Canada, just as we are now in need of a legal decision to guide us on the question whether there is a vacancy or not in the Whitechapel Division. I may point out that the Privy Council heard this appeal because there is a Statute of the Dominion of Canada—I think the same Statute has been passed in nearly all the provinces of Canada—which provides that the Government may submit to the highest Court, which in the case of Canada is the Supreme Court of Canada any questions they see fit for that Court. The particular question to which I refer was one of great importance in which a political question was involved. The question was whether the Dominion Parliament could legislate with regard to the solemnisation in Canada of marriages. There had been a great deal of discussion upon the subject, and in order to have the question of law decided, not by political parties, but by a Court of Law, an appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council was taken. I can say, and I think every Canadian will agree with me, that the Statutes which provide for such procedure have been in force there for many years, and have been of the greatest use to the Dominion Parliament and also to the local Legislatures. I think if we had such a Statute here it would be much more satisfactory to everybody to have the decision of the Privy Council, which would be given without a suit or anything of that kind, on the question submitted by the Government. I was very glad to hear that the Government were contemplating a general reconsideration of the position of the law in regard to that matter. I was glad to hear it stated, in answer to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent (Mr. J. Ward), that they would take into consideration the anomalous position of large shareholders in limited companies.

I would like to put a further question to the Attorney-General, namely, Whether the Government will, in the general reconsideration of the law, also consider what seems to me a very peculiar anomaly which exists here by which Members of this House who happen to be barristers can take employment from the Government of the day and not violate the Act? I do not wish to go into that as material to the question now before the House, but it does appear to be a great anomaly in the Colonies, where such a thing would not be tolerated. No Member there of the House of Commons or Legislature there can take any employment whatever from the Government of the day, and I do not see why, if it is wrong that a Member should have a contract with, or get money from, the Government of the day, the legal profession should be exempt from the consequences of such provision. Of course, I am making no reflections on the present Members of the Government who are in receipt of employment from the Government, because it is legal, but I suggest to the Attorney-General that the practice here should be made similar to that of the Colonies, and no Member, whether a barrister or anything else, should be allowed to have any relations at all with the Government of the day except those of absolute independence.

Captain CRAIG

I wish to ask the Attorney-General one question. Suppose that the Committee which it is proposed to set up report that it is their impression that the hon. Baronet should not resign, and that a common informer goes forward with a claim against the hon. Member for the large sum of money that I hear is at stake, and that the judge holds that according to law the hon. Member had vacated his seat, would the decision of the Committee or that of the judge prevail? If the decision of the judge is to override that of the Committee, would it not be much better to let the case go before a judge at once and be done with it? On the other hand, suppose the Committee say that the hon. Baronet should resign his seat, and that he does so and somebody gets in in his place, and that still the common informer goes on against him, and the judge decides that there was no necessity for him to resign his seat, and he is not mulcted in damages, then the difficulty would be greater than even in the first instances, and would it not be better, seeing that all the lawyers have evidently agreed that this is a delicate matter, to have a legal decision than to have this Committee set up, or, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dublin University has said, let it be decided by the Privy Council, seeing that this Committee may be accused afterwards outside the House of having some party bias in the matter? It is absurd that any Member, by the threats of Whips or however it has occurred, would not rather go to his constituents and say, "I will not have this happen to my name, and not for the sake of the House of Commons alone, but for the sake of my own personal feelings in the matter, I would rather have it settled in this manner rather than by a Committee, which must be the subject of criticism afterwards."

Lord ROBERT CECIL

There is a suggestion which I wish to lay before the Government, because I do feel fully that the decision of the Government is in accordance with precedent, and therefore I shall not vote against this Motion. Yet I think that every hon. Member who has listened to the Debate will say that to proceed in this case in accordance with precedent is not a satisfactory and a desirable procedure. Suppose the decision of the Select Committee is in favour of the hon. Member for Whitechapel retaining his seat, I do not think that anyone in the House would think that would be a decision which would command anything like universal public assent. Unquestionably there would be all sorts of criticism upon it, particularly if there were a division of opinion in the Committee, and I am sure it will not be a satisfactory result. That would be a very undesirable position. On the other hand, suppose the decision was against the hon. Member and to the effect that he ought not to retain his seat; it may be that actions have already been started against him. I have seen it stated in the papers that they have, or that it is extremely likely that they will be. If I was the hon. Member I should feel a great grievance in those circumstances that there was the decision of a political Committee which might have decided under the influence of a perfectly respectable motive, though not strictly legal, that on the whole it was better for the House of Commons to decide a doubtful point against the hon. Member than that he should retain his seat. I think it would be very hard on him, and it might be even harder if a case was taken further, and he would have to go before the Court with that decision against him, which might at any rate influence some Courts, and I think would influence them against him. Therefore this is a most unsatisfactory form of tribunal, and I would suggest that if we can find any way out of it, it is desirable to do so. Two hon. Members have suggested recourse to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council under the Act 24 of William IV. It was suggested that that could not be done. I immediately obtained the Statute from the Library, and it certainly appears to me that the Section could be used. It is very short. It runs:—

"It shall be lawful for His Majesty to refer to the said Judicial Committee for hearing or consideration any such other matters whatsoever as His Majesty shall think fit and such Committee shall thereupon hear or consider the same and advise His Majesty thereon in the manner aforesaid."

Therefore I do not think that there will be any difficulty whatever in the Government advising His Majesty to refer this question whether the hon. Member has or has not vacated his seat to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. It is quite true that the decision of the Judicial Committee would not be technically binding on the Courts afterwards, but since under the present constitution of the Judicial Committee it is practically identical with the final Court of Appeal, the decision of the Privy Council nowadays, though not absolutely binding, is of enormous authority with all the Courts, and practically a decision of the Privy Council tinder that Section would be, I think, final as to the question whether this Statute had been infringed. If the hon. Member got a decision in his favour from the Privy Council, he would be perfectly safe as a reasonable man in going on and sitting and voting here without the slightest chance of any penalty being enforced against him. Therefore, you would really get a decision which will be quite final and could be arrived at quite as soon as the decision of the Select Committee, because all that it will be necessary to do would be to give time to instruct counsel on both sides to argue the case. That would be the only delay, and that you will have to give also in the case of the Committee, because if the hon. Member desires to be represented by counsel he will be entitled to be represented by counsel. I have looked up the precedents and the Members affected were almost always represented. Therefore there will have to be a delay if he asks for it to enable him to instruct counsel. I do not know whether it is contemplated that counsel should be instructed on the other side. At any rate the Committee will have to hear it. There would be the Judicial Committee. Why should you not go to the Judicial Commmittee and get a final decision that would be authoritative in the Courts and in the country? Hon. Members sometimes speak unwisely and unjustly of the High Courts, but however unjust and however unwise may have been their observations in regard to the High Courts of the land, I have never heard any such observations about the Judicial Committee, which stands higher or is as high as any Court in the country. The decision of the Judicial Committee would be final, and I submit that the real way out of ths matter, and one whch you could adopt without difficulty, is to exercise the powers given under that Act. I hope that matter will be considered, and if the Attorney-General does not feel in a position to give a reply to-day, I will put down a question to the Prime Minister on Monday.

Sir RUFUS ISAACS

I will answer the hon. and gallant Member opposite, who put the question whether, if the hon. Member had not to vacate the seat, that did not get rid of the liability to a penalty under this Statute. I have looked at this point with great care, not merely as a Member of the House of Commons, but as a lawyer, to see if any case has arisen where the Courts of Justice have given penalties when the seat has been declared not to have been vacated by the House of Commons. I can find no such case. I do not want to press that too far, because it is only right to say that I could not find any case in which the point had been raised, so that it really does not take us very far. What I have found is that the Courts of Justice have referred to the decision of the House of Commons, whether a seat has been vacated or not. I do not say that it is binding on a Court, but undoubtedly they have taken cognisance of it. I think that is as far as one can press the matter with reference to the position between the House of Commons and the Courts of Justice. The Noble Lord (Lord Robert Cecil) has made a suggestion, and referred to the Statute dealing with the Judicial Committee.

I am well aware of that Act, because under that particular Section to which the Noble Lord referred, when the present King ascended the throne, the question was raised whether it was necessary for judges, magistrates, and others again to take the oath of allegiance, and that question was referred by the King to the Judicial Committee under the Section. That it was not a judicial procedure was shown by the fact that I was asked, as Law Officer, to argue the case on both sides. I appeared at the Bar in order to argue it, and I was asked to come inside and take a seat and to discuss it with the judges. To the best of my ability I put both sides of the question to the Judicial Committee. I cannot help thinking that this is a matter which ought to be left to the House. The suggestion has been made on both sides during the discussion that some other solution should be found for this difficulty, but I venture to submit to the House that this is a far bigger subject than perhaps has been quite appreciated. I am not expressing an opinion about it. I do not wish to do so, but I do wish to point out that it is plain that this House, as regards its own internal administration, if it allows a question of this kind to be referred to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council or any other tribunal, would be giving up what it has always jealously maintained, namely, its right to decide these matters for itself. I do not express any definite opinion against the suggestion; all I do say is that I should require to consider it with extreme care and in all its bearings before acceding to the view that we should have this recourse to legal tribunals.

Lord ROBERT CECIL

The procedure I suggested would not interfere with the rights of the House of Commons, which will vacate the seat. It could not interfere with that; that would still be within the jurisdiction of the House of Commons; but the House would get authoritative advice on the point of law from the highest tribunal in the land to enable them to arrive at a conclusion.

Sir RUFUS ISAACS

Either when you take the advice you must follow it or you would be acting very disrespectfully to the tribunal, which I quite agree is worthy of the highest respect both here and in all our dominions. I cannot conceive the House of Commons acting upon the suggestion and then not following the advice given, and if it does act upon it it is really surrendering its own function and submitting to the jurisdiction of a Court of Law. Call it by any name you please, put it even as attractively as did the Noble Lord, that it is not really the decision of the Court of Law, still it derives its power from this, that it would be the decision of the judges of the highest Court of the land, and reference could be made to it. I am speaking entirely for myself. I have had no opportunity of consulting with the Government or with the Prime Minister; I do not view it adversely, but I do require to proceed with extreme care and to satisfy myself by examination of all sides of the subject before I can come to the conclusion that the procedure suggested is one that ought to be adopted. Certainly it could not be adopted in this particular case. We could not hang up this question whilst we considered this suggestion which has been made by the Noble Lord. The suggestion has been made that the Attorney-General of the day should bring an action or take the initial step in proceedings to bring the matter before a judicial tribunal. I cannot help thinking that that would be a very dangerous course to pursue. Supposing, for example, the Attorney-General of the day proceeds against a Member of his own party who has rendered himself liable, if the Statute has been infringed, for penalties amounting to large sums, £50,000 or £100,000, whatever the amount might be. Assuming that the Attorney-General having presented his view failed, he might be accused of not having put forward the case in its full strength. The Noble Lord has said that it would be satisfactory to the general public. Does he suggest that for one moment?

Lord ROBERT CECIL

It is not my suggestion.

Sir RUFUS ISAACS

As regards a Select Committee of the House of Commons it would have upon it lawyers who are Members of this House, men who may in the future occupy high judicial positions, and they would consider the case. You have four Members on each side with the Leader of the House of Commons, the Prime Minister himself, present: Some of those Members are lawyers, the majority of them trained to consider questions of this character, and I cannot help thinking that that is very much better than the course suggested, namely, that the Attorney-General should institute proceedings. Another great objection is that the case is in danger of being treated by the Courts in a way which would make it impossible to get a decision. The Courts do not like collusive actions; and the Attorney-General might be placed in a position of very great difficulty. Is it idle to suggest that it would get a decision of this kind from the Courts in anything like the limited period in which you would get a decision from a Select Committee. Our present practice has stood the test of time. It seems to me this is very much like some other points which may be raised in our Constitution. You may put forward all kinds of views against them in theory, but in practice it is remarkable how they work. I would submit to the House that we should, as I think we must, proceed with this matter, and that the Select Committee should be appointed. There are various questions which have been raised during the course of the Debate which have no reference to this Committee, and to some of which I should be very glad to give more consideration. I would ask the House to come to a decision on this matter.

Mr. NORMAN CRAIG

May I ask one question? Is there any precedent at all for appointing a Select Committee when the facts are admitted and a pure question of law is the only question?

Sir RUFUS ISAACS

I think so, but I have not considered it exactly from that point of view. It seems to me that in the Waterlow case you had actually the same position. Besides, it is wrong to say that you have the facts admitted. I did not myself deal with the documents, and I do not think there can be any serious question, but I am not in a position to say that no question of fact may arise.

Mr. NORMAN CRAIG

You repeatedly said so.

Sir RUFUS ISAACS

I do not anticipate that there will, but I cannot say anything further.

Mr. MARTIN

Will the right hon. Gentleman answer my question whether the Government will consider the anomalous position of the legal profession?

Sir RUFUS ISAACS

That does not arise.

Mr. MARTIN

The right hon. Gentleman answered the Member for Stoke about a limited company.

Question put, and agreed to.

Ordered that a Select Committee be appointed to consider whether Sir Stuart Samuel has vacated his seat as a Member of this House in consequence of the firm of Samuel Montagu and Company, in which firm he is a partner, having entered into transactions with the Secretary of State for India in Council:

Mr. Butcher, Mr. Hohler, Mr. Alfred Lyttelton, Mr. Ramsay Macdonald, Mr. Swift MacNeill, Mr. Pollock, the Prime Minister, Mr. Solicitor-General, and Mr. Eugene Wason were accordingly nominated Members of the Select Committee.

Ordered that the Committee have power to send for persons, papers, and records:

Ordered that Three be the quorum.—[The Attorney-General.]