HC Deb 16 May 1919 vol 115 cc1989-94

Order for Second Reading read.

Sir HENRY COWAN

I beg to move That the Bill be now read a second time. It is not an enviable task to move the Second Reading of a Bill of this character at the fag end of a Friday afternoon, and for this reason I ask the indulgence of the House. The Bill is substantially the same measure which I had the honour of introducing on behalf of the Scottish Nationalist Members in 1913, and on that occasion the measure received, after a prolonged debate, a Second Reading. It was again introduced in 1914, with the addition of a single Clause enfranchising women, that Clause has been omitted on this occasion because women have already been enfranchised, and the franchise under this Bill being the same, there is no occasion for a special Clause. Not only was this Bill read a second time in 1913, and re-introduced in 1914, but the principle of this measure has been repeatedly affirmed by this House. In 1894 the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Kirkcaldy (Sir H. Dalziel) moved That it is desirable, while retaining the power and supremacy of the Imperial Parliament, to establish a legislature in Scotland for dealing with purely Scottish affairs. That Resolution was carried, and the following year the same right hon. Gentleman moved, That it is desirable to devolve upon legislatures in Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England, the management and control of their domestic affairs. The House not only sanctioned that, but thereby also sanctioned federal devolution. In 1912, only one year before this Bill which is now before the House was first introduced, the late Member for Stirlingshire (Dr. Chapple) moved That in the opinion of this House a measure providing for the application of Parliamentary powers to Ireland should be followed by the granting of similar powers of self-government for Scotland, as part of a general scheme of devolution. The House having repeatedly affirmed the principle of Scottish Home Rule, and this Bill having already received a Second Reading, it seems scarcely too much to ask that the House should not regard it as a novelty, or as something requiring very critical examination. It might, however, be unreasonable to ask the House to treat a Bill introduced to-day without a certain amount of criticism on the ground that it passed a Second Reading in 1913, because this is a new House of Commons. I could not therefore in reason ask the House to be other than, critical, and I know hon. Members will desire to consider very carefully a Bill moved at this hour on Friday afternoon. I trust the House will understand that I am not expecting the impossible. Although the time at my disposal is very short, I must attempt to make out my case, and I would like to say that the case for Scottish Home Rule rests upon two distinct but equally important principles, namely, Scottish national sentiment and Imperial necessity. The former is so plainly in favour of self-government that no candidate of any party would dare to appear before any Scottish constituency with opposition to self-government for Scotland as a plank in his platform.

Sir H. CRAIK

I did.

Sir H. COWAN

I think not. If hon. Members take a contrary view or if they believe that Scotland is not ripe for Home Rule, and does not desire it, will they co-operate with me in asking the Government to institute a referendum to ascertain the wishes of the Scottish people? Our representatives in Paris have been paying lip-service to the principle of self-determination, let the Government now show that Scotland, making a constitutional demand, is to have the opportunity and right of determining her own destiny. I am not here to say, and I would be the last to assert, that the Treaty of Union was an injury to Scotland, or that Scotland was a loser by that Treaty, because that is not so, and we all know that since England learned her lesson at Bannockburn she has been a good neighbour and that, since the Union, England has been, on the whole, a generous and magnanimous partner, but we do complain that England, from a lack of imagination and ignorance of Scottish sentiment and conditions, has denied to Scotland repeatedly the reforms that Scotland urgently desired. With reference to such matters as temperance reform, and particularly land reform, measures have been brought into this House during past generations, and have repeatedly been rejected by the vote of English Members. The removal of the Scottish Education Department to London is an outrage upon Scottish sentiment, as is the present attempt to concentrate the control of Scottish forestry in a London Board 400 miles from the nearest tree they will have to manage.

There is no time for Scottish business in this House of Commons. We have had recently one day or perhaps two in the whole Session on which to discuss Scottish Estimates, and on those Estimates every matter of interest affecting the administration of Scotland has to be discussed; we have no other opportunity at all. I was speaking to an hon. Member the other day, and he said, "I hope you will not succeed in getting Home Rule for Scotland, because if you do you will deprive me of the opportunity of getting the only holiday I get during the Session, because I stay away when Scottish business is being discussed and this is my only chance." They do not, however, all stay away, some of them come to criticise and some to obstruct.

The case for devolution is not one for Scotland alone, but for the United King- dom, in fact, devolution has become an Imperial necessity. There is no time in this House for Scotland, and very soon there will be no time in this so-called Imperial Parliament for the Empire. We cannot adequately discuss all our parochial affairs and all our local interests and at the same time have opportunity, left for discussing the affairs of the greatest, the vastest, and most populous Empire that ever existed. We are confronted by an ever-increasing congestion of business in this House, and that increase of congestion, synchronising as it does with the increase of interests with which we have to deal, has created a new atmosphere. Even the Unionist party, whose very name seems to imply opposition to the principle of devolution, even, the more intelligent, and for the most part they are very intelligent, Unionists in this House are devolutionists at heart. We have travelled very far already on the devolution road, and it is too late to turn back. We had Standing Committees set up some years ago. Those Standing Committees have been futile. We have net been able to refer to thorn any really important Bills. Those Standing Committees and the new Standing Committees are no longer futile, but they have become very dangerous. Under the new system of procedure they have become very dangerous indeed to the country and to the House, for a mere handful of Members have been able to dispose of the most important measures, automatically sent to them for the Committee stage and thus taken away from the cognisance of the Members of this House.

These Committees for the most part have been sparsely attended. They sit long hours. Members cannot attend from eleven to one and from four to six on Committees and at the same time attend the prolonged sittings of the House. Members have overlapping Committees. I myself—it is no unusual experience—have been required to attend no less than three Committees at the same hour and on the same day. The thing is impossible. The result has been that Bills which have passed the Second Reading here, and which you, Sir, would have insisted upon being retained in the House for the Committee stage, have gone automatically to these Committees, and Bills ill-considered and ill-digested have emerged from Committee a source of great embarrassment to the House, and have finally reached the Statute Book in a condition which is a menace to the nation. I am the first to admit that, regrettable as all this is, it is none the less unavoidable under present circumstances. The pledges given by Ministers and by Members of this House at the General Election had got to be kept. There were no other means of doing it. The old slow working machine would not turn out the Bills, and for the period of Reconstruction it was necessary that this wonderful automatic machine should be set up. But the nation will never tolerate the indefinite continuance of this system. The nation which has acquiesced in the setting up of this machine will undoubtedly insist upon it being scrapped at the earliest possible date. Nor can we revert to the old slow procedure before the introduction of this new system. We cannot relieve the Committees or disestablish them by bringing back on the floor of the House all these Bills, some of them of Imperial interest, and many of them of local interest, Bills dealing with all conceivable subjects. That is impossible. The only remedy is some form of devolution. A very remarkable gathering was held in a Committee Room upstairs about a fortnight ago at which a Unionist Member of the Government—a very prominent Member—made a very remarkable speech in favour of federal devolution. In the course of the discussion which followed it became evident, notwithstanding the dissent of my hon. Friend opposite, that the large body of Members gathered together in that room, something like 150 drawn from all quarters and all sections of the House, were practically unanimous. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"]

Captain STANLEY WILSON

If a vote had been taken it would not have been carried.

Sir H. COWAN

A vote was not taken, and it is equally competent for hon. Mem- bers to take one view as it is for me to take the other view, but having followed the proceedings closely I say that the meeting was very largely with, the right hon. Gentleman who addressed it. [Hon. Members: "No!"]. In any case, I am sure that neither the hon. and gallant Member opposite nor my right hon. Friend below me (Sir H. Craik) will deny that a great change has come over the feeling of the House in recent years in regard to devolution. The Prime Minister, we know, is strongly in favour of devolution, and we have reason to believe that a large majority of the Government are in favour of the same system. I know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary for Scotland, necessarily to me the most interesting member of the Government after the Prime Minister, is in favour of devolution for Scotland, because, to let the House into a secret, this is his Bill, drafted by himself in collaboration with the late Member for North-West Lanark (Mr. Pringle). It is an admirable Bill, but I am sure my right hon. Friend would be the first to say that it is not perfect. That, however, is only a question for the Committee stage. We must, whether we like it or not, abandon this new system of dangerously rapid and hasty legislation. We must scrap this now machinery as soon as it has answered its purpose—

Notice being taken at Ten minutes before Four of the clock that forty Members were not present, the House was told by Mr. Speaker, and, thirty-four Members only being present, Mr. Speaker retired from the Chair until Four of the clock, when the House was again told, and, thirty-seven Members only being present, the House was adjourned by Mr. Speaker, without Question first put, until Monday next.

Adjourned at Two minutes after Four o'clock till Monday next.