HC Deb 10 November 1920 vol 134 cc1218-32

(1) The Parliaments of Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland may, by identical Acts (hereinafter referred to as constituent Acts), establish in lieu of the Council of Ireland a Parliament for the whole of Ireland consisting of His Majesty and one or two Houses (which shall be called and known as the Parliament of Ireland), and may determine the number of members thereof and the manner in which the members are to be appointed or elected, and the constituencies for which the several elective members are to be returned, and the number of members to be returned by the several constituencies, and the method of appointment or election, and in the event of provision being made for two Houses of Parliament, the relations of the two Houses to one another; and the date at which the Parliament of Ireland is established is hereinafter referred to as the date of Irish union:

Provided that the Bill for a constituent Act shall not be introduced except upon a resolution passed at a previous meeting of the House in which the Bill is to be introduced.

(2) On the date of Irish union the Council of Ireland shall cense to exist and there shall be transferred to the Parliament and Government of Ireland all powers then exerciseable by the Council of Ireland, and also the matters which under this Act cease to be reserved matters at the date of Irish union, and any other powers for the joint exercise of which by the Parliaments or Governments of Southern and Northern Ireland provision has been made under this Act.

Captain CRAIG

I beg to move, in Subsection (1), after the word "Acts" ["by identical Acts"], to insert the words "agreed to by an absolute majority of members of each Parliament at the Third Reading."

On the Committee stage of the Bill, certain undertakings were given by the Government to which I should like to call their attention. The First Lord of the Admiralty said with regard to this particular Amendment: Since we have put these precautions in there are to be added two Chambers, one for the North, and one for the South, and therefore the procedure now will be a Resolution passed by four Chambers, that is the Senate, and Lower House in the North, and the Senate and Lower House in the South, and then identical Acts of Parliament. I agree with my hon. Friend that these powers need further examination, and we readily accede to his request that they shall be re-examined, and I shall be very glad on behalf of the Government to hear from anybody who is interested in this matter. We will reconsider it before the Report stage, and if we think additional powers are required, we will place them on the Paper. I would like to point out that when that speech was made by the right hon. Gentleman he was anticipating the establishment of an Upper Chamber in both Parliaments, which of course would have been an additional safeguard against an Act being passed, say, by the Northern Parliament handing itself over to the Southern Parliament. That would have been in that case an additional safeguard, but as we know now it is doubtful at least whether these Upper Chambers will come into being or not. Therefore, so far as that goes, we lose that safeguard. I submit that our claims to have this Amendment inserted is therefore considerably strengthened. There was quite a long Debate on this point, and I think the Committee agreed with us that a matter of such importance as the sweeping away of the Northern Parliament, and its inclusion in the Southern Parliament, was one which ought not to be left to a mere snap Division in the Northern House of Parliament. Some further safeguard, either in the nature of a referendum, or that which is suggested by this Amendment, namely an absolute majority of members of each Parliament at the Third Reading, should be inserted.

Our case is stronger to-day than it was then, because, as I have pointed out, there will be, at first at any rate, no Second Chamber to safeguard our interests in the matter. Therefore I ask the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill to accept this Amendment, which is a most moderate one, and which is the least far-reaching of the various Amendments suggested to carry out the object which I have in view. I beg to move.

Major O'NEILL

I beg to second the Amendment.

As a result of the promises given by the Government, I think we had some right to expect that a Government Amendment to this effect would appear on the Paper. Shortly stated, the objects of this Amendment, with regard to both Parliaments, are these—a desire to get rid in the future, if possible, of the question of union or non-union being the main political issue of the time. If you do not have words to this effect, the question whether the North is to unite with the South will come up again and again at every election for the Northern Parliament, and very probably also at every election for the Southern Parliament. In the North you may get members elected on other issues. Labour questions will play a prominent part, and indeed, as has been said, there may quite possibly be a Labour Government in the North of Ireland before very long. It will, however, be a Labour Government which, at any rate in the immediate future, will not be prepared to place itself under the subjection of a Parliament in Dublin. Consequently, unless there is some provision of this kind, that there shall be an absolute majority before union is brought about, labour questions, and various social questions connected with the welfare of the people, both in Northern and Southern Ireland, will all go by the board time after time, because the great question as to whether there is to be union or not will always be raised. If people feel that they are safeguarded, and that there cannot be union unless it is passed at the Third Reading by an absolute majority—that is to say, a majority of the total membership of the House—then the Parliaments will be able to carry on with the ordinary work of social reform and other legislation for the benefit of the community.

There is a precedent for this, I think, in nearly all the subordinate legislatures in the Colonies. In most cases in which large constitutional questions such as this have to be decided, it is provided that the mere snap vote of a bare majority shall not be sufficient to carry it. I think that some Colonies have schemes for a referendum, others have schemes of this kind, and others, again, have safeguards of a different nature; but in every case, in a great constitutional issue, there is some safeguard other than the bare vote of a number of people who may be attending a particular meeting of the House of Commons at a particular time. I appeal to the Government to consider this matter very seriously, and, if possible, to accept the Amendment

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS

I am not quite sure that my hon. and gallant Friend did not say that the Government gave an undertaking to deal with this matter, and I want to clear that up. My right hon. Friend did say that the powers needed further examination, and that he would look into them before the Report stage, but what my hon. Friends are trying to do is to protect either Parliament against being joined by a snap vote to the other Parliament—that is to say, to protect themselves from union without their real, considered consent. I was hoping that we had already met that. We put into the Bill a proviso to Sub-section (1) of Clause 4, providing that the Bill for a constituent Act shall not be introduced except upon a Resolution passed at a previous meeting of the House in which the Bill is to be introduced.

Mr. RONALD McNEILL

That was in the original Bill.

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS

Yes. This question was not overlooked by the Cabinet Committee which considered the draft Bill, and they inserted this proviso for the very purpose of protecting either Parliament from a snap vote. A Resolution has to be brought in, after notice, and no Bill can be passed unless it is founded on that Resolution and is introduced at a different sitting of the House from the sitting at which the Resolution is passed. No constituent Act of this sort to bring about union could possibly be passed unless it had been twice before the two separate Parliaments. My hon. Friends suggest that an absolute majority of the Members shall agree to the Bill. An absolute majority of this House would be, I think, 352 Members. It varies, of course, in the Southern and Northern Parliaments, but my hon. Friends' proposal would mean that the Bill would have to be passed by an absolute majority, not of those Members who might be present, but an absolute majority of all the Members of the House, whether they were present or not. I do not think that that is necessary. I quite agree that it would be highly undesirable that there should be a snap vote, and that union should be brought about without real consent, because union brought about by means of a snap vote would be no union at all. I entirely agree that union must be founded on consent. I thought, however, that we had met the position sufficiently by ensuring that it shall be considered, not merely on one occasion, but on two occasions. Beyond that I do not want to tie the hands of the two Parliaments. If they like to provide for themselves any regulations or rules, they will be at liberty to do so, but, so far as this Parliament is concerned, we want to give them the usual full Parliamentary rights. I must say that I do not think the Amendment is necessary for the purpose for which it is designed. I think there is already sufficient security in the Bill, and I hope that my hon. Friends will not press it.

Mr. R. McNEILL

I was rather surprised that my right hon. Friend referred to that proviso and said that he was quite of opinion that it was sufficient. That proviso was in the original Bill, and it was in the original Bill, as he himself has said, at the time when the First Lord of the Admiralty used the expression to which attention has been called, namely, that he agreed that those powers needed further examination. I understand, now, that my right hon. Friend brings forward that proviso as some satisfaction of that admission—in other words, as though it were a further examination and an attempt to meet the case. My right hon. Friend spoke as if it were something quite unheard of that you should require an absolute majority in a matter of this sort, and that he had only to call attention to the way in which it would work. As he was looking at the report, however, he must have seen that the hon. Member for Woodvale (Mr. Lynn), in moving the same Amendment in Committee, pointed out that in the Australian Constitution Act of 1900 there are these words: This Constitution shall not be altered except in the following manner: The proposed law for the alteration thereof must be passed by an absolute majority of each House of the Parliament "…—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 19th May, 1920; col. 1500, Vol. 129.] That is exactly the proposal which we are making here, and surely there can be nothing unreasonable in our asking at this juncture for a provision which, after the most mature consideration, was accepted in this great Act constituting the Australian Commonwealth. I really cannot see that we are asking for anything unreasonable, and I do not think, if I may say so, with great respect to my right hon. Friend, that he has really carried out the spirit of the promise given by the First Lord of the Admiralty in Committee on the 19th May. May I remind the House that on that occasion my right hon. Friend the Member or Duncairn (Sir E. Carson) went into the constitutional question at some length, and the First Lord of the Admiralty, in referring to him, said: We quite recognise that he speaks, not alone as the representative and leader of a party in Ireland, but also as a great lawyer whose views on a question of this kind must carry a great deal of weight, quite apart from any consideration of the particular measure."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 19th May, 1920; col. 1503, Vol. 129.] It was after making that statement that he went on to promise further consideration. That being the case, I hope very much that my right hon. Friend will not put us off with this proviso, which has been in the Bill from the first, and which, as we have shown both in Committee and this afternoon, is in our view quite insufficient for a purpose which my right hon. Friend himself acknowledges to be a very legitimate one. It is quite clear that, if such a very important matter as the amalgamation of these two Parliaments is to take place, it ought to be in accordance with the considered opinion, and with the deliberate consent, not merely of a certain small number of members gathered together, it may be, for quite different objects, but of the constituencies of these two Parliaments. That cannot possibly be the case unless very stringent precautions are taken against anything in the nature of what we generally call a snap vote.

Dr. MURRAY

One of the few satisfactory features of this Bill, so far as I can see, is that at some time there may be union in Ireland. This Amendment, so far as I have been able to understand it both in Committee and to-day, is designed to make union between the two Parliaments as difficult as possible. I think it is not unfair to say that, when we remember that we have been told that the union of the two Parliaments would be a disaster to Ireland. The Amendment will defeat what I consider to be the only spiritual object of the Bill, and the only one that justifies it. As a constitutionalist—and it is only on these Benches that you get the real constitutionalists, the real Conservatives—I think it would be a pity to depart from constitutional practice in connection with this Bill. There is no provision of this sort in connection with this Parliament, and I think it would be more necessary in this Parliament than in any Parliament in Ireland. As I pointed out in Committee, at Irish elections, when any question or no question is at issue, they bring up every man, dead or alive, to vote in the election; and I am quite sure that there will be the same diligence and the same efficiency when a question involving a party consideration of this sort is brought before one of these Parliaments, either in Dublin or in Belfast, and especially in Belfast. Therefore I do not see that it is worth while to introduce a new feature of constitutional practice into the Parliaments which you are proposing to set up, in order to obviate a contingency that never, at any rate in Ireland, will arise. I think the proviso which is already in the Bill, to the effect that a Resolution must be adopted by the House of Commons before a Bill for union is brought before either Parliament, is, as the right hon. Gentleman has suggested, quite a sufficient safeguard and sufficient notice to those vigilant politicians, both in the North and in the South of Ireland, to ensure that, when a question of this sort arises, it will be decided by a majority of the House. On these grounds I am inclined to adopt my usual practice and support the Government.

Sir E. CARSON

I am bound to confess that the Amendment does not at all go the length of meeting the objections which I made in Committee, and I think my right hon. Friend has not really grasped what those objections are. The point really is this. If you are going to bring about the union of the Southern and the Northern Parliaments you ought to bring it about with the consent of the people who are within the jurisdiction of both those Parliaments and in any great constitutional change, such as the abolition of a Parliament or the amalgamation of a Parliament, you ought to take care that the majority which brings that about is really representative, ad hoc, that is on that question, of the particular jurisdiction which they purport to represent. The point I put to the First Lord of the Admiralty in the Committee stage, which I thought at the time he agreed to, was this. If these Parliaments are to work at all as business Parliaments—and in the North they will have a great deal of pure business and labour matters to deal with—you ought not always to have hanging over them at every election the question as to whether they would agree to the amalgamation of the North and South. In other words, you ought not to have the test question always at every election, "Will you agree to an amalgamation of our Parliament with the other Parliament?" If you do, you will never get over the old political differences which are dividing the people in the North and the South at present, and my belief—I can speak more for the North than for the South—is that when they come to work the Parliament in these industrial districts the elections will turn probably on Labour questions, probably on a Labour Government—and I am not at all sure that if there is to be a Labour Government it may not be the first Labour Government there will be in this United Kingdom, because they have a great preponderance of the voting power, and it may be that you will elect the Parliament entirely on Labour questions. Would it not be most unfair that a Parliament elected upon that kind of question should have the power of saying, "We will agree, although this was not the question at the election at all, to the fusion of the North of Ireland Parliament with the South of Ireland. It seems to me to be disastrous to lay down any such matter as that.

The apprehension which I put to the First Lord of the Admiralty in Committee was that he had not made provision to bring about the certainty that the change made in the constitution of the North and South by fusion would really represent the considered opinion of the electorate by which they were returned. That is the real issue. This Amendment very slightly meets that. It says that there must be an absolute majority of the members elected. That only goes a small way to meet my point. I do not believe there is any constitution in the Colonies which would allow the abolition of a Parliament, or the abolition of one of the Houses of Parliament, by a bare majority of those who happened to be present at the discussion. I do not believe such a thing exists. You certainly could not do it in America; I am sure you cannot do it in the Australian Constitution, and I do not know any Constitution under which you can do it. But here what you are laying down is that a Parliament re turned on entirely different questions may proceed to abolish the Constitution under which it was returned and set up a new Constitution. That is no protection to democracy. It is no protection to the electors who elected the Parliament, and nay right hon. Friend (Mr. Long) was so impressed with this that he promised to have the matter considered. I cannot see that it has been considered at all. It is there still, exactly the same problem with exactly the same wording that was in the Bill when it was brought in, and I am certainly greatly disappointed that the Government has not attempted to meet the point in any way. So far as I am concerned, not only will I support the Amendment, which only goes a small way to take away some of the dangers and difficulties of not carrying out the will of the people, but if my right hon. Friend will not meet us on this I shall oppose the whole Clause as not being a proper Clause to set up in a Bill of this kind without the ordinary constitutional safeguards which you find in every Constitution that I know of in the world. I cannot understand why the Government persists in this attitude, because my right hon. Friend himself would agree that to have what I might call a snap vote, by a Parliament returned for an entirely different purpose, to subvert and get rid of a Parliament is about the tallest proposition I have ever heard of in constitutional law. Therefore we shall be obliged to divide the House upon this Amendment, and furthermore to divide against this Clause as being an utterly unusual one in a Bill of this kind.

Major HAYWARD

I find considerable encouragement in the fact that this Amendment is moved and pressed by hon. Members who represent Ulster constituencies. The fact of it is that those hon. Members representing Ulster constituencies are very apprehensive lest in some way an Irish Parliament shall first of all introduce and then pass the First Reading, Second Heading, and Third Reading of a Bill for amalgamation with the Southern Parliament. I quite agree that they take up a proper position and say, if this thing is to be done it has to be done, of course, with the full consent of the people of both the North and the South, but I find encouragement in the fact that those hon. Members are very apprehensive that the strength of feeling in the North would be such that they think they would be so enthusiastic in support of amalgamation or so apathetic that they will allow the whole thing to be passed and to be carried through unless this extraordinary protection is provided. The speech of the right hon. Gentleman (Sir E. Carson) last week was of a very encouraging character. It was a most optimistic speech. The encouragement I find from it, and from the Amendment, is that underneath all the terrible conditions that we find at present, the real underlying feeling between the people of the North and of the South is not as bad as some of us probably believe, and that is really some encouragement for the future.

Mr. A. SHAW

I was very much surprised at the speech of the right hon. Gentleman (Sir E. Carson) because I thought he laid down a test which, applied to this Parliament, would land us in a somewhat peculiar position. I wonder how it would work out in practice in this House of Commons. He coupled the idea of a mandate with the idea in the Amendment, that unless there is an absolute majority of the Southern and Northern Parliaments nothing in the direction of amalgamation would be done. The right hon. Gentleman says this question of the union of the Parliaments of Ireland is a vastly important constitutional question. I would remind him that the question raised for this Parliament by this Bill is a vastly important constitutional question. On both these points, if he accepts the practice of the British Constitution, he is ruled out of court. In the first place, what particular mandate, in his rigorous sense, is there for a Bill like this, and if we come down to the Amendment which my hon. Friend seeks to insert in this important alteration of the Constitution, what mandate for the British people is there for this Amendment, which is to be put into the Bill, the effect of the Amendment being to block the road to Irish union? Then, with regard to the absolute majority of members of both Houses, surely, if the right hon. Gentleman and his followers in Ulster—I understand his apprehensions are confined to the Ulster Parliament—are alive to the signs of the times and to what is going on, they will manage to scrape together a sufficient number of men in the Northern Parliament to show, at any rate, what the representatives of Ulster opinion think. Supposing you were to apply the rule which the right hon. Gentleman suggests in this Parliament, that an absolute majority of Members of the House of Commons to be present when any great change is proposed. What would have happened in this House last night? The Second Reading of a Bill involving very important changes was voted, and I should be very much surprised if, on counting up the Division list, there was present in the Government Lobby anything like an absolute majority of the Members of the House of Commons. I believe, in fact, an absolute majority of the party which the right hon. Gentleman represents was found, not in the Government Lobby, but in the Opposition Lobby. I really do not think, when we are dealing with a matter so important to the aspirations of the Irish people, that we should go out of our way to rake up impossible things which cannot happen if adequate notice is given beforehand, and as a further factor to make Irish opinion certain that this Bill is meant to be unworkable and absolutely ridiculous, to put further barriers in the way of a union which seems to me to be almost impossible as the Bill stands now. I very much hope the Government will stick to their guns.

Mr. MARRIOTT

I quite agree that the speech to which we have just listened goes to the root of this whole question, and I think my hon. and learned Friend is entitled to the gratitude of the House for the clear issue which he has raised. As I understand the issue it is this. Are we going to put the Irish Parliament under this Bill in the same sovereign and constituent position as the Parliament of the United Kingdom? If we are, I entirely agree that the Amendments which have been moved are entirely out of place, but I have not so understood the intentions of the Bill as expounded by its authors. If, on the other hand, we intend to retain in this Imperial Parliament the sovereign and constituent authority, then the Amendment is entirely consistent with the whole meaning and the genius of the Bill, and that is the point which hon. Members have really got to decide in reference to this Amendment.

5.0 P.M.

Mr. MOLES

When we come to discuss Irish questions I have always thought that there was some advantage in being an Irishman and in knowing the facts with which you are dealing. The speech of the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Shaw) hardly suggests that. He is surprised at the speech of my right hon. Friend (Sir E. Carson). Why? Because he preaches the strictest constitutional doctrine. The hon. Member has not challenged a single tenet in the constitutional law laid down by my right hon. Friend. He takes the point that it is not in accordance with the British Constitution. That is child-playing with the question. He knows that the British Constitution is in the main unwritten, but you are writing now a constitution for the Irish Parliament, which makes all the difference in the world. The hon. Member asks what mandate we have for this Amendment. It is trifling with the question to put forward an argument of that kind. He might as well ask, Is there any mandate for the Ten Commandments? Do not let us get into theology, because I imagine the hon. Member is just as well informed upon that question as upon this. Surely the sense of justice that lies behind this proposal is the real mandate for it. You would be running against the public conscience in Ireland if you took any other course. What is the question we are discussing? A proposal may come before one of these Parliaments to extinguish that Parliament, to destroy the right of the electors in relation to it, and it is seriously suggested that it is running counter to constitutional law to urge that the electors should have some right to govern the action of the Parliament in respect to this matter, and that the Parliament should not extinguish itself unless there is an absolute majority for such action and reflective of popular opinion. My hon. Friend opposite (Dr. Murray), who is always most interesting, but least useful when he is most amusing, says that the remedy for a proposal to destroy the Ulster Parliament or the Southern Parliament is to vote the quick and the dead, and nothing can go wrong. That is Scotch logic.

If you proceed with a proposal of the kind which has been made by the Government, and if hereafter a position arises such as we have contemplated by means of a snatch vote, you put your Parliament into conflict with the electorate, and raise one of the greatest constitutional issues that could be raised before any Parliament. If we who will have to live, in the event of this Bill becoming an Act, in the midst of the conditions that will arise, seek to safeguard ourselves against a crisis of that kind, is it an unreasonable proposal? Surely the House will not say that it is unreasonable. I make an appeal to the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill. He knows perfectly well, for he was present when the discussion took place, that the First Lord of the Admiralty found himself coerced by the facts of logic and by argument to subscribe to the view put forward by the right hon. Member for Duncairn. He was so coerced that he promised to consider the point and to meet it, and my right hon. Friend is too much of a Constitutionalist to believe that the point has been met by the suggestion now put forward. He takes refuge in saying that our case is met in the original provisions of the Bill. The First Lord of the Admiralty took the view that our case was not met by the provisions of the Bill, and it was upon that ground that he promised an Amendment. If the right hon. Gentleman does not want to see one or other of these new Parliaments up against a set of facts that would be disastrous he ought to meet us, and it is not asking too much to say that there ought to be an absolute majority in any Parliament before assenting to a tremendous constitutional change that would involve the very existence of Parliament.

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS

The Government does not attach any great importance to this Amendment one way or the other and I took care in speaking not to say that the Government were going to refuse it. I said I hoped the Amendment would not be pressed. I still hope hon. Members will not Dress it. I thoroughly appreciate their reasonable desire that every precaution should be taken against anything like a snap vote on so important a matter as union. Not only do I appreciate their fear, but I also realise that any union obtained by a snap vote would not be worth the paper it is written on. It is absolutely essential that the Union should be by consent—real consent, represented by ordered procedure and deliberate decision. In that respect I refer to the proviso, namely, that a resolution has first to be passed, in order to show that there can be no such thing as a snap division. There is procedure by resolution, then procedure by Second Reading, by Committee and by Third Reading. It is almost impossible to imagine a Parliament so constituted that with all these four stages to go through there could be any snap vote. On the other hand, it is highly important that the sentiments of both sides should be taken into account, and if my hon. Friends from Ulster tell me that the fear and sentiment of Ulster and the fear of their constituents is that by reason of a snap division they may be forced into union without their consent, it would be absurd on the part of the Government not to try to meet a well-grounded fear, however unreasonable or however unlikely it was to be realised by facts. On the other hand, I am confronted with a different point of view. One hon. Member has already given voice to it. It will be said, or it may be said, that the Government are accepting an Amendment—

Dr. MURRAY

A snap Amendment. It is not on the Paper.

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS

It is an Amendment which has been moved. It may be said that by accepting an Amendment which calls for an absolute majority on Third Reading, we are putting up a barrier against Union, and that the Bill, instead of trying to bring about union, is seeking to prevent union. I have the two sentiments to consider. A union which was not brought about by an absolute majority would not be a real union and would not work. The question is; by which sentiment am I to be influenced? If my hon. Friends press this Amendment, I shall not vote against it, but I will accept it. I do, however, ask them to consider that there is another side, and that we do not want it to be said that there is anything in this Bill which puts up a barrier against union.

Question "That those words be there inserted in the Bill" put, and agreed to.

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS

I beg to move, in Sub-section (2) to leave out the word "also" ["also the matters"] and to insert instead thereof the words (except so far as the constituent Acts otherwise provide.) This is an Amendment brought in because of what took place in Committee with regard to reserved services. My right hon. Friend the Member for Dun-cairn pointed out that if the Post Office Savings Banks, Trustees Savings Bank, and postal services were necessarily obliged to come over on the union, it might form a barrier to union. Therefore, this Amendment was put down, which enables constituent Acts bringing about the union, to provide for these services not coming over if the constituent parties so desire.

Amendment agreed to.