HOUSE OF LORDS REFORM. (Hansard, 12 April 1922)

§ Colonel CLAUDE LOWTHER

I beg to move, That leave be given to introduce a Bill to reconstitute the House of Lords. It may seem almost futile to introduce a Bill like this dealing with such a titanic question as the reform of the House of Lords under the Ten Minutes' Rule, but needs must when the devil drives. Perhaps hon. Members will forgive me if I do not go into any details, but I will merely endeavour to adumbrate the purport of my Bill, and explain the principle that underlies it. May I ask the House to concede to me two axioms. In the first place, that a strong, virile, and representative Second Chamber is necessary and vital to good government; and, secondly, that a hereditary system is looked upon as an anachronism by the great majority of the electorate to-day. If that is so, then two things are certain. One is that the House of Lords as at present constituted must go. It is no good mending or patching it. You cannot put new wine into old bottles, and you cannot put back the hands of the clock. Therefore I say that what we have to do is to create another Second Chamber instead of the present obsolete Chamber. The Bill I am moving has that object in view. It endeavours to build up a Second Chamber more thoroughly representative and more in tune with the 421 democratic spirit of the age. If my Bill commends itself to hon. Members, however faulty it may be, if the principle commends itself to the House, from that moment the portals of the Second Chamber shall never again fly open to the Sesame of birth or to the key of plutocracy, and it will only open to the Sesame of merit. My Bill endeavours to substitute for an aristocracy of birth, tainted by the poison of plutocracy, an aristocracy of brains. The Bill, in one word, proposes that the cumbersome number of 730, which, I think, is the present strength of the House of Lords, should be reduced to 300, apart from the Princes of the Blood. The functions of the Second Chamber will be to initiate legislation, to delay legislation, to amend and review legislation, and to reject legislation. Should the Second Chamber reject a Bill which was presented by the popular Chamber three times, it is then referred to a Committee of the two Houses of equal numbers, and I suggest, with great respect, that you, Sir, preside over that Committee. If that Bill be not carried by a majority of three to two, it is then referred to the people, either through a referendum or a general election.

Just one word before I sit down about the method of reconstruction. The Bill provides that in December, 1922, the Lords as at present constituted shall cease to exist, hut not before they have selected, by a process of self-elimination or a survival of this fittest, 100 of their most brilliant Members to the nucleus of a Second Chamber. These Peers are to be chosen for personal merit alone. Then on 1st January, 1923, the nucleus of the Second Chamber comes into existence. It consists of the Princes of the Blood and of these 100 selected Members. They are instructed by the Bill to add to their number 200, and, in order to find these 200, to search the length and breadth of the land for the genius and intellect of the race. Hon. Members may laugh, but I presume they would not dislike an aristocracy of brains. In this manner, the Second Chamber might well be termed "an aristocracy of brains," for not only would it consist of men versed in the science of statecraft and the laws of government, but every class of calling and profession in the country would be represented—the Army, Navy, labour, county councils, the sciences, the arts, 422 the Press, commerce, and industry. They would all be represented, and represented by men of outstanding merit. In such a way, you would get an open, virile strong representative Second Chamber.