HC Deb 29 October 1930 vol 244 cc40-4
The PRIME MINISTER

I beg to move, That this House entertains a just and high sense of the distinguished and exemplary manner in which Sir Lonsdale Webster, the late Clerk of the House, uniformly discharged his duties during his 40 years' service in this House, of which 28 years were spent at the Table. It is with feelings of very great regret that I rise to move this Resolution. The late Sir Lonsdale Webster joined the staff of this House as a junior clerk as far back as 1890. He was promoted to the Table as Second Clerk Assistant in 1902, he was Clerk Assistant in 1918, and he became Clerk, in succession to one of the most distinguished men who ever held that office, in 1921. The span from 1890 to 1921 is one not only long in time, but full of very devoted service to the interests of the country. He has been the editor of three editions of Erskine May's Parliamentary Practice, the last having been published in 1924. I ought to say—of course I have come in contact with the value of this work that he did—that in addition to his duties here he was of great help to oversea officials who wished to study the practice and procedure of the English House of Commons. Now and again in my various wanderings I have come across men occupying positions of similar responsibility who have told me how grateful they were to Sir Lonsdale Webster for the service and help that he gave them.

As Chief Clerk he had to perform very delicate work: I do not know if there is anyone in the House whom the ordinary member envies less than the Chief Clerk unless it frequently is yourself, Sir—rapid decisions, accurate decisions, the custodian of our forms, the guardian of our procedure, not allowed to take a matter as we say in Scotland, into avizandum, but to tell us straight away what is the right thing to do and what is the right way to do it. He has been of infinite service to the House of Commons. It does not merely mean that the Clerk has to have an extraordinarily quick moving mind and a sound judgment, but that both these things have to have a background of profound knowledge of the most intricate machinery.

More than that, Sir Lonsdale Webster was a friend and a counsellor to us all. From the highest Minister to the youngest Member, Sir Lonsdale Webster was guide, philosopher, and friend. He has left a memory of ready service and unstinting help, and we shall not only miss that familiar figure, but we shall miss the personality as well. My great regret to-day—and I am sure it is the regret of the whole House—is all the more poignant because he has been cut off in the prime of his life. It was only yesterday that he sat there without the shadow upon him of what his fate was so quickly to be, and to-day we look there and he is not and another is in his place. This is a place, for one reason or another, of many comings and many goings. I hope, when others look upon the vacant places of us who are now here, they may have the same kindly thoughts and the same affectionate memories regarding us that we have of Sir Lonsdale Webster.

Mr. STANLEY BALDWIN

I should like to be allowed to say a few words in support of what has fallen from the lips of the Prime Minister. His acquaintance with Sir Lonsdale Webster, as does the acquaintance of the Leader of the Liberal party, goes back further than my recollection, but, if I were asked to state in a few words what struck me most about Sir Lonsdale in his work it would be that he threw into his daily work, a task which would seem to many of us not an inspiring one, a zeal and fervour that most men seem to reserve for tasks connected with art, music, study and science, and he loved with all his strength that strange and recondite study of the precedents of this House. They were in his blood as well as in his mind, and the Prime Minister spoke but the bare truth when he spoke of the quickness of his mind and—I do not think he used that word—his extraordinary memory. Many men can give you a precedent if they have two minutes in which to look it up. I have much sympathy with that because I have a bowing acquaintance with many subjects, and I always know where I can look them up though I have not got them ready. Sir Lonsdale Webster had. There was no question that could be put to him at any hour of the day or night—and at six o'clock in the morning of an all-night sitting it was just the same—when he was not ready to give the answer, and the answer was always right.

He was a very remarkable man, and, as the Prime Minister has said, his work was known not only in this country hut throughout the Empire and, indeed, wherever men are experimenting in Parliamentary Government. It was far shorter to go and see Sir Lonsdale Webster than to go and do your own burrowing in a mine of books in a library. I will say no more, except that this Motion that we are all going to pass to-day is no mere question of form. No vote could possibly be less formal. The Prime Minister said there is not one of us who does not feel that we have lost a friend in Sir Lonsdale Webster. We shall miss his personality for some time to come, and I hope that it may be some comfort to his widow to know the feeling with which, however inadequate, we have paid these tributes to him in this House to-day and tried to give voice to the common sentiment of every Member sitting in it.

Sir DONALD MACLEAN

At the special request of my right hon. Friend the head of our party, I desire to join with all my heart in the tributes which have already been paid to Sir Lonsdale Webster. The very special reason why I have been asked to undertake this duty, however briefly, is because my personal association with the late Clerk of the House extended over a perod of six and a-half years. The intimate association of a Chairman, or a Deputy-Chairman of Committees, or the Acting Deputy-Speaker with the Clerks at the Table is one of the most close and personal kind. Indeed, the friendship, the touch of personal affection due to the man who rescues one from dangerous and deep waters is one which any Chairman or Deputy-Chairman or Deputy-Speaker would render with a full heart to the late Clerk of the House. I can say from my personal knowledge over that long period of time that there was no one who regarded the House with deeper affection and respect than he did. And further than that, he had for each Member of the House, irrespective of the party to which he belonged, the deepest regard for his status as a Member of this House, the most ancient of all deliberative assemblies. There is a body in this House to whom we are all indebted, namely, the Clerks of the House. They must perforce be silent on such an occasion as this, but I know what are their feelings. The late Clerk was in the fullest sense one of them. He was loyal to them. He was as devoted to their service as he was devoted to the service of this House. I know that they mourn with us this tragic loss to the public service.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolved, nemine contradicente, That this House entertains a just and high sense of the distinguished and exemplary manner in which Sir Lonsdale Webster, the late Clerk of the House, uniformly discharged his duties during his 40 years' service in this House, of which 28 years were spent at the Table.