HC Deb 30 July 1935 vol 304 cc2509-12

Lords Amendment: In page 13, line 23, after "Legislature," insert: whether with respect to a Bill then pending in the Legislature or otherwise.

4.31 p.m.

Mr. BUTLER

I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

This Amendment entails a little more consideration than the last one. Clause 20 gives the Governor-General the right to address and send messages to the Chambers of the Federal Legislature and the Amendment proposes to insert in Subsection (2) the words with respect to a Bill then pending in the Legislature or otherwise. It was considered in another place that the Government, by accepting the suggestion that these words should be inserted, made matters rather more secure for the minorities. The Amendment has been accepted with gratitude by the Indian Christian community, for example, and it is thought that by giving the Governor-General the power of sending a message to the Legislature on any Bill, whether pending or not, we would include, in the scope of the Clause possible Private Members' legislation. It is, therefore, an extra security for the minorities and, as such, will, I hope, be acceptable to the House.

4.32 p.m.

Mr. MORGAN JONES

I am not sure that I apprehend fully the purpose of the Amendment but, if I understand it aright, I am not particularly enamoured of it. I gather that its purpose is to extend the power of the Governor-General and that, in the event of private legislation being proposed to the Legislature, it will be open to the Governor-General to intervene, if he thinks fit and even to interpose a sort of veto upon legislation of that type. If that should be the purpose of the Amendment I think it is going a little too far. We on these benches have already argued that the powers of the Governor-General are very sweeping in the matter of prospective or actual legislation and we must register our difference with the Government on the advisability of accepting an extension of those powers. I should mention that we also have an objection to the Lords Amendment which comes next on the Paper. I gather that it is proposed to take the two Amendments together.

Mr. SPEAKER

I did not say that I was going to take these two Amendments together. I only said that I should take two Amendments together where both dealt with exactly the same subject.

Mr. JONES

In that case I merely say to the Under-Secretary that I am very much opposed to any extension of the Governor-General's right to interfere with the powers of the Legislature. Even if a private Member's Bill passes through all its stages in the Legislature the Governor-General can still withhold his assent and I do not see the point of exercising this kind of paternal surveillance over the work of the Legislature at every stage of its progress. It would be fatal to the development of self-reliance on the part of the Legislature.

4.35 p.m.

Viscount WOLMER

I do not think that my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Morgan Jones) need worry about this Amendment. Of all the exiguous safeguards in the Bill, this appears to be one of the most exiguous. How my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary has the face to present it to the House of Commons as a new safeguard for the unfortunate Indian Christians, passes my comprehension. To what does it amount? Merely a permission to the Governor-General to send a message to the Legislature, at any stage in the passage of a Measure. If a Measure is unjust to any minority—to the scheduled classes, to the Indian Christians or to anybody else—I cannot believe that a message from the Governor-General will make the slightest difference to those who intend to pass such a Measure. The Governor-General will have had many opportunities of expressing his opinion in private to the promoters of a Measure and the mere fact of sending a public message will have little influence on their action. I agree that the power of the Governor-General to veto a Measure remains and that is the only safeguard which the minorities have in regard to such Measures. I cannot believe that the Indian Christians attach much importance to this proposal and therefore I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will not claim it as another safeguard.

4.37 p.m.

Mr. CHURCHILL

I do not disagree with my Noble Friend the Member for Aldershot (Viscount Wolmer) when he describes this Amendment, paraded as an additional safeguard, as a most attenuated and exiguous affair. On the other hand, I do not take the view that it is absolutely useless. I should be sorry if the Indian Christians or other minorities rested their hands with any weight upon this flimsy balustrade but we must take the best possible view of these matters and, so far as it goes, it is something in the nature of a guard rail. I am fortified in my lenient and even favourable view of this proposal by the opposition which has come from the Socialist benches. The hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Morgan Jones) who has indicated such strong objection to the Amendment is very much opposed to me upon this issue and I must be on my guard lest I should dismiss incontinently a proposal to which he takes such strong objection.

It seems to me that I have a natural association with His Majesty's Government upon this matter. There appears to me to be an advantage in the fact of the Governor-General having the power and the right to address messages frequently and freely to legislative bodies with whom he is supposed to be working in the utmost harmony and sympathy. It is surely better that they should be in possession of his views at an early stage than that after all the long processes of Parliamentary discussion have been concluded and weeks perhaps have been occupied and consumed upon some Measure, he should then be left with no alternative but to impose the arbitrary veto which is still reserved to him. It is far better that he should be able to give guidance to the Legislature, while these matters are still under consideration, when, perhaps, a collision between the absolute veto of the Viceroy and the action of the Parliament would be avoidable. I think it would be much better to try to bend the branch while it is still a twig.

Besides, what harm ever comes of frank discussion? I have never known evil to come from frank discussion and I thought indeed that that was the essence of our treatment of this great Indian question—that the Parliamentary process, that government by talking would have a beneficial and solvent effect upon many of the difficulties and perplexities of our Oriental Empire. I am in favour of this proposal as far as it goes. I am grateful to the Government for having accepted it and I am grateful to another place, which has once again shown its virtues as a revising Chamber, for having added this small contribution to the protection of minorities under the Bill. Small as the contribution is which the Government are now making, it will not be resisted at all by the Member who has now the honour of addressing the House. He will on the contrary do his utmost to secure the success of the Government's policy, at least in this respect.