§ The Lord Privy Seal (Mr. Attlee)Mr. Speaker, since we met yesterday the hand of death has suddenly and unexpectedly removed from our midst one who only this week was taking a prominent part in our proceedings, a man who had, I think, the respect of every Member and the affection of all those who knew him well. In Mr. Lees-Smith we have lost a colleague whom we could ill spare in these difficult and dangerous times. He brought to the service of this House and of his country many fine qualities of heart and mind. His kindliness, unselfishness, tolerance and sense of humour endeared him to his colleagues. He gave many years of devoted service to the causes in which he believed. For 40 years, first at Ruskin College, Oxford, and then at the London School of Economics, he taught generations of students the principles of democratic government. For the greater part of 30 years he practised those principles in Parliament. He was a great lover of this House and was deeply versed in its history and procedure. Few men better understood, not merely the forms, but the living tradition and spirit of the greatest democratic Assembly in the world. Many members of the Labour party will recall with gratitude the help which he gave them so freely when they were new Members.
While he was a specialist on constitutional subjects, the range of his knowledge and interests was very wide. He held office as Postmaster-General and as President of the Board of Education. He served on the Indian Round Table Conference and on many committees. He was a keen and informed student on military problems. To every task he brought diligence, knowledge, quick intelligence, and a power of clear and lucid exposition. Ever since the formation of this Government he had been acting as Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour party, an exacting task which he performed with tact and judgment. He was constant in his attendance on these benches and was often the spokesman of the unofficial Members in their relation- 2271 ship with the Government, and in fact carried out with general good will duties essential to the functioning of our Parliamentary system which are usually performed by the Leader of the Opposition. This was indeed an example of that power of adaptability displayed by a trained democracy which was so dear to the heart of our late colleague. He has been taken from us in the fullness of his powers. We mourn his loss. The House will, I know, wish to join with me in expressing our deep sympathy with his widow and family in their bereavement.
§ Earl Winterton (Horsham and Worthing)The Patronage Secretary has been good enough to suggest—and I am very grateful for the suggestion—that I should say a word in support of what the right hon. Gentleman the Lord Privy Seal has just said, and I desire to express the sense of deep personal loss and grief, for my right hon. Friend was a very dear personal friend of mine. On public grounds, I deplore his death, for he was the type of man needed to keep the lustre of this ancient Assembly burnished brightly. He joined great ability and personal charm to the highest sense of duty and honour. It is a sad and sombre thought for those of us who have been almost a lifetime in this House to realise that the multitude of those who have once been one's fellow Members, many of them men with whom one was on terms of Christian-name intimacy, and have passed away, would fill the Benches of this House twice over. May they, political foes and friends alike, be resting in peace, and may we, their successors, in these years of peril for our country, be worthy to carry on the great traditions of this Commons House of Parliament.
§ Sir Percy Harris (Bethnal Green, South-West)May I, on behalf of my hon. Friends and as a very old friend of the late Mr. Lees-Smith, add a few words of tribute to his memory? The news last night came to me as a great shock, as I believe it came to all Members of this House. Only last Tuesday I had a friendly talk with him, and it was typical of many talks I have had with him in the years gone by. He was a most lovable man, a real friend and a wise counsellor. I have known him perhaps longer than most Members of this House. I remember that during the last war, 2272 when it was not the practice for Members to join in the ranks, he joined up as a private without any fuss or any talk, largely inspired by a sense of duty. That really has been the inspiration of all his work in this House. When there was a change in the constitution of the Government in the middle of the war, he had to take on new and most difficult work without precedent, but he discharged it with so much skill, tact and wisdom that he soon won the confidence of all Members of this House, and any criticism which might have been made rapidly disappeared. I also remember him as a very fine President of the Board of Education. If he had any particular hobby, education was his particular interest. In the short time that he was President of the Board he showed great promise and wisdom, and for years after he gave us the advantage of wise speeches on the whole problem of education. We shall miss him, and we would like to convey to his wife and sons our sympathy in this sudden loss of a good House of Commons man and a great Parliamentarian.
§ Mr. Hore-Belisha (Devonport)I and my hon. Friends on these Benches would like to be associated with what has been so appositely said and, still more, with what is so universally felt on this occasion. Mr. Lees-Smith served Parliament with great public spirit. He performed a difficult—one would have thought originally an impossible—task with exceptional devotion. In all our relationships, both public and private, both in peace and in war, he was loyal, considerate, industrious and efficient. We shall long see him in our mind's eye rising from that place. May his family be consoled.
§ Mr. Pethick-Lawrence (Edinburgh, East)I should like to add just a few words to the tributes which have been paid from all sections of the House. I was a very dear friend of Mr. Lees-Smith, who, only a few days ago, was with us, helping us with his wise counsel and who now, in this very sudden way, has been taken from our midst. I think that perhaps the most outstanding characteristic of Mr. Lees-Smith was his great modesty and his high single-mindedness. I, in the course of a long and intimate association with him, do not remember a single time, either in private or in public, when he has ever talked at all of his own personal 2273 position; his sole concern has been for the public good. I was one of those to whom the Lord Privy Seal referred when he said that many of my party have sat at his feet to learn the procedure of this House, and I can certainly say that Mr. Lees-Smith's knowledge of procedure was unique. Of the very difficult Rules, and the application of them, with which we are familiar he had a wide knowledge, and that knowledge was only a part of the knowledge he had of a very great variety of matters. We had the value of his wise counsel in our private and public affairs, and it is with the deepest regret that I feel his loss—the loss of him as a man and friend and as a wise counsellor to whom we had looked to guide us through these very difficult, and other, years.