LORD INCHIQUINrose to call attention to the position of the Scotch and Irish Peerage; and to move— 1477
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying Her Majesty's consent to a Bill being introduced limiting the Prerogative of the Crown in so far as it relates to the creation of Irish Peerages, as provided by the Act of Union.The noble Lord said, that, considering how short a time he had had the honour of a seat in their Lordships' House, he should not be considered presumptuous in bringing the subject under their notice. He felt very strongly, and he believed there was a strong feeling entertained that these Peerages were in a most anomalous position—a position which to his mind was not only most unjust but most undesirable. That opinion was held by those Members of the House who were most interested in the question, and not only by Scotch and Irish Peers, but by a large number of persons in Scotland and Ireland; and he might go further and include a large number of persons in England. He might also refer to the voluminous correspondence in the public Press on the subject, to show the general interest taken in this question. He therefore felt himself justified as one of the Representative Peers of Ireland, in bringing the matter before their Lordships, and in endeavouring to get the injustice of which he complained removed. He did not approach this question from party motives—it was not, and could not in any way be regarded as a party question—it had been frequently brought before that House and the other House of Parliament. On the last occasion, the late Prime Minister said he considered it a matter of the utmost importance, but that it was a question which properly belonged to the Upper House to initiate and to consider. He (Lord Inchiquin) agreed with the opinion that as it was a question involving the constitution of their Lordships' House, it ought not to be initiated in the other House, and on that ground he had a fair claim to ask their Lordships to consider the Motion. In the year 1869, the noble Earl on the cross benches (Earl Grey) introduced a Bill on the subject. On the second reading, the noble Duke (the Duke of Richmond) moved an Amendment—That a Select Committee be appointed to consider the state of the Representative Peerage of Scotland and Ireland and the laws relating thereto.That Amendment was carried, and a 1478 Committee was appointed, but the Committee, if it ever met, certainly never made any Report. He, however, understood from some of the Members that it was the universal opinion that so far as the creation of Irish Peerages was concerned, it was desirable that it should cease. In the debate which then took place, the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack expressed his opinion that it was advisable that rather than take any legislative steps to alter the system, there should be an absorption of the Irish and Scotch Peerages into the Roll of the United Kingdom. That being the opinion of the noble and learned Lord, he was rather disappointed to find that no such scheme of absorption was then brought forward, and that he (Lord Inchiquin) was likely to have so little support in his present Motion, and was not to have the support of the noble and learned Lord. He also regretted to have to state that he had received an intimation that the Scottish Representative Peers, who had been most anxious that this question should be brought forward, did not wish it to be pressed now that they found the Government was opposed to the Motion; but he might say that generally the Peers of Scotland who had no seats in their Lordships' House entirely agreed with him. He, however, wished it to be understood that he was expressing his own opinions only on the Scottish Peerage, and did not claim to speak for those noble Lords. At the time when the noble Earl (Earl Grey) brought in his Bill in 1869, not only the noble Duke, but the noble Marquess the Secretary for India, expressed the opinion that there was not sufficient information before Parliament on the subject to justify legislation. If that was se, then he ventured to submit that it was advisable that the subject should be well ventilated, and the requisite information obtained for the public and for Parliament. He would first proceed to consider the case of Scotland. In 1707, when the Union between Scotland and this country was effected, the number of Scotch Peers, sitting in the Scotch Parliament, was 154, and that of Peers sitting in the English Parliament 166. It would have been unreasonable, and, indeed, quite impossible, to admit all those Scotch Peers to seats in the House of Lords; an arrangement was made, according to the terms of which 1479 Scotland was to be represented in that House by 16 Peers, who were to be chosen at the beginning of each Parliament. That number, which was supposed to have some relation to 45, the number of Scotch Members admitted at the same time to the House of Commons, was objected to by the Scotch Peers as too small, and to this moment they claimed to have it increased. Indeed, it was understood that the number would be indirectly increased by the admission of Scotch Peers into the English Peerage. Indeed, by the Scotch Act of Union, Scotch Peers became Peers of Great Britain, though without seats in the House of Lords. There was an important provision in accordance with which no further Scotch Peerages were created, and although Scotch Peerages usually descended to heirs general, the whole number of 154 which existed at the time of the Union had been by lapse of time reduced to 100. Prom this they had to deduct 45 as the number held by those who also held Peerages of the United Kingdom, 18 of which were dormant or in dispute, and 3 of which were held by ladies. Those deductions brought down the present number to 34, as compared with the 412 English Peers. When from the 34 they deducted the 16 Representative Peers, there remained 18 Scotch Peers who had no seats in that House. Considering that Scotland had been united to England for so many years, he thought it was only just and right that her representation in the House of Lords should be increased, just as, through the operation of constitutional changes, her representation in the House of Commons had been increased. Now, as to the case of Ireland. With regard to the Irish Peerage, he must remind their Lordships that the legislative union of Ireland with this country was brought about by gross corruption and bribery. He was not the advocate of a disruption of that Union—far from it; on the contrary, he thought the interests of Ireland were closely bound up with those of England, and that the closer the ties between the two countries were drawn the better for Ireland as well as for England. He alluded to that corruption and bribery to show that the Union was not of so sacred a character that it ought not to be improved where defective. In Ireland at the time of the Union there were 233 1480 Irish Peers; the number of English Peers was at that time 261. It was arranged by the Act of Union that the Irish Peerage should be represented in the Imperial Parliament by 32 Peers, of whom 28 were to be temporal Peers, chosen for life, and four were to be spiritual Peers, taken by rotation from the Bench of Bishops. Since the disestablishment of the Irish Church, in 1869, there had been, of course, no spiritual Peers from Ireland, and she was consequently short of the representation secured to her by the Act of Union by four seats. Had Ireland not at least a right to ask that those four vacant seats should be filled up by an equal number of temporal Peers? At the time of the Union, the Government of this country was very anxious that the power of creating Irish Peers should be continued to the Crown. The Irish House of Lords expressed itself so strongly against the proposition that at one time it was thought that the English Government would have to abandon the idea. The Cornwallis Correspondence showed how strong was the feeling of the Irish Peers on the subject, and at present he believed there was no difference of opinion among them on the point. They thought it was undesirable that the power of creating Irish Peerages should be continued. In one respect the Irish Peers were better off than the Scotch Peers; for those Peers of Ireland who were not Representative Peers, though they were unable to sit as Representatives in the House of Commons for any place in Ireland, were able to do so for any place in Scotland or Ireland who might elect them; whereas the Scotch Peers were disabled from sitting for any place either in Scotland, England, or Ireland. He thought that disability of the Irish Peers ought to be removed if the Irish Peerages were continued. From the 185 Irish Peers you had to deduct 80 who were Peers of the United Kingdom, and from the remaining 105, if you deducted the representative Peers, you had 77, who, with the 18 Scotch Peers, were without seats. This gave a total of 91 Peers who were unable to take any part in legislation—who were, in fact, disfranchised. In an article on the subject, published last year, the leading journal described the Irish Peers as neither fish, flesh, nor fowl. Now, was it desirable that this 1481 state of things should be continued? He thought not. There were several ways in which a remedy might be found. They might admit the whole of those 95 Peers to their Lordships' House; they might incorporate the Peerages of Scotland and Ireland with that of the United Kingdom; or they might increase the number of Representative Peers. This was no party question, and it did appear to him that the number of Peers was not so great that a considerable addition might not be made without any injury to the House; nor would it be impossible, if necessary, to add a few benches to those which already existed; the numbers of that House would still fall very far short of those in the other House of Parliament. But it might be said the addition he recommended would disturb the balance of parties in the House. No doubt, the opinions of a large proportion of the Peers of Scotland and Ireland were in unison with that (the Ministerial) side of the House; but, perhaps, the best chance of increasing the Liberal feeling was to admit them to seats in that House. With reference to the plan for absorption, some such plan as this might be adopted—ten Peers of Scotland and an equal number of the Peers of Ireland might be admitted to seats; five Scotch and five Irish Peers might be admitted to permanent seats every Parliament; and the election of Representative Peers should rest entirely with those who had not seats in that House. There was also another mitigation of the difficulty—that the Peers of Scotland and Ireland, during the process of absorption, should have the power of sitting in the other House of Parliament for any constituency in any of the Three Kingdoms which might elect them. A letter, signed "Jurist," which appeared in The Times not long ago, deserved attention on that subject. Put he was told by the noble Duke the President of the Council that his plan would be an interference with the Prerogative of the Crown. Now, he thought the present power of creating Irish Peers tended to lower the prestige of the order, and he could not conceive how it would be either for the interest of Her Majesty or her Successors to lower the position not only of the Peerage of Ireland, but of the Peerage generally. He was not an advocate for Home Rule, and was totally opposed to any separa- 1482 tion of Ireland from England in any way; he thought the connection between the two countries should be drawn as close as possible; but if Parliament refused to listen to a complaint which, after all, must be admitted to be a fair one—if the Government perpetually declined to take the matter into consideration, they would give the Home Rulers an argument in support of their doctrine which they would not otherwise have. On these grounds, he trusted the Government would find a way of dealing with the subject.
§ Moved that an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying Her Majesty's consent to a Bill being introduced limiting the prerogative of the Crown in so far as it relates to the creation of Irish Peerages, as provided by the Act of Union.—(The Lord Inchiquin.)
§ THE DUKE OF RICHMONDsaid, he could not agree with the noble Lord who had brought forward the Motion, that the acceptance or rejection of it had anything whatever to do with the question of Home Rule; and he must say that he regretted that the noble Lord should have imported the Home Rule question into a matter which seemed to his mind to have no connection with it. The noble Lord had in the course of his address made two allusions which he probably would not have made if he had had a seat in the House longer:—the noble Lord was probably not aware that he was somewhat out of Order in alluding in the pointed way that he had done to an article which had appeared in The Times newspaper. He (the Duke of Richmond) did not admit that any opinion could be formed or argument founded on articles published anonymously in a public journal. He must also protest against private conversations which had passed between his noble Friend and himself being imported into a speech made in that House—he thought considerable inconvenience would arise if that became a practice. He spoke to the noble Lord on the subject in private with great frankness, and did not know that he had a word to retract from what he had said; but he thought that communications of that kind should be considered privileged:—were it not so, noble Lords on both sides would be much more careful how they exchanged opinions on such subjects. He presumed that it was not necessary for him to go at any length into the various matters 1483 which had been touched upon by his noble Friend. He had no cause to find fault with the advocacy of his noble Friend; but he thought that upon further consideration he would find that the subject was surrounded by a great many difficulties, and that to deal with it in a manner which would give general satisfaction was not an easy matter. Taking everything into consideration, he could not see his way to sanctioning such a Motion as that before the House. The noble Lord must not forget that he was virtually asking Her Majesty to put a material limitation upon Her Prerogative, and to disturb a distinct arrangement come to at the Union of the two countries. As he understood, his noble Friend drew a comparison between the arrangement with regard to their respective Peerages made by the Act of Union, unfavourable with regard to Ireland. His noble Friend must not forgot that these arrangements were part and parcel of the condition upon which those Unions were effected, that they were sanctioned and carried out by those who were then in power, and that the differences and anomalies complained of were in accordance with the Articles of the Union between the three countries. His noble Friend should also remember that at the time of the Union with Ireland, the Union with Scotland was an existing arrangement, and that if it had appeared to the Irish Parliament that the latter was a desirable one, it was open to them to follow it. But they took a different course. He did not mean to say that those arrangements had proved as satisfactory as they might be—the great difficulty was how to deal with the matter, and remove what was complained of in a manner that would prove generally satisfactory. His noble Friend had made one statement to which he felt bound to make a protest. That statement was that the Committee on Irish Peerages in 1869 were almost unanimously of opinion that after a certain time the creation of Irish Peerages should cease. He should like to know where the noble Lord got that information. He happened to have been a Member of that Committee, and it was the first time that he had heard of such a thing. As he understood the noble Lord, his object was to pray Her Majesty to consent to the introduction of a Bill to limit the Prerogative of 1484 the Crown so far as it related to Irish Peerages—that was, to limit after the lapse of time the constituent body who elected the Irish Representative Peers to this House, and to improve and extend the system whereby Irish Peers would be enabled to sit in this House. He ventured to think that the number of Peers in the House was already very large. Since 1830 as many as 200 had been added to it, and he did not think it would be advisable to adopt a course which would have a tendency to extend the number. On the whole, he could not see that his noble Friend had made out any case on the strength of which the Crown should be asked to waive its present Prerogative, and he could not therefore support his proposition. But if the Motion were to be agreed to, and if a Bill was to be introduced to limit the Prerogative of the Crown in the manner proposed, and if an absorption of Peers was to follow, the change ought to be proposed on the responsibility of the Government of the day and not on that of a private individual.
§ THE EARL OF COURTOWNsaid, he was glad that the subject had been introduced, for he thought that there were few subjects that more needed the attention of Parliament, and he was also glad to hear what had been said by the noble Duke (the Duke of Richmond) because he was of opinion that it was a subject which could only be dealt with by the Government of the day. He did not agree with many of the suggestions that had been made with regard to absorption and other details, but these were matters which might be settled in a Select Committee; but he concurred in the general principle underlying the Motion, which was that the Peerages of Scotland and Ireland should be put on a par with those of England, and that the Representative Peerage should be done away with. The anomaly of Peers not being Members of this House had been spoken of; but there was another anomaly which had not yet been pointed out—that of having elected Peers in a House, the distinctive feature of which was supposed to be its hereditary character. At present the Scotch and Irish representation was elective, and that of England only elective. He thought steps ought to be taken to get rid of the representative element in this House. There could not be any objection to the 1485 18 or 20 Peers of Scotland being absorbed; but 77 additional Irish Peers would be too many for the House to absorb, and things must, therefore, be left as they were until the Irish Peerage should have been gradually reduced, in the absence of new creations, to a number which could be readily absorbed. The Irish House of Peers, at the time of the Union, reluctantly consented to the Crown having the power to create new Peerages; and, as Judge Christian had said, the existence of a separate Irish Peerage fostered the idea of separation from England. Prom the Cornwallis Correspondence it appeared that the Irish Peerage was defended as affording another step in the class of honours which might sometimes obviate the necessity of creating English Peerages. That looked a pretty theory; but the compromise which was agreed to vitiated it, because there was a Peerage limited to 100 between a Baronetage and Peerage of the United Kingdom both of which were unlimited. Perhaps his noble Friend's object would be sufficiently attained by having called attention to the subject, but he trusted that at no distant date the matter would be taken up by Her Majesty's Government.
LORD DUNSANYsaid, he thought the time had come for Parliamentary action on this subject. He thought it absurd to keep up an order of Peers which was quite anomalous, which had no raison d'être, which was obnoxious to the Irish Peers themselves, and which was of no utility whatever. It seemed to him a most anomalous provision of the Act, that a new Peer of Ireland must be created for every third vacancy—at present and prospectively for every vacancy when the number of Irish Peers was reduced to 100—indeed he was not sure that Her Majesty would not be obliged to create a man a Peer against his will. It might come to pass, as happened with William the Fourth's Knight's of the Guelphic Order, that the new Irish Peers would become objects of pity, or worse still be told that it only "served them right." It must be on some such principle that Irish Peers were created. The noble Duke (the Duke of Richmond) had spoken of the Union of Ireland as a contract; but it was no contract; it was a condition forced on the weaker party. If the Irish Peers could have 1486 exercised an option they would have refused. But even if there had been a contract, that argument might be good as long as the contract was observed; but it had been broken over and over again. It was broken when a great many Irish boroughs were disfranchised—it was broken when the Irish Church was disestablished—it was broken when the four Irish Spiritual Peers were excluded from the House. Therefore, the matter could not be put on the ground of contract. Could it be put on the ground that this particular body fulfilled any useful or practical purpose? Not at all. It might be said that it was a dignity for which particular persons might be anxious. He did not know enough of the genus homo to know that there was anyone too good to be a Commoner, and too bad to be a Peer of the Realm, but for whom the Irish Peerage was exactly fit. He hoped there was some better reason for maintaining a condition of things which was exceedingly obnoxious.
EARL GREYsaid, that whatever other change might be made in the Irish Peerage, at all events no addition ought to be made to the number. He agreed that a satisfactory amalgamation of the Peerages of the Three Kingdoms was very desirable, if it were practicable; but it was not possible. If so, then it was desirable, as far as possible, to approach a better state of things, and to that end the first thing was to suspend the creation of Irish Peers. That the Crown should create one Peer whenever three Peerages became extinct was entirely owing to the desire of the Government of the day not to give up a useful means of influence, and the noble Lord who had just spoken was right when he said that it was entirely contrary to the wish of the Irish Peers. If, then, it was desirable to avoid increasing the number of Irish Peers not having seats in this House, was there any ground for objecting to the present Motion, which was intended to prevent it? It seemed to him a proper and constitutional mode of proceeding. The noble Lord had not asked their Lordships to interfere with the Prerogative of the Crown, but that an Address should be presented to Her Majesty praying that She would consent to the introduction of a Bill by which Parliament should be authorized to make a deduction from that Prerogative. 1487 Having listened very attentively to the speech of the noble Duke (the Duke of Richmond), he must forgive him for saying that it only showed the extreme difficulty his noble Friend had been in to find any ground for asking the House to reject this Motion. His noble Friend must have been very hard pressed for an argument when he had recourse to that utterly exhausted one of a breach of the Act of Union—an argument which, in the case both of Ireland and Scotland, had been answered over and over again; so that he did not think there was a Member of their Lordships' House who would now attach any weight to it. It was said there was a difference between this and 1869, because so many Peers had been added to the House. But that rendered the course recommended by the noble Lord (Lord Inchiquin) more desirable than ever, as this increase made it still more objectionable that new Irish Peerages should be created hereafter.
§ EARL GRANVILLEregretted that the noble Duke (the Lord President) should have thought it his duty to make so curt and unsatisfactory a reply to the noble Lord who had introduced the subject; and he thought he had been too severe upon him upon one or two points. He believed it was against the Order of the House to read newspapers in the House; but he was not aware of any Rule against quoting a newspaper—and he was the more likely to be correct on that point, because he remembered that for four or five years the Lord President made a practice of quoting on the first day of the Session a great many disagreeable passages from newspapers against the late Government. No doubt the noble Duke was right in saying that this was a matter which should be dealt with not by a private Member, but by the Government of the day, and if his noble Friend had followed up that remark by saying that Her Majesty's Government were about to take the matter in hand, he felt confident his noble Friend behind him (the Earl of Rosebery) who had also a Motion on the Paper on the subject would be only too glad to leave the question in the hands of the Government. It was most natural for a Member of the Irish Peerage to introduce this subject; for when it was brought forward by the noble Earl on the cross-benches (Earl Grey) some 1488 years ago, one of the great arguments adduced against the proposal was—"What is the use of stirring up this matter, as no complaints have been made by the Irish and Scotch Peers!" That complaint could not any longer be put forward as a reason why the subject should not be taken into consideration. At all events, he thought it would be convenient if before the question was put, the noble Duke would give some intimation to the House as to the manner in which the Government proposed to deal with the Motion of his noble Friend behind him (the Earl of Rosebery).
§ LORD REDESDALEhoped that after the discussion that had taken place the noble Lord (Lord Inchiquin) would consent to withdraw his Motion. There was not a Peer in the House who did not concur in the conclusions at which the noble Lord had arrived, but any action in the matter ought to be taken by the Crown and not by the House. After the expression of opinion which had been made on the present occasion, and which was so favourable to the object the noble Lord had in view, he hoped he would not press his Motion to a division. It was a remarkable fact that the first Irish Peer created after the Union was Lord Rendlesham, whose representative now sat in the other House, and neither he nor his family owned an acre of land in Ireland, nor did his predecessor who took his title from his place in Suffolk.
§ THE DUKE OF RICHMONDsaid, he would not enter into a discussion with the noble Earl opposite (Earl Granville) about the point of Order. With regard to the next Motion on the Paper, the Government did not see that much was to be gained by the inquiry which the noble Earl (the Earl of Rosebery) asked for; although if the House should be of opinion that the subject should be investigated he did not intend to oppose the appointment of a Select Committee.
§ EARL GRANVILLEsaid, as that was so, he would join in the appeal made by the noble Lord at the Table (Lord Redesdale) and urge the noble Lord opposite to withdraw his Motion.
§ Motion (by leave of the House) withdrawn.