MOTION FOR AN ADDRESS. (Hansard, 17 November 1884)

§ LORD WAVENEY
, in rising to move— That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the Prerogative be not interposed to prevent the substitution by Statute of a more suitable form for securing the presence of Irish and Scottish Peers in the House of Lords than is afforded by the existing modes of election, said, that this question dealt with the somewhat anomalous manner in which the ranks of their Lordships' House were recruited from the Scotch and Irish Peerages. He believed that it never could have been intended that one-half, or even more than one-half, of the Members of the Scotch and Irish Peerages should be incapable of entering into the service of the country to which they belonged because they might profess particular political opinions; but though there was a vast and considerable distinction between the two Peerages in many respects, they both had the special defect of representing one Party only, and not the genuine force of national thought. It never should be necessary, as frequently happened under the present system, that the Government of the day should find themselves called upon to summon Peers of undoubted position and merit to their Lordships' House. In his opinion, if an Irishman were worthy of a Peerage at all, he was worthy of being made a Peer of the United Kingdom. The circumstances of the present time, he thought, lent point and force to the consideration of the matter; and, looking at what had taken place in the country during the last three months, he thought something should be done. There had been a vast amount of exaggeration as to popular opinion against their Lordships' House; but he 1811 considered that such a moderate change should be made in its constitution as would seem calculated to bring it more into consonance with the present state of public sentiment. There could be no doubt that the elections under the present system resulted in favour of one particular Party; and, therefore, he would propose to substitute for the present system the system of summoning Irish and Scotch Peers as British Peers. He begged to move the Motion that stood in his name.

§ EARL CAIRNS
said, that the Motion of the noble Lord was not required, for in connection with Scotch Peerages no such Prerogative existed as the Motion implied. If the House should think fit to alter by Statute the existing law in regard to the election of Scottish Peers, the Prerogative could not be interposed. With regard to Irish Peers the case was rather different; for at the time of the Union a power was reserved to the Crown to fill up, in certain circumstances, vacancies among the Irish Peers in their Lordships' House. It would not, therefore, speaking generally, be regular to interfere by Statute with that power, without presenting an Address to the Crown praying for leave to do so. In 1875, however, an Address was presented to the Crown praying that the statutory power reserved to the Crown in connection with Irish Peers might not be allowed to stand in the way of any legislation on the subject of the election of such Peers to the House of Lords, and the prayer of that Address was granted.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR
said, he agreed with what had fallen from his noble and learned Friend (Earl Cairns). The subject was a very important one; and whenever a proposition was made to the House, submitting any convenient way of dealing either with the subject of the Scottish or Irish Representative Peers, it would, he had no doubt, receive that consideration and attention from their Lordships, which were justly its due. But to proceed by this method of Address was, it humbly appeared to him, 1812 for the reasons stated by the noble and learned Earl, quite unnecessary in the case of either the Scottish or Irish Peers.

§ LORD WAVENEY
thought the objections ought not to weigh against his Motion. However, he was willing to have the Motion negatived.

§ EARL CAIRNS
said, he considered that, instead of negativing the Motion, the House ought to adopt the Previous Question.