MOTION FOR A SELECT COMMITTEE. (Hansard, 11 June 1888)

THE EARL OF MILLTOWN

, in rising to move— That a Select Committee be appointed to consider the Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons, appointed 'to consider the Sessional Order with reference to the intervention of Peers and Prelates in Parliamentary elections,' said, that at the beginning of last Session the junior Member for Northamp- 1655 ton (Mr. Bradlaugh) moved that the usual Sessional Order passed annually by the House of Commons with regard to the interference of Peers at elections should be discontinued, on the ground that it was never enforced, and was therefore useless. That Motion was not agreed to; but the matter was referred to a Select Committee, presided over by the Postmaster General. In their Report the Committee stated— That the Sessional Order appears to be a declaration by the House of Commons of its privileges, as well as of what, in the opinion of the House, is the Common Law of the land; that such declaration was first made in 1641, and since 1700 has been renewed annually in almost identical terms; that, so far as can be ascertained, this declaration of the Common Law has never been controverted by the House of Lords or any judicial tribunal; that it has been recognized by the Courts as a declaration of the law; and that, although a rescission of the order would not alter the Common Law, it would be calculated to give rise to an idea that the law had been incorrectly stated, or had become obsolete. The Committee therefore recommend that the Sessional Order be continued. He feared that if their Lordships kept silent after the publication of this Report they would be held to accept the conclusions arrived at by the Committee. This, in his opinion, they ought not to do, because the conclusions were not only not in accordance with the evidence that was given, but in direct conflict with it. The Sessional Order of the House of Commons declared that it was an infringement of the liberties of that House for a Peer to concern himself in the election of a Member, and this the Report stated to be a declaration of the Common Law, and so recognized by the Courts. To those statements he demurred. He did not deny that for a Peer to vote had been declared to be illegal, but he absolutely denied that for a Peer to "concern" himself in an election had been so declared. To this word "concern" he took great exception, because its significance was so very wide. In the present day it behoved the Peers to take care to retain any rights and privileges connected with Parliamentary Elections which they might possess. The House of Commons had never been backward in arrogating rights to itself. It had arrogated to itself the sole right to tax the nation, and the sole right to make and unmake Ministries; and not a year passed but it solemnly, and without 1656 reprimand from the Speaker, debated the question whether their Lordships' House should or should not continue to exist as a part of the Constitution, a question which he took the liberty of telling them that they had no more right to discuss than that of the existence of the Monarchy. This being the attitude of the House of Commons, they ought not to part lightly with any of the rights which were left to them. If the Commons Sessional Order was a declaration of the Common Law, it must be consistent with immemorial custom; but it was not so. Ever since we had had any history of Parliament it abounded in instances of the interference of Peers at elections. And the interferences were not such as might have occurred at modern elections, but they were interferences vi et armis, Peers being attended by soldiers and retainers, and interfering in a forcible way with the elections. Up to 1586 disputed elections to the House of Commons were tried not by the Commons, but by the King, the Chancellor, or the House of Lords, and for 100 years afterwards the practice was not settled as to who was or who was not the proper authority to try them; nor was it till the Revolution that it was finally conceded by their Lordships' House that the House of Commons had the exclusive right to settle their own disputed elections. It would be allowed that this was a tolerable amount of interference with the elections to the other House. But there was a stronger custom still. It was customary for the return to the Writs to be signed not by a Sheriff, but by the great Lords, or by their attorneys in their names. Many examples of such return will be found in Prynne's Parliamentary Writs. What was more remarkable was that if this interference of Peers was inconsistent with the Common Law, there was no instance of any Peer having suffered on account of the practice, nor was there any record of its having been declared illegal by a Court of Law. If it was not contrary to the Common Law, was it contrary to Statute Law? The only Statute bearing upon the question was 3 Edward I., c. 5, which was directed against interference by force of arms or menace with freedom of election; and which is to this effect—"The King commandeth upon great forfeiture that no 1657 nobleman or other (nul haut homme n'autre) by force of arms, or malice, or menacing, shall disturb any to make free election." And by no process of reasoning could it be made to apply specifically to Peers alone. No Statute could be cited that had any bearing upon the question of the legitimate interference of Peers at Parliamentary Elections. As to the instances of a Sessional Order of similar character on which the Committee founded their Report, the first occurred by the Long Parliament, in 1641, and it could hardly be cited as a Constitutional precedent. And the Resolution passed was not the least in point, because it was directed against the practice of Peers sending letters to the constituencies to nominate Members, not merely to recommend them. Froude gave an instance of what these letters were, and it is not to be wondered at that the Commons protested against such a practice; its existence, however, proves the custom of the Peers to interfere most seriously at elections. The only case in which the House of Commons succeeded in inflicting a certain amount of injury was the case of the Bishop of Worcester and Mr. Lloyd, his son, who was not a Peer. Sir John Packington complained, among other things, that the Bishop solicited his clergy to vote against him; and the Resolution which was passed by the House of Commons was to the following effect:— That it appears to this House that the conduct of the Bishop of Worcester and his son, in order to the hindering of the election of a Member for the County of Worcester, was malicious, un-Christian, and arbitrary, and was a high violation of the liberties and privileges of the Commons of England. There was nothing in the Resolution referring to improper interference by the Bishop as a Peer. A Petition was presented to Queen Anne, asking that the Bishop might be dismissed; and the Queen, having expressed her sorrow at what had happened, ordered that the Bishop should no longer hold the office of Almoner. The House of Commons thus succeeded in depriving the Bishop of a certain portion of his income. The charge against the Bishop, however, was not that he had acted improperly as a Peer. The noble Earl, having referred to other cases mentioned in the Report, in which Peers were charged with interfering at elections, but where no action 1658 was taken in consequence, although the interference was proved, quoted the opinions of Lord Brougham, Lord Campbell, and Sir Robert Peel upon the subject. The noble Earl, having also quoted the opinions expressed in 1813 in connection with the Stamford election Petition by Mr. Page Wood, Mr. Joseph Hume, and Lord John Russell, in favour of the just and legitimate influence which Peers might fairly exercise, went on to remark that it was now for their Lordships to decide what action they should take on that subject. For himself, he had come to the conviction that their duty was clear. He thought it was their duty to take up the challenge which had been thrown down by the House of Commons, and to ascertain by a strict examination what their rights were. If the contention of the House of Commons was correct, and if their Lordships were to take no part whatever in the political contests which were surging on all sides around them, and on the result of which the fate of this country and of the Empire depended—if they were bound to look on, as it were, with the serene indifference with which from their Olympian heights the gods of Epicurus gazed on the struggles and misfortunes of mankind, without having any influence whatever upon their issue, then they would bow to the inevitable, and submit with what grace they could to their singular destiny. But if, as he thought, they could show that that arrogant assumption of the Lower House was a vain and foolish thing, fondly imagined, warranted by no just principle, sanctified by no precedent, encouraged by no law, then their Lordships could, with a clear conscience and a firm hand, inscribe on their Journals their confident and earnest repudiation of so audacious a claim. The noble Earl concluded by making the Motion standing in his name. Moved, "That a Select Committee be appointed to consider the Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons appointed To consider the Sessional Order with reference to the intervention of Peers and Prelates in Parliamentary Elections' which has been communicated to this House."—(The Earl of Milltown.)