COMMITTEE. (Hansard, 20 July 1893)

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord HERSCHELL)

My Lords, in accordance with the undertaking I gave on the last occasion when this Bill was before the House, I have considered the question whether it is within the power of the House to originate such a Bill. There are precedents which appear to me to be almost directly in point. In 1846 a Bill was passed by the House for the abolition of deodands, which only affected Revenue in this way—that the Crown was possessed of the right to certain deodands which would be abolished if the Bill had passed into law. That Bill was passed by this House, and was set aside by the House of Commons on the ground of Breach of Privilege. In the same year, on a Bill relating to waste lands in Australia, it was laid down by the Speaker that with regard to that part of the Crown property the proceeds of which were carried to the Consolidated Fund by the Civil List Act, the Lords could not originate any Bill, or alter any Bill passed by the House of Commons, relating thereto. That, of course, would have interfered with the hereditary Revenues of the Crown, just as this Bill would do. The same view had been taken practically in your Lordships' House, because, a few years ago, the House acquiesced in the omission from a Bill relating to Colonial 62 Ports of a clause dealing with Crown Revenues on the ground of Privilege. It appears, therefore, that the Bill before the House comes under the class that has been declared and admitted to be within the Privilege of the House of Commons; and that, therefore, it is one which it is not competent for the House to pass.

§ * LORD ASHBOURNE

said, he was sure their Lordships had the highest confidence in the opinion of the Lord Chancellor upon such a subject. This case seemed to go rather further than any before decided. He had looked at the Report of the Committee of the House of Commons in 1860—an exceedingly strong Committee, on which sat Lord Palmerston, Mr. Disraeli, Colonel Wilson-Patten, Sir Hugh Cairns, and others—which went into the matter very fully, and dealt with the Deodands Bill which was laid aside by the House of Commons. He had also looked at Sir Erskine May's and Todd's books, where the topic was dealt with, and he was not at all prepared to offer any advice differing from the opinion of the Lord Chancellor, though he thought there was a good deal to be said on both sides. The Bill before the House was not intended to make any charge or tax, and it was only in a very roundabout way that a charge could conceivably be put on any public fund. The Bill was an explanatory and declaratory rather than an enacting measure; and he suggested that it should be withdrawn and another, slightly modified in its terms, introduced. Perhaps his noble and learned Friend (Lord Morris), who had presented the Bill, would consent, as it was merely a question of alteration in form, to discharge the Order for the present Bill with that object.