COMMITTEE. (Hansard, 27 July 1894)

§ THE DUKE OF RUTLAND

My Lords, before this Motion is agreed to I wish to call your Lordships' attention to a statement which I understood was made by the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack yesterday evening. I understood the noble and learned Lord to say—perhaps I was wrong—that it was obvious your Lordships had no right to interfere with or to amend a Money Bill, inasmuch as a case had been decided in reference to the powers of a Second Chamber in one of the colonies. It strikes me that any Court of Law which should presume to lay down what are the privileges and what are not the privileges of your Lordships' House with regard to Money Bills would be incurring a very great responsibility, and a responsibility, as far as I know, never yet assumed by any Court of Justice in this Kingdom. I trust, therefore, that either I misunderstood the noble and learned Lord, or that his memory was not quite accurate in supposing that the privileges of your Lordships' House could be controlled or determined by the decision of any Court of Justice in this Kingdom.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord HERSCHELL)

My Lords, the decision or expression of opinion by the Privy Council to which the noble Duke has referred is not one which could bind anyone with reference to the rights, whatever they may be, of your Lordships' House, nor did it purport so to do. It was upon a point on which Her Majesty had to be advised by the Privy Council, and it became necessary to determine what, in the view of the Judicial Committee, in a case from one of the Australian Colonies, were the constitutional rights of the Upper Chamber in the colony. A question arose whether it was within the province of the Upper Chamber there to amend a Money Bill. 1110 That depended upon the opinion of the Judicial Committee as to whether it was within the constitutional right of this House to do so. Inasmuch as they came to the conclusion that the two Houses in the colony were in the same position as the two Houses here, it became absolutely necessary to form an opinion upon that point for the purpose of the decision. Their opinion was that it was not within the constitutional right of this House, and, therefore, not within the constitutional right of the Upper Chamber of the colony, to amend a Money Bill, the Upper Chamber, as I have said, being intended to bear the same relation to the Lower Chamber as the House of Lords does to the House of Commons. Of course, it was the province of the Privy Council to give an answer to the question by expressing that opinion; but that decision is not binding in any way upon this House, which is as free to act within its rights as before. I only cite the case as a conclusion come to after consideration by high judicial personages in a non-political matter. That was their decision; it may be right or it may be wrong; but whether right or wrong, it, of course, does not bind this House in the slightest degree.