§ On the Motion for the First Reading of the Appropriation Bill,
§
THE PRIME MINISTER (The Marquess of SALISBURY) rose and said; My Lords, this is probably the last
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time I shall have an opportunity of addressing the House of Lords in the present Parliament, and I do not like to allow the opportunity to pass by without making some observations with respect to a speech regarding the House of Lords which has been made by the late Leader of the House, not in the House of Lords, but in another place. We are informed by the usual channels of information that Lord Rosebery thus indicated to his Party the objects they were to pursue in the coming electoral campaign, and the grounds on which that enterprise was to be undertaken:—
If you carry the annihilation of the House of Lords as regards the legislative preponderance which keeps our Party in manacles you will have gone, not half, but three-quarters of the way to carrying your other reforms.
Now, my Lords, in the first place I should wish to know what meaning the noble Lord attaches to the words "legislative preponderance," in regard to which he seeks the annihilation of the House to which he belongs? Legislative preponderance! This House, by custom, takes no share whatever in the votes by which Governments are displaced or inaugurated, and it takes no share whatever in that which is the most important part of the annual, constant business of every legislative body—namely, the provision of funds by which the public service is to be carried on and the determination of the manner in which these services are to be carried on. In regard to these matters it takes no part whatever. In regard to all other matters it has precisely the same legislative power, neither more nor less, than that possessed by the House of Commons. By what possible process of political arithmetic can the possession of that power be called legislative preponderance? Possessing no power practically in respect to half of the most important matters, and possessing equal power with the House of Commons in respect to the other half, the application of the words "legislative preponderance" seems to me an absurd and flagrant fallacy. I would further ask, What is the conduct of the House of Lords which leads the noble Lord to speak of it as placing his Party in manacles, and which has induced him to come forward with a proposal which has never, for at least 200
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years, been heard of within the walls of Parliament? ["Hear, hear!"] What have we done during the noble Lord's tenure of office that can be accurately described as placing his Party in manacles? ["Hear, hear!"] We have thrown out the Evicted Tenants Bill, which was admitted by those who passed it through the other House to be unmanageable and absurd, and only to be adopted by the acceptance of certain reforms which were not put into it; and it failed to pass without any lamentation, so far as I could see, from any section of the country. Indeed, I believe the opinion is generally entertained throughout the country that any such measure, if passed in the form in which it was presented to us, would have made the continuous management of landed property in Ireland impossible. ["Hear, hear!"] But, my Lords, I have no penitence to express on account of that vote, and I concur with the noble Lord that, if his future career is to be marked by the introduction of Bills of this character, he will find that, so long as the present House of Lords exists, they will always meet with the strongest resistance in this Chamber. [Cheers.] The other faults which we are said to have committed are of a somewhat small character; they have been principally concerned with the administration of educational endowments. In the votes we have given upon that subject we have been guided by two great principles. One is the principle that endowments should be preserved for those for whom they were originally intended. [Cheers.] That is a principle to which I believe we shall always adhere, and which we are fully determined to adhere to in respect of the great institutions of the country, unless, of course, we are overruled by that power to which we always bow—namely, the clear and deliberate opinion of the nation. ["Hear, hear!"] The other principle we have defended in our votes is the supreme value of religious education—["Hear, hear!"]—the value of religious education given according to the religion which the parents themselves profess, in its completeness as it is professed by them, not a form of religion mutilated by the State for the purposes of a measure that was being passed. To that principle, again, I
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believe this House deliberately adheres; it values it and it will do all in its power to promote the giving of religious education in pursuance of the inalienable right of a parent to decide the religion in which his child shall be educated. The matters before us were small ones, but they were small illustrations of great principles—the principle that the parent's religion is not to be altered for State purposes by the State, and that, as far as material circumstances will permit, every parent ought to have his own religion taught to his own child. That is a broad principle, limited, indeed, by physical circumstances, limited by the difficulties which attach to all organisations of the kind, but a broad principle which has its deep roots in the convictions of men of all religions, and which certainly is not less strong in this House than elsewhere, and which, I believe, will always find in this House, and in the Party to which we belong, a steady and eager and confident support. ["Hear, hear!"] My Lords, these are small things, and I do not think these are the matters that put the noble Earl in manacles. Our real crime is that we have thrown out the Home Rule Bill. [Loud Ministerial cheers.] That, however it may be concealed by extraneous considerations ingeniously piled upon it—that is the question which is really being referred to the country; that is the question upon which the contending Parties are now taking the vote of the electorate; and when you tell us that the House of Lords has placed the Radical Party in manacles in this respect, what would they have done if the manacles had been removed? What would now be the state of the law if there had been no House of Lords to interpose its veto? There would now have been a House of Commons of which 80 Members would have been elected by constituents who had no interest in the matters upon which they were going to pronounce, and who would have been practically a bodyguard of the Radical Ministry of the day. [Ministerial cheers.] This would have been an irrevocable act, because the very contrivance that had falsified and vitiated the construction of the House of Commons in order to serve the purposes of a Party would have prevented the passing of any new measure by which the great abuse that had been sanctioned
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could have been repaired. It would been an irrevocable act which nothing but revolutionary violence could have destroyed. It is from this that the country has been saved by the manacles that the House of Lords has imposed on the Radical Party. If they complain of manacles, my reply is that as soon as they take their seats clothed and in their right minds they will not find the manacles embarrassing. But the noble Earl, in his speech at the Eighty Club, insisted strongly on the consideration that it was only by the annihilation of the House of Lords that the series of what he called reforms would be passed.
THE EARL OF ROSEBERYWill the noble Marquess kindly quote the words? I did not say the annihilation of the House of Lords.
§ THE PRIME MINISTER"The annihilation of the House of Lords as regards its legislative preponderance." I have quoted it before, and there is no doubt in the mind of the House as to what was said. The annihilation of the House of Lords as regards its legislative preponderance is the only manner by which the reforms desired by the Radical Party can be passed. Well, I think that is a very important and valuable circumstance to remember; that, until the will of the nation has been expressed, until we know what it is the nation desires, it is quite true that these "reforms" cannot be passed so long as the House of Lords has not been legislatively annihilated. But I wish to point out that this truth has an obverse side—namely, that if you take away the legislative power of the House of Lords, which the noble Earl in his quaint language calls preponderance, you will give a legislative autocracy to the House of Commons. [Cheers.] The House of Commons will be absolutely powerful by any majority, however small, at any notice, however short, to pass any measures which it pleases dealing any blow at any of the institutions of the country. No other country, I believe, is in that position. All other countries have constitutions which cannot be altered except according to a prescribed form by which special majorities are required, and—what is much more important—by which the particular change that is intended is submitted to the nation before it is accepted. That cannot take place under 267 our constitutional machinery as it exists. You cannot say of any Parliament with absolute certainty that it has been elected for the passing of a particular Bill. There is a greater or less approach to that certainty, but the entire certainty never can be obtained. As a general rule an election represents the result of a great number of combining forces; the chance popularity or unpopularity of individual Statesmen, the desire for some particular measure affecting local interests in one part of the country or another, and sundry other disturbing causes of that kind, which, speaking generally, have the result that an election is not an expression of the ascertained and definite public wish in favour of a constitutional change such as is obtained in all other countries where fixed constitutions exist. Now, of course, that involves that every great change may be passed by the very smallest majority without the real sanction of the people of this country, and it may well be that the change is of a character which, once it has been passed, cannot be repaired, that destruction when once it has taken place cannot be effaced, that the steps which have been taken cannot be retraced. My Lords, the only conditions under which great and certain changes in the institutions of the country can be passed in safety and without damage to its prosperity or its future progress is that the changes shall have been accepted by a large majority of the country. [Cheers.] In a letter recently published which has appeared in the papers, Mr. Gladstone claimed for the Party with which he is connected that it has had the honour of passing all of what he calls the great reforms of the century. The noble Duke who sits below me pointed out last night how much fallacy there is in this claim; but if you will consider it from another point of view, you will see that that part of those reforms which has succeeded best, succeeded precisely because they were accepted by the vast majority of the country. ["Hear, hear!"] I will not speak of other matters, but undoubtedly the greatest change that has taken place in the last 70 years is the change connected with the electoral suffrage, and both the measures—I should say the three measures—by which that work was done, the Bill of 1832, the Bill of 1867, 268 and the Bill of 1884, were all accepted at the time by the great majority of the country. ["Hear, hear!"] There were many who differed from them, and I am not now going to examine into their historical merits; but I desire to point attention to the fact that this great revolution, such as it has been, has taken place because it was not passed by a snatch majority, but by so large a consensus as to justify you in saying that the whole nation took part in the change. [Cheers.] Now, my Lords, we have been working to resist changes of the most far-reaching character, which, whatever else is true of them, have not had the majority of the nation at their back. We know that with respect to this island Home Rule has not had a majority of the nation at its back [Cheers]; and we can tell from the divisions that have taken place in the House of Commons, that the recent attack on the Established Church has not had the vast majority of the nation at its back [Cheeks], and I believe there can be little doubt that the same thing is true of Scotland. The Party of which the noble Earl opposite is the head offers us a long vista of such reforms. We are to have Home Rule for Ireland, and since this year began we have had the Government adhering to Home Rule for Scotland, and also Home Rule, I believe, for Wales. I do not know how much farther Home Rule will go; but you may be certain that each one of these measures of Home Rule, if they are carried—a contingency which I hold to be most unlikely—if they are carried, they can only be carried after the most vehement contest and after the bitterest passions have been aroused; and when they are carried they will leave behind them divisions and the desire to reconquer the country that has been lost, which will doom this country to useless and sterile conflicts for many generations to come. ["Hear, hear!"] It is the same thing when you talk of disestablishing and disendowing the Church in Wales or the Church of Scotland, and what will, of course, come afterwards, the Church of England. Whatever the issue of that battle may be, it will be a battle that will be long fought, and while it is being fought no effective legislative work can be done. It will set all the various classes in this country against 269 each other, and create the utmost bitterness between them, and it will not leave peace behind, because it will leave the constant desire to reverse the defeat that has been sustained. ["Hear, hear!"] Then there is a long vista of other measures, interferences with property, interferences with liberty, as in the case of the Local Veto Bill, and so forth. They are all of them open to the same observation, and what I wish to note as the point of parting between the policy of the Party opposite and our own is that, in our judgment, these measures, which threaten old institutions, which attack on a vast scale established rights, and which set vast masses of the population of this country one against the other—that these measures are no longer called for by the circumstances of the time, but that, on the contrary, the greatest possible injury is certain to follow on them. ["Hear, hear!"] I will admit that such a measure as the great Reform Bill it was necessary to pass by the consideration of the terrible animosities that were created; but nobody can deny how much time has been occupied, how much of the energy of Parliament has been dissipated, in the kind of muffled civil war in which we have lived for more than a generation. In our belief the time for such things has passed away. There is a time for all things, and we do not believe it is by this exaggerated and exasperating civil conflict that the progress of the nation can now be best assured. ["Hear, hear!"] Whether you like to call it evolution or the progress of the country, I do not think it is destined to continue on a road of perpetual conflict so severe that it falls little short of civil war. On the contrary, I believe there are problems before us to which the Government and Parliament ought to address themselves, problems full of difficulty, but also full of the promise of the reward which attends the restoration of prosperity and the decrease of suffering among the poorer classes of the population. I will not now examine into the causes of it, but everybody confesses the lamentable condition into which the great industry of agriculture has fallen. I do not profess to have a panacea for it. I do not conceal from myself how much it has come from natural causes, how much from economic causes which for the 270 present are outside our grasp, but I believe it deserves more than any other subject the deep attention of Parliament ["Hear, hear!"], and that there are many directions in which relief from Parliament may very likely be obtained. The present system of taxation is almost universally admitted to be in an anomalous condition and to press hardly on agriculture; and this is not the time in which that excessive pressure ought to be permitted to continue, so far as it can be prevented. There are many other matters, such as the legislation which concerns agricultural holdings, such as the legislation which concerns the carriage of agricultural products by railways, and such as the measure creating small holdings which was passed four or five years ago. The principles I have adverted to may contain much valuable matter for the purpose of relieving agricultural distress, though we do not flatter ourselves that the whole or even part of that distress is within our power to cure. There are other matters which it appears to me that Parliament would do more good by devoting its attention to than by uprooting ancient institutions or by "filling up the cup" of legislative assemblies. There is the great phenomenon of our time, the great increase in the powers of locomotion, which has, together with other causes, drawn vast populations to our great cities, who are terribly subject to all the vicissitudes which change of fashion or change in trade may bring upon them. These things are worthy of the most careful study, and I do not believe that it is outside the power of Parliament in many respects to bring relief to them, though, again, I do not pretend that we have any panacea by which the action of great economic laws can be destroyed or withstood. But there is very much to be done in alleviating the condition of those who, by no fault of their own, are cast into misery in these great vicissitudes of trade. There is much to be done in revising the operation of the Poor Law, which no longer corresponds to the state of things which now exists, and which does not recognise the vast changes that have occurred since it was enacted some 60 years ago. There is much to be done in trying to increase the generality of possession by working men of their own dwellings, which, of course, can only be 271 a slow process, and can only be a partial process; but so far as it can be carried out, wherever you can make a large working population the freeholders of their own houses and the possessors even of some other property besides, you add a powerful bulwark to the institutions of the country and place our prosperity and tranquillity on a foundation from which it cannot be removed. My Lords, I feel that the House of Lords deserves the thanks of the country for its recent action, if only for this reason—that it has helped to clear the field of the sterile and angry conflicts which had become a bad habit with some of our legislators, and has invited us to the more remunerative industry of considering and promoting the social amelioration of the people. [Cheers.] Our policy is a negative policy so far as it refuses to enter into these ambitious programmes or further these revolutionary changes; but it is not a negative, but a very positive policy in that it pledges us to do the utmost that our powers enable us to do in order to mitigate the misery which attends the vicissitudes of this changeful time and to lessen the sorrows that attend the lot of so many millions of our fellow-creatures. [Cheers.]
THE EARL OF ROSEBERYMy Lords, it was with a sense of gratified surprise that I read in the ordinary organs of the Press this morning an intimation that the noble Marquess was going to make a declaration in the House of Lords on the Appropriation Bill which would be of general interest to your Lordships and more especially to myself. I do not deny that I was a little chagrined by the compliment, because I had hoped to remain in the country today; but I did not hesitate for a moment to hurry up to town, because I thought that this was an opportunity that might never recur of hearing something of the policy on which the noble Marquess is going to the country. And I should adjudge myself culpable and foolish in the highest degree if I had deprived myself of that innocent means of enjoyment. Let me here offer an apology to the noble Duke (the Duke of Argyll). I waited for the noble Duke to rise, because he said yesterday that he had still some of his speech undelivered in his pocket, and I hoped that we might be favoured with the remaining portion 272 of it on this auspicious occasion. My apology, however, is not really due to the noble Duke, because I am not aware that he has any right to control my movements or to compel my attendance in this House. His own attendance, it seems to me, is confined to the occasions when he arrives within our precincts in in order to deliver a Philippic against his recent friends and associates. But I will make him this explanation of my absence yesterday; it is an explanation due rather to my colleagues on this side of the House. Having been somewhat indisposed of late, and having a great meeting to address in a very large hall in the evening, I was advised, and thought it best to spend yesterday afternoon in repose, and thus I missed the intellectual treat, to which I am, however, not altogether unaccustomed, of listening to a personal diatribe directed I against myself, not apropos of anything before the House, and having, in fact, nothing to do with the subject before the House. Let me say a word or two of comment upon what fell from the noble Duke on this occasion. He said that the Liberal Party, in which he now finds many faults which he had never discovered when I used to sit behind him on these Benches—he said that the Liberal Party had done little or nothing for factory legislation, or rather that all or most that had been done in that matter had been done by Lord Shaftesbury, a Tory Peer. He also said that your Lordships' House had seconded the efforts of Lord Shaftesbury in a singular degree, and so as to earn the gratitude and respect of that noble Earl. My Lords, I am very doubtful whether during the time when I knew Lord Shaftesbury either Party in this House was entitled to claim his support. Lord Shaftesbury was not, I believe, a Liberal, but neither was he a Tory, and I think he ended his life as many are apt to end their lives, in a somewhat candid and judicial disapprobation of both the great parties in the State. Lord Shaftesbury was one of those most enviable of public men who, attached to no Party themselves, are willing to stretch out a right hand to assist in any good cause that is promoted by either Party, and as he passed into the evening of life after his long and honourable career, we beheld him in venerable old age unstained by 273 personal malignity, having nothing to regret, nothing on which he had apostatized, and no old friends to whom he cared to apply the lash. As I have said, I am not unaccustomed to the diatribes of the noble Duke. Let me recall to his mind with all veneration a well-known incident in his own earlier career. On one occasion the noble Duke summoned all the legions at his disposal to witness his demolition of the late Lord Derby, who was, of course, a much more difficult person to demolish than I am. After the long and able oration which the noble Duke delivered on that occasion the late Lord Derby contented himself with telling the simple story of a tall Life Guardsman who was beaten by a diminutive wife, and who, when asked why he sanctioned any such proceeding, merely remarked, "It amuses her and it don't hurt I." [A laugh.] I am a very unequal person to the late Lord Derby, but I share equally his sentiments with regard to the noble Duke's efforts. He seems to have framed these great orations—in the delivery of one of which he was unfortunately and lamentably interrupted by illness, but he promptly summoned the shorthand writer to his bedside and dictated the remainder of it—he seems to have framed these oratorical efforts on the model of those directed by Cicero against Catiline, but he forgets one material circumstance; I am not Catiline, and the noble Duke will forgive me for saying that he is not Cicero. Now I turn to the remarks made by the noble Marquess. I do not complain of having been summoned up from the country to hear his speech, for this is a large, cool, and agreeable hall for the delivery of manifestoes. We have waited so long and anxiously for the manifesto of the noble Marquess that it was with an absolute hunger to hear it that I entered these precincts this afternoon. But let me first say a word or two about the remarks that he was good enough to direct to myself. They were a great compliment. I do not remember a Prime Minister ever before summoning the House of Lords in order to deliver a reply in the last moments, the last agony of a Parliament. [The Marquess of SALISBURY made a gesture of dissent.] The paragraph that was published was not inspired then? At any rate, it leaked out that the noble Marquess had some 274 such intention, and for my part I feel profoundly flattered by it. What does the noble Marquess say? He says that I complained of the legislative preponderance of the House of Lords, and he says—
Legislative preponderance; how can such a thing be? We have no control over finance and we never turn out Governments, and therefore we are not on a legislative equality with the House of Commons.[Ministerial cries of "No!"] Well, he says that we are therefore only on a legislative equality with the House of Commons. I will tell the noble Marquess what I mean by legislative preponderance. What I mean by that is that there are in this House 500 Peers who are fixed in this House for the purpose of resisting Liberal legislation. The House of Commons can be changed; it is frequently changed; it may be changed as a result of this General Election. But, as a matter or fact, this House knows no change, and, whatever may be the result of the next General Election, whether it returns 600 Liberals to the House of Commons or six Liberals to the House of Commons, no change will be effected as far as this House is concerned. The circumstances will remain the same, and you will have 500 Peers on one side of the House pledged to resist any measures that a Liberal Ministry may propose. [Ministerial cries of "No!"] That is a cry of injured innocence which I welcome, but to which I confess I can attach but little faith. I say that the state of things which I have described constitutes a fixed legislative preponderance. There is no man in this State—it was never contemplated in this State that any man should have so great a legislative predominance as the noble Marquess, who has that fixed band behind him through which he can exercise the veto if he pleases. That is what I call the legislative preponderance in this House. The noble Marquess touched on one or two questions which only excited an appetite for more. He touched on the question of endowment schemes, saying that in these matters we bow to the national will. But with regard to those schemes which he has rejected there were, I think, some which embodied the expressed national desire and will of Wales. 275 [A laugh.] Does any one laugh at the expression of the national will of Wales through its representatives, who form a component part of the House of Commons? There was never a clearer expression of national will than in those schemes which the noble Marquess rejected. Then he touched on the Reform Bill of 1867, and the noble Duke touched on the same subject last night. I have no doubt that in 1867 the noble Duke of course thought, as now, that the Reform Bill was a Bill profoundly grateful to the Conservative majority in this House, and not, as its introducer described it, "a leap in the dark," a leap in the democratic dark. But the sentiments of the noble Duke on that subject are of comparatively little interest to me. I should, however, like to know what the sentiments of the noble Marquess are on the subject. I have a vague recollection of the feelings of the noble Marquess on the subject of the Bill of 1867. Was he then of opinion that the Bill was a great Conservative measure welcomed by and profoundly agreeable to your lordships? If he could only have dilated in 1867 on the Reform Bill of that day we should have heard a speech which we should have cause to remember. There was another topic on which he touched. He spoke of the expression of the national will, and, referring to one measure, he divided these islands and said that it was profoundly repugnant to this island. Are these the sentiments of union? Are we to understand that the policy of union is to divide the peoples of the two islands against each other and to adopt the opinion of the island you prefer, disdaining the opinion of the island which is affected by the measures which you propose? But that, after all, is academic disputation. We are accustomed to the language of the noble Marquess about the nationalities which he despises, about the "Celtic fringes" and things of that description, and therefore we need not enlarge upon it now. We come at last to the manifesto. I do do not know whether it is the first instalment only, or whether it is the whole manifesto. But I took down the four heads into which it was divided with almost trembling eagerness, and I reproduce them because, whilst the noble Marquess did not seem exceedingly anxious to make them very clear, I for 276 my part am anxious that they should be exceedingly clear. The first head was agriculture. He deplored the distressed state of agriculture, and said that for that he had no panacea. The next item referred to the masses that flock into our great cities and the distress that arises in consequence among crowded populations. For that also he said he had no panacea. The third item was the alleviation of the lot of those who by competition in trade—which I think a strange misrepresentation—have been reduced to poverty.
§ THE PRIME MINISTERThe noble Earl must have misheard me. I do not remember using the word "competition." The vicissitudes of trade, I think I said. ["Hear, hear!"]
THE EARL OF ROSEBERYI am delighted to accept the correction that "owing to the vicissitudes of trade have been reduced to poverty." Is that old-age pensions? It is not for the noble Marquess to say. But I begin to see another and more potent hand as we draw near to the third and forth heads of the manifesto. The assistance "to relieve the poverty of those whom the vicissitudes of trade have reduced to indigence," reminds me very much of a monster placard which covered Birmingham yesterday, and which we took as the first herald of approaching spring. And the last item was working men's dwellings—the provision of dwellings for working men. There I recognise the same hand. It is interesting to see what control and what power as well as place the Birmingham clique is going to attain in the present Cabinet. At any rate, we join issue with you on your proposals. If they are, as you say they will be, measures designed to raise the social life of the people, and if we believe that they will achieve that without injustice to other classes, I can at least say this on behalf of the six Gentlemen who sit behind me—[Laughter]—that we will give you our cordial co-operation. The rest of the programme, as I understand, is this—resistance to a long vista of measures of Constitutional change to which the House of Lords, led by the noble Marquess, will offer stern and unrelenting opposition. It will be the task of the Liberal Party, both at the polls and in the House of Commons, to promote that vista of measures, and it 277 will be—I say it face to face with your Lordships—the essential policy of the Liberal Party that in the promotion of those measures they shall no longer meet with an insurmountable, an hereditary, and an unremoved opposition in the person of this House.
THE DUKE OF ARGYLLMy Lords, I do not rise for the purpose of answering the noble Earl opposite upon the personal attack which he has made upon me. I am not sure it was very successful, and I shall leave it alone. ["Hear, hear!" from the Earl of ROSEBERY.] But I wish to make this explanation to the noble Earl, that when I remarked upon his public conduct last night, I was not aware of the engagement under which he was, and I fully admit that, suffering as he has lately done from ill-health, as I myself have, he could not undertake that duty and also be in your Lordships' House. And I am further frankly willing to admit to the noble Earl that it was not altogether or certainly to be expected that any discussion should have arisen last night upon the question of this House. At the same time, my Lords, I entirely deny that the discussion which I ventured to raise last night, and which was joined in afterwards by the noble Marquess at the head of the Government, was an irrelevant discussion. We had a social Bill before us, and we agreed to pass it through all its stages without the slightest examination of any of its details. That appeared to have been a fitting and relevant occasion to make observations on the practice of this House in regard to the exercise of its great functions in the State. The observations which I directed against the noble Earl were not intended to be personal or private; they were intended to be political, and purely political and official, and I took him as the representative of those attacks on the House of Lords which have been, I think, made, accompanied by the most unscrupulous statements of historical fact. [Cheers.] That was my point; and I am very glad to have the noble Earl opposite, to whom I can speak directly, as to the nature of some of those misrepresentations which he has made. I cannot help feeling and thinking that there is a peculiar animus in all the speeches of the noble Earl against this House. It seems as if he had a personal feeling 278 against the assembly of which he has the honour to be a Member. And, my Lords, I believe that the noble Earl explained, in one of his speeches in Scotland—I forget whether it was in Glasgow, Paisley, or Edinburgh—the feeling under which he suffers. For I observe, as regards the constitution of this House, on which the noble Earl frequently dwells, that a very large percentage of its Members—how large I hardly know—are men who passed their apprenticeship in the House of Commons. In my recollection there have been only one or two cases, that of the noble Earl being one, in which any Member of this House has risen to the position of Prime Minister who has not passed through the House of Commons. That was the case with Lord Aberdeen. Now, the noble Earl succeeded to the peerage, I believe, when ho was a child.
THE DUKE OF ARGYLLThen the noble Earl succeeded to his peerage in exactly the same conditions that I did. I fully understand the feeling which he may have had in consequence. Like every young man, I looked to Membership in the House of Commons. I had a secure seat to look forward to, and just at that moment, unfortunately for me, I succeeded to the peerage, and I have felt it ever since a great public loss that I should not have had the experience which my contemporaries had in the House of Commons. But that appears to have inspired the noble Earl with a feeling almost of animosity against the assembly of which he became a Member. Now, my Lords, I did not feel that, but I had a great feeling of regret, and I cannot help thinking that the explanation he gave upon that point goes a great way to explain the feeling the noble Earl has. I have no doubt that if he had entered the House of Commons he would have secured a more brilliant and more powerful place in it even than he can have in this Assembly, much as we respect his character and admire his abilities. And there is another reason for the noble Earl's feeling against this House. Upon the question of the House of Lords he declines reasoning altogether. ["Hear, hear!"] There is no argument in his speeches, and there never is. [A laugh.] His 279 eloquence is very brilliant, but in this staid and thoughtful atmosphere we do not care much for what is called brilliancy unless it sets off solid argument and there is solid thought behind it. "Hear, hear!"] These are articles in which the noble Earl does not deal very much. He is quite competent to do so, but he prefers those assemblies where there is no opportunity of reply, and where his political or social or personal position secures him an appearance of assent to all he says. And there is another reason. I do not think he likes the debating atmosphere of this House. It does not appreciate mere phosphorescent brilliancy of the kind he is accustomed to deliver elsewhere. But what we want to know is—what is the policy of the noble Earl and his Party with regard to the House of Lords? The noble Marquess behind me quoted a sentence in his speech, and the noble Earl interrupted to point out that the end of the sentence was differently constructed. From internal evidence, I have no doubt—being somewhat accustomed to examine public speeches—that when the noble Earl came out with the word "annihilation" of the House of Lords, the thought struck him immediately that it would require Amendment.
THE DUKE OF ARGYLLAt all events, he modified it—it is a very odd conjunction of words—into "the annihilation of the predominant power of the House of Lords."
THE DUKE OF ARGYLLHe does not like speaking when not interrupted by cheers, and on this occasion the cheers gave him time to think, and so he added—"Oh! I mean the annihilation of the predominant power." The noble Marquess has challenged the noble Earl to say what he means. It comes to this, that there is a majority in this House of Conservative politics.
THE DUKE OF ARGYLLVery well. But how is it that this "unanimity almost" has been brought about? Why, from the violent revolutionary policy [Cheers] against which there has been a powerful reaction in one half, and the best half, of the Liberal Party. [Cheers] I have this to say in regard to the position of the Liberal Party, having sat in every Liberal Cabinet between 1854 and 1881, looking at the personal composition of those Cabinets, I will say that all the best men—I am not now talking of the Peers but of the Members of the House of Commons—all the men of most independent judgment, all the men of backbone, all the men who were not merely Party men, joined the Liberal Unionists, and that is why the noble Earl sits on the Front Bench with six men behind him. [Laughter.] That is the reason. But I want to know what he means now. It is his business to come before the country with a programme, as well as the business of my noble Friend behind me. What is his programme? Does he mean to have two Houses or only one?
THE EARL OF ROSEBERYI am very sorry to interrupt the noble Duke, but I devoted a speech for an hour and three-quarters to explain that I wanted two.
THE DUKE OF ARGYLLYes; I know you did, and a fortnight afterwards you delivered another long speech which gave up the whole case.
THE EARL OF ROSEBERYNot the least. If the noble Duke will send me the passage he will do me a service.
THE DUKE OF ARGYLLI have not got the speeches here, because I did not expect this Debate, but I shall be pleased to furnish the passage. And I think he will find in my speech at Glasgow—to which he was kind enough to refer as having been broken off by sudden illness and which was filled up at my bedside by the reporter—a direct allusion to the contradictory terms in which he spoke upon that question. We do not know, and the country does not know, whether he means to recommend two Houses or one.
THE DUKE OF ARGYLLThe noble Earl used an elaborate argument in favour of two Houses at Glasgow, I 281 think, and he quoted 30 or 40 cases in the world. The moment that speech was delivered, Mr. Asquith went down to Leeds and he ridiculed the noble Earl. I have always understood that Mr. Asquith and the noble Earl were close friends ["Hear, hear!" from Lord ROSEBEBY] and political allies. I never read a speech with such astonishment as I did Mr. Asquith's. It was most disrespectful to the noble Earl at the head of the Government. It was a long argument against him. He actually sneered at the quotations of the noble Earl and the reference to the little Republic of San Marino, and indicated his own opinion that if there were to be two Houses at all, one of them should have no power whatever in legislation. Therefore, we want to know, and the noble Lord is bound to tell us, is he going to the country for the annihilation of the Second House or for the annihilation of the veto? Is it the veto he means? He explained at Glasgow that if this House had no veto it might as well be abolished altogether. And so it might. ["Hear, hear!"] What is the use of two Houses if one is not to be a check on the other by means of a veto? There could be no use. ["Hear, hear!"] The noble Earl has not explained that point. I say, then, the noble Earl is acting an unworthy part, considering his great position in the political parties of the country, when he goes to the country at a General Election without telling the people what he means to do with one of the most essential parts of our ancient, venerable, and, above all, successful Constitution. I therefore beg the noble Earl to give us five minutes, when I have sat down, to tell us what his policy is. I see the noble Earl shakes his head. He takes care he will not tell us. He hides himself in the clouds. He does not rise to justify the issue before the people. But we have no doubt it is that in some manner or other the Members of one House shall be made supreme, and the lives, liberties, and property of every person in the country shall be at the disposal of a casual vote of one House of Parliament without any power of checking it. The noble Earl and his Party have given us practical proof of what this will come to. They have proved it by a process which I must declare to have been a degradation of the House of 282 Commons. They have proved how easy it is by log-rolling for a Party divided into sections to hold on to power by a small majority. The noble Earl has declared that a majority of one would be enough for him.
THE DUKE OF ARGYLLWe are to depend on majorities of two, got by the most approved American practices, on sections and fractions of a Party in one House of Parliament. That is the policy on which the noble Earl goes to the country. Well, I must say that the noble Earl's colleagues do not seem to be taking his advice. He says that they are to go to the country on the one issue of the House of Lords. But they are not taking his advice. They are going to the country on half-a-dozen other things. Some of them put Home Rule first. Then, I ask, What is the noble Earl's opinion about Home Rule? Is he a Home Ruler in his heart, and to what extent does he go? I beg to call the attention of the House to the manner in which the noble Earl works the question of Home Rule. Last night, when I was foolish enough to expect him here, he was delivering a speech elsewhere. And what do I find in that speech? I find the English people are attacked by the noble Earl as preventing Wales, Scotland, and Ireland from having their separate autonomy, or Home Rule.
THE DUKE OF ARGYLLI beg the noble Earl's pardon. He did not say so expressly, but there were several allusions which seemed to indicate "Home Rule all round," as it is called, and which is certainly inscribed on the flags of some of his lieutenants. The noble Earl compared England to Pharaoh, who would not let the people go. That is to say, Ireland, and, I suppose, Scotland and Wales—
THE DUKE OF ARGYLLAre the people who are in bondage under Pharaoh, Pharaoh being the English people? Now, my Lords, is that a fair representation of the state of our relations in this central Parliament with the other divisions of the Kingdom? Is it not a gross fraud on the people to talk about bondage and Pharaoh? ["Hear, hear!"] 283 Can the noble Earl defend such a parallel for one moment in this House?
THE DUKE OF ARGYLLPharaoh and bondage! Why, all these sections of the United Kingdom have a full share—nay, more than a proportionate share—in the work of governing the most glorious Empire in the world. ["Hear, hear!"] And that is what the noble Earl calls the bondage from which they are to be delivered. My Lords, I am very glad to hear these expressions from the noble Earl. They show, whatever may be the private opinion which his good sense and knowledge of the world gives him in his own private heart, that he will go in for anything provided he can carry his Party with him. It is the old story—sacrificing sacred principles for Party objects. It is an open proclamation of the disintegration of this United Kingdom and of the dissolution of the existing Parliament, unless, indeed, it be—and, perhaps, this is what the noble Earl means—that Ireland shall not only have a separate Legislature of her own, but a contingent in the British Parliament to govern us as well as herself. ["Hear, hear!"] That was the lamentable conclusion come to by a Government to which the noble Earl belonged, though he was not the head of it. In violation of the most solemn promises delivered at Manchester to a great body of people by the head of the Liberal Party that they would never agree to an Irish contingent being kept at Westminster if they had a Parliament of their own in Ireland—in violation of these solemn assurances they brought in a Bill which, at any cost and by any means, however degrading to the House of Commons, was pushed through, and in which that promise was broken; and but for the action of this House we should now be at the mercy of a House of Commons largely composed of Irishmen who had no interest in the questions on which they voted. In fact, the noble Earl practically admitted last night that we are now governed by the Irish faction. He praised them for their loyalty in continuing to vote for measures in which they could have little or no interest. Foreigners, as they were called by the noble Earl's chief—foreigners in this country; a foreign contingent in the 284 British Parliament ruling riot only Ireland but ourselves! Therefore, we want to know from the noble Earl what is his policy on Home Rule. He made a personal attack on me, and gibed the noble Marquess behind me; but not one word of argument or of exposition did we get from him. Instead of that, he has demanded that the noble Marquess should explain his policy. I will read one sentence from the address of a very distinguished Member of the present Government, with whom, certainly, I have not been all my life in accordance of opinion. He is a Member of the present Government, and, above all, represents what used to be called the Radical element of this country—a branch of the Liberal Party that has entirely broken away from the old Radical Party that I remember; a branch of the Radical Party which is not for "little England," which rejoices in the Imperial power and wishes to see it extended; and certainly a branch of the Radical Party which was never very much in favour of this House, or of that wing of the Liberal Party which was most in connection with this House. These are Mr. Chamberlain's words, and it is a very remarkable fact that, amongst all the addresses published by a Government which, in one sense—though a secondary one—is a coalition Government for the moment, the most Conservative evidence was afforded by the Member of it who most represents Radicalism:—
I may be permitted to say that the Unionist Leaders are absolutely agreed in their determination, in the event of a decision in their favour at the General Election, to lay aside the wild projects of constitutional change and destructive legislation which have formed the staple of the proposals of the two last Administrations; and devote their principal attention to the policy of constructive social reform, the main lines of which have been recently laid before you.I, for one, am content with that declaration. It is as much as we require, arid a great deal more than the noble Earl has chosen to give us on his side of the House. It disclaims for ever, or at least for the immediate horizon of practical politics, those continual and persistent attacks upon all the great interests and institutions of the country, and proclaims the continued use of the existing tools 285 and machinery which have lasted us with glorious success for 600 years. That is no imperfect or ignoble declaration of policy. ["Hear, hear!"] I have no doubt it will be followed up in detail, as the noble Marquess explained, by a long series of measures more immediately directed than the noble Earl's has been to the welfare of the people. And here, my Lords, I must say that the usurpation of the word "Liberal" by the Party opposite is one of the most audacious tricks I have ever known in politics; and not only that, but I maintain that the usurpation of the word "Radical" is quite as monstrous. [Laughter.]
THE DUKE OF ARGYLLThen I will supply him with a word of the same rhythm and of the same number of syllables, which accurately implies their true character as a Party—a Party that has cared for and has held to no principle whatever. Let the noble Earl call his Party "the Slipperal Party." [Laughter and "Hear, hear!"]
THE DUKE OF ARGYLLIt is very good English for the purpose. It is worthy of its purpose." [Laughter.]
THE DUKE OF ARGYLLNo; it is Saxon. But we complain of the noble Earl's Party, because they have held to no principle whatever, and above all, because they have discarded the great principles of individual liberty and personal freedom. I do not call them "Radical." In my opinion a Radical is 286 a man who goes to the root of things. They cannot get at the root of anything. They are the most superficial thinkers and actors in the world. They swim about in the turbid currents of Party politics without going to the root of any one of the great principles of our Constitution. [Cheers.]
THE EARL OF ROSEBERYI can only say one word, by the indulgence of the House, which I am sure will not be refused to me in the somewhat barren and unprotected situation—[Laughter]—in which I find myself. Let me congratulate the noble Duke, in the first place, on the singularly well-provided condition—as regards extracts and notes—which this discussion (which he told us he did not anticipate) found him in to-day. I think I detected in it the remnants of last night's speech, for which I had been so anxiously waiting this afternoon. I will say one word about what the noble Duke said, but before I do so I should like to correct an omission in what I said before. I alluded to the authority of the late Lord Shaftesbury in opposition to what the noble Duke said last night. He said last night that Lord Shaftesbury was the originator of factory legislation, which I suppose is perfectly true, and that this House had always supported it, and the noble Earl was grateful for that support. But I happened to light on an extract this morning which shows his gratitude was of a singularly moderate character. On the Mines Regulation Bill of 1842 the House of Lords so mutilated the clauses that Lord Shaftesbury said:—
I have never seen such a display of selfishness and frigidity to every human sentiment.This I omitted in my former speech, and for the completeness of my argument I will place it at the disposal of the noble Duke for his next speech. I hardly know how to follow the noble Duke in the somewhat rambling remarks he has addressed to us with such general acceptance. He has, as usual, uttered dogmatising statements and misquoted my 287 speeches. He said that last night I made this grave assertion—that England held in bondage Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. I never said any such thing or used the word "bondage." The metaphor of Pharoah was entirely applied to Ireland and the Irish who wished to go back to Ireland. Any one can read that on the face of the speech, and I should be ashamed if I came here with the noble Duke's authority and eloquence to misquote in so glaring and barefaced a manner. [Cheers.] I am sorry to say it is a misquotation. Again, he said I contradicted all I said at Glasgow a week afterwards. I challenged him to produce the contradiction. He has promised to do so through the medium of the post.
THE DUKE OF ARGYLLI read the noble Lord's speech at Devonport as a contradiction of what he said at Glasgow.
THE EARL OF ROSEBERYI do not know with what spectacles the noble Duke reads my speeches. He must read them with eclipse glasses, through which you watch an eclipse, which are darkened for the purpose. I beg he will supply me with my Devonport speech in contradiction to the speech I delivered at Glasgow. He has gone into a fine eloquent tirade about Home Rule, he has asked me for my policy about Home Rule, and, with regard to the annihilation of the legislative preponderance of this House, he says that, as between one Chamber and two, there is no middle way. Has he never heard of the suspensory veto?
THE EARL OF ROSEBERYI do not make that as a declaration of policy. [Laughter.] I only do it to enlarge the scope of the noble Duke's vision, and to convince him that he is limiting himself too greatly when he says, "If you desire to do away with the veto of the House of Lords you must necessarily do away with a second Chamber altogether." On this great question this is not the occasion to 288 make a pronouncement. I will imitate the illustrious example of the noble Marquess opposite. He indicated the subjects with which he would deal if returned to power. He expressly refused on my invitation to state the means or measures by which he proposes to deal with them in this House. There is no more august authority or considerable precedent, and I am sure I shall for once be in unanimity with your Lordships' wishes in closely following it on this occasion. There is one word more I intended to say on another occasion, and with which I gladly close my remarks to-day. For the short time, relatively, I had the honour of being Leader of the House, in which I was sharply divided from the majority, not merely on the question of the prerogatives of the House, but on almost all political questions, and I desire before I relinquish that position to take the opportunity of thanking this House and every individual Member of it for the unvarying courtesy with which they have treated me. The position of being Leader of the House of Lords, with a party like that behind me—[Ministerial laughter]—is not always an easy one, but I can assure you that, as far as it could have been facilitated by the conduct of the majority, that has been fully done in my case. [Cheers.]
§ Standing Order No. XXXIX. having been suspended, Bill read 2a; Committee negatived; Bill read 3a, and Passed.
§ House adjourned during pleasure.
§ House resumed at Two o'clock.