Lords Sitting of 10 December 1906

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
Ure Elder Fund Order Confirmation Bill [H.L.]. A Bill to confirm a Provisional Order relating to the Ure Elder Fund—Was presented by the Earl Beauchamp (for the Lord Hamilton of Dalzell); read 1a; to be printed; and (pursuant to the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899, Section 7) deemed to have been read 2a; and reported from the Committee. (No. 227.)
PETITIONS.
  EDUCATION (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL.
  Petition for Amendment of; of inhabitants of parish of Ross; read, and ordered to lie on the Table.
  EDUCATION (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL.
  Petition against; of inhabitants of parish of Nailstone; read, and ordered to lie on the Table
  TRADE DISPUTES BILL.
  Petitions for Amendment of; of employers of labour in Aberdeen and district (signing); employers of labour in Yorkshire (signing); and Birmingham Chamber of Commerce; Read, and ordered to lie on the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  COLONIES: ANNUAL.
  No 512. Southern Nigeria (Report for 1905).

  TRANSVAAL.
  Transvaal Constitution, 1906. Letters Patent and Instructions relating to the Transvaal and Swaziland Order in Council.
  Asiatic Law Amendment Ordinance, No. 29, of 1906.

  INDIA (TRADE).
  Review of the trade of India in 1905–6. Presented (by Command), and ordered to lie on the Table.
  LUNACY.
  Report to the Lord Chancellor of the number of visits made, the number of patients seen, and the number of miles travelled by the visitor's of lunatics, pursuant to the Lunacy Act, 1890, between 1st April and 30th September, 1906.

  SHOP HOURS ACT, 1904 (HEBDEN BRIDGE URBAN DISTRICT).
  Order made by the council of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and confirmed by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, fixing the hours of closing for certain shops within the district.
  Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and ordered to lie on the Table.

  THE MILITIA.
  THE EARL OF WEMYSSrose to call attention to "the altering of the terms of service in the Militia by rendering them liable to be sent abroad at the will of the Government of the day, a change hurtful alike to the Militia and the nation, as it would lesson the chances of recruiting a force, ever from 20,000 to 30,000 short of its established strength, though containing a very large number of boys under twenty years of age, while the exercise of the existing power of compulsory Militia Home Service would be rendered impossible."
  The noble Earl said: My Lords, I have, in the first place, to apologise for the delay there has been on my part in bringing on this Notice, but I postponed it, by request, because it was wished that nothing should come between the House and the late discussion on the Education Bill. As regards Army reform, we are not in a position to know exactly what Mr. Haldane intends. We are not to know that until the spring. Probably we shall hear it on 1st April. But we can gather enough from his "thinking aloud" to know what the general tendancy of the measure will be. The intention of His Majesty's Government and of Mr. Haldane is that we should have what they call a "national Army." Now, that national Army is illustrated by Mr. Haldane by a cone. The base of the cone, the principal part of it, is to be pure Volunteers; the centre part of the cone is made up of Militia;

  1471
  the sharp point is the Regular troops, and that sharp point has been reduced by something like 20,000 men, and my unhappy country of Scotland, which would be, perhaps, the first to be invaded, is not to have any cavalary regiments at all.
  But the main thing is that, according to Mr. Haldane, this Army is to be "on purely British principles." I want to know what those purely British principles are. I imagine that in Mr. Haldane's view they mean purely volunteering and nothing in the shape of compulsion. My noble friend the Under-Secretary of State for War gives no sign either of approval or disapproval. I assume, therefore, that purely British principles mean purely voluntary principles. I traverse that statement absolutely. I say that purely British principles are the reverse, that purely British principles are compulsion in the Militia for Home defence. It is true that this power of compulsion has been long in abeyance, but it exists, and every year Parliament passes a Bill to suspend the action of the Militia ballot. Therefore, I am justified in assorting that Mr. Haldane is inaccurate in saying that this scheme rests on purely British principles. On the other hand, his Army Reform scheme rests on absolutely un-British principles. There is no denial.
  Now I come to my Motion. My Motion is in two parts. The first refers to the alteration of the terms of service in the Militia. Service in the Militia at present is voluntary, but militiamen may be sent anywhere throughout the world if they volunteer. By the change which is proposed the terms of service are to be altered, and militiamen are to be rendered liable to be sent abroad at the will of the Government of the day. That is a great upheaval of the traditions on which our military system rests. Why is this change made? I contend that without any change such as this you can get all you want. You have only to ask the Militia. If the Government said, "We want a certain number of regiments, we ask you to volunteer," what would be the result? Every regiment would volunteer. That is a certainty, and then you would have to select from the whole the number that you required. Therefore, why, in God's name, upset the foundation of our military system when there is no necessity
  1472
  for it? This appears to me to be the common sense of the thing.
  Take the history of the Militia. Have they ever failed you when you wanted them? Did they fail you in the Peninsula? Did they fail you at Waterloo? Did they fail you in the Indian Mutiny? It is true that they did not go to India, but they went to the Mediterranean. And did they fail you in the Crimea? No. At the time of the Crimea they garrisoned Malta and Gibraltar. On any occasion, whether it be Spain, Waterloo, the Crimea, India, or, lastly, South Africa, have they ever failed you? No. Have they ever objected in any way or refused to respond to your invitation? They have not. Therefore I say you are, without any possible justification, breaking up the foundations of our military system, which rests upon a Militia raised compulsorily for Home defence according to the old constitutional power. The power of forcing men to serve in the Militia for Home defence only is a power that it seems to me something like madness willingly to throw away; but, if the terms of service are altered in the way proposed, you practically throw it away, because you cannot establish the principle of compulsion to send men to Egypt, to West Africa, to Timbuctoo, or anywhere else. Therefore, my Lords, a great power will be done away with if this change is made.
  I go further. You will put the British-born man in a more abject position with regard to compulsion than either a Frenchman or a German. In the French army, which is recruited absolutely by compulsion, you cannot send a man to Algiers, to Madagascar, or anywhere else abroad against his will and consent. The same thing obtains as regards' Germany. In Germany also, they have to obtain the consent of the men, although they are recruited by compulsion, before sending them to German possessions abroad. That does away with the argument that it is unfair that men should be asked to volunteer. As regards that point, in your division of the Militia those who do not wish to go abroad would remain in the Home Department. Therefore, all these arguments fall to the ground, and we come to this, that the only

  1473
  sure basis on which you can build a military system is by compulsion for Home defence. Unless England adopts this, it had better do what I heard the other day was done in the case of the Bishop of Osnaburg. That Bishop was one of those potentates who had a little army before the union of the German States, and that army bore on its helmets the words "Give us peace, O Lord!" Now, my Lords, we know the changes in uniform to which our soldiers are subject, and I would suggest that as our army organisation now is, our soldiers should get another new cap in the shape of Mr. Haldane's cone with the Osnaburg prayer upon it.
  Now, in expressing the views which I have laid before your Lordships as regards compulsory Home Service I have not been stating my own opinion only. Who, then, are the authorities who looked upon the enforcement of our constitutional annually suspended law of compulsory service in the Militia as the only sure solution of our present difficulties? I wrote in the autumn four letters to the Scotsman, in one of which I pointed out that the authorities numbered ten, and were— (1) Lord Sidmouth (Militia Transfer Bill), 1807; (2) Sir James Grahame's Committee on Army Organisation, 1860; (3) Recruiting Commission, 1867; (4) Lord Dalhousie, 1867; (5) Lord Longford, 1867; (6) Sir James Scarlet, 1870; (7) Colonel Anson, 1870; (8) Sir W. Mansfield (Lord Sandhurst) 1871; (9) Lord Wolseley, 1903; (10) County and urban authorities, 1903. I will not trouble your Lordships with what those authorities said, but they all, as strongly as possible, insisted that if you are to have an Army at all, it must be built on a sure foundation, and the only sure foundation is compulsory service under the existing law.
  From this list there was one omission, and I did not know of it until a few days ago. I refer to the views of Mr. Herbert, who was Minister for War in 1854. I happened to turn to his life, a most interesting book, which is written by Lord Stanmore, to see if anything was stud, about the Militia, and I found the following passage, which, coming from the Minister for War of the day, ought to have a material
  1474
  bearing. Mr. Herbert, in a circular letter to the Cabinet, speaking of Militia recruiting, said—
  "I have slowly and most unwillingly arrived at the conclusion that here again our true policy is to return to the old traditional system, and to the practical execution of the law as it now stands."
  That was the law as it stood then, and as it stands now, i.e., the ballot.
  "With our jealousy of a standing Army we have never permitted conscription for the Queen's Forces), but time out of mind we have ruled that all males capable of bearing arms are liable to be called upon for the defence of their country. The ballot is now the law of the land. By merely abstaining from an exceptional proceeding with a view to its suspension, the ballot comes into operation."
  And his biographer, at page 396, says—
  "Disappointed though he was in his hopes of establishing the Militia on what he thought a proper footing, Mr. Herbert never abandoned the intention of ultimately effecting what he desired, and never ceased to insist on the importance of recognising the Militia as the great reserve force of the nation, second only in importance to the Regular Army, though to be used for home service and home service only."
  Coming from such a man as Mr. Herbert this is very valuable testimony. These are the opinions of the past. Have I none as regards the present? I wrote to Lord Wolseley, that distinguished soldier, asking him to come and give me a hand in this matter, and I received this letter in reply. Upon its receipt I wrote to Lord Wolseley, asking him if he had any objection to my making use of it in your Lordships' House, and he replied that he had no objection whatever. I will, therefore, read what Lord Wolseley says. He wrote—
  "I feel much flattered by your note and the request it contains, but I am not equal to the attempt. England can never have an efficient Arm)', during peace, and she must, therefore, accept the rebuffs and calamities which are always in store for the nation that is content to follow the breed of cowards who usually direct her great affairs. The day will inevitably come when she will violently and suddenly lose her former fighting renown to such an unmistakeable extent that the plucky fishwives will march upon Downing Street, and, if they can catch its usual inmates, will rend them. One Party is as bad as the other, and I hope and pray that when the national misfortune of a great defeat at sea overtakes us followed by the invasion of England or Ireland—very possibly the latter— that John Bull will turn and rend the jawers and talkers who prevent us from being prepared to meet invasion. It is not Mr. Haldane I find

  1475
  fault with. He acts more suo, or I should rather say, after the manner of alt of our War Ministers. It is the British people who are to blame, who prefer the politicians, who pretend to scoff at the possibility of invasion, and refuse, in their stuck-up folly, to regard the warnings which the great Duke left this nation as a legacy. Mr. Tobias Jones, M.P., and the Smiths and Robinsons, all busy to make money, profess to laugh at danger, and ignorant John Gull makes haste to admire their wisdom. However, he would not listen to our great lighting Duke, so poor fry like me must content ourselves with the silly, selfish prayer of 'Not in our time, oh Lord.' The mob who now rule England are taught by their leaders to regard men like you and me who would warn them of their danger as male Cassandras; at any rate, they won't believe us. The people prefer those who assure them of 'Peace, perfect peace!' The invasion of England has been at all times a favourite military problem with me. I have studied it in all its phases since the day, when, as a boy, I cut from the newspaper the warning contained in the Duke of Wellington's letter to Sir John Burgoyne on this serious subject. However, the Navy, always afraid their building programme for the year may be cut down, keep assuring John Bull that England is quite secure as long as her Navy is powerful. I should like to see our Navy half again as strong as it is, but still, to be quite secure against invasion, we require a strong defensive Army also. Our great Duke said that England was now joined to France by an' Isthmus of steam.'"
  The other letters that I have received are more or less in the same strain, but the opinion I have just read is one of the best opinions you could have at the present time, on the necessity of our Army for home defence.
  Lord Wolseley referred to the Navy. That leads me to say a word about that line of defence. Mr. Haldane has plunged head over heels into the blue water. He followed Mr. Balfour's example, and he is flouting about in it now, and boasts of it. Last week there was a discussion at the United Service Institution on the question of the efficiency of the Navy, and Mr. Bellairs, a naval man and a Member of Parliament, read a paper thereon. Admiral Harris was in the chair, and among those present were Admiral Free-mantle and a great many soldiers and civilians. Here is an account which a gentleman who was present has given me of this meeting—
  "During a two days debate last week, not only the lecturer but also every speaker, naval, military, legal, and lay, most definitely asserted that we were courting future naval disaster, and that Tweedmouth's Navy would prove as broken a reed as Haldane's Army. Not one attempt to justify our present trust in Provi-
  1476
  dence or in Party was made during those two days."
  Besides these opinions and the opinion of Lord Wolseley, we know that Lord Roberts is strongly of opinion that you must have compulsion for home defence. Then there is the Duke of Norfolk's Commission. What was that Commission appointed for? It was appointed to look into the efficiency of the Auxiliary Services, the Militia and the Volunteers, and what did the Commissioners report? They reported that these services, as at present constituted, are not to be trusted. And yet Mr. Haldane takes the Volunteers as the base of his cone.
  As against the authorities I have ventured to quote, what is there to be said? Nothing. The Party politician knows as well as possible that every word I have read to the House is true; that every opinion given by generals and other experts, that you cannot have a sound system unless it is on a sound basis, with compulsion for home defence, is true. That is known full well. As regards Mr. Haldane, I hope I have said nothing to give him offence. Certainly nothing would be further from my wish than to do so. The best proof I can give of that is that I have in my hand a letter which I wrote to Mr. Haldane on the 1st of January last, the substance of which was that all his predecessors had failed. Why? For want of courage to ask for those compulsory powers which the Government have and ought to exercise. That was the tone of the letter I wrote to him. I said they talked about the problem of the Army, but there was no problem. The problem is simply this; There is my hat; I want to cover my head. I have only to stretch out my hand and put it on. You have this Militia power. You have only to use it and your problem is absolutely solved. But there is not the courage to do it. I hope the Government will think very seriously before they touch the foundation of our military system; that they will think seriously before, they alter the terms of service in the Militia, because, if they do alter it, they will lose for ever the power of compulsion for Home defence, however much we may need it in the future.
  This House last year passed a very sensible and wise Resolution. It passed

  1477
  it unanimously, so that my noble friend and all those noble Lords who sit on the front Ministerial bench are as responsible for that Resolution as anyone who sits on these benches. What did that Resolution say? It said that you must not trust to the Navy alone for Home defence, and that this nation should always be in such a state of Home defence on land that no foreign nation would, at any time or in any form, attempt a hostile landing on our shores. What I should like would be that this House and the country should test the Army scheme by this Resolution. I hope, if this Bill ever comes into your Lordships' House, that the noble Marquess the Leader of the Opposition will defend our existing military system, which, as I have said, rests upon compulsory service for Home defence. I hope he will defend it to the death, and that your Lordships will back him up to the full extent. And if he takes that line the noble Marquess will be simply defending a power with which, as he stated in this House when he was Minister for War, he would not readily part with.
  THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (The Earl of PORTSMOUTH): My Lords, my noble friend Lord Wemyss has again reverted to a subject which, in his hands, always seems to borrow an air of eternal freshness and youth, but which is not a novel one in this House—the subject of the Militia ballot. I gathered from the speech of my noble friend that he is as strongly in favour of the Militia ballot now as he has ever been.
  THE EARL OF WEMYSS: And as you are at heart.
  THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTH: I must respectfully differ from my noble friend on that point. I do not think it is necessary this afternoon to enter at any length into the history of the Militia ballot. It is quite clear in your Lordships' recollection that the Government of Mr. Balfour introduced a Bill of that kind, and then dropped it; and in dropping that Bill they announced to your Lordships that they were going to appoint a Commission to inquire into the efficiency of the Militia and the Volunteer forces. That Commission
  1478
  was presided over by the Duke of Nor- folk, and I noticed that my noble friend referred to the Commission in terms of confidence and approbation. I should like to remind your Lordships what the Norfolk Commission said respecting the Militia ballot. They said—
  "We have paid close attention to the evidence laid before us dealing with this subject, and have formed the opinion that the Militia ballot is unsuited to the modern conditions of the country and that its irregular and unequal incidence would be felt as an injustice."
  They went much further than that. They realised the fact, which I think was hardly sufficiently strong in the mind of my noble friend, that, supposing this country could be successfully invaded by a Continental army, the reasonable presumption would be that the troops sent here for that purpose would be the best troops that could be obtained on the Continent. The Norfolk Commission realised that, and they went on to say that the Militia could not be relied upon to defeat an invader without substantial help from the Regular Army, and they expressed the opinion that to enable the Militia to confront with any degree of success the well-trained forces of a Continental army it would be necessary that the Militia should be trained for a period of continuous service with the colours on the model of Continental conscript armies, and the period they suggested for that purpose was in no case to be less than a year. With all deference to my noble friend, I maintain that, so far as practical politics are concerned, conscription is out of the question.
  THE EARL OF WEMYSS: You mean conscription for the Army?
  THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTH: I say that conscription for the Army is out of the question.
  THE EARL OF WEMYSS: Hear, hear.
  THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTH: As the noble Earl stated, the Militia have always served abroad in time of war. They served with distinction in the Peninsula; and I do not think it is fair to the Militia that it should be implied that the fact of making them liable to serve abroad

  1479
  would materially affect recruiting for the Militia. As regards the Peninsular War, to which my noble friend has made some reference, what did Lord Castlereagh say in 1813? He said—
  "We could not have kept possession of Portugal or have sent forces to co-operate in the deliverance of the Peninsula at large, and taken up that menacing position on the frontiers of France which our Army now occupies; we should have been shut up within the bounds of our insular policy, and could not have borne our share in the general exertions which have been made for the deliverance of Europe, were it not for the Militia. We should bear in mind that it is to the Militia we owe the character we at present enjoy in military Europe, that without the Militia we could not have shown that face which we have done in the Peninsula."
  Then, again, what happened in the Crimea? Fifty regiments of Militia volunteered for service abroad and ten regiments were sent to Mediterranean stations. Then I come to more recent times. In the face of what happened during the South African War, can my noble friend say that if the Militia were made liable for service abroad such a liability would interfere with recruiting for the Militia? Most interesting evidence was given before Lord Elgin's Commission on the War. General Borrett, Inspector-General of Recruiting and Auxiliary forces, said, in his evidence before that Commission:—
  "Very strict orders were given to Generals to the effect that in every district where a Militia regiment was going abroad the General should personally see it on parade and ask the men whether they quite understood the terms— that there was no compulsion, that everything was quite voluntary, and that if any man did not wish to go no questions would be asked."
  Why, then, does my noble friend imply that making the Militia liable for service abroad would interfere with recruiting for the Militia?
  THE EARL OF WEMYSS: You cannot have compulsion if you make them liable for foreign service. That is my point.
  THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTH: What happened in regard to South Africa? At the outbreak of the Boer War the actual strength of the Militia was 98,000, and during the war, which lasted three and a half years, altogether 98,000
  1480
  Militiamen served, of whom 14,000 were Militia Reservists, who were liable in any case to go abroad, and who were part of the ordinary reserve of the Regular Army. But the remaining 84,000 served voluntarily, and they were made up as follows— 40,000 volunteered and were drafted as individuals into the Regular Army, and 44,000 went out in their own regiments. As a matter of fact, my Lords, there is no evidence to show that liability for foreign service weighs very much one way or the other with the Militia recruit. I am inclined to think that the power of the Government which now exists to embody the Militia goes a very long way, and is in many cases equivalent to the power to order them abroad—for this reason, that a Militia battalion when embodied would naturally prefer to go to the front than to be ordered for nine or twelve months to be placed in some garrison town away from their homes and their work.
  Then, again, I think the evidence goes to show that Militiamen join for pay, food, and clothes, and do not study minutely the terms of enlistment. As an evidence of this it is a very remarkable fact that from 10,000 to 12,000 Militiamen pass annually from the Militia into the Regular Army. As another evidence of that, we have the very interesting results of an experiment which has been recently made—the experiment of extended training for six months instead of the old training for six weeks. I have had the figures looked into, and I find them very striking and eloquent. In the thirteen battalions in English Commands, taking the two principal months of the year for recruiting, September and October, and comparing them with 1905, I find that 364 recruits have drilled on enlistment in September, 1906, as compared with 209 in September, 1905, and 534 recruits in October, 1906, as compared with 366 in October, 1905. It. shows, therefore, that there is a very strong inducement for the men to adopt the extended training, which certainly must make better soldiers of them than if they were drilled for six weeks only. I should also like to allude to the fact, which has a bearing upon the larger question, that the employment of these men for six months has in many cases a

  1481
  very useful and valuable effect on the local labour markets.
  It is perfectly true, as my noble friend has stated, that when I learned that he was going to curtail his enjoyment of Scotland to come up to your Lordships' House and make a speech on this subject, I informed him that I was afraid that, as the position of the Militia in Army reorganisation was still under consideration, I should not be in a position at the present moment to make any definite statement to the House. But in any scheme of Army reorganisation—and I hope my noble friend will not think I am speaking with any want of courtesy to him—I am afraid the functions of the Militia as implied in the speech of my noble friend are certainly obsolete. And for this reason, that we do rely upon our Naval supremacy for defence against over-sea invasion, and we rely upon our Volunteers against raids.
  THE EARL OF WEMYSS: I should like to ask the noble Earl, what is a raid?
  THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTH: A raid would be a landing of a force of, say, 10,000 men.
  LORD LOVAT: How many raids constitute an invasion?
  THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTH: I take it that by an invasion one means the pouring into a country, as we did into South Africa, unchallenged and unopposed, a steady stream of troops. The idea of a raid is something sudden, which would do a great deal of harm if the raiders attacked and destroyed any of our great arsenals, but it would not be in that case an invasion. We do rely upon our naval supremacy for defence against over-sea invasion. Otherwise our naval expenditure, which has grown from over £17,000,000 in 1894–5, when it was less than the cost of the Army, to, in 1904, nearly £37,000,000, which is borne by British taxpayers, cannot be justified.
  THE EARL OF GALLOWAY: What is the cost in the case of Germany.
  THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTH: In 1904 the cost of the German Navy was £7,500,000. The total cost of the German Army and Navy amounted in that year to £36,287,000. The total cost of our Army and Navy was £65,720,000. These figures show very eloquently that there is a strong case why the taxpayers should insist upon some reasonable economy in regard to the whole of this question of military defence. If we cannot rely upon the Navy, then the expenditure which is incurred is an unjustifiable burden. It must be remembered, as I have said, that this expenditure incurred in the defence of the Empire falls, not upon all parts of the Empire, but upon the taxpayers of this country.
  In any scheme of Army organisation the Militia must, speaking generally, either become practically part of the volunteer forces or develop into a support to the Regular Army, and to the striking force of 150,000 men; and if the Militia is to become a support to the Regular Army, those who are interested in, and have the confidence of the Militia, must be prepared to make some concessions as to their going out in their units. War developes a number of possibilities which the most acute forecast of military and naval experience, insight, and knowledge cannot possibly cover. And, therefore, if we are to be able to make use of the Militia as a support to the Regular Army we must not be tied down by any rule that we can never use it, unless we send it out in battalions. My noble friend, in the course of his speech, used the phrase "the constitutional force." I have never known exactly what the meaning of that phrase was. When the Militia was supported by the rates the localities had a special claim on it for local defence, but ever since 1874 the charge of the Militia has fallen upon Imperial taxation, and, that being the case, it is surely only reasonable that the Militia must be used in accordance with the requirements, not of local, but of Imperial, defence.
  THE-EARL OF WEMYSS: I do not object to that.
  THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTH: I differ entirely from my noble friend, and believe that the making of the Militia liable for foreign service would in no way act as a deterrent to recruiting. It is said that as the Militia served abroad voluntarily, why do we want compulsion? If Militiamen are made liable for service abroad it is only in order that the War Office should be able, in drawing up any plan, to know what force it can absolutely rely upon. My belief is that the Militia as a body desire to become part of a practical scheme of Imperial defence, and if, as I believe, that is the case, I trust they will assist us in arriving at some reasonable arrangement and compromise on the drafting question which may be acceptable to the reasonable claims of the Militia as a county force with a strong local sentiment, and to the imperial, and, I hope I may say without offence, the imperious necessities of the War Office in times of national emergency.
  LORD LOVAT: My Lords, I will not occupy the time of the House for more than a minute or two, but I do not think we ought to let some of the statements of the noble Earl go unchallenged.
  The noble Earl has given us a strategic forecast of the possibilities of invasion. There is nothing relating to that in the notice on the Paper, but still the noble Earl has volunteered a statement on that subject. He has clearly indicated that our policy of defence is in a complete state of chaos, for he intimated that the position of the Militia in the scheme of defence had not yet been assigned. This, perhaps, was no news to many of us. But the noble Earl went on to say that all we need fear are raids, and that raids must necessarily be confined to 10,000 men and would only be made on strong places.
  THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTH: I said that a raid would be of no value to the enemy, as it could do very little dam-age to us unless it were to destroy a great arsenal.
  LORD LOVAT: Why are three or four raids of 10,000 men each on, say, the broad coast of Norfolk or the south coast
  1484
  of Scotland impossible? If 10,000 men in one body may raid us, why should not four bodies of 10,000 men each land at distances of ten miles apart. It must be remembered that there are 182,000 tons of shipping in German ports at any day in the year, and that the Hamburg liners can carry 7,000 men apiece. I really must protest against the theory that all we need fear is one raid, and that it would necessarily be made on one of our fortified places.
  THE DUKE OF BEDFORD: My Lords, I cannot agree with the Motion of the noble Earl. It seems to me that the defence of our vast continental Empire demands that some portion of the Auxiliary Forces should be enlisted for the purpose for which they must be used —namely, Imperial defence. If that is the case, then the Auxiliary Forces must in future be divided into two parts. One division would consist of troops who enlist for foreign service, and upon whom a considerable expenditure would be justified. The other division would be composed of bodies of men who enrol themselves for home service only, and upon whom a large expenditure could not be recommended.
  The question is, in which division ought the Militia to be placed? If, as the noble Earl desires, the Militia is retained for home service, then it must be combined with the Volunteers in the home service division of the Auxiliary Forces. Statements have recently appeared in the public Press advocating the amalgamation of the Militia and the Volunteers. It seems to me impossible successfully to combine an unpaid civilian force not serving under the Army Act, like the Volunteers, with a paid military force, serving under the Army Act, like the Militia. If the combination were effected it means that the Militia must approximate as closely as possible to the existing conditions of the Volunteer service; that is, be levelled down and become a purely civilian force.
  My objection to this plan is that if once the Militia is changed into a purely civilian force, that form of military service which has so long been known as the Militia will be gone, and for ever. A most valuable asset of military service,

  1485
  capable of being employed for Imperial defence, and one which is essential for the maintenance of the Regular Army, would be sacrificed. But His Majesty's Government have announced a Bill for enlisting the Militia for foreign service, a measure which would place the Militia in the foreign service division of the Auxiliary Forces. The Militia would remain closely linked to the Regular Army. A definite function would be assigned to the Militia, and the whole status of the Militia force would at once be raised; and, above all, that expenditure which is necessary to make the force efficient would be justified, because the Militia would render an adequate return in the form of Imperial service. I sincerely hope that His Majesty's Government will proceed with the Bill for enlisting the Militia for foreign service at an early date.
  THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE: My Lords, I know that a very important Bill awaits the consideration of your Lordships, and I will promise not to detain you for more than three or four minutes. I am sure your Lordships would desire this discussion to close. As regards the notice standing on the Paper in the name of the noble Earl, I cannot help remarking that it is not a Motion, although it has been several times referred to as such. It is merely a notice to call attention to this matter. As regards the first two points raised by the noble Earl, my views are embodied in what has been said by the noble Duke behind me. I sincerely hope His Majesty's Government intend to go on with the policy they have announced of making the Militia an Imperial force liable to take its share in the defence of the Empire.
  THE EARL OF WEMYSS: How about compulsion if you do that?
  THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE: The noble Earl has taken the words out of my mouth. I was astounded to hear his question as to what a raid was. I may have been taught history the wrong way, but my elementary history books taught me that the foundation of all great families who live in a certain part of Scotland was laid by continual raids on the cattle and property of their
  1486
  neighbours, and I should have thought the noble Earl, coming from that part of Scotland, could have informed us from his hereditary knowledge better than anyone else what a raid is. I wish to protest most strongly against the assumption that because you make the Militia liable for service abroad you are thereby tying your hands and rendering it absolutely impossible in the future to put the ballot in force. If ever the Government of this country came to the conclusion, as I sincerely hope they never will, to put the present Ballot Act into force, they could perfectly easily do it by raising a Militia for service at home by ballot, without in any way interfering with the Militia made liable for service abroad. I hope that we shall never live to see the necessity of raising a Militia by ballot. Ballot is by far the most objectionable form of compulsory service. It has been described by the present Prime Minister as a combination of the press gang and the roulette table, and though, perhaps, that was rather a picturesque description, it has nevertheless some truth at the bottom of it. The feeling held by the Prime Minister does not exaggerate the objection I have to the Militia ballot, and I sincerely hope we may never see the necessity for its use in this country.
  THE EARL OF WEMYSS: I desire to thank my noble friend Lord Portsmouth for having supported my argument. He said that the Militia were ready to go anywhere. That is what I say. Then why niter its constitution? My noble friend Lord Donoughmore wants to alter it because he thinks it is not suited to the time; but, if you get all you want under the present arrangement, why change it?. In the words of Lord Melbourne, "D — it, why can't you leave it alone?" Then, as regards the Norfolk Commission, they advocate universal service, which I should resist to the death. It is not wanted. You have a perfect system in the ballot for the Militia. As to the point about raids, the Resolution which your Lordships passed last year declared that it is unwise to trust the Navy alone for home defence, and that this nation should always be on land in such a state of permanent defence that no Power would ever

  1487
  attempt in any form a hostile landing on our shores. Having given our assent to that Resolution, that is the standpoint from which we should regard any revolutionary measures.

  PLURAL VOTING BILL.
  [SECOND READING.]
  Order of the day for the Second Reading read.
  EARL BEAUCHAMP: My Lords, I rise to move the Second Reading of a Bill for the abolition of plural voting. Your Lordships may remember that this is one of the Bills which were promised in the Speech from the Throne, and it is introduced in accordance with that promise. I am afraid that the idea of a mandate is not a very popular one in your Lordships' House, but I think it is only right to point out that this is a measure which was largely discussed in the country before the last general election, that it was mentioned in nearly every election address issued by Liberal candidates, and not only was it mentioned in a great many election addresses, but without exception it was mentioned in the course of every campaign and in most of the speeches which were made by the successful Liberal candidates.
  It is a Measure upon which the Liberal Party speaks with no uncertain voice, and the Bill itself has passed both its Second and Third Readings in another place by very large majorities. It is not a Bill with which this House really has direct interest, because none of your Lordships are or ever possibly can become plural voters; nor does it in any way concern the constitution of your Lordships' House. The Bill itself is a perfectly simple one. There is the one principle, and a good deal of machinery to carry out that single principle. Of that machinery I think I ought to say this on behalf of the Minister who had charge of the Bill in another place, that he met every possible objection which was made by the friends of noble Lords opposite, and that a great deal of the complication in the machinery of the Bill as now presented to your Lordships is due to his anxiety to meet
  1488
  the various points raised by his opponents. I think I may say that His Majesty's Government were very tender indeed to every objection which was taken, and were only too anxious to meet in every possible way any hard case which might occur under the Bill; and I am sure the attitude of His Majesty's Government would be the same in this House as in another place.
  Your Lordships will see that the first clause lays it down that no voter should vote in the course of twelve months in more than one constituency. The idea of imposing that disqualification is that it is, in the opinion of the Government, very desirable that the voter should make up his mind beforehand, so that in the event of a general election following after a by-election it should not be possible for a large number of persons to transfer their votes without giving due notice. The penalty imposed is that to which anyone is liable who has been guilty of personation, but instead of imprisonment, which is at present the punishment for personation, power is given to impose a fine not exceeding £500. Then I think I should draw your Lordships' attention to the fact that, throughout, the words "knowingly and with the intention of evading the provisions of this Act" are put in; so that no person who votes in the old way under some misapprehension could be in any possible circumstances punished. The punishment will only apply in the case of those people who do it knowingly and with intent to defraud. Then there is the further possibility that the voter shall choose his own constituency, and either select once a year or once for a lifetime in which constituency he shall vote
  Upon the principle of the Bill I think I should say this, that it is an attempt to adapt to Parliamentary elections the principle which is already in use in county council elections. Therefore it is in no sense an innovation in our law. Further, I may say there is not one of our Colonies in which these anomalies prevail at the present time. As the Amendment of the noble Viscount points out, there are a number of anomalies in our electoral system. There are, I think, no less than seventeen franchises. This Bill does not propose to abolish

  1489
  or to add any franchise. It is in the direction rather of the removal of one of these anomalies. Nothing could be more illogical than the present system, for it is not purely a property qualification. It happens to depend upon whether an individual has all his property within a ring fence or not. If he has all his property in one constituency, he has only a single vote; but if he has the misfortune to have his property scattered all over the place in different parts of the country, then it is that he has a number of votes. It so happens that very often those people who have many votes have less property than those who have only one vote. That, I think, is quite clearly an anomaly, and it will be acknowledged even by those of your Lordships who would support a property qualification.
  I come to the Amendment of the noble Viscount, and I hope I may say how glad I am that it is not to be moved by a Member of the late Government who was concerned in the redistribution proposals which were introduced last year. Those redistribution proposals were merely in the direction of making confusion worse confounded, and would have introduced still another difficulty in an already difficult electoral system. The noble Viscount, however, was in no way concerned with those proposals. He has put on the Paper an Amendment showing that he considers that in the Bill now before your Lordships there are certain sins of omission as well as of commission. He invites your Lordships to declare that you are willing to consider a complete scheme for reforming the franchise, and also to secure the fair representation of the people; and he ends by saying that this Bill does nothing to remove the most glaring inequalities in the present distribution of electoral power. This is the position. His Majesty's Government offer to your Lordships a Bill which does introduce one single reform. The proverb has it that half a loaf is better than no bread; but that is not the position of the noble Viscount. He says he will have four loaves or none at all.
  I should like to congratulate noble Lords opposite upon their sudden passion for reform, were it not that I feel that it is not a passion which is likely to live
  1490
  very long, but that as soon as it has served its purpose and the debate is finished we shall hear no more about it, and the question will return to that condition of neglect in which it was left for so many years by noble Lords opposite. The Amendment to be moved by the noble Viscount without doubt offers us a vision of an electoral Utopia with which many noble Lords on this side of the House will have considerable sympathy. I am glad to think we have a special expert in Lord Courtney, who, I hope, will address your Lordships on this subject, because he is particularly well able to tell your Lordships something of the subject of electoral reform. We also have our ideas with regard to that matter. We would wish to see the suffrage based rather upon citizenship, and that an individual who has a stake in the welfare of the country, whose happiness and welfare are bound up in the prosperity of the country, should have an equal opportunity with everybody else of giving a vote on the great questions of the day.
  What I wish specially to point out to the noble Viscount is that this Bill is a practical step in the direction which he invites your Lordships to go. It is only one, while the noble Viscount demands four. But let me put it to him purely as a practical question. Supposing the usual custom is adopted, and towards the end of the present Parliament a redistribution proposal is introduced and Commissioners are invited to make a scheme for a redistribution of the various constituencies; supposing, also, which I think is probable, that the abolition of plural voting is arranged for at the same time; will it not, as a matter of practical convenience to the Commissioners, be very much to their advantage that they should know where it is that these voters propose to exercise their power of voting? If this is all done at the same time, the Commissioners will not know where it is that these plural voters intend to vote, and, therefore, it would be very much more difficult for them to distribute the voting power equally between the different constituencies.
  The average number of electors for every Member in the House of Commons is 10,845, and a Redistribution Bill would

  1491
  probably place the average at not less than 11,000. If the figure is to be 11,000, let me take an average county division, that of the Harborough Division of Leicestershire. There are 17,227 people registered to vote in that division. If the average number is to be 11,000, that looks as if the Harborough Division would have to part with 6,000 of its voters. But, as a matter of fact, 3,452 of those electors reside and have votes in other constituencies, and in the event of this Bill being passed it is not unlikely that they would prefer to vote in another constituency; so that the electorate of the division would be reduced to just under 14,000, and it would be only necessary for the Commission to deprive the constituency of some 3,000 electors. It is most difficult to construct a Redistribution Bill which would not aggravate the present anomalies, until the effect of the Plural Voting Bill has been ascertained. That is, of course, provided that you still intend to give the plural voter the privilege of choosing where he will vote. There will always be the danger that it will be impossible to continue that privilege to him if you insist on postponing this reform until the last moment.
  In the Pudsey Division of Yorkshire there are 2,674 more Parliamentary electors than there were inhabited houses according to the census of 1901. In that division there are 6,577 ownership electors, because the freeholders of Leeds vote in that division. Any Redistribution Bill which was drafted at the same time as the passage of a Plural Voting Bill would probably arrange to take 4,000 voters away from the Pudsey Division; but when the Plural Voting Bill comes into operation it might need to have some additions made to it. One division of Lancashire has 24,326 electors—2,000 more than the average for two divisions, but there are nearly 7,000 ownership electors, a majority of whom would not be unlikely to wish to vote elsewhere. Those are two or three characteristic instances which I hope will show the noble Viscount opposite how difficult it would be to carry out the proposal to bring all these matters into a single Bill.
  There is only one other matter in the noble Viscount's Amendment to which
  1492
  I wish to call your Lordships' attention, and that is the condemnation of this Bill as indirectly destroying ancient and important constituencies. I do not think that was in any sense the intention of His Majesty's Government. I suppose the noble Viscount chiefly refers to the University Members. I do not think the argument for University representation has ever depended upon mere numbers. I think it has rather been the quality of the electors than the quantity which has persuaded people to support the representation of the Universities in Parliament and, therefore, I can assure the noble Viscount that, so far as this Bill goes, I do not think it will in any way destroy the argument for the representation of the Universities. I cannot help hoping that the noble Viscount will see his way to withdraw his Amendment and allow the Bill to pass. This Bill is, after all, only a moderate measure of reform, and it is one step in the direction of that larger scheme which the noble Viscount has himself outlined in the Amendment.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a." —(Earl Beauchamp.)
  VISCOUNT ST. ALDWYN,who had given notice, on the Motion for the Second Reading of the Bill, to move—
  "That this House, while willing to consider a complete scheme for reforming the Parliamentary franchise and securing the fair representation of the people, declines to take into consideration a measure which, while professing to remove an anomaly in our electoral system, imposes penalties on persons registered as voters for exercising the franchise with which they are entrusted by law, indirectly destroys ancient and important constituencies, and does nothing to remove the most glaring inequalities in the present distribution of electoral power,"
  said: My Lords, I think there is a good deal to be said by anyone who has watched the working of the seventeen complicated franchises which, as the noble Earl has stated, have been established with regard to Parliamentary voting in this country by the numerous Reform Acts, and who has also noticed the trend of popular opinion, in favour of a great simplification of our Parliamentary franchises; and I should not for a moment deny that in considering any such simplification it would be

  1493
  necessary also to consider the question of the continuance of plural voting. Nor am I at all prepared to quarrel with what the noble Earl has said as to the extent to which the principle of one man one vote has been adopted by the Party which is represented in this House by noble Lords opposite, or has been accepted by a large majority of those returned to the House of Commons as representing that Party at the last general election. But I do venture to demur to the inference which the noble Earl draws from those premises, that His Majesty's Government have any mandate for dealing with this subject alone in this Bill or for the mode in which it is sought to deal with the question of plural voting.
  It is quite true that the Bill was passed by large majorities in the House of Commons, but it was passed, I am sorry to be obliged to remind the noble Earl, by one of those exercises of forcible suppression of debate with which we are, unhappily, now becoming too familiar. He has reminded your Lordships that this is a matter which affects primarily the constitution of the other House. That is quite true, and I can quite conceive that in the present, as in the past, your Lordships might be disposed to pay great deference to the decisions of the House of Commons with regard to the details of the Parliamentary franchise. But, my Lords, there is one great principle which this House has maintained. I believe, ever since the passing of the great Reform Act of 1832 with regard to Parliamentary reform, and it is this, that when the time comes to reconsider the Parliamentary franchise the question of Parliamentary reform should be dealt with as a whole.
  That principle was last established when in the years 1884–5 the latest Reform Act was passed by the Legislature. Many of your Lordships can remember the occurrences of those years, and it will be only necessary for me very briefly to recall them to your recollection. There was in the year 1884 a County Franchise Bill, instituting household franchise in the counties, introduced by the Government of the day. That question had been for many years previously discussed in the country. It was at the time the chief plank of the Liberal plat-
  1494
  form, and the principle of it was objected to by very few persons during the discussion of the Bill in either House of Parliament. The Bill that your Lordships have now before you is a petty measure of disfranchisement; that was a great measure of enfranchisement. This House was told that there were 2,000,000 of capable citizens whose wants and wishes had not been sufficiently considered by Parliament in the past because they were not represented in the House of Commons, appealing to be admitted to the privileges of the Constitution, and it was warned that if it even delayed compliance with that appeal terrible results would ensue. I shall venture to quote to your Lordships some remarkable words that were used on that occasion by no less a person than the noble Earl who generally sits on the cross benches, and who has since that time been Prime Minister of the Queen. Lord Rosebery argued that if the House of Lords delayed compliance with the request of those 2,000,000 of would-be electors, there would be an agitation in the country of a violent and terrible kind which would attack the foundations of this House; that a conflagration would be stirred up of which no one could pretend to see the limits; that this House was Standing by a precipice if not hurrying to it, and he implored the Lords to pause before they passed a Resolution against the Bill which might strike a fatal blow at their existence.
  Those were the lurid prophecies of that time. They were reinforced by more solemn warnings from the older statesmen of the Party. What happened? This House set aside that Bill, important as it was, by adopting an Amendment very similar in its effect to that which I am about to submit to your Lordships. What happened then? Nothing at all. The same Bill was introduced in the following year, and then at last the Government of the day, headed by Mr. Gladstone, listened to counsels of wisdom and moderation. Both sides conferred upon the matter, the question of Parliamentary reform was settled in a complete measure with general consent, and that settlement has lasted to the present day. I think it possible that the events of those two years, if carefully considered, may not be

  1495
  without some lesson to all of us at the present juncture. But, however that may be, so far as regards the question of Parliamentary reform, it is absolutely certain that your Lordships on that occasion successfully established at a very critical moment the great principle that the question of the Parliamentary franchise and the redistribution of seats, when dealt with, must be dealt with as a whole.
  The noble Earl has congratulated me upon not having been responsible for the Redistribution scheme of last session. I am bound to confess that in my opinion that scheme did offend against the principle which I have just quoted. It came to nothing. This Bill will also come to nothing, and I think it will deserve its fate. When the noble Earl talked about what might happen in the future if your Lordships were to give your assent to this Bill, I noticed that he very carefully avoided any promise on the part of His Majesty's Government that a Redistribution Bill would be introduced at any time in either House of Parliament. He said that "supposing" such a Bill were introduced, then this Bill, if passed, would afford a useful basis for Commissioners to allocate the proper Parliamentary representation of the country, because until it had become law and been in operation a little time, it would be impossible to tell how many electors there would be in any particular constituency. The noble Earl entirely forgot that all our Redistribution Acts have been based, not upon electors, but upon population, and I believe that whenever the question of redistribution is taken up by Parliament, the allocation of seats will be dealt with as before, on population and not on electors.
  Now, what is the proposition which it is sought to establish? It is not merely that His Majesty's Government desire to abolish the abuses of the faggot voting system. The faggot voting system received a deadly blow when constituencies were largely increased by the Act of 1885, and that Act also contains some valuable provisions for preventing the most glaring abuses in the manufacture of that franchise. Faggot voting might
  1496
  be absolutely put an end to if the Legislature would make a reform which would be useful for many another reason— namely, if it would shorten the duration of a general election from one month to a week or ten days. But that is not what His Majesty's Government have in their minds. They have—I do not really quite know why—adopted, this as an eternal principle of justice, that, in the choice of the House of Commons at a general election, no elector ought to give more than one vote. I can only say that it is a principle absolutely alien to the constitution of our Parliament. From the very beginning of our Parliamentary institutions it has always been the rule that the depositories of political power have not been the electors at large, but the electors grouped into particular constituencies, and it is impossible to secure the complete representation of all the interests in any particular constituency if you are going to eliminate from that constituency not a few, I daresay in many cases, of the principal owners of property, employers of workmen, residents, and other persons interested who may be voters elsewhere, and may choose to exercise their franchise elsewhere if this Bill becomes law. If plural voting is put an end to, it seems to me that a blow will be struck at the very root of our system of choosing the House of Commons through particular constituencies.
  I see the noble Lord, Lord Courtney, opposite. Would he not find, in such an event, a strong argument in favour of his view that you ought to endeavour to secure that the House of Commons should be a more complete mirror of the opinion of the nation by some one or other of those systems of proportional representation to which he has given so much time and attention? I do not myself believe that the country will ever depart from the system of particular constituencies in favour of the system which the noble Lord has so much at heart. But if it does not, what then? If you are going to adopt the principle of one man one vote, you must go on with your theories of equality to the principle of one vote one value. The existing system presents infinitely greater anomalies, looked at from that point of view, than

  1497
  any that would be touched by this Bill. How is it possible to defend a system under which, to take a single instance, 2,600 electors in the city of Durham have as much voice in returning the House of Commons as 45,000 electors in South Essex, or under which five English counties, exceeding in population fifteen Irish constituencies, return only five Members to the House of Commons when the Irish constituencies return sixteen? If it was necessary, I could place before your Lordships any number of statistics to show that the great anomaly in our present representation system is not the existence of plural voting, but the extent to which the lapse of time and the changes of population, and other reasons, have made the grossest inequalities between the existing constituencies of the United Kingdom.
  But, my Lords, let me turn from the proposition which is the principle of this Bill, the principle of one man one vote, to the manner in which the Bill proposes to carry out that principle. The noble Earl passed very lightly over the machinery of the Bill, and it has hardly been attempted to be defended in the House of Commons except by its author. A Member of the House of Commons, Sir Charles Dilke, who is, perhaps, the greatest authority there on questions of electoral law, and a very strong advocate of the principle of one man one vote, denounced the machinery of the Bill from every point of view, and argued, as it seemed to me quite fairly, that for everybody's sake, if Parliament were to adopt the principle of one man one vote it ought to carry it out, not in the manner proposed in this Bill, but by abolishing all our existing seventeen Parliamentary franchises and substituting a simple residential franchise with a penalty on a man voting twice at a general election. What does the Bill do instead of that? The Bill retains, as the noble Earl has told us, all these existing Parliamentary franchises. The law ensures that every person qualified, whether he likes it or not, whether he knows it or not, shall be placed upon the register perhaps of a dozen constituencies in different parts of the United Kingdom. Having done that at no inconsiderable trouble to the officials of various sorts, possibly even at some
  1498
  trouble to the voter himself, what does this Bill proceed to do? It proceeds to tell the voter that of all the votes he possesses he must exercise only one, and then it puts him to infinite trouble by notices of selection, notices of withdrawal and other action detailed in the Bill, to settle which vote he shall exercise when the time comes; and if, unhappily, after all he acts contrary to the law as laid down in this Bill and gives a vote where the law forbids him to give a vote, he is liable, as the noble Earl said, to imprisonment or to a fine of £500. And for what offence? For an offence, the definition of which really must have been borrowed from some comic opera—for the offence of personating himself.
  Knowing the cynical humour of the author of this Bill, the First Commissioner of Works, I cannot help thinking that he must have desired, in arranging to send this extraordinary measure to your Lordships' House just at this time, to give us some glimmer of amusement in the interval between our tedious debates on the Education Bill. These are the remarkable provisions by which it is attempted to carry out the simple principle of one man one vote. No wonder it has been found necessary, in the passage of this Bill in another place, to introduce pages of qualifications, so that the unfortunate voter who does not know, as I believe five voters out of six often do not know, whether he is on a register or not, shall not fall into the meshes of the draconic law which is embodied in this Bill. That is the manner in which the Bill proposes to deal with individuals, who are so unlucky as to have property or residence in more than one place. It not only deprives them of all but one vote, it places them in a position so much worse than that of the voter who is only qualified in one place, that it would be almost kinder to disfranchise them altogether.
  I now turn to its general effect. The first point is one of what I may call an electoral nature. It is now the law in large cities which are divided into several Parliamentary constituencies that, although an elector may be registered in every one of those several divisions, he can only vote in one of such constituencies when a general election comes. Now, what is the result

  1499
  of that? In those cities it has become an established practice for astute election agents and registration agents to consider the necessities of their Party in the several constituencies in which the city is divided. If that Party is unnecessarily strong in one of those constituencies, voters are taken off from that constituency and put into another where the forces of both sides are comparatively equal, and there are all kinds of what I may call gerrymandering of this sort, which, if this Bill passed, would, I venture to say, be extended to the whole country; and as in that kind of action the Party always has the advantage which has the longest purse, I submit to your Lordships whether the abolition of plural voting would really be quite so satisfactory to what is called the popular side as noble Lords opposite seem to imagine.
  That is not all. The noble Earl referred to the representation of the Universities. He was quite right in thinking that a sentence in the Amendment which I shall propose to your Lordships referred to that matter. University representation is an old established part of our Parliamentary system. It has been extended by Parliament within comparatively recent times to the London and Scottish Universities. I think it would be a very good thing if it was found capable of further extension to the younger English Universities, and to another University in Ireland. I venture to say that the principle has worked well. I do not mean that University representation is necessary to enable eminent men to be elected to the House of Commons. Certainly not. But it has introduced to the House of Commons, to the great advantage of the country, men who would certainly never have sought election from any other constituency. I need only mention the names of Lecky, Stokes, Jebb, and Foster to explain to your Lordships what I mean, and further, University representation, as it at present exists, enables the voices of certain classes to be hoard in the House of Commons which would hardly be heard there but for that system. The clergy of the Church of England, the different branches of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, the members of the medical profession, all have their views represented, as I think they could only be represented, by
  1500
  University representation. There is, last, but not least, one case which I think never should be forgotten. There is a large and intelligent class of the Irish population which would, in present circumstances, have no voice whatever in the House of Commons but for the existence of Trinity College, Dublin, as a Parliamentary constituency. Therefore, I think, on its merits, University representation should not be abolished. But the noble Earl says, "We do not touch it." No, you do not. If you had the courage to propose to abolish it you would have to do so under a Redistribution of Seats Bill, and if you did propose that, then would arise the question whether what is now sought to be secured by University representation, ought not, if University representation is to be abolished, to be secured in some other way. What is done by this Bill with regard to University representation is to bleed the University constituencies to death. They are to be deprived of all those voters who from property, or residence, or other reasons, might find it necessary to select some other qualification than their University qualification, with the result that the University constituencies would, I think, practically be reduced to the residents and teachers in the Universities themselves, and to a few clergymen or members of the medical profession who might think that in that way they would still retain the special representation to which they attach value, and would, therefore, prefer to select their University vote. The noble Earl said that University representation did not depend upon numbers. I wonder whether he spoke for His Majesty's Government. I wonder how long University representation would continue if the University constituencies were bled to death in that way.
  I hope I have said something to convince your Lordships that, in the first place, this proposal to abolish plural voting is in itself but a small part of a very great question; that if dealt with, you must also consider other questions on which it bears which are infinitely; more urgent and more important in their nature, and that the machinery by which His Majesty's Government propose to carry out their intentions is about as bad as any machinery could be. I hope that it may be your will to set aside this

  1501
  Bill this evening. The noble Earl seemed to suggest that I was not sincere in my desire that Parliamentary reform, if attempted at all, should be attempted as a complete scheme. Well, that taunt was pressed in 1884 in every speech from that side of the House against the Amendment which was then moved by Lord Cairns. It was shown to be absolutely unfounded by the result, for in the very next year, when their desire for a complete scheme was fulfilled, the House of Lords passed the extension of the franchise together with the redistribution of seats. I believe the same thing would happen now.
  I am sure that your Lordships will never resist the real desire of the people and of the House of Commons for Parliamentary reform. But this I feel with regard to this Bill, that it is not worth the name of Parliamentary reform. It is a moan and petty scheme for disfranchising voters, the majority of whom are supposed, for all I know quite erroneously, to be opposed to those at present in power. If it is destroyed to-night, its loss will be regretted by few beyond the circle of wire-pullers and Party agents who hope to find in it a means of preserving to their Party some more seats than those to which it would be otherwise entitled at the next general election. I beg to move the Amendment standing in my name.
  Amendment moved—
  "That this House, while willing to consider a complete scheme for reforming the Parliamentary franchise and securing the fair representation of the people, declines to take into consideration a measure which, while professing to remove an anomaly in our electoral system, imposes penalties on persons registered as voters for exercising the franchise with which they are entrusted by law, indirectly destroys ancient and important constituencies, and does nothing to remove the most glaring inequalities in the present distribution of electoral power."—(Viscount St. Aldwyn.)
  LORD COURTNEY OF PENWITH: My Lords, the noble Viscount who has just addressed the House has adduced many reasons for the rejection of this Bill, the force of many of which I readily recognise and with the merits of some of which I completely concur. I suppose the noble Viscount will be successful in securing the rejection of this Bill. Speaking with
  1502
  that anticipation, I may, perhaps, be permitted to deal with the subject of the Bill with more freedom than might be allowable if we were really fighting a doubtful issue. I have said that I assent to much that the noble Viscount has said, but I dissent from his conclusion. His premises are of great force, some of which I would not attempt to controvert, but his conclusion is not one of prudence or of wisdom.
  It is trite, as the noble Viscount said, that the Bill deals with a comparatively small matter in comparison with many of the important issues to which the noble Viscount adverted; but since it is a small Bill it might be assented to without great inconvenience. I submit to your Lordships that it is especially incumbent upon you to consider whether in the interests of this House it would not be advisable to let the Bill pass. What is the principle on which the Bill is founded? The underlying idea of the Bill is equality of voting power on the part of all entitled to take part in Parliamentary elections. It is the antipathy to privilege which makes such a strong case in favour of this Bill, which has caused its principle to be taken up by every Liberal candidate, and to be adopted and embodied in the representative systems of all our self-governing Colonies. Seeing that it is really a question of antipathy to privilege, seeing that it is conceded that the privilege concerned is of comparatively small value, and seeing that it is apart from all other questions of electoral reform, I strongly urge your Lordships to consider whether the possession of real and valuable privileges may not be endangered by adhering tenaciously to small privileges which are of no account and the existence of which excites popular feeling.
  Although I admit that the Bill is a small affair, and that its machinery appears to deserve much of the noble Viscount's condemnation, and although I recognise, as he has done, that Sir Charles Dilke, a man of greater authority and with a larger knowledge of the political machinery of our time than any other, has condemned the Bill from top to bottom—admitting all that, would it not be better to read the Bill a second time and then attempt to amend the machinery, so that your Lordships would have shown yourselves ready to abandon privilege and to be concerned only for the

  1503
  efficiency of electoral reform. Though the subject of the Bill is separated from other measures of electoral reform, its passage would not prevent the consideration of the larger questions; indeed, I think it would perhaps accelerate their consideration by tending to remove a temper of prejudice and hostility and to substitute a more open mind and a larger spirit.
  I have said that this is a very small matter, and my feeling is that in the rejection of the measure there is some compensation that the interval before the reappearance of the Bill, which we all recognise must ultimately be passed, may be employed so as to lead the mind of the nation to consider the larger questions with which it is not essentially but mechanically connected, and lead to a a better understanding of what ought to be aimed at in that general Bill. The real failure of this Bill lies in its stopping short of the principle of one vote one value, and in not realising that what the promoters of it have at heart, what those electors outside who are keen about it emphatically desire, is the equality of voting power—that each man who is a voter shall have just the same influence and power as his fellow man in bringing about the election of the Representative Chamber. That is what is underlying the great demand for the legislation in this Bill.
  But those who believe that this Bill will produce anything like an equality of voting power, even if accompanied by the reforms to which the noble Viscount referred, entirely err in their appreciation of the working of our electoral machinery, and make a great mistake in their anticipations of the future. The equality of voting power which is desired is not principally affected by the disproportionate size of the constituencies. Even with constituencies of the same size from end to end of the Kingdom you would still find that the voting power of those entitled to vote would vary indefinitely and be dependent on chances which that equality of constituencies would entirely fail to remove.
  Let me illustrate the general argument by reference to a fact which is within your Lordships' knowledge. At the general election Wales did not return a single Member opposed to His Majesty's Government. It is true that the
  1504
  constituencies of Wales vary somewhat. Cardiff is overgrown; it may be that divisions of Monmouth are larger than some of the more agricultural counties of Wales; but that monotony of representation of Wales did not depend on the inequality in the size of the constituencies in Wales. You have this fact, that the 57,000 voters in Wales who all went to the poll in opposition to the candidates supporting His Majesty's Government did not secure a single Member. Where is the equality of power in the case of those 57,000 voters? It is clear that the electoral power of the minority was nothing. Equality of constituency in Wales would have produced no appreciably different result. One man one vote might be secured; you might abolish plurality of votes; you might equalise the size of constituencies; but the aim which those who are keenest in supporting this Bill have at heart— namely, the securing of equality of power, would not be realised thereby. You must go to something else.
  I take another example of the recent general election—an example worth considering. Manchester and Salford returned, as your Lordships may be aware, another monotony of candidates all supporting His Majesty's Government; but 34,000 electors in Manchester and Salford voted for the Opposition candidates. Where is the equality of value in respect of those 34,000 votes? At the previous election Manchester and Salford returned eight Conservative Members and one Liberal; now these constituencies have returned nine Liberals. There was just the same error in regard to the power of the votes on the Liberal side last time as there is on the Conservative side this time. Look, again, at Birmingham. What is the value of the Liberal vote in Birmingham just now? The value of the Liberal vote in Birmingham is a strange thing that has come to pass of late years. The change may be duo in some respect to the influence of the distinguished man whose illness we all deplore, but the value of the Liberal vote there is about as imaginary in quantity as the value of the Liberal vote is to a Liberal Irish peer. Your Lordships know exactly what that is.
  You will not get the principle of one value at all realised by simply adopting the principle of one man one vote. The monotony

  1505
  of representation to which I have referred does not depend upon the plurality vote. There is another large area which at the last general election departed from its usual normal course. The last general election produced a great tidal wave of resentment—I am not sure that I should not be justified in using the word disgust—which overwhelmed the supporters of the late Government. Whether justifiable or not, that was the feeling which produced the great change which then took place. These tidal waves cannot always be relied upon, and it may be that certain districts in England will in the near future return to their more normal course. I invite your Lordships to consider what has happened at more than one general election in the south of England. The value of a Liberal vote in many of these areas is next to nothing. There was a complete absence of Liberal Members in previous elections in the southern counties of England although there were a large number of Liberal voters there. Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Hampshire, and Dorset, showed an absolute monotony of Conservative Members in borough and county divisions. It was only when one got to the neighbourhood of the Celtic fringe in Devon and Cornwall that one found a small Liberal representation. Yet though the Liberal representation in that area of the country was small, there were many Liberal voters in it. Owing to the present machinery, the Liberal voter had no voice and got no representation in those areas.
  It may be said that the inequality of one area is balanced by the inequality in another area, but a little examination of the figures shows that this idea is wrong. The last election showed the utter failure of the distribution which now prevails to redress the inequality of the value of votes in different parts of the country. At the late election 428 Liberals were returned to the House of Commons, as against 155 supporters of the Opposition. If, however, you add together the number of voters supporting the 428 Liberals and the number of voters who supported the 155 Unionists it will be found that the number of voters ought to have secured 327 seats to the Liberals, and the number on the other side ought to have been 256 instead of 155 seats.
  1506
  A still more striking illustration of the extraordinary failure to reproduce in our representative assembly a true picture of the voting desires of the electorate was afforded by the election of 1895. In that election 481 seats were contested between Unionists and Liberals. The Unionist voters were 1,775,000 and the Liberals voters 1,800,000 — very nearly alike. One would, therefore, be disposed to say that the representation ought to have been nearly divided between the two Parties; but the fact was that out of the 481 seats the Unionists got 279 seats and the Liberals, though receiving the larger number of votes, got 202 seats. This shows the utter failure of the haphazard system of dividing up our political areas in order to secure what we want to produce—namely, a true comparison of the electoral forces of the country.
  The noble Viscount opposite spoke of his absolute disbelief that the country would ever depart from our old system of local representatives and local areas. It is not necessary that you should depart from it. It is only necessary to revert to the local areas which were recently our units for Parliamentary elections. If you were to revert to the old system of electoral areas and have a multiplicity of candidates in them you would then be able to secure approximately, if not absolutely, a true correspondence between the electoral power in the country and at Westminster, and the representation of that intellectual, moral, and political power which the noble Viscount holds has been realised in some measure and in relation to some classes in the representation of the Universities. The noble Viscount thinks that the suggestion is one which the people of this country would never adopt; but it has been adopted in other countries in different forms, and in one at least of our own Colonies—in Tasmania; and I think it is extremely rash, in view of the great changes that must be anticipated, and which must make all reflecting people anxious about the future, to attempt to say to what changes the mind of the country may not be drawn, especially if persons of experience will turn their minds to the projected changes and inquire whether they might not be adopted with advantage here.
  This Bill is founded on the principle of equality of voting power. When I

  1507
  have addressed electors as a candidate, in answer to the suggestion of one man, one vote, it has always been said, "Yes; you mean not merely that, but one man, one vote, one value." This Bill would not realise that desire. It would only go a very little way. It would remove a prejudice, and in my judgment it would be wise for your Lordships to do your best to remove that prejudice, seeing that the Bill would not materially interfere with the greater changes which you know to be imminent. The Bill cannot be accepted as a solution of the electoral question. It is confused in its machinery, it is complex, and it is in the last degree vexatious and irritating. I confess I have never been able to see why we should not be content with a simple Act making it penal for a person to vote more than once at a general election, leaving it to him to choose his constituency. That would be the simplest way of dealing with this question.
  I end what I have to say by expressing the opinion that it would be wise to accept this Bill, but if it is to receive the coup de grace, it will not surprise your Lordships that I shall accept that result with a not unbecoming serenity, thinking that in the end not much mischief will be done by delay, and that the interval may be well used in attempting further to direct the mind of the nation to the true solution of the whole question.
  THE EARL OF MEATH: My Lords, although I am not a recognised adherent of either of the two great Parties in this House, perhaps I may be permitted to make a few observations on the Amendment of the noble Viscount. I was very pleased that the noble Viscount's Amendment contained the statement that this House was willing to consider a complete scheme for reforming the Parliamentary franchise and securing the fair representation of the people. Without the insertion of those words I should not have found myself able to support the noble Viscount. I must say I think those words make it quite clear that your Lordships are in no way opposed to any Amendment of the franchise law which may be for the interest of the people.
  I do not propose to enter into any discussion of the merits or the demerits
  1508
  of plural voting. My opposition to the Bill is that it is a disfranchising Bill. I am no opponent of the extension of the franchise or of electoral reform as long as that reform does not disfranchise any portion of the population which in the past has exorcised the vote. But this Bill, to my mind, distinctly disfranchises certain classes of his Majesty's subjects, and I think it might very well be described as a Bill for the encouragement amongst voters of a disinclination to exercise the Parliamentary vote. The one complaint which we have heard of recent years has been that there is the greatest possible apathy amongst voters, and we have heard over and over again that this is a real danger to the country. Here is a Bill which, to my mind, is going to disfranchise several classes, and amongst them perhaps some of the most public-spirited men to be found in Great Britain.
  The noble Viscount has told your Lordships that this Bill is calculated to disfranchise large numbers of the University voters. I will not, therefore, dilate upon that class. But in addition there are three other classes which will be disfranchised by this Bill. The first is those law-abiding citizens who are cursed with very sensitive consciences, and who dread more than anything the possibility of its being said that they have done anything, however innocently, to break the law. The second is a very numerous class, I regret to say, citizens of property who take life easily, and who would rather suffer disfranchisement than be bored by having to give notice of the selection of a constituency to any official whatever. The third class is composed of those timid persons who are so opposed to the idea of publicity that they would rather suffer disfranchisement than be accused, even without the least chance of its being true, of having done something which would bring them before public notice.
  The noble Earl who moved the Second Reading of this Bill stated that imprisonment was done away with. But in reading the Bill I see that the direction to the Court is not that it "shall" not imprison but that it "may" not imprison. A timid person would say he would rather run any risk than incur the chance of being imprisoned, and the amount of the fine—£500—would be absolute ruin

  1509
  to many individuals. There are large classes who will be disfranchised by this Bill, and I, for one, say that I will have no part or lot whatever in voting for a disfranchising Bill. If the noble Lord brings in a Bill which shall place the Constitution on a wider and more steady basis I will support him, but I will have absolutely nothing to say to a Bill which disfranchises a large number of His Majesty's subjects, and only gives security to voters who possess all their property in one constituency, or who are possessed of so little property that they only have one vote.
  THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My noble friend behind me has so skilfully and so effectually exposed the unsoundness of this measure that I need not detain your Lordships for more than a few moments with the observations I am about to offer. The Bill has been recommended to us upon one ground, and one ground only—namely, that it is a Bill intended to remove what noble Lords opposite are pleased to call an anomaly in our electoral system. Now I am not prepared to admit so readily as noble Lords opposite that the system of plural voting is necessarily an anomalous system. But whether it be an anomaly or not, it is certainly not the only anomaly to be found within our electoral system. And our complaint of His Majesty's Government is that they have singled out this one anomaly, and have turned their blind eve towards the other anomalies with which our electoral system bristles. That system is not, and does not pretend to be, a symmetrical or scientific system, and the passing of this Bill certainly will not make it a scientific or symmetrical system.
  My noble friend referred to some of the anomalies which this Bill would leave in existence. He spoke of the Irish anomaly. If you object to one man having two votes, why do you look with so much equanimity upon an arrangement which gives to the Irish voter a vote worth ten times as much as the vote enjoyed by voters in other parts of the United Kingdom? And is not the argument greatly strengthened when you consider the proportion to which illiteracy prevails in Ireland? The Irish voter, with a vote that counts ten times as much as that of his fellow voter in this country, belongs
  1510
  to a part of the United Kingdom in which illiterate voters are as one in ten, whereas in Scotland they are as one in 300. Then, my Lords, there is the Welsh anomaly, and I think I caught from the noble Lord on the back benches a reference to the case of Wales. My Lords, in the last election there were seventeen contests in Wales. The Unionist candidates polled 52,000 votes; the Liberal candidates polled 91,000; and yet the Unionists are without a single Member. Is not a system which admits of such a condition of things an anomalous system? Again, in this country is it not the case that a single Liberal Member of Parliament represents something like 7,000 voters, whereas a single Unionist Member of Parliament represents something like 17,000? The Liberal votes were, I believe, as five to four; the Liberal Members returned were as three to one. Then there are the seventeen varieties of franchise which you find in this country. There are the infinite differences to be found in our local and municipal franchises, and the arbitrary rules as to residential qualifications in counties and in boroughs. Within the last few days His Majesty's Government have tried a new little experiment of their own in the direction of plural voting. Let me remind them that under the Education Bill three parents with ten children apiece will be entitled to as many votes as ten parents with three children apiece. What is the ostensible ground upon which this particular anomaly is to pass under the dissecting knife of His Majesty's Government? We are told that a voter votes as a man, and not as a resident. I should be slow to accept that doctrine. I am under the impression that a voter enjoys a vote not because he breathes the air of the British islands, but because he resides in a particular part of those islands, because he has a local stake in that part of the islands, and he is therefore accorded the privilege of assisting to select a Member of Parliament who shall be the spokesman for that part of the country in which he lives. That seems to me to be a reasonable and common-sense view of the case. And it is for that reason that I am not greatly perturbed by the illustration advanced by the noble Earl who introduced this Bill, when he told us it was quite conceivable that the owner of a large estate in a ring fence would have only

  1511
  one vote, whereas the owner of a number of small patches of property aggregating altogether much less than the estate of the larger proprietor would be entitled to a number of votes. The man with the scattered property has more than one vote because he has a local interest in the parts of the country where those sporadic pieces of property are to be found. You are now going to say to that individual that he is to be deprived of one or more of his votes, not because he has done anything wrong, but because he has the misfortune of being entitled to vote in some other part of the country. What is the real origin of this proposal? It is a matter of notoriety that it is made because His Majesty's Ministers and their supporters believe that by attacking this particular franchise they will do something to diminish the strength, not too great at this moment, of those who are in opposition to them. It is for that reason that they are ready to do that which Mr. Gladstone refused to do in 1884, and that which was not contemplated by their own registration proposals in 1893.
  My Lords, I regard this proposal with alarm, because, it seems to me to involve a still further step in a direction in which I fear His Majesty's Government are too fond of travelling— I moan in the direction of separating representation and taxation. It means the transfer of power from those who are liable to ever-increasing direct taxation to those who are immune from direct taxation and liable to indirect taxation only. I also object to this Bill on account of the penal character of some of its provisions. Under the Bill a man with two votes is actually worse off than a man with a single vote, because he is liable to the heavy penalties which this Bill contemplates. It is disfranchisement carried out in a most invidious manner; I say that particularly on account of the manner in which the Bill disfranchises the University constituencies. We also dislike this Bill on account of the extreme complexity of its provisions. It seems to me to have a characteristic which is noticeable in a great many of the Bills proposed by noble Lords opposite and their friends—I mean that it will lead to a great deal of litigation and expense. The noble Lord told us that the
  1512
  voter would choose his constituency. I do not believe it. I believe the person who will choose his constituency for him will be the agent, and that there will be an infinite amount of what we usually speak of as gerrymandering under the provisions of this Bill. The noble Lord on the back bench, I think, let fall an observation that your Lordships might amend the machinery of the Bill. How are we to amend it without substituting for the seventeen various franchises with which this country is familiar a single, simple, and uniform suffrage? That surely is not a task which this House could be expected light-heartedly to undertake.
  The noble Earl suggested to us that this was a Bill we should hesitate to touch, because he said your Lordships' House had no direct interest in the measure. No direct interest in the measure? My Lords, if your Lordships are to have the right of rejecting any measures, surely you have the right to reject a measure which touches the machinery by which all legislation is produced in this country, the machinery which lies at the very fountain head of our legislation. I therefore raise my protest against the doctrine that because this Bill touches the House of Commons franchise, we are for that reason in any way precluded from dealing with it as we think proper. That right of dealing with the Bill seems to me strengthened when we come to consider the moment at which this proposal is made to us. Noble Lords opposite have chosen a moment when they are already in a position of overwhelming strength in the House of Commons. Are they so insecure in their position that it is necessary for them to bolster it up by this petty attempt still further to increase the weakness of their adversaries? My Lords, the scales may be rough and imperfect, but I think we have a right to raise our voices against this attempt to tamper with them. I hope your Lordships will stick to the old principle—which has been affirmed by members of His Majesty's Government— that when you deal with the suffrage you deal also with seats. I hope your Lordships will refuse a Second Reading to the Bill. If I wanted to write its epitaph I should do so in the words used a few moments ago by the noble Lord who

  1513
  said that this Bill was a Bill confused in its machinery, perplexing and irritating, and in the last degree vexatious. A Bill which can be so described is not, I venture to think, one to which your Lordships should give a Second Reading.
  THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (The Marquess of RIPON): My Lords I have listened with the utmost attention to the speech of my noble friend who has just sat down. He addresses the House upon this question from a somewhat different position from that of the noble Viscount opposite. In several respects the noble Lord cannot place himself in the position which the noble Viscount is entitled to take up. In the first place, my Lords, this Bill has been objected to because it has been argued that if you wish to deal with the great question of Parliamentary representation you ought to deal with it as a whole. I do not agree to that principle if it be carried to an extreme. The noble Viscount was perfectly entitled to use that argument, and he used it with his accustomed skill. But, my noble friend opposite is not, I humbly think, entitled to use it, because if my memory serves me rightly, in the course of the last session the then Government brought in a Bill, or rather, made certain propositions—for they never got as far as a Bill—with respect to redistribution. Redistribution is only one part of the question of Parliamentary reform. Redistribution is a part of the question intimately connected with the further question of what is to be the franchise. And yet last year there was no hesitation on the part of the then Government in proposing to deal with the question. They found it impossible to do so, and perhaps it is from a kind feeling to His Majesty's present Government that they are induced to point out that they are attempting to take a line in which the Opposition themselves failed. The question proposed to be dealt with separately last year was a very large question indeed. This question, I quite admit, is a small one. My noble friend who has just sat down says it is only one of many anomalies. I quite agree with him. There are a great many anomalies in our present electoral system. I shall be very glad indeed to see those anomalies removed, and I confess I am rather comforted by one part of the Amendment moved by the noble Viscount.
  1514
  I do not know why noble Lords opposite have proceeded by this process of Resolution, because obviously from the speech of the noble Lord who has just sat down it is not any part really of the Bill itself to which you object—it is the whole principle of the measure which you desire to reject, and which you might have rejected just as well by means of a simple Motion to read the Bill this day six months. You are very much mistaken if you think that the people of this country will not be able to see through the thin veil of this Resolution, and be able to understand perfectly well why you voted against this Bill. I was a little surprised by one remark of my noble friend. He said, and said quite frankly and openly, that this proposal of ours was simply intended for the purpose of putting an end to a system which we found told to our disadvantage at a general election. My Lords, as the noble Lord took that line, I will venture to tell the noble Viscount and noble Lords opposite that their opposition to this Bill arises from their fear that if it be passed it will do them an injury at the next general election. I am quite entitled to make that remark, although I do not think I should have made it but for what fell from my noble friend.
  Now, my Lords, this is a single question, standing by itself, and capable of being dealt with by itself, and it is just the sort of question which my noble friend opposite the other day, in rather startling words, laid down as a question with which your Lordships had better not deal. My noble friend was then speaking upon the Trade Disputes Bill—a Bill, it will be remembered, which was denounced in language almost stronger than even the strongest language of the noble and learned Earl (who does not mince his opinions when he gives them to your Lordships House), and of which my noble friend Lord Lansdowne also expressed considerable abhorence. But you were to pass that Bill. It was bad, it was unjust, it was an infringement of liberty, and I really do not know what else; but you were to pass that Bill, because you considered that the principle of it had been accepted by the country at the general election. That argument applies quite as much—I venture to think that it applies much more—to this Bill as it did to the Trade Disputes Bill. I

  1515
  accept it for the Trade Disputes Bill. I hope to see your Lordships acting upon it when that Bill comes into Committee, but I say that if ever there was a question upon which the opinion of the Liberal Party has been freely expressed, it is this question of what is called "one man one vote." This Bill has passed the other House of Parliament by overwhelming majorities; it was discussed at the last general election in every part of the country. My noble friend behind me, in the admirable speech with which he introduced this Bill, said, with perfect truth, that he did not believe there was a Liberal candidate at the last general election who did not pledge himself in support of the principle of "one man one vote." Therefore, if you are going to act upon the principle—a wise and discreet principle I quite admit —that what has been accepted by the country by an overwhelming majority at a general election ought to be accepted also by your Lordships, at least in its main principles, then I say that you ought distinctly and without hesitation to pass this Bill. I know my noble friend used some ominous words on that occasion. He said that it was desirable that when your Lordships were dealing with Bills which came up from another place you ought to take care that in joining issue upon them you should, as far as you are able, be sure that you were doing so upon grounds as favourable as possible to yourselves. That is a rather remarkable statement. It may show what is the reason of the difference between the mode in which you are treating this Bill and the mode in which you are proposing to treat the Trade Disputes Bill, because in a certain sense—not in an open sense, not in a Parliamentary sense, not in the sense of the public interest, but in another sense— in a party sense—no doubt it may be quite true that this Bill does affect the interests of the Party opposite.
  My Lords, it is not necessary for me to keep your Lordships much longer at this moment by arguments upon the Bill itself. The details of the matter were dealt with so skilfully by my noble friend behind me that it dispenses me from detaining your Lordships long, but one remark I would make. The present law in regard to this matter of one man one vote is, as your Lordships know, inconsistent with the principles
  1516
  which govern the franchise in other cases. In borough elections, as was stated by the noble Viscount opposite, and in county council elections, persons are not allowed to vote in two wards, or in two districts, of the county or borough with which they are connected. What does that mean? What is the principle involved in that? That, mind you, was the principle adopted by the Conservative Government in the Local Government Bill, 1888. What is the meaning of that principle? Surely it is this, that a man is not to vote twice in regard to the election of a body which is to deal with a particular area. He is not to vote twice in a county council election; he is not to vote twice in a borough election; and therefore, the same principle—the general principle upon which you act in these cases—the principle which you yourselves adopted in 1888, when applied to Parliament means this, that a man is not, at a Parliamentary election, to give a vote in two places. The present system does confer a privilege upon one man above another. It does establish a difference between the voting power of one man as compared with another, and generally it is in favour of the rich rather than of the poor. It is a system which has created considerable dislike on the part of those who now represent at all events the great majority of the people of this country. It is a principle which, as far as I can see, is not to be defended. The measure by which we propose to get rid of this anomoly is one which stands by itself, one which can be dealt with by a single Bill, and one which, as was pointed out by my noble friend behind me, can clear away difficulties which might beset you when you come to deal generally with this question, and under those circumstances I think it will be greatly to be regretted if this Bill is rejected to-night. Your Lordships have claimed—and I do not contest it—your right to reject this Bill. No doubt you have that right. Whether it is wise of you to exercise it I do not say. I think that every argument which was used by my noble friend opposite in reference to the Trade Disputes Bill applies equally to this measure, and I should very much regret, upon general public grounds, if it should be your Lordships' pleasure now to throw it out.

  1517
  A great deal has been said about the machinery adopted in this Bill for carrying out its object. It really is no use discussing the question at this moment, because, when I look round me, I know of course what is going to happen to this Bill. It will never get into Committee. You do not mean it to get into Committee. You really care but little about its details. But this I do say, that, if the Bill be complicated, it is due to the concessions made to hon. Members on the Opposition side of the House of Commons in consequence of objections which they urged. And, after all, it does not appear to me to be of that complicated nature which has been charged against it,
  but rather to be as simple as it could be made having regard to the nature of the measure. Therefore, my Lords, although it is useless to argue questions relating to the details of a Bill that you intend to reject, I repeat my earnest regret—a regret far wider than for the mere loss of this measure—that you should think it fit upon the Second Reading of this Bill, to reject a measure affecting the election of Members of the other House of Parliament.
  On Question, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Motion," their Lordshiss divided:— Contents, 43; Not-Contents, 143.

  CONTENTS.

  Loreburn, L. (L. Chancellor.)

  Boston, L.

  Mendip, L. (V. Clifden.)

  Brassey, L.

  Monkswell, L.

  Crewe, E. (L. President.)

  Colebrooke, L.

  O'Hagan, L.

  Coleridge, L.

  Pirrie, L.

  Ripon, M. (L. Privy Seal.)

  Courtney of Penwith, L.

  Reay, L.

  Denman, L. [Teller.]

  Ribblesdale, L.

  Beauchamp, E.

  Emly, L.

  Sandhurst, L.

  Carrington, E.

  Eversley, L.

  Saye and Sele, L.

  Chichester, E.

  Farrer, L.

  Sefton, L. (E. Sefton.)

  Craven, E.

  Fitzmaurice, L.

  Stanley of Alderley, L.

  Durham, E.

  Granard, L. (E. Granard.) [Tiller.])

  Sudley, L. (E. Arran.)

  Kimberley, E.

  Tweedmouth, L.

  Portsmouth, E.

  Grimthorpe, L.

  Wandsworth, L.

  Russell, E.

  Weardale, L.

  Temple, E.

  Hamilton of Dalzell, L.

  Welby, L.

  Haversham, L.

  Solby, V.

  Lyveden, L.

  NOT-CONTENTS.

  Norfolk, D. (E. Marshal.)

  Derby, E.

  Falkland, V.

  Bedford, D.

  Devon, E.

  Halifax, V

  Devonshire, D.

  Doncaster, E. (D. Buccleuch and Queensberry.)

  Hill, V.

  Leeds, D.

  Hutchinson, V. (E. Donoughmore.)

  Newcastle, D.

  Fitzwilliam, E.

  Northumberland, D.

  Hardwicke, E.

  Knutsford, V.

  Richmond and Gordon, D.

  Innes, E. (D. Roxburghe.)

  Ridley, V.

  Rutland, D.

  Lindsey, E.

  St. Aldwyn, V.

  Sutherland, D.

  Lonsdale, E.

  Wellington, D.

  Lytton, E.

  Abinger, L.

  Malmesbury, E.

  Addirgton, I.

  Ailesbury, M.

  Mar and Kellie, E.

  Alington, L.

  Bath, M.

  Mayo, E.

  Allerton, L.

  Camden, M.

  Mount Edgeumbe, E.

  Ampthill, L.

  Hertford, M.

  Northbrook, E.

  Annaly, L.

  Lansdowne, M.

  Onslow, E.

  Ardilaun, L.

  Salisbury, M.

  Pembroke and Montgomery, E.

  Armstrong, L.

  Zetland, M.

  Plymouth, E.

  Ashbourne, L.

  Radnor, E.

  Ashcombe, L.

  Albemarle, E.

  Romney, E.

  Atkinson, L.

  Bradford, E.

  Scarborough, E.

  Balfour, L.

  Cairns, E.

  Shaftesbury, E.

  Balinhard, L. (E. Southesk.)

  Camperdown, E.

  Shrewsbury, E.

  Barrymore, L.

  Carlisle, E.

  Vane, E. (M. Londonderry.)

  Basing, L.

  Cathcart, E.

  Waldegrave, E. [Teller.]

  Belhaven and Stenton, L.

  Cawdor, E.

  Biddulph, L.

  Clarendon, E.

  Churchill, V. [Teller.]

  Blythswood, L.

  Coventry, E.

  Colville of Culross, V.

  Bolton, L.

  Borthwick, L.

  Hothfield, L.

  Poltimore, L.

  Boyle, L. (E. Cork and Orrery.)

  Kelvin, L.

  Ponsonby, L. (E. Bessborough.)

  Braye, L.

  Kenmare, L. (E. Kenmare.)

  Ramsay, L. (E. Dalhousie.)

  Calthorpe, L.

  Kenyon, L.

  Ranfurly, L. (E. Ranfurly.)

  Chaworth, L. (E. Meath.)

  Kilmarnock, L. (E. Erroll.)

  Rathmore, L.

  Clinton, L.

  Kintore, L. (E. Kintore).

  Redesdale, L.

  Clonbrock, L.

  Lawrence, L.

  Revelstoke, L.

  Colchester, L.

  Leith of Fyvie, L

  Ritchie of Dundee, L.

  Dawney, L. (V. Downe.)

  Lovat, L.

  Robertson, L.

  De Freyne, L.

  Macnaghten, L.

  Rothschild, L.

  De Mauley, L.

  Massy, L.

  Saltoun, L.

  Douglas, L. (E. Home.)

  Meldrum, L. (M. Huntly.)

  Sinclair, L.

  Dunboyne, L.

  Michelham, L.

  Somerhill, L. (M. Clanricarde.)

  Ellenborough, L.

  Middleton, L.

  Southampton, L.

  Estcourt, L.

  Monckton, L. (V. Galway.)

  Stalbridge, L.

  Forester, L.

  Moncrieff, L.

  Stewart of Garlies, L. (E. Galloway.)

  Gage, L. (V. Gage.)

  Montagu of Beaulieu, L.

  Glenesk, L.

  Mowbray, L.

  Stratheden and Campbell, L.

  Grey de Ruthyn, L.

  Newlands, L.

  Talbot de Malahide, L.

  Harris, L.

  Newton, L.

  Vivian, L.

  Hastings, L

  North, L.

  Wemyss, L. (E. Wemyss.)

  Heneage, L.

  Oranmore and Browne, L.

  Wolverton, L.

  Proposed Resolution agreed to.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
  THE MARQUESS OF RIPON: My Lords, I beg leave to state that in the present state of business I propose to ask your Lordships to sit on Friday next from twelve o'clock to three, in order to take some of the Bills that remain to be dealt with. The Merchant Shipping Bill stands as the second order for to-morrow. I hope it may be then finished, but if not, I propose to take the remainder of the Committee stage of that Bill on Friday. If that is not necessary, I should propose to put down the Report stage of the Trade Disputes Bill for that day and the Report stage of the Land Tenure Bill in that order. Of course I cannot put them formally down on the Paper because they have not passed Committee.
  THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I think we ought to have time to consider the statement which the noble Marquess has just made. I should be disposed to say at once that while we who sit here would be glad to facilitate the transaction of business by a special sitting on Friday, our feeling with regard to proposals of that kind must depend a good deal upon the prospects of getting through, before the Christmas holidays, the great mass of business which His Majesty's Government have brought forward in this House. If there is no prospect of getting through
  1520
  it before the Christmas holidays, then there would seem to be not much object in a special sitting.
  THE MARQUESS OF RIPON: I shall make that motion on Thursday— or earlier if noble Lords prefer that I should do so—and then your Lordships will be able to say what your feelings are concerning it.

  BURIALS BILL.
  Brought from the Commons; read 1a; and to be printed. (No. 228.)
  House adjourned at a quarter before Eight o'clock, till Tomorrow, a quarter past Four o'clock.