THE PARLIAMENT BILL.

HL Deb 16 November 1910 vol 6 cc684-705

^*THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE rose to move to resolve— That this House invites His Majesty's Government to submit without further delay the provisions of the Parliament Bill for the consideration and decision of Parliament.

The noble Marquess said: My Lords, I will begin the few observations which I wish to make to the House by a word of apology for the apparently indecent haste with which I have put this important Notice on the Paper of your Lordships' House. The subject is one which deserves full and deliberate debate, and for many reasons I should have preferred to have given a longer notice; moreover, I am afraid that my somewhat precipitate action has had incidentally the effect of depriving my noble friend on the Cross Benches (Lord Rosebery) of an opportunity of which he desired to take advantage this evening. I imagine that both of us were actuated by the same motives. We had reason to believe that the Parliamentary time at our disposal was likely to be very much curtailed, and both of us would have been glad while time permitted, if I may use a familiar expression, to "jump a claim" within the very limited space which was open to our activity. I apologise to the noble Earl, and I assure him that nothing would have been further from my thoughts than to stand in his way.

But, my Lords, we are given to understand by those who are usually in a position to speak with authority that we are on the eve of a Dissolution and a General Election; and I desire to point out to the House that, should this be the case, one of the results will be that the whole of the business now before both Houses of Parliament will be by a stroke wiped off the Order Paper and put on one side for an indefinite time. That is a very serious matter. I am not sure whether I should be in order in dwelling at length upon it, but I am tempted to point out that one consequence will be, I presume, that the whole of the finance of the year will be thrown into what was described on a former occasion as "a state of irremediable chaos and confusion." But I will not follow up that point. The particular business in which I hope your Lordships will interest yourselves tonight is the proposals which have been made in this House and in the other House of Parliament for dealing with the relations of the two Houses. In this House we have the Resolutions of my noble friend on the Cross Benches, some of which have been passed, others of which remain on the Notice Paper. In the House of Commons we have had the Veto Resolutions passed, and a Bill dealing with the relations of the two Houses introduced and read a first time. The whole of those proposals, if we are right in believing that a Dissolution is imminent, will be swept away in the cataclysm, and I do venture to suggest that if that should happen it will be a very grave public misfortune, and, I cannot help adding, a very wanton affront to Parliament.

I should like to remind the House in a few words how we stand in reference to these two sets of proposals. Both Parties, to begin with, in both Houses admit, and admit freely, that there is a great constitutional question which requires to be dealt with. Both Parties in both Houses admit that that question has two parts. There is the question of the powers of the House of Lords, and there is the question of the composition of that House. Up to that point there is an agreement. as to the existence of the question, and I think I may say further an agreement that the question is at this moment more urgent than it has ever been in the history of our public life. The Party represented on the Benches opposite has concentrated its attention entirely upon the question of the powers of the House of Lords. On our side it would, perhaps, not be incorrect to say that we have concentrated our attention, if not entirely, mainly, at any rate, upon the other branch of the subject—I mean the composition of this House. Your predominant feeling, if I may so put it, has been one of resentment at the interference of the House of Lords in important questions which have been dealt with by the House of Commons. Our predominant feeling has been that the whole question is prejudiced by the exclusively hereditary character of this Assembly, by its excessive numbers, by the disproportionate representation of Parties within it, and by the need of reinforcement from outside. It is, perhaps, to be regretted that each side has been so much absorbed in its own quest that it has not taken sufficiently into account the extent to which these two great questions are connected and interdependent.

We in this House feel strongly that it is impossible to deal, adequately with the question of the powers of the House of Lords until we know what sort of a House of Lords it is that we are talking about. The real question in our view is not what are the powers which you can give to an imperfectly constituted House, but what are the powers which any Second Chamber in any civilised community ought to be entrusted with, and, if this House as at present constituted is not fit to be entrusted with those powers, what are the changes which are necessary in order to render it competent for the discharge of its duties in a manner will command the confidence of the people of this country. I do not think I put it too high when I say that it is tinkering and not statesmanship to leave one House of Parliament in a condition which you admit yourselves to be unsatisfactory, and upon that pretext to deny it the powers of revision and reservation without which no Second Chamber can adequately do its work. This House has been ready with its contribution towards the solution of this most difficult problem. We have passed some of the Resolutions moved by the noble Earl on the Cross Benches. Speaking for many of those who sit by me, I may say that we are ready to support him when he moves, if lie does, the other Resolutions he has put on the Paper. I at any rate regard myself as committed to the view that it is desirable that there should be a reduction in the number of your Lordships' House, that no Peer should be allowed to sit and vote in it merely in virtue of his hereditary right, that a new House of Lords should include an adequate representation of the best and most representative elements to be found in the present House, and that it should be reinforced from outside, either by nomination or by some kind of election. And, my Lords, I add to that—and here, again, I feel no doubt that most of my friends would support me—that we are all of us ready to devise, if we can, some means by which, when differences of opinion arise between the two Houses, those differences of opinion might be solved in a reasonable, and, if possible, amicable manner. That, I say, is the contribution which 1 believe this House is ready to make, and I trust that your Lordships will not consider that it is by any means a negligible contribution, or a contribution which does not deserve to be carefully considered and examined by His Majesty's Government alongside of any proposals which they may have it in their mind to make for dealing with the other branch of the question—I mean the powers of this House.

If that is the contribution which the House of Lords is ready to make, what of the contribution which is offered from the other side? We are all familiar with the so-called Veto Resolutions which were passed through the House of Commons in the summer of this year. I am not going to examine them this evening; but what I do wish to insist upon as strongly as I can is this, that those Resolutions were put forward by the Prime Minister not as in any sense a complete attempt to deal with the subject in view. He dwelt again and again upon the fact that the Resolutions were merely preliminary to a Bill in which the Government scheme was to be more fully unfolded, and which—and I call attention to this in particular—was to be fully discussed in Parliament in all its stages. I think I have quoted the words of the Prime Minister with substantial accuracy. I also wish to point this out, that in dealing with the subject the Prime Minister was careful to indicate that the procedure embodied in his Resolutions by no means covered the whole of the ground. He dwelt in particular on the possibility of devising some means of reconciling the two Houses when a difference might arise between them, and he referred pointedly to the possibility of a Joint Session, which he said had a great many recommendations. He said— This scheme of a joint Session has, I think, a great many recommendations, and I desire to say most distinctly, here and now, that if you have two legislative Chambers composed upon a democratic basis and related to one another somewhat after the fashion I indicated earlier in my speech with a proper numerical relation one to the other, I think there is a good deal to be said for settling differences that might arise between them by means of a joint session.

I wish to be quite fair to the Prime Minister. He was speaking then of two legislative Chambers composed upon a democratic basis. That is a somewhat elastic expression, but as I said a moment ago, we are quite ready to entertain the idea of changes in this House which would import to these Benches Peers of Parliament who would sit there in respect of what can only, I think, be properly described as a democratic title of one kind or another.

There was another important suggestion that was touched upon by the Prime Minister—I mean the possibility of resorting to the Referendum. He said the Referendum might be— possibly the least objectionable means of untying the knot in some extreme and exceptional constitutional entanglement";

and bearing upon that he made this observation. He expressed his conviction that— the will of the people, by which we mean the will of the majority of the people for the time being, shall both in legislation and policy prevail.

He was careful to explain that the will of the people was not always conclusively expressed by the majority of opinion in the other House of Parliament. For he added this— It may be that representatives of the people in a particular case have mistaken the terms of their authority. It may again be that the majority by which a particular measure is passed through this House is so small or so obviously casual and heterogeneous that its verdict ought not to be treated as expressing the considered judgment of the nation.

Therefore the Prime Minister had in view the possibility of an appeal to the considered judgment of the nation as something distinct from the verdict for the moment given in the other House of Parliament. The Prime Minister, I need not say, dealt with this subject in a broad and judicial spirit, and his observations would have naturally suggested the hope that all these ideas would have been followed up and thoroughly discussed in both Houses of Parliament. But that Parliamentary discussion to which the Prime Minister looked forward never took place. The Resolutions were passed, but the alternatives suggested by the Prime Minister never obtained any consideration whatever. That is how the matter stands.

I have endeavoured to put before you what; has been contributed, on the one hand by this House and on the other by the House of Commons, towards the treatment of this constitutional question. That is how the matter stood until a very few days ago. What has happened since? What is it that, unless we are misinformed, has determined His Majesty's Government to abandon the further investigation of these enormously important questions, and to cut everything short by precipitately dissolving Parliament? There is only one answer, as far as I am aware. That answer is that in the meantime the Conference has failed. This Parliament is not a year old. His Majesty's Government have undergone no defeat. They are going to the country —at least, so we are informed—simply because the eight gentlemen who until a few days ago were sitting in secret conclave within a stone's throw of this building were unable to arrive at a conclusion which they could recommend their supporters to adopt. I venture to remind your Lordships what this Conference was. It was purely informal; it was held in secret; it was understood from the first that whatever was offered and accepted across the table was offered and accepted without prejudice. Those who took part in it were not plenipotentiaries. I do not think we can even consider that they were, in the proper sense of the word, the delegates of their Parties. I noticed a statement made a few days ago by a distinguished member of that Conference, Mr. Birrell. Mr. Birrell I think, summed up the case very aptly. He said— I kept no notes. My memory is very treacherous. I propose to put a sponge over the Conference and all that took place within it.

That is, I submit, a perfectly correct and statesmanlike view of the position. Apparently His Majesty's Government intend to regard the failure of the Conference to come to an agreement as justifying them in the abandonment of all further discussion of the question. Perhaps the noble Earl will tell me that it is idle to expect that where the Conference failed Parliament will succeed. My Lords, I venture to say that we have no right whatever to assume, because eight members drawn from the two Front Benches did their best to come to an agreement and were unsuccessful, that for that reason Parliament is to be deprived of an opportunity of dealing with these great constitutional problems. I should be sorry, and so, I think, would every member of the Conference, to assume that we possess a monopoly of knowledge or of diplomatic gilts which entitle our failure to be regarded as conclusive evidence that success in any other mode is unattainable.

What I wish to ask your Lordships to consider is whether it is wholly inconceivable that matters might be advanced if we could so arrange that, on the one hand, my noble friend on the Cross Benches should persevere with his Resolutions, and that, on the other, His Majesty's Government should, in accordance with their original undertaking, proceed in both Houses with the Parliament Bill. That Bill contains, no doubt, many provisions about which we should have a good deal to say, but I venture to say that there are certain propositions in it which would obtain a very general measure of adhesion from all political Parties and in all parts of this House. I find in that Bill these four propositions directly or indirectly affirmed. First, that there is a need of regulating the relations of the two Houses of Parliament. I do not think anybody will contest that. Secondly, that it is desirable that the House of Lords should be reformed. We, at any rate, are not likely to controvert that proposition. In the third place, I find the claim that the House of Commons is entitled to preponderance in all cases where purely financial considerations are involved. If that is interpreted in a reasonable manner, I for one shall certainly not quarrel with that claim. And, fourthly, I find the principle that it is necessary to provide us with some machinery, at present non-existent, to relieve the Houses should they unfortunately become involved in a serious difference of opinion.

Now, my Lords, is it really reasonable to contend that because the Conference was unable to arrive at an agreement, it is therefore idle for Parliament even to discuss these great questions? I cannot believe that that question can be answered in the affirmative. If that is so, surely the first step which, logically and constitutionally, His Majesty's Government ought to take is to give Parliament an opportunity of getting to close quarters with the Bill which contains their proposals for dealing with the question. They should give Parliament an opportunity of getting to close quarters with that Bill, of criticising it, of suggesting amendments in it. That was the course which, as I have endeavoured to show, His Majesty's Government themselves contemplated at the outset, and I am quite unable to suggest or to discover any reasons for which they should not adopt that course now. I beg to move.

Moved to resolve, That this House invites His Majesty's Government to submit without further delay the provisions of the Parliament Bill for the consideration and decision of Parliament.—(The Marquess of Lansdowne.)

THE EARL OF CREWE

My Lords, we must all, I think, have been impressed with the moderate tone in which the noble Marquess approached the discussion of this subject, and though I fear that I can find myself in agreement with very little that he said, yet I fully appreciate the temper with which he has dealt with this difficult question—a question which, as we know, excites profound feeling in many quarters; and I hope that the remainder of the debate may be conducted on similar lines. I make no complaint of the actual Motion made by the noble Marquess. He invites His Majesty's Government to submit, without further delay, the provisions of the Parliament Bill for the consideration and decision of Parliament. I do not think that that, in the circumstances, can be called an unreasonable request, and it is a request with which we are willing to comply. I am prepared to move, and propose to move, the First Reading of the Bill this evening, and we can consider, probably later on, what day your Lordships might desire to take the Second Reading.

The noble Marquess travelled over a very wide field. He entered into an analysis both of the action of your Lordships' House with regard to the reform of the constitution of the House and the action of His Majesty's Government with regard to the relations which exist between the two Houses, and he certainly did not overstate the case when he said that the thoughts and energies of the two Parties had respectively been devoted in the main to one subject in each case rather than to the other. I think the noble Marquess might have gone even further, because I have never heard from those Benches any admission, in the course of the many discussions we have had, that there was any question of accepting a limitation of the powers of this House beyond the well known limitations which custom and prescription place on your Lordships at present. I am bound to say, if we had known or supposed that such limitations were subjects for discussion and, possibly, for agreement with noble Lords opposite, our task would have been an easier one in the past. But we have never heard a hint of anything of the kind. We have heard of nothing but reform of the constitution of your Lordships' House, with the understanding, expressed or implied, that the reconstitution of the House would give it such authority in the eyes of the country that it ought to retain the whole of its present powers. I really do not think any noble Lord opposite will contradict me when I say this. It is true that we have, partly for that very reason, mainly directed our attention to the other branch of the question, but we have not neglected the first. We have never left out of sight the practical certainty that any dealing with the question must involve some reform in the constitution of your Lordships' House. No proposal that we have ever' made is hostile to or incompatible with the reform, drastic or otherwise, of your Lordships' House, and, although we have found it necessary to take one thing at a time, yet we have never in our speeches or in our proposals ignored the question to which, as we think, your Lordships at large have too exclusively devoted yourselves.

In considering the relations between the two Houses we have all through felt compelled to take, for the time being, the House as it is, and I do not see how we could have adopted any other course. If we are to deal in any way with the existing relations we must consider what the two bodies are as they exist at this moment and take those relations as they stand. It seems to me that it would be equally futile for your Lordships to consider those relations on the theory that the House of Commons might be replaced by some different kind of House under some of the schemes which we have lately seen. ventilated in the newspapers. When you deal with the House of Commons you deal with the House of Commons as it is, and the House of Commons is obliged to deal with your Lordships as you are, leaving out the possibility that in course of time the, constitution of this House may be something different.

I understand that the gist of the noble Marquess's, I will not say request, but desire is that this House should have more time given to reform itself before the question of the relations between the two Houses is considered. Nobody has ever hurried the House of Lords over this question of reform. The question of the reform of your Lordships' constitution has been before you and before the country for very many years. My noble friend on the Cross Benches has devoted to it from quite his early days in the House —and he came to it young—all the resources of his unequalled eloquence and his great influence in this House. But for reasons which it is needless now to discuss, absolutely nothing has been done. Not only has absolutely nothing been done, but there has been even during these late discussions very little apparent approach to agreement as to what ought to be done.

The noble Marquess expressed a general approval of the further Resolutions of my noble friend. He went through them and pointed out in terms that he was able to give something of a benediction to them all. But the noble Marquess did not state what is the crux of the whole question —namely, that everything depends on the manner in which these particular proposals are going to be applied. It means nothing to say that you are prepared to add some more Peers to your Lordships' House who are not hereditary Peers. As we know, there are a few here already. Are you going to add ten more. or are you going to make more than half the House of a composition of that kind? We have never had a hint from any quarter as to what the proportion is to be. In the same way with regard to hereditary Peers. It is proposed to leave a certain number of hereditary Peers. Are you going to leave more than half the House, or are you going to turn everybody out except a hundred? Those are questions which from every point of view are of tremendous magnitude, and nobody has ever yet been able to bring himself to express an opinion as to how they are going to be answered. Therefore, when we are apparently told that some sort of agreement ought to be in sight as between the Parties, I can only say that there is no agreement that I know of in sight in the Party opposite, and, until you are able to agree what sort of a House it is you want, it does not seem reasonable to ask us, knowing as you do our views on the general subject, to discuss with you these questions of the highest importance, but at the same time questions of detail.

Now I come to what the noble Marquess said on the subject of the Conference, and I am sorry to say that I do not find myself in agreement with his conclusion. His conclusion appears to be this—that the Conference having, broken down, as we all regret it did, the whole affair can he absolutely wiped off the slate, and that we return to the position in which we were before the Conference began. In a sense that is true. We do return to the position in which we stood, so far as the propositions which either side was willing to bring forward, or did bring forward, are concerned. But what have we done? We have, in my opinion, conclusively shown that it is hopeless to settle this question by agreement in this Parliament. The noble Marquess said—I am not quoting his words, but the sense was this—is it reasonable to assume that, because eight gentlemen sitting round a table failed to agree, Parliament will not agree? I do not assume it. I know it, so far as it is possible to know anything of the kind. If you place in a room, for the purposes of free and open discussion of a confidential character, eight persons, all of some experience and some with a great deal of experience, and they fail to come to an agreement, is it conceivable, with all the passions which are aroused, that, by the admission, so to speak, to that Conference of men holding the most extreme views on both sides—men who hold the most violently Radical views and men holding violently Conservative views—is it conceivable that by adding them to your number you are going to arrive at an agreement on the points which the Conference was unable to settle? It seems to me hopeless to suppose that such a result could be the outcome of such a discussion. It would, I am sure, be regarded by the country as an absolute waste of time.

What we have come to is this. It is evident now that in its main lines—I do not say in the ultimate form which it may assume—the question must be settled by one Party or the other. We have failed to agree on those main lines, and therefore, if the question is to be settled at all, one Party or the other must have the general shaping of the outlines upon which it is to be framed. That I take now to be as clearly proved as anything in politics can be proved. And for this reason, to attempt to enter into a discussion, interesting though I have no doubt it would be, of the proposals for reform or of alternative proposals which might be brought forward for dealing with questions actually covered by the Parliament Bill would be, as I say, a waste of time. I think your Lordships are thoroughly entitled to express your opinion, and I. have no doubt you will, upon the actual propositions in the Parliament Bill; but I may as well say clearly at once that we cannot lend ourselves to any discussion of alternative proposals. We are prepared to put this measure before tile House for the House to take or for the House to leave; but it would, we think, be an absolute mockery to attempt to rediscuss here all the matters which have been so freely spoken of in the Press as having been discussed in the Conference. For that reason, although we shall welcome a debate on this subject, as I say, we cannot offer to assist noble Lords opposite in covering the whole ground.

I only want to say one word about the proposals of the noble Earl on the Cross Benches. I quite agree that my noble friend has suffered severely by the manner in which the discussion upon his Resolutions has proceeded, but that has not, I think, been our fault. He has been one of the many victims of the sad event which darkened the summer months. I think I am accurate in saying that my noble friend was never asked from this side not to go on with the discussion of his Resolutions, but he undoubtedly felt, as he, I think, told us last night, that if a discussion began on the subject at all it would be difficult to limit its area, and we might have found ourselves discussing those more controversial questions affecting the relations between the two Houses at a time when it was agreed that controversial matters should not be discussed, and in that regard I certainly sympathise with my noble friend, because it would, I think, from all points of view have been advantageous if your Lordships' views on those particular proposals had been formulated somewhat more definitely than they are. Of course, in time you are bound to have opportunities—frequent opportunities—of stating exactly what your views are, but it certainly does not seem to me that anything would be gained by attempting to carry on those discussions now, discussions which might conceivably occupy a great deal of time, and therefore I am afraid that we cannot, so far as we have anything to do with it, hold out any prospect to my noble friend of being able to assist him in carrying on the discussion. I have nothing more to say. I am sorry to find myself, after the weeks that the noble Marquess and I have spent in discussing this question in a different way, so completely at variance with him this evening, but I have thought it better to be absolutely plain as to what our point of view is. As I say, I propose at the end of business to move the First Reading of the Bill, and I will ask noble Lords opposite if they will be good enough to give me some indication as to when they think the debate on the Second Reading might properly be taken. For myself I am quite willing to take it on as early a date as may be found suitable to noble Lords opposite.

THE EARL OF ROSEBERY

I do not rise to make a speech, but merely to ask a question. My noble friend says he has been perfectly plain and clear, and so I suppose it is owing to the defect of my understanding that I have not in the least understood what he has announced. For example, will your Lordships be allowed a proper interval between the First and Second Reading in order to prepare yourselves for the discussion of a Bill that is not yet printed or delivered to this House? I presume that next week would be the earliest time at which the House would be able to discuss the Bill to advantage.

THE EARL OF CREWE

I am to a great extent in the hands of the House in this matter. The day which I should naturally have suggested for the Second Reading is Monday, but that has already been occupied for some time by the noble and gallant Field-Marshal, and I do not know whether he will be disposed to give up his day. I confess I should be sorry to postpone it too long, and although the Bill is not printed I think the terms are familiar to every one in the House. Therefore that argument of my noble friend is perhaps not so strong as it might have been in another case. Perhaps the noble Marquess opposite will tell us what his friends' views are with regard to it.

THE EARL OF ROSEBERY

I want to press my question. There has been a good deal of rather slippery work going on during the past week. I do not in the least accuse my noble friend or any of his colleagues of being participants. What we were last told was that the Dissolution would be so announced that we would not have an opportunity of proceeding with the business of this House. Am I to understand that my noble friend guarantees that he will take the Second Reading some day next week?

THE EARL OF CREWE

Yes; or this week if the noble Earl prefers it.

THE EARL OF ROSEBERY

The noble Earl used some rather misty expressions as to what the House of Lords were going to do with regard to this Bill. Are we to discuss it but in no respect to modify it? Is it to be, so to speak, an academic debate on the propositions of the Government?

THE EARL OF CREWE

The Bill will be subject, like all other Bills, to a First Reading and a Second Reading, and I assume it will either be passed or rejected on Second Reading. I thought it courteous to explain to the House that our position was that we were willing and anxious to put the Bill down for discussion by your Lordships, but that we were not prepared to accept any Amendments to it.

THE EARL OF ROSEBERY

Now at last we have got to the point. I beg to give notice that to-morrow I will ask your Lordships to consider the Resolutions that are now on the Paper. I wish to be perfectly candid. I consider that this House, and the country as well, stand in one of the gravest positions in which they have ever been placed, whether by a Government or by their own action or by their own inaction. I am not for one moment disposed to take this debate out of the serene atmosphere in which it has been involved by my two noble friends, and which I think is suitable to such an occasion. I am equally not prepared to admit the proposition that my noble friend has laid down with regard to this matter of House of Lords reform. He says that we have done nothing. We had a long and laborious Committee—that was a great step in advance—in which, if you remember, in order to facilitate the work of reform to which the Liberal Party was pledged, they took no part. Then we had the Resolutions, which were based largely on the Report of that Committee, Resolutions which do not, in my opinion, go so far its I could wish, but which at any rate represent very substantially the united views on this side of the House and perhaps to some extent on the other. We thought we had the whole session to deal with these Resolutions, and I confess I thought that after the capital Resolution with regard to the hereditary principle had been passed by this House it was our duty not to proceed too hastily with the Resolutions embodying the plan, but that we might wait a month before asking the House to resume the discussion. In that time the event to which my noble friend alluded took place and changed the whole political situation.

A Conference was arranged for—I think a wise proposition, a conciliatory proposition, and one from which some entertained hopes. but as to which I can honestly say from the bottom of my heart I never entertained the slightest vestige of hope from its commencement to its termination. But, however that may be, we may thank the Conference for the blessed calm it gave us for four too short months, for having established the principle of conference which may be developed very advantageously in more favourable circumstances. We have to recognise that the meeting of these eight leaders round a table to discuss as statesmen and not as politicians the problem before them was a great gain to the Constitutional procedure of the country. But in order to obtain that Conference and put it in order one thing had to be done, and that was that all contentious business, all business that seemed to be in any degree concerned with that with which the Conference was concerned, had for the moment to be laid aside. I do not know whether I can contradict my noble friend when he says I received no invitation from the other side to abandon my Resolutions. I did not need any invitation. It was in the air—it was part of the whole system of mutual conciliation which was to reign on both sides of the House and in both Houses of Parliament that these Resolutions for the moment should be dropped. But at the time they were postponed my noble friend gave a most explicit promise, I am sure in perfect good faith, that my Resolutions, or the Resolutions in my name, should always have precedence of the Resolutions of the Government on the same subject.

THE EARL OF CREWE

Will the noble Earl give me the reference? My impression is that it was in the month of April that I told the noble Earl that it would be reasonable in the circumstances for the discussion of his Resolutions to have precedence. As he put them down first in this House that seemed only reasonable, but I do not think the noble Earl will go so far as to say that that was a promise that was to hold good for the term of our natural lives. If so, by the simple expedient of postponing his Resolutions he might in that case have prevented ours from having been brought in at all. I am bound to say that it seems to me that the death of his late Majesty and the Conference so entirely altered the situation that I do not consider myself bound by that statement now or in any way inhibited from introducing the Bill.

THE EARL OF ROSEBERY

I quite agree that my noble friend's promise was given in April, and I earnestly and fervently hope that his natural life will be prolonged far beyond that of the promise, which has apparently already ceased to exist. But I cannot admit that the demise of the Crown passes a wet sponge over all that has passed previously in regard to this matter. The demise of the Crown and the accession of a new Sovereign bad a great deal to do with the setting up of the Conference; but I cannot admit that it interfered with the promise in regard to the precedence of my Resolutions over the Government's Resolutions when they are brought forward. I should have liked a more public and an earlier announcement of that fact; then I might have taken my measures accordingly.

I do not know that there is anything in the pledge of my noble friend that calls for further comment from me, for I do not wish to say anything too polemical on this occasion; but I think there is something almost comical, if it were not tragic, in the fact that a Government which has a majority of 100, more or less, should find itself unable to deal with a question of this kind, and should be obliged to recur to the sense of the country in a manner which certainly indicates a wish not to prolong the discussions in this House on that subject. You have a Parliament eleven months old. You are going to the country presumably. In what way will the new Parliament which is to be elected be more able to deal with the question than the old? You say that the Conference broke up with an impression that if eight such men could not settle the question it could not be settled at all by any such means. What are the special means by which in a new Parliament you would propose to deal with the question which you have found insoluble in the present? But that again is leading me beyond my subject.

I do propose—and I hope I may claim the support of my noble friends behind me in that procedure—I do propose to proceed with my Resolutions to-morrow night and to sit upon them as long as the House will permit me. I think it of the highest importance to the character of this House, to its reputation in the country, nay, to its very existence as a House, that it should. rest not merely on the declarations of any political party which is willing to undertake the reform of the House, but on the affirmation and the seal of the sincerity of the House itself,

THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE

I do not know whether the noble Earl will expect me to say anything as to the manner in which action will be taken upon his proposal I understand his proposal to be that the Bill will be produced at once and read the first time in your Lordships' House, and that the date for its Second Reading should be settled hereafter. I do not know whether the noble Earl expects me to be very profuse in my thanks for the manner in which he has met the invitation which I put upon the Paper; but I take note that the noble Earl explained that, although we were to have the Bill in this House, it would be on the distinct understanding that no alternatives were to be discussed and that this House was to be expected to take or leave the Bill as it stood. If the noble Earl will recall the observations which I made earlier in the evening he will remember that my principal reason for desiring that the Bill should come to this House was that I thought we might have opportunities of putting before His Majesty's Government proposals of our own which might have the effect, from our point of view, of greatly improving and adding to the efficiency of the measure. If no such suggestions are even to be entertained—and that, I think, was the effect of the noble Earl's intimation—I do not know that any very great advantage will result from the discussion of the Bill itself. But upon that point I desire, if the noble Earl will permit me, to confer with my friends, and I will communicate to him the result of my inquiries. There is only one other point which I desire to touch upon. We are given to understand that on Friday the Prime Minister will make a most important announcement to the other House and to the country as to the intentions of His Majesty's Government. I should have thought that it was not very easy for your Lordships to decide what course you would take in view of the noble Earl's offer until we have been made aware of the nature of the announcement to be made by the Prime Minister

THE EARL OF CREWE

Perhaps I might explain, in reply to the noble Marquess, in regard to the manner in which the Parliament Bill would be treated in this House, as to which I understood both my noble friend and the noble Marquess seemed to complain. What I said was that, of course, in the discussion of a measure of that kind it is open to anybody to present any number of alternatives in the course of debate; but I did not wish to put ourselves in a position which would enable the noble Marquess to say:—" Oh, you never told us that the introduction of this Bill is not a new attempt to arrive at an agreement by settlement." I thought it better to explain that, in our opinion, agreement by arrangement in the course of discussion in this House is no longer a feasible thing. I did not go further than that. I do not desire to limit discussion. If I had that desire I could not carry it into effect. I merely desired to give an intimation of the views which His Majesty's Government hold on the whole subject.

As regards the day when the Bill will be taken, that is, of course, very much a matter for noble Lords opposite to decide. It is for them to consider what amount of discussion, in their opinion, such a measure requires. Some of our measures, very much longer than this, have had very short shrift indeed, and whether your Lordships desire to devote to this Bill hours or days, or, if you have them, weeks, I do not know. Nor do I know whether your Lordships are so enamoured of the proposals of my noble friend on the Cross Bench that you desire to go on discussing his Resolutions, possibly up to Christmas, before the Parliament Bill is brought in at all. I suppose we shall be enlightened on these matters on Thursday or on Friday, if we sit on that day.

LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH

My Lords, there is one point which has been hinted at but I do not think has been made quite as distinct as it ought to have been in either of the two speeches of the noble Earl the Leader of the House. We have been told that the Parliament Bill will be put down for Second Reading, and then, if I understood the noble Earl, in the first of his speeches he said what most of us could. have guessed, that the Bill could be either accepted or rejected. That is usual on a Motion for Second Reading. What I want to understand is, supposing—it is a pure supposition—I am not entitled to speak for anybody but myself—supposing the House were to pass the Motion for Second Reading and desired to discuss the Bill in Committee, are we to understand that the Government will take part in those discussions with the idea of coming to a solution of the very important matters with which the Bill deals, or do I rightly gather that if the House chose to discuss the proposals it might do so to suit itself, but that the Government attitude is, as the old phrase used to go, "the Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill"? It seems to me that if we are to go into Committee, if we are to have discussions upon the Bill, propounded really for discussion, it follows, as a matter of common courtesy as well as of ordinary practice, that the discussion of the Bill through all its stages must be a reality, a genuine discussion with a view of settling how far there is difference between the two sides of the House. It is all very well for the noble Earl to say that you may throw out this or that suggestion; but the real test in a matter of this kind is the phraseology of a particular Amendment put down in Committee.

I do not want to widen the area of controversy, but there may be some of us who think that if the Bill were to pass as it stands the whole idea of a practical, useful Second Chamber would be impossible, because there would be no power to ensure that the Court of Appeal would be other than the same as the Court of First Instance, and one of the most cardinal points in this matter is—Is the other place to be supreme, or are both Houses to acknowledge that we have in the country at large masters to whose orders we are to pay due respect? That seems to me to be one of the most crucial points in the whole discussion. For my own part I think the matter of so great importance that no length of time spent in debating it in Parliament would be lost, if for no other reason than that it would have an educative effect on the country at large. It seems to me to be contemplated that we are to be, if I may say so, unfairly treated in being burked of discussion.

I do not think the noble Earl on the Cross Bench could have gone on with his Resolutions while the Conference was sitting. If I may say so, I think those of us who were not members of the Conference —and we could not all be—have been very unfairly treated in this respect, that we have no authentic account of what it was that caused the break up. Perhaps it was a matter of agreement that we should not be told; but if it is to be the effect that not only are we not to be told, but because in a secret conclave a failure to agree has occurred therefore all of us are to be deprived of any opportunity of discussion such as certainly we expected to have when the Conference was set up, then I venture to say that if we had had the slightest indication that the mere fact that the failure of the Conference, from whatever cause, was to preclude any discussion in Parliament we would never have been parties to the departure from the ordinary practice of Parliament of discussing these important issues. I cannot say I am converted by what time noble Earl has said; and I ask whether if we proceed to the Second Reading of this Bill it will be for the purpose of intelligent and real consideration of it in Committee, because some of us want to know whether the Government as a whole are going to commit themselves in principle to the utility of a Second Chamber or not.

THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN

May I add a single word to what my noble friend Lord Balfour has so well said? I merely wish to ask a question for the purpose of clearing up the matter in my own mind. As I understand, the Bill is to be discussed on the Second Reading. Now, supposing the result of that discussion to be that the Bill is read a second time and sent to a Committee; is there to be a real discussion in Committee? Are the Government not prepared to accept any Amendment? If they are not prepared to accept any Amendment then to call the Committee stage a discussion would be a farce. If the Government say they will not accept any Amendment whatever, the Government attitude will be from the very first a non possumus attitude. Therefore it will really be a sham and an absurdity to attempt to proceed with the Bill on those conditions. I ask this definite question—Supposing this House goes into Committee on their Bill, will the Government be open to accept any Amendment?

THE EARL OF CREWE

With regard to the question put to me by Lord Balfour and in a somewhat extended form by my noble friend opposite, I should greatly prefer to answer the question definitely when the occasion arises. All I can say now is—and it was only out of courtesy to the House that I mentioned the matter at all to-day, because I could quite well have deferred it until the Second Reading—in the view of the Government there is no hope of coming to any kind of arrangement on this Bill by any modification of the Bill. From that we draw the conclusion, with which I understand the noble Earl agrees, that the discussion of the details would amount to a waste of time. In our view it is too late for a discussion of that kind, and although, of course, it might conceivably take place, it would be a pure waste of time. But as regards what would happen it your Lordships were kind enough to read the Bill a second time, perhaps I may be allowed to defer answering that question until you do.

THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN

I am very much obliged to the noble Earl; he has thoroughly answered my question.

On Question, Motion agreed to