§ My Lords, with regard to the first part of the first Resolution, I conceive there will not be much difference of opinion upon either side. We say that it is desirable that provision should be made for settling differences between the House of Commons and the House of Lords. Unless I am mistaken, both sides are committed to that view. But the question arises what we mean when we talk of settling differences. The word "settle" is a rather ambiguous one. When we speak of "settling" differences we have in our minds settlement after full and careful discussion upon terms of some kind of equality. What the noble Earl and his friends have in their minds is apparently not a settlement at all in the strict sense of the word. What is proposed to us in the Bill is that there should be a certain period of delay and that when that period has expired the whole thing is at an end and the House of Lords is not to have another word to say upon the subject. You may settle with your opponent or you may settle your opponent, and I think noble Lords opposite have rather confused the two uses of the word.
§ We on this side were gratified, when we noticed that in the speech which he delivered the other day the noble Earl showed clearly that he at any rate contemplated something more than a mere bald arrangement under which one House would put its foot down and keep it there. The noble Earl let us see that he at any rate had been thinking about resort to procedure 840 by conference and even to joint sittings, although he left us in no doubt as to the difficulties which he saw in the way of that particular course. Our view certainly is that we ought to look in the first place to some regularised procedure by which in cases of serious difference the two Houses would, as it were, come together and make a joint effort to bring about an adjustment of the difference which lies between them. With regard to the second portion of the first Resolution, your Lordships will notice that we contemplate a settlement between the House of Commons and the House of Lords reconstituted and reduced in numbers in accordance with the recent Resolutions of this House. We dwell upon that because we wish it to be clearly understood that in our view no full and complete settlement is possible except upon the basis of a reformed and reconstituted House of Lords. We at any rate can be no party to a policy based upon an indefinite postponement of the consideration of that question, leaving the country in the meantime with nothing but an unreformed and impotent Second Chamber.