A PERSONAL EXPLANATION. (Hansard, 21 January 1918)

LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH
My Lords, I ask the indulgence of your Lordships' House for a moment to make something in the nature of a personal explanation. I have received a very courteous letter from the noble Earl the Leader of the House, who I am sure we are all glad to see back in his place, in regard to a statement which I made in the debate upon the noble and learned Earl's (Lord Loreburn's) Amendment in Committee. I then said that it was largely owing to the intervention of the noble Earl (Lord Curzon) himself in the management of the Association against woman suffrage that agitation had not been more marked in the months through which we had just passed. One day last week, on January 18, in the letter to which I have referred, the noble Earl wrote, "I did not intervene at all. I was asked my opinion as to whether I thought an agitation last summer would do any good, and I said No." As a matter of course, I accept that statement in the most perfect way, as I would any statement which was made by the noble Earl. I had, as a matter of fact, no personal knowledge of the matter at all. What I said on the occasion to which I have referred was founded on the fact that Lord Gisborough, in this House on January 10, when the noble Earl was present, said— There was an intention to carry out a campaign in the country against this proposal, and this intention was only given up by those who are opposed to woman suffrage at the request of the noble Earl who leads this House, and for whose guidance we who are opposed to woman suffrage were grateful. I ought, perhaps, to have said that the statement which I made was not made on that day, but was made on January 14—I mean the statement which the noble Earl challenged. All I can say is that, of course, I accept the denial of the noble Earl; but I think that I was justified in founding my remarks upon the fact that Lord Gisborough had made the statement, and that the noble Earl was in the House on that day and did not challenge it. He has since told me that he did not want to interrupt the noble Lord because it was the first speech that Lord Gisborough had made in the House. I could not, of course, be expected to know that. All I have to 818 say is that the statement which I made on January 14 was made in perfectly good faith, and I now say, rather than revise the report in Hansard, that I accept the denial of the noble Earl.
But on another matter the noble Earl has challenged a further statement that I made. I said— I am bound to say that we did not expect him, although he might absent himself, to put all the pressure which the latter part of his speech undoubtedly put on loyal supporters not to vote according to what he knew were their real convictions on the matter. In the same letter that I received from Lord Curzon he seems to take this as referring only to his colleagues in the Ministry. As a matter of fact, the words were intended to bear—and I think do bear, according to a proper interpretation—a much wider significance, and to apply to loyal supporters generally. They had an effect not only on Peers who abstained, but on some who actually voted against Lord Loreburn's Amendment when they had previously expressed their intention of voting for it. I am not for a moment prepared to say that the words of the noble Earl went the length of affecting the actual result of the Division, but unquestionably the number of those supporting the Amendment would have been larger than it was but for the eloquent words which the noble Earl used near the end of his speech.

§ THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON)
My Lords, the noble Lord who has just spoken has, with characteristic fairness, corrected a passage to which I had taken objection in the speech which he delivered to this House on Monday, I think it was, of last week. I was not present on that occasion. Had I been here, and had I heard the words of the noble Lord, I should have risen at once to question them. The noble Lord has just told us that his words did not spring from any personal knowledge on his part, but were based on something that had fallen from the noble Lord, Lord Gisborough, at an earlier stage of the debate. It is quite true that Lord Gisborough, in a speech on the Second Reading of the Bill on the same day that I had the honour of closing the debate, did make an allusion to, or a statement about, some pledge which I was understood to have given. When the noble Lord made that remark in the opening of his speech—

LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH
It was on Lord Loreburn's Amendment.

§ EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON
I beg pardon, on Lord Loreburn's Amendment. When he (Lord Gisborough) made that statement in the opening sentence of his speech I had not the slightest idea to what he was referring, and I only refrained from rising at once to challenge him for the reason named by the noble Lord who has just spoken—namely, that I did not like, almost at the opening stage of a maiden speech in your Lordships' House, that an interruption should be made by the Leader of the House. Lord Gisborough, with perfect fairness, has since withdrawn the statement in a letter to the newspapers.
The next point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Balfour, was as to the degree of influence which he conceived to have been exercised by the speech or by the action which I made or took the other evening. I have no means of knowing what influence that speech, or my action consequent upon that speech, had generally upon your Lordships' House. I only know this, that as regards my own colleagues in the Government it was so strangely without influence that, looking at the Division List, I find that no fewer than thirteen of my colleagues on this Bench voted, irrespectively of what I had said, as I believe they always had intended to vote, in favour of woman suffrage; that only one of my colleagues voted against it; and that only four imitated my example in abstaining from the Division.
As regards the general question on the occasion to which I have referred, I will only say this, that if any noble Lord desires in any way to challenge what I then said or did I hope that he will do me the favour of doing it across the floor of this House, where I can have the opportunity of meeting the challenge made, No person can expect to hold, or to retain, the leadership of your Lordships' House unless he is generally assured of the confidence reposed by the House in general, I do not say in his wisdom, because that is merely a matter of opinion, but in his integrity and honour; and if that confidence were impaired or withdrawn, I should be the first to relieve both this House and myself of a false position.