WOMEN'S EMANCIPATION BILL. (Hansard, 24 July 1919)

THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY
My Lords, I need only detain you a few moments as this Bill was entirely discussed last Wednesday when the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack introducing his own Bill mentioned mine, and purred it very intuit to pieces. He, however, suggested that there should be some kind of amalgamation of the two Bills. I have consulted my friends who piloted this measure successfully through another place, and they prefer that I should present it to your Lordship's House for Second Reading.
In his speech the noble and learned Lord rightly took objection to the first clause, but if you read the Bill a second time the clause can be amended in Com 1046 mittee. He also remarked—if I am incorrect he will correct me—that the Bill which was passed during the last Parliament enabling a women to have a vote was the result of a Conference, of which the Speaker was Chairman, and that it was there decided that women should have votes only after the age of thirty. This Bill is merely the corollary and the logical consequence of that measure. The Speaker's Conference was the result of what took place in the last Parliament. The arrangement made was carried out by the last Parliament. That Parliament is dead, and the Conference is dead. There is a new electorate. I think there is an argument in favour of your Lordships voting as you please on this question. It is impossible to argue against giving women the vote.
I have been told that if the Bill is passed we shall have more women on the register than men. I cannot help that; neither can you. If you are to have real democracy then you cannot help women being in the majority. I am not one of those who is the least bit afraid of that. If you refuse it will only be because you are afraid you will be swamped by women. I think my Bill is a better solution of the problem than the Government measure. This Bill gives a Peeress in her own right the right to sit in this House. In the Government Bill it gives some future gentleman who may be made a Peer the option of having it put in his Patent that if he has no male heirs it may go in the female line, and she may be allowed to sit in the House of Lords. I think that is not fair. I hope I have quite convinced your Lordships not to be afraid of the women. Let them have the vote. You have taken one bite at the cherry; why not take the other. You will have to do it sooner or later.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD BIRKENHEAD)
My Lords, I had hoped that before I intervened we might have had the guidance of some other members of your Lordships' House who have given consideration to this matter since I moved the Second Reading of the Government Bill a few days ago. In asking that a Second Reading should be given to that Bill I made a suggestion to the noble Earl, which I confess seemed to me a reasonable and convenient one, and one which I am very 1047 sorry he did not find it possible to adopt. I confess myself quite unable to conjecture the reason for the disinclination which he has shown to adopt that course, because the more I examine this Bill—and although he spoke of it as its father on the last occasion I may criticise the form of the Bill, because after all he is only its stepfather—the more I examine the form of it the more difficult I find it to understand the partiality which leads him to desire that his Bill should be afforded a Second Reading.
Let me say quite plainly what are the alternatives open to your Lordships in dealing with the noble Earl's Bill. Your Lordships may, in the first place—and this is the course which I should venture to recommend on the whole—decline to give it, in the circumstances of the case, a Second Reading; or if you think the course a useful one, the Bill may be given a Second Reading and then referred, together with the Government Bill, to a Committee to report upon the two Bills. I myself, I confess, am not specially prepossessed in favour of that course, because I cannot see any useful purpose which this will secure, and which cannot equally be secured, if it be your Lordships' pleasure, by making Amendments in my Bill; and, secondly, because the adoption of such a course, it seems to me, must inevitably lead to delay and must postpone the moment, already as many people think unduly late in the session, at which the more elementary and more universally admitted grievances of women can be dealt with. In order to test the feeling of your Lordships I shall take the course of moving that this Bill be read a second time this day six months.
Now, my Lords, I ask your indulgence if very shortly I try to explain, avoiding as far as I can repetition of the arguments which I used on the Second Reading of the Government's Bill, why it appears to me that the noble Earl is ill-advised in pressing for the Second Reading of his Bill, and why it may commend itself to you, as the most reasonable course, not to proceed with it further. The noble Earl's Bill consists of three clauses, and I shall not violate the convenient practice of discussing only Second Reading principles on the Second Reading if I say it is impossible to form any prospective estimate of the value of the noble Earl's 1048 Bill unless you see what each of the operative clauses specially contribute, and then see what is the aggregate result of those contributions. The first clause of the Bill is a very ambiguous clause. It ill becomes me to add anything to the criticisms which, as a lawyer, I ventured to direct against that clause on the Second Reading of the Government Bill—at its formlessness and pretentious futility—because the noble Earl has in the most magnanimous and candid manner admitted that those whom he has consulted told him that they were unable to make any suggestion as to its meaning, because it had none. That was a frank admission by one who accepts paternal responsibility for the Bill, and renders the task of further criticism unnecessary.
I pass to the second clause. I do not think that your Lordships will close your eyes to the fact that only a very few nights ago, and as I have already pointed out against not exactly a protest but against a suggestion which I made on behalf of the Government, your Lordships by a considerable majority reached the conclusion, on the Committee Stage of the Justices of the Peace (Women) Bill, that in order to bring that Bill into conformity with the Representation of the People Act you would impose an age limit, with the result that no woman however specially gifted—a Double First at Cambridge—and doubly recommended by the Lord Lieutenant and his Advisory Committee, and approved by the Lord Chancellor—your Lordships decided that even in such a contingency these gifted young women should not penetrate to the august judicial seat. It was put strongly in argument that having regard to the fact that the policy of Parliament was that women should not obtain the vote until they reached a certain age, it was not reasonable to give her judicial preferment until she had reached the age which qualified her to exercise the franchise.
The noble Earl did less than justice to the arrangement which was made on the Representation of the People Act. Constitutionally he was right in saying that it was an arrangement made by the last Parliament, that it could not bind succeeding Parliaments in perpetuity, and that it was open to Parliament and to your Lordships to reconsider the whole basis upon which that settlement rests. Technically and constitutionally he is entirely right, 1049 but I was unfortunate if I gave the impression that I was impeaching the legality of that. I was contending that politic considerations of the greatest importance arose if so soon after a conclusion was reached, and reached contrary to the expectation of all parties when that remarkable Conference addressed itself to its labours, an attempt should be made to revise the decision then come to upon a principle which those who were party to it looked upon as fundamental. It was upon purely politic grounds that I questioned the wisdon of such a revision. The noble Earl says this is a democratic Bill, but it adds 5,000,000 young women at this moment to the franchise. I cannot see the convenience of the course suggested by the noble Earl. If it is desired with the greater experience we shall have then to make this change—if it is desired at some later date before the Election to make a change—a very short Bill can do it. And the noble Earl can then introduce a new Bill which constitutionally would be very appropriate. But it is completely inappropriate that we should add 5,000,000 women at the present time when I believe no considerable body in the State desires that that addition should be followed, as it ought to be followed, by an appeal to the constituencies. So much for Clause 2 of the noble Lord's Bill.
If I am right or anything like right in the views that I have ventured to express about Clause 2, the only Clause on which the noble Earl can rely to persuade your Lordships to give a Second Reading at this stage is Clause 3 dealing with the admission of women to this House. I do not know how many of your Lordships were impressed by the argument on this subject that was addressed to the House, I thought with great force, by more than one speaker on the Second Reading of the Government Bill. In my view it would be foolish to choose this time of all others to introduce so great a breach of historical continuity in the history of this House. Your Lordships must reach a conclusion upon that matter, and it is a grave one which requires argument and decision, but the point is that, that conclusion is just as much open to your Lordships on the clause in the Government Bill as it is open to your Lordships in the further clause in the noble Earl's Bill. I pointed out to the noble Earl that he could amend the clause in the Government. Bill in order to press the view on this subject which is contained in his Bill, and which 1050 received some little degree of support in the course of the debate.
What is really important is that at an early date your Lordships should decide whether at this moment you are prepared to admit Peeresses as members of this House, or whether you are not. The other point is equally open to discussion, and is equally convenient for decision in the one way as the other. I have examined the noble Earl's Bill without hostility and partiality, and I would say to your Lordships that in my opinion no useful purpose could be served by reading it a second time, and I would ask you not to proceed further with it, but to let the noble Earl busily occupy himself in amending the Government. Bill.

EARL RUSSELL
My Lords, the Bill is not a well-drawn Bill; in fact, to be quite frank with the noble Lord, I think it is a very badly-drawn Bill. I should have voted for him with considerable reluctance before the speech of the noble and learned Lord who has just sat down. I confess that reluctance has been very much increased by what the noble and learned Lord has said. I would submit to the noble Lord who has introduced this Bill that it surely is a fact that every object he desires can be attained by Amendments to the Bill before the House. I think, if I might say so, that tactically his position would be strengthened if he were not to take the course of forcing a decision upon this Bill, and personally I hope that he will not do so, although if he does I think I shall feel bound to support him. I feel, however, that everything can be done by Amendment of the Government's Bill and that this Bill, as drawn, is rather unfortunately phrased.

THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY
I wish to say one word in reply. I think the argument which was put forward last time when it was said that there was likely to be some reform of the House of Lords was disposed of by the announcement of Lord Curzon that the Government had not promised to deal with the question of the constitution of this House in the next Session of Parliament.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
May I explain that the noble Viscount, Lord Bryce, said in the course of a speech that there was an undertaking that in the next Session of Parliament that reform should be carried out. I confess that at 1051 the time I had no recollection of any such promise, but I knew that the noble Viscount is very careful in what he says, and therefore I did not intervene to correct him at the time. There was some discussion as to who had given the promise, and later I discussed the matter with the Leader of the House who made the statement to which reference has just been made.