SIR JOSEPH ROBINSON. (Hansard, 29 June 1922)

HL Deb 29 June 1922 vol 51 cc103-38 103

§ Debate resumed (according to Order) on Questions put by Lord HARRIS, namely—

1."Whether the grounds on which Sir Joseph Benjamin Robinson of Wyn-berg was recommended to His Majesty for the grant of a Peerage were National and Imperial services in connection with his chairmanship of the Robinson South African Banking Company, Limited;
2. Whether that company was liquidated in 1905; and if so,
3. What were the services rendered to the Nation and the Empire by that company and by Sir Joseph Robinson up to or since that date.

§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY
My Lords, I understand that the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack desires to make a further statement to the House as to the position of the Government in regard to this matter, and I think probably that course will be for the convenience of the House.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
My Lords, this subject is one of the greatest difficulty and the greatest delicacy, and I am not at all sure that the view which I hold upon it in all its ramifications may not place me out of sympathy with what I understand to be the natural and very intelligible feeling of your Lordships. I am only a recent member of this House. I have not been here even for four years so far, but, believe me, I had most deeply considered all the consequences before I left the House of Commons and became a member of the House of Lords. It has never been my habit in my life to own a divided allegiance, and since I came into the House of Lords I have become, as far as I can, a House of Lords' man, and I would venture to say that the honour, the traditions, and the character of this House are as dear to me as they are to noble Lords whose ancestors I have sat in this House for as many centuries as I have sat years.
We are dealing with a state of affairs which is not of very recent growth, and one which I think any noble Lord, wherever I he sits in this House, who has had any ! responsibility as a Minister, will concede I to be beset by very many difficulties. I naturally have some observations to make, as it is expected of me, upon the particular subject of our discussions to-night, but I shall ask leave, if I may, to postpone those that must be made with particularity until I have made more general observations upon the larger subject which, I think, must be present in the minds of all your Lord-ships.
I It is, of course, the fact that the numbers of this House have increased very greatly I in the last hundred years, and more particularly in the last twenty years. I happened to have occasion when we were trying the Rhondda Petition to consider comparatively the numbers of this House 105 not so very long ago, not very much more than a hundred years ago, and the numbers of this House as it is to-day constituted. At a very relevant period, a not very remote period, the numbers of this House were 126 Peers. To-day, the numbers of this House are more than 700. It is, I think, important, when one is measuring the inferences which are proper to be drawn from a disparity at first sight so striking, that one should consider the immense increase in the population of the country taken as a whole in the period which is under review.
It is often said, and said with truth, that in the last ten or twelve years, and particularly in the last seven years, there has been a very great, and in some quarters it is freely believed and urged, an unwarrantable and inconvenient, addition to the numbers of those who sit in this House. It has occurred to me that it might not be disagreeable to your Lordships and might not be without its uses in the discussion to which you are committed, if I were I to give some information as to the additions and changes which have taken place in the constitution of this House during the time that the present Government and its immediate predecessor have been in power, and none of your Lordships who is good enough to follow the trend of the argument will for a I moment suppose that I intend to evade the obviously much more particular considerations which primarily engage our attention to-night. I shall not shrink from any issue that has been presented, or which can be presented, in relation to this matter. But I ask leave to treat it, as I think most of your Lordships who have given attention to this matter desire to treat it, as part of a larger subject, a subject which, in its general implications, is infinitely more important than it is in its application to any particular case.
The only addition to the numbers of the noble Dukes who sit in this House in the period with which I am dealing is that of His Royal Highness the Duke; of York. There have been created as Marquesses in I that period the Marquess of Cambridge, who was known to an earlier generation as the Duke of Teck; the Marquess of Milford Haven, who up to that time had of course been known as Prince Louis of Battenberg; and the Marquess of Carisbrooke, who had up to that time been known as Prince Alexander of Battenberg. 106 One promotion, and one promotion only, to the rank of Marquess has taken place in that period, and it is one which I believe commanded the approval of all your Lordships. It was the promotion of my noble friend who leads the House to-day with so much distinction.
If I may next take the case of the Earls created, they were the Earl of Athlone, who was known as Prince Alexander of Teck; Earl Beatty, Earl Haig, and the Karl of Balfour. The promotions were the Earl of Reading, the Earl of Midleton, the Earl of Iveagh, Earl Buxton, and the Earl of Ypres (whom we knew as Viscount French). Perhaps I may pursue this inquiry because it once formed the subject of a specific Question, and is directly relevant to the general question we are discussing to-day.
The creations of Viscounts have been Lord Jellicoe, which was a naval creation; Lord Cave, who had been Home Secretary; Lord Allenby; Lord Novar, who had been Governor-General of Australia; Lord FitzAlan, who had been a Minister; my noble friend, Lord Long, who so recently addressed the House with much acceptance; and Lord Ullswater, who was so long Speaker of the House of Commons. Then there were the promotions of Lord Farquhar, Lord Devonport and Lord Astor, who had been Ministers; Lord Northcliffe, Lord Furness, Lord Wimborne, who had been a Minister; Lord St. Davids, Lord Rhondda, who had been a Minister: Lord Bertie, who had been an Ambassador; Lord Finlay, who was my immediate predecessor on the Woolsack; Lord Burnham, Lord Rotheimere, who had been Secretary of State for Air; myself; Lord Chelmsford, who had been Viceroy of India; and Lord Pirrie who, as your Lordships know, played a considerable part in the events which preceded the setting up of the new Parliament in Northern Ireland.
I come now, and then shall have finished my reference, to the case of the Barons. The following Ministers have become Barons since the period in question:— Lord Annesley, whom we formerly knew as Viscount Valentia; Lord Finlay, of whom I have already spoken; Lord Morris, who was promoted upon the recommendation of the Indian Government; Lord Weir, who was Secretary for Air; Lord Lee, who is now First Lord of the Admiralty; Lord Downham, formerly President of the Local Government Board; Lord Ernle, 107 who was Minister of Agriculture; Lord Inverforth, Lord Sinha, Lord Forster, and Lord Ashfield, all Ministers; Lord Illingworth, Lord Glenavy, Lord Hewart and Lord Meston (whom your Lordships recall in relation to India).
From the Civil Service the promotions to this House were of Lord Southborough, Lord Askwith and Lord Chalmers, all gentlemen whose names were very well known when they were in the public Service. At the same time, there were five legal Peerages granted to those who had held high judicial office, and most of whom have rendered very considerable judicial service to this House since their promotion. I come next to the case of Members of Parliament. It is perhaps sufficient for me to say that some eighteen Members of Parliament, all of whom had served for a very long period in the House of Commons, had Peerages conferred upon them. Their names are known to your Lordships, and I do not think it is necessary to go through the list in detail. In addition, there were the representatives of the Army and Navy—Lord Plumer, Lord Rawlinson, Lord Byng, Lord Home, and Lord Wester Wemyss.
Among the miscellaneous promotions—I call them miscellaneous because they are neither naval nor military, legal nor Parliamentary—there have been some eighteen, and eighteen only, and as it is in relation to these that criticism is mainly advanced, I may venture perhaps—it will not take me a moment—to read their names. They are Lord Atholstan, a well-known Canadian, whose name was submitted by the Colonial Office; Lord Colwyn, formerly Sir Frederick Smith, whose services in the war—I speak with knowledge—were remarkable, and who has continued those public services since his promotion to this House; Lord Terrington, who for many years sat as a Judge in the Railway and Canal Commission; Lord Glenarthur, who was Sir Matthew Arthur; Lord Glanely, wrho was Sir William Tatem; Lord Russell, who under the familiar name of Sir Edward Russell was one of the greatest names in journalism; Lord Ruthven, a son of a very ancient family, who was placed in possession of an old Scottish family title; Lord Riddell, who, as Sir George Riddell, was well known, and whose work is known and, I think, appreciated by your Lordships; Lord Dawson, a distinguished name in medicine; Lord Cullen, who was 108 Governor of the Bank of England and rendered services of a most valuable kind; Lord Marshall, who had been a very distinguished Lord Mayor of London, and whose municipal reputation is known to many of your Lordships; Lord Inveruairn, who was Sir William Beardmore, a most distinguished gentleman who perhaps needs no recommendation; Lord Cable, who was Sir Ernest Cable; Lord Seaforth, in whose case an old title in the Peerage was revived he being Colonel Stewart-Mackenzie of Seaforth; Lord Bearsted, who, I am informed, in connection with the oil business is a most conspicuous figure, and who during the war rendered very great service to this country; Lord Glendyne, who had been Lord Mayor of London, and was familiar with the administration of justice in the City, and whose help and advice has always been at my disposal in the duties that I have to discharge; Lord Woolavington and Lord Manton.
I have now finished the list of all the creations which, so far as I am aware, were made until the list which has been the subject of so much criticism and discussion was given out, and I come to the case which has undoubtedly excited so much unfavourable animadversion both here and in another place. But before I deal with the merits of the case, I may perhaps be allowed, as a matter of fairness, to ask your Lordships to notice that in the list with which I have already dealt, and which I believe is an exhaustive one, we have covered a very remarkable period of English history. We have dealt with an age in which an opportunity has fallen to a larger number of people to render distinguished services to the State than almost any equal period of time in English history. I am not putting this forward in any way as a justification for granting honours to those who are unworthy of them, but merely as some justification, or explanation, of the fact that in the last seven years the numbers of those who have been made members of this House have, I suppose, been larger than at any other equal period in the history of this country. If we take only the naval, military and diplomatic honours which have been awarded in consequence of the happenings of the last seven years, one would, I think, have an explanation of this numerical disparity.
Now I come to the case of Sir Joseph Robinson. Let me make this plain at once. Undoubtedly, there was a grave 109 omission, and one I hope not to be repeated, in the circumstances under which this recommendation was made to the Crown. The Secretary of State for the Colonies was not consulted upon this, in order to make himself, as constitutionally he ought to make himself, the mouthpiece of the self-governing Dominions, so as to acquaint the Prime Minister with the opinions and desires of the Dominion and generally to advise him in relation to the matter. The first observation I have to make is this, that it is realised, and most plainly admitted and stated, that no citizen of this country ordinarily resident in, and primarily belonging to, one of the great self-governing Dominions ought ever to have an honour in this country except with the assent and approval of the Government of the self-governing Dominion of which he is a member. That determination your Lordships may consider as announced officially by me, and is laid down as a canon which will undoubtedly guide and determine action in the future. If it had been exercised on the present occasion it might have avoided a great deal of embarrassing discussion.
I must carry the matter a little further. After the speeches which were made in your Lordships' House on the last occasion your Lordships were good enough to postpone the discussion until to-night. I realise that that might have meant a considerable concession, for I see many of your Lordships here to-day who wish to take part in the debate. I am very grateful to you for having postponed it on the last occasion. What are the salient facts which, whatever views we may hold on the main question, we ought to bear in mind in order to reach a decision which is in perspective just? Sir Joseph Robinson at the present moment is a very old man; I believe he is in his eighty-third year. He has spent the whole, or almost the whole, of his life in South Africa. No one, I think, has ever said this against him: that he was not an extraordinarily zealous and able pioneer in the development of the diamond and gold industry, the development of which has coincided with and marked the prosperity and growth of South Africa. I give no dogmatic opinion, for a reason which I will shortly make plain, as to what exactly were the strenuous activities of some fifty years of his life.
I will explain why I take fifty years, I do not pay too much attention, just as 110 I do not pay too little attention, to what is said in disparagement of that career by those who lived with him and who were his competitors or assistants. I observe in my studies of Colonial history that the opinions of those who have been the rivals and competitors of men who have been very successful are not uniformly the best and most reliable witnesses as to their character. Therefore, I do not base myself on any opinion of that kind. I prefer to rely—and this is the only observation I wish to make on the period covering fifty years of Sir Joseph Robinson's activities, lived in the sight of the South African world—on other opinions. In the year 1907 General Botha was Prime Minister in South Africa. Of General Botha's distinction, of his services to the Empire, of his right to claim to give advice in relation to South African affairs there will bono difference of opinion in any quarter of the House. General Botha was the last man to come, unwillingly and with deep misgivings, into the South African war against us, and he was the last man to keep his flag flying at the end of the war. The part he played in the years that followed, and his melancholy death in the recent war, only justified the decision that was taken to grant responsibility to the various explosive elements which at that period existed in South Africa.
I mention these circumstances in order to make it plain that although the Government of which I am speaking was a Government to which I was politically violently opposed, nevertheless it was a Government which had the right to pay the most careful consideration to the advice given them by General Botha. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman was advised by General Botha to confer a baronetcy upon Sir Joseph Robinson. The only observation I have to make is this. General Botha at least knew South Africa, and it is to be presumed that knowing South Africa, and having become as he had a loyal subject of this Empire, he also knew Sir Joseph Robinson. When Lord Buxton, whose able speech I read with great interest, says, or hints, that iii the whole course of Sir Joseph's Robinson's career he never did anything either for blacks or whites in South Africa, I must be allowed to say that it is a most amazing thing that in those circumstances General Botha, as Prime Minister, should have recommended to Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman that Mr. Joseph Robinson, as he then was, should be created a baronet.

111

§ EARL BUXTON
Perhaps the noble Viscount will allow me to interrupt. I did not speak of the period up to 1908. My point was that, whatever his services might have been in the past and up to 1908, I questioned the additional services which, after 1908, he had given to South Africa, or elsewhere, which rendered him entitled to a Peerage.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
Let us very carefully notice the effect of what the noble Earl now says, and let me ask leave to point out that it is wholly inconsistent with certain observations which he made in his last speech. The noble Earl, if he will allow me to say so, in his more general strictures upon Sir Joseph Robinson, did not by any means limit himself to a period, which was by no means inconsiderable in the life of Sir Joseph Robinson, and amounted to no less than fifty years of the pioneer days of South Africa. The noble Earl asked, in a passage which I very carefully read, and which I think he will find, if he re-reads it, is accurately recalled by me, what Sir Joseph Robinson had ever done for black or white.
I do not think the noble Earl, if he reads that or several other sentences, will find that he drew any clear distinction at all, or that he ever made reference to the fifty years of meritorious pioneer life in the development of South Africa, though in the course of those fifty years Sir Joseph Robinson led a life in which that great continent, promising now to become an immensely important part of the British Empire, was in the melting-pot, at a time when nobody knew in what shape it would emerge, and when the men who played an effective and an able pioneer part were deserving of recognition. If Lord Buxton had said: "I concede that there is behind this man, Sir Joseph Robinson, fifty years of service, meritorious at least in this sense, that it justified the Prime Minister of South Africa in recommending the award of a baronetcy"—if that had been his argument, I cannot think that the feeling aroused by his speech would have been quite so strong.
In the year 1907 Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman—I do not know for what reason, but I understand that these recommendations are sometimes slow in obtaining fruition—did not grant this recognition, but in 1908 the recommendation, as I am informed, was repeated, and more in- 112 sistently repeated, by General Botha, that a baronetcy should be given to Sir Joseph Robinson. I believe that at that time I Lord Crewe was Secretary of State for the Colonies.

§ THE EARL OF SELBORNE
And I was Governor of the Transvaal.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
And my noble friend, Lord Selborne, is good enough to remind me that he was Governor. Lord Buxton, I think, was Postmaster-General at that time in Mr. Asquith's Government. I am most anxious not to overstate the responsibility of any individual Minister upon these matters, because I should not be willing that my own responsibility, or that of any Minister who is not directly responsible in this delicate subject, should be exaggerated, but I am at least entitled to call attention to the circumstance— that, after fifty years spent in the hard and cruel competition of a pioneer, after fifty years in which wealth had been won—and I do not know all the details of the circumstances of how that great fortune was made; how could I?—I am entitled i to say that, after those fifty years in the life of a man who had many enemies in I every part of South Africa, at a time when Lord Selborne was Governor, at a time when General Botha was Prime Minister, at a time when Lord Crewe was Secretary of State for the Colonies, and Lord Buxton a Cabinet Minister and Postmaster-General, a second recommendation was made by General Botha that Sir Joseph Robinson should be promoted to the rank of baronet.
I am not one of those who would ever consent to disparage the rank and dignity of a baronet. It comes next in order of honour and of prestige to a seat in this House, and I recall, in the biography of a very distinguished noble Lord who has I taken a prominent part in these discussions, and whose family has now held hereditary rank, with distinct advantage to the State, for more than three centuries—I recall, after reading the biography of his great ancestor, that it was said of him, when he was a Member of the House of Commons, that in a certain session of Parliament he had hoped to attain to the rank of baronet, but alas ! it was not to be, and he had to be content with a knighthood. I mention this circumstance only to make it plain that the greatest trees spring, or may spring, from very small acorns, and that the desire that the deeds and the merits of 113 individual citizens should be marked in the sight of their fellow men by some public sign of distinction is not in the least an evidence of a decadent society; it is an evidence, provided these things are properly and decently done, of a society in which there is still credit accorded for that which is well done.
I myself, I tell your Lordships quite plainly, was pleased when, some years ago, and before I became a member of this House, I was made a baronet, and I was pleased for this reason. I was living, as all of us were living, in dangerous days, I was undertaking a voyage which was more or less dangerous, and I thought with pleasure that, if I died in the course of it, it would, at least, be a satisfaction to me to know that my son, who would bear a name not very easy to distinguish from other names—that at least when it was mentioned (and he was a small boy), one would say, "Whose son was he?" and, perhaps, somebody might care to tell him.
I have never been one, therefore, who has disparaged these things. At the moment of the creation of this high distinction, as your Lordships know, it came into existence under circumstances which were even less creditable to him that gave and to him that received than those which are alleged, in the worst instances, to exist at the present moment, but for a considerable time a wholly different view has been taken of this rank, as your Lordships know. The members are a world brotherhood, comparable in dimensions, I believe, almost to Debrett's Peerage, and they undertake litigation to prove that other people are not really entitled to describe themselves as baronets without attaining that rank. I cannot believe for a moment that the noble Earl will be regarded as being entitled, in respect of this period of fifty years, of which everything was known by those who gave the advice, to disclaim such knowledge, or say that this man has done nothing.
For reasons which I am about to make plain, a discussion in relation to a given individual is an academic discussion, but, nevertheless, I am under an obligation at least to see that even one who has not been, perhaps, too mercifully treated in this debate, is not treated with a degree of injustice, which, I believe, your Lordships might ultimately regret. I am only, at the moment, pointing out that the case against Sir Joseph Eobinson has been stated by 114 those who had responsibility at a period when this life of fifty years was known to the whole of South Africa.

§ THE EARL OF SELBORNE
Does my noble friend suggest that I had any responsibility?

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
Certainly not; in fact, if the noble Earl will permit me to say so, until he reminded me of it, I had even been so inattentive as to forget the fact that he was Governor at that time. Let me now approach more closely the point which is still raised against him by Lord Buxton, and I desire in this connection to say quite plainly what all your Lordships know—namely, that Lord Buxton went to South Africa at a most difficult time. He went there almost at, the beginning of the war, and he discharged his arduous and responsible duties there with infinite tact and with infinite advantage to the whole of the Empire. Therefore, I must carefully avoid, as far as I can, any appearance of the slightest antagonism to the noble Earl in this matter—a matter on which he had every claim to offer advice to the House, and I am persuaded that had his advice been asked a little earlier perhaps all this business, which is so painful to every one, might have been avoided. The noble Earl has asked me as to what has happened since the bankruptcy, and here it is proper I should come to close quarters with what was brought to the attention of the House by Lord Harris a week ago.
I must make this perfectly plain, and nothing but frankness has any advantage among those who are members of the same Assembly and all deeply concerned to maintain its honour and traditions: These matters did not attract, as undoubtedly they ought to have done, the attention of those responsible in his matter. Difficult and laborious as the task would have been, I should have thought it necessary, but for a circumstance to which I am about to call attention, most carefully to study the whole tangled story of the litigation about which the words quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, were used in the judgment. The litigation was a very protracted one, and in the course of it an enormous mass of documents was presented to the Court. While naturally you would not expect from one in my position that I should ask the House lightly to reach a view different from any view I reached by the distinguished body of Judges 115 in South Africa, from which a very distinguished Committee, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, refused leave to appeal—unlikely though it would be, in any event, that I should ask your Lordships to sit in further judgment as a further Court of Appeal—I should have, thought it my duty to undertake the burden of going into this matter, in order to see whether there was either qualification or explanation which it was possible for me to lay before your Lordships. It has not been, in fact, necessary to undertake that burden, and therefore I make no observation upon anything that has been said upon that matter.
It is not necessary for this reason: that Sir Joseph Robinson has written to the, Prime Minister the following letter. It is dated June 23, 1922:—
"My dear Prime Minister,
"I have read with surprise the discussion which took place yesterday in the House of Lords upon the proposed offer of a Peerage to myself. I have not, as you know, in any way sought the suggested honour.
"It is now some sixty years since I commenced as a pioneer the task of building up the industries of South Africa. I am now an old man to whom honours and dignities are no longer matters of much concern.
"I should be sorry if any honour conferred upon me were the occasion for such ill-feeling as was manifested in the House of Lords yesterday, and while deeply appreciating the honour which has been suggested, I would wish if I may without discourtesy to yourself and without impropriety, to beg His Most Gracious Majesty's permission to decline the proposal."
That was written a few days ago, and I have only to add upon that part of the story that the Prime Minister has made suitable communication, in conformity with the proposal contained in Sir Joseph Robinson's letter.
Now, on its personal side this incident is therefore closed—at least, in relation to the individual whom we have been discussing—but there remains, of course, the wider question. I have no desire, and I think the Government have no desire, that this should be avoided or evaded, and a statement has been made to-day in the House of Commons that a day will be 116 given for the discussion of the whole subject. It is always, of course, within your Lordships' power to raise the matter for discussion on any convenient date, and if, and when, the subject is so raised for discussion such answer will be made on behalf of the Government as is then forthcoming.
I have only to add at this moment that the subject is not one which can be dealt with as if it concerned only individuals. We must examine the system as a whole and the history of it, and we must reach some conclusion which is not founded too exclusively upon individual cases. I do not know how far these matters can usefully be made the subject of inquiry, but I certainly think it is worth considering whether some of your Lordships who have interested yourselves most deeply in this question—notably, Lord Selborne, Lord Salisbury, and others—could not with very great advantage have an informal discussion, quite without prejudice to any other step which it might be desired to take, with the Prime Minister, on a subject which is one of extreme difficulty and delicacy.
Upon the particular incident I have only this to state—and then I have finished the speech which I have made with a sincere desire to give all the information in my power to the House—Sir Joseph Robinson, as I have said, is now in his eighty-third year, and he has declined the distinction which, in the circumstances which I have indicated, it had been intended to bestow upon him. I cannot help feeling that at that age your Lordships would not be unwilling to think that it would not be, perhaps, altogether generous to pursue him personally with further discussion upon his own career, in a matter on which I am able to reinforce and I do reinforce and confirm, his own statement that he did not in any way seek that this honour should be conferred upon him.

§ THR MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE
My Lords, the noble Viscount on the Woolsack began his speech with a long and interesting disquisition upon the gradual growth of your Lordships' House. I think he told us that it has increased from 120 to something in the neighbourhood of 700 members. It has become, if I may say so without disrespect, a momtrum informe ingens, but I will not complete the quotation, or suggest that we are so devoid of enlightenment as to be able to accept what I under- 117 stand to be the contention of the noble and learned Viscount that the vast number which this House has reached forms any justification whatever for the attempt to add to it a new member not properly qualified for a seat in this House. The noble and learned Viscount gave us a kind of catalogue raisonné of the recently promoted Peers and their antecedents. Again, I do not see exactly what bearing that has upon the case brought forward by my noble friend. Lord Harris. His Motion had reference merely to the propriety or impropriety of appointing, to-day, a particular individual, for reasons which were specified with absolute clearness, not only by my noble friend, but by other members of the House.
I noted with satisfaction that in one particular, at all events, the noble and learned Viscount admitted that there had been what he called a grave omission on the part of His Majesty's Government. That is the only adequate way of describing what took place in connection with the recommendation of Sir Joseph Robinson. While the earlier part of the noble and learned Viscount's speech seemed to me to be a little beside the mark, what he had to say towards the conclusion of it was very much to the point indeed. He read to us a letter from Sir Joseph Robinson, expressing his desire in the circumstances of the case not to accept the Peerage which it had been proposed to confer upon him. Sir Joseph Robinson's letter struck me, as I think it must have struck all those who heard it read, as a very proper and dignified letter. To that extent certainly I think it must have raised Sir Joseph Robinson in the estimation of the House.
This important intimation has eased a very difficult situation, but it has certainly not entirely removed the cloud of uneasiness which has hung over the House ever since we listened to the debate which took place a week ago. Sir Joseph Robinson by his own action has extricated His Majesty's Government from a position which most of your Lordships will, I think, agree with me in thinking was absolutely untenable. How untenable it was only those who listened to that debate last week could judge. I can only say for myself that, having sat for a very long time in this House, I do not remember any case in which the prosecution was so completely triumphant and the defence so miserably inconclusive. I say that without any want of respect for my noble friend, Lord Craw- 118 ford, who sits below me. Lord Crawford put up the best defence he could, but he had no materials for a defence, and I do not think the House took his defence quite seriously—nor, I think, did he himself take it very seriously.
That defence has been to some extent reinforced by what was told us this evening by the noble and learned Viscount. He made a rather touching plea founded on the great age of Sir Joseph Robinson. That plea may move one's feelings, but it surely cannot be accepted as, by itself, sufficient to meet the objections which have been raised. Again, he dwelt upon the fact that fifteen years ago General Botha had recommended Sir Joseph Robinson to Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman for a baronetcy, but am I not right in saying that the occurrences upon which most stress was laid in the debate of last week were occurrences which took place long after that date, in the year 1915? I think it is mainly what was said on the occasion of the Randfontein litigation which weighed most with your Lordships.
Again, I do not wish to judge His Majesty's Government too severely in this case for their omission. They have lately passed through a period of great stress and difficulty, and I can well understand that the Prime Minister should not have found it possible in the midst of his preoccupations to examine minutely the dossiers of all the persons whose names were submitted to him for an honour. But, while I admit, all this, I cannot help remembering what we have been told lately as to the great growth of the Prime Minister's secretariat. It is partly his own secretariat, and partly the secretariat of the Cabinet. Would it not have been possible to discover among this constellation of ability someone who might have been told off—someone with a keen sense of discrimination, and perhaps a little of the flair of a private detective,— to scrutinise these lists of recommendations, and to advise his chief if there were any pitfalls in the way.
The result of all this has been very deplorable, both in this House and outside. It has created in this House an impression that the Government of the day can afford to flout and disregard Resolutions dealing with this subject of the grant of honours and solemnly passed by an overwhelming majority of this House. Outside the House it has, I am afraid, created the impression that persons who are wholly unfit for such 119 an honour may find themselves seated side by side with the great soldiers, statesmen, and distinguished representatives of science, art, literature, and industry who have from time to time been ennobled in recognition of their great services to the Empire and to the country.
What is to happen next? I venture to think that we cannot leave the subject where it stands at this moment. The House of Lords tried its hand in 1917. We passed Resolutions about which I should like to say a word because I was to some extent concerned in the shaping of the terms in which they were couched. But I would like to say this—that no Resolutions, however strong, will prevent a repetition of these abuses unless the Government of the day makes up its mind to respect scrupulously the rules that are laid down for its guidance. There is, however, I think, an impression that in 1917 some of us intervened with the result of weakening somewhat the draft Resolutions which Lord Loreburn then laid before us. I should like to remind the House exactly of what happened. We struck out of Lord Lore-burn's draft a somewhat fiery and indiscriminate preamble in which not only the Government of the day but all Governments were accused of habitual trafficking in the grant of honours. I never think that a preamble in a case of that kind is of much use, and I am sure the House was right in striking out that preamble, which would not have helped us in the least in such a case as that which we are now discussing.
Then we went on to substitute another provision for Lord Loreburn's proposal that the Prime Minister should make a declaration to the King to the effect that no payment of money to Party or political funds had been associated with the grant of the honour. We substituted for that the stipulation that in each case the Prime Minister was to "satisfy himself" that no payment of money had been associated with the grant. I do not think that change really weakened the Resolution in the least. I do not think it made any difference whether the Prime Minister was to make a declaration of this kind to the Sovereign or whether he was to satisfy himself that the rule had not been broken.
But the most important Resolution was that which requires that there shall be in every case a public and definite statement of the reasons for which it is proposed to 120 confer the honour. What did we mean by that? Those carefully chosen words were by no means intended as a mere generality. They were by no means intended to require merely a meagre, jejeune outline of the services rendered by the individual who was to be honoured. What was meant was that there should be a sufficient statement of the nature of those services, and it is because in this case there was no such sufficient statement that there has been this disastrous evasion of the Resolutions of your Lordships' House. Nor certainly did we have it in our minds that the public statement should be so misleading as that which has been put forward in the case of Sir Joseph Robinson's proposed Peerage—a statement quite insufficient in its fullness and utterly misleading in regard to the facts of the case. If that Resolution had been scrupulously carried out I believe that we should have been spared the necessity of discussing this affair.
Then there has been another departure, I not perhaps from the letter of the Resolutions, but from the practice which I am quite convinced everyone of your Lordships had in his mind when this question was discussed. I mean the practice, as I would suppose the invariable practice, of discussing, in the case of Colonial honours, the proposed recommendation with the responsible Ministers of the Dominion concerned. I venture to express my entire concurrence with what was said as to this by the noble Earl, Lord Buxton, last week, and it is entirely in accordance with my recollection of the practice which obtained when, many years ago, I had the honour of representing the Crown in one of the great Dominions.
Throughout all these debates there is always present the hateful suspicion that in these matters—the question of the grant I of honours—a certain amount of corruption or, as people put it, of traffic in honours takes place. To my mind, that impression has done more to create prejudice in this matter than any other factor in the calculation. The question of corruption does not arise in Sir Joseph Robinson's case. It is not alleged; but I have no doubt there will be people who will say that if the Prime Minister was so heedless in regard to the reasons given, and in regard to the record of Sir Joseph Robinson, he may have been equally heedless in making sure that the Resolution as to the passing I of money had not been neglected.
121 This matter has to be further considered, and I would go almost any length in order to put an end to this deadly suspicion which, I am afraid, prevails widely at the present time. My own view, if I may express it, is something of this kind. I am afraid there is no doubt that there are cases in which it is idle to pretend that the grant of an honour has not been, in a sense, associated with payments to Party or political funds, but I wholly disbelieve that traffic in honours, in the crudest sense of the word, takes place. We are sometimes told that there is a tariff; that there are certain quarters in which this traffic goes on; that each kind of honour has its price, and that an unfit person, if he only can pay the price, can make sure of getting the honour. I believe all that to be a very gross exaggeration, but I admit that the difficulty of drawing a line between the legitimate payment of money to Party and political funds and the corrupt payment for such a purpose is very difficult to draw. The frontier is almost as puzzling a frontier as the frontier of Ulster.
No one will contend that a rich man is disentitled to an honour merely because he is rich. No one will contend that a rich man ought not to be generous. No one will contend that his generosity ought not to be exercised in support of the funds of the Party to which he belongs. I have always failed to see that there was any reason why a man should have a bad mark put against his name merely because he had been, or might become, a liberal contributor to his Party funds. So long as you have Party Government, so long will you have Party funds. Without Party funds a great many deserving people never would have been able to get their foot upon the first rung of the ladder of public life. I seem to remember reading that the old Scythians had a practice of selling their daughters to the highest bidder by public auction, the understanding being that the high price fetched for the good-looking daughters was used to provide a dowry for the plain ones. I cannot see why, in the case which we are now discussing, the Whips should not take toll of wealthy, and perhaps not inordinately intelligent, clients in order to provide assistance to those who are not wealthy, but who have the promise of a brilliant political career. After all, the essential condition is that the record of the candidate should be scrupulously investigated, if it is clean and meritorious, I see no 122 reason whatever why he should be disqualified for an honour merely because he has been, or is expected to be, a generous contributor to the resources of his Party.
It seems to me that the very least that will satisfy public opinion is a distinct pledge from His Majesty's Government that they will in future be a great deal more careful to observe, in letter and in spirit, the Resolutions of 1917. If they see their way to go further I shall be quite ready to go further with them. We understood from the noble and learned Viscount that the whole question is coming up for reconsideration. I think your Lordships may well await the result of that discussion, but I vent are to express my earnest hope that whatever is settled will be something more than a plausible aspiration, and something which will be not only a formula, but a distinct and categorical pledge that these most unfortunate mistakes shall not be allowed to occur again.

§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY
My Lords, I think that the Government, and the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack, will have realised after listening to the speech of my noble friend that this is a very grave matter which cannot be considered to be settled by the mere withdrawal of Sir Joseph Robinson's candidature for this House. It is perfectly clear that the feeling outside is at least as strong as the feeling in your Lordships' House, and that in these days the masses of people look with very great and growing jealousy upon the least idea that promotions and honours, and especially seats in your Lordships' House, are given without worthy consideration. After what has passed, and the announcement of the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack, perhaps people may ask: Why say any more about Sir Joseph Robinson's Peerage? He has written, as my noble friend opposite has said, a dignified letter of withdrawal, and it may be said: Why not leave the matter there? If I say a word or two more about Sir Joseph Robinson's Peerage it will be only in order to point the moral, if I can.
As I listened to the noble and learned Viscount's speech I could not help asking myself the question: Who recommended Sir Joseph Robinson? We know from the noble and learned Viscount that the Secretary of State for the Colonies did not 123 recommend him, for he knew nothing about it. We know from my noble friend, Lord Selborne, who was Governor-General of the Union, that he had nothing to do with it. We know that Lord Buxton had nothing to do with it, and I am sure that neither Lord Milner nor Lord Gladstone could have had anything to do with it, for, if they had, we should have heard it from the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack. None of these noble Lords, and others, who had direct connection with South Africa in this country recommended this Peerage. We know, still further, that the present Prime Minister at the Cape had nothing to do with it, for he has publicly denied it in his own Parliament. General Smuts, therefore, had nothing to do with it.
Who did recommend it? As I listened to the noble and learned Viscount upon the Woolsack I gathered that nobody seems to have recommended it, unless it may possibly be the ghost of General Botha. General Botha recommended—or so the noble and learned Viscount told us, and of course I accept that from him—this gentleman for a baronetcy in the year 1908 or thereabouts, and the baronetcy was granted. He did not make another recommendation, and he is now dead. Who did recommend this gentleman for the Peerage? If nobody recommended him, upon what did the Prime Minister act? We also know, as my noble and learned friend reminds me, that Sir Joseph Robinson did not himself ask for the Peerage. Who did ask for it for him. And why did he ask for it? It is a most mysterious thing. When I find the Prime Minister of this great country recommending that a gentleman should become a member of this hereditary legislative body without being recommended by anybody I am driven to the conclusion that the system under which these Peerages are awarded requires drastic investigation and amendment. There was no recommendation; neither was there any reason alleged for one.
The Lord Chancellor, from the beginning to the end of his speech, did not suggest a single reason whatever for this Peerage. It is absolutely in the air, without reason, without a recommender, and that is what would have happened if my noble friend opposite and others of your Lordships' House had not intervened. If Lord Harris had not thought it his duty to bring this matter before your Lordships' House, and 124 other Lords had not joined him, by this time Sir Joseph Robinson would have been a member of your Lordships' House. After that had happened, those incidents in his life, which I do not want to go into again but which were related by Lord Harris and Lord Selborne, would have come out. We should then have known that one of our number had had a judgment in a civil action pronounced against him, the character of which your Lordships were able to judge, and I am sure every one will agree that it would have reflected the gravest discredit upon the Prime Minister who recommended him and on your Lordships' House which had received him.
For these reasons we cannot accept the situation as it is left now. That was apparent last week, and after consultation with one or two noble Lords who sit around me, I intimated very respectfully to His Majesty's Government that I was sure the matter could not rest as it was and that we had every right to expect, when the debate was resumed to-day, that the Government would be in a position not merely to announce some solution of Sir Joseph Robinson's own Peerage but would have some definite proposals to make dealing with the whole question. I ventured to give that notice to the Government then and there, but your Lordships will have observed that no such definite recommendations or proposals appear in the speech of the Lord Chancellor. We cannot accept that position.
My noble friend who has just sat clown has reminded your Lordships of what passed in 1917, of the efforts we made, of the principles we laid down, which were accepted by the, Government. We have to record that all those precautions have failed. But for our own intervention they would not have prevented the creation of this Peerage. Something more must be done. What has the Lord Chancellor to propose? He has been good enough to say that he believes the Prime Minister would do one or two the honour of seeing us if we called upon him to talk this matter over. If the Prime Minister desires to see any one of us we are always at his disposal. Surely, that is not the way to solve a question of this kind. We want something much more formal and official than that. I need not say that we shall be entirely at the Prime Minister's disposal when he wants to see us, but that will not be enough.
125 There is a strong feeling, I understand, in another place that further steps will be required, and a day has been assigned by the Government for a discussion of the matter. At least as much must be done in your Lordships' House. I think the initiative ought to be with the Government, but as they have not taken it then I am obliged to say that we must take the initiative. Therefore, I beg to give notice that upon this day week I shall call attention to this matter and make a definite Motion for a definite action. Your Lordships will not expect me now to say what that action will be. It will require the gravest consideration, but I am certain that neither the other House nor the country will be satisfied unless some definite action is taken.

§ VISCOUNT ST. DAVIDS
My Lords, unfortunately I shall not be able to be present this day week when the noble Marquess intends to bring forward his Motion, and, therefore, I ask leave to say a few words on this subject now. I most emphatically agree with the noble Marquess in thinking that matters cannot stand where they are. This House, in 1917, made some very valuable suggestions as to the method in which persons who are recommended for honours should have their merits described. If those recommendations had been carried out in their entirety much of this trouble would never have arisen. But I do not think those recommendations went far enough, and I venture to press on the Government another suggestion now. In November, 1918, Lord Selborne made a further proposal as to the method of dealing with this matter. He suggested, as far as I can recollect, that a Committee of the Privy Council should be set up, not to initiate the question of honours but to deal with the list of suggested honours put before it by the Prime Minister before any such list was sent to the Crown. It appears to me that that is the best method of dealing with this matter. But something or other must be done.
Let me give your Lordships an experience of my own, which relates to a very minor honour. Some three or four years ago I was written to by two or three people from the part of the country with which I am connected and they said that they had heard that a small honour was going to be conferred upon a certain individual. They pointed out to me that his record during the 126 war was very bad locally, and that if this individual got this honour it would have a bad effect on public opinion. It seemed to me that the case my correspondents made out was a strong one, and I went to the public official who deals with such matters. I put the letters in his hand, and said that the person named had been mentioned for an honour. I do not think it went any further than that, but he agreed that it was quite clear, from the information I put before him, that no such honour ought to be given, and he would see that it was not given.
It was not given at that time, hut this particular gentleman changed his sphere of activity, and did other work. Two years later that honour was conferred. I went again to what I thought was the responsible quarter, and I recalled the very strong objections which had been brought against the conferring of that honour-two years before, and asked if no record had been kept of them. No record had been kept, and I was informed that there never were any such records. I was told—I do not know if this was right or wrong—that I ought to have gone to a member of this House, who is supposed to be very well acquainted with these things and to give very valuable advice when necessary to the Crown, and that if I had gone to the noble Lord a record would have been kept, and something would have been done. But the fact remains that attention can be called to a particular case by a responsible person and it can be decided that no honour ought to be given, and yet no record is kept, and that name can be brought up two years later and receive an honour. This shows to my mind that some change of system is necessary.
I believe the best suggestion was that put forward by Lord Selborne. In the nature of things, only one person in this country can be responsible for an Honours List, and that man ought, it seems to me, to be the Prime Minister of the day. But Prime Ministers, nowadays, have very little leisure time. They are very busy men, and when you look at an Honours List, it is very clear that no Prime Minister living could possibly be acquainted with the merits of all the people whose names appear upon it. In connection with each name it is stated that the owner has either done public work or has made great public I benefactions. Supposing that you had 127 a Committee of the Privy Council, as originally suggested by Lord Selborne, you would have a Committee of ten or twelve, on which there ought to be ex-Ministers and also, I venture to think, some Judges, and it would be very simple for that Committee to call before it somebody responsible for the presentation of this Honours List, to satisfy them that every one of these people has either done a great deal of public work or has been very generous in his own district. It would be a simple thing to satisfy the Committee, and, if the Committee were not satisfied and sent back the list to the Prime Minister, noting particular names upon it, and pointing out that in these cases they could not discover that the men had done any public work, or had been benefactors to their own district in any way, there would never be a Prime Minister who would not drop the names at once. If he did not drop them, I think the further recommendation of Lord Selborne ought to be adopted. If, in such a case, the honour was conferred in spite of the Committee thinking that it was ill-deserved, then the Gazette that contained the announcement of the honour should also contain the full Report of the Committee of the Privy Council.
There is, I think, another reason why a Committee of that kind should be set up. One of the noble Lords who has spoken, suggested that there should be some secretary who could scrutinise the list to see that no improper names crept into it. Even those of us who are most widely read in the newspapers cannot remember everything. The cases of men who have not done public work, and who have not been very generous in other ways, are not the worst cases. The worst case is that in which a man is recommended for public work, and whose public work may, perhaps, be very well known to the Prime Minister, and yet—and there have been cases of this in recent Honours Lists —that man, who well deserves honour for his public work, has appeared in other respects before the public in a most disadvantageous character. We all know of cases of men who have been most unfavourably commented upon, either by Judges or juries, for financial or other reasons.
No one man, no Prime Minister, no secretary, and nobody else could have all these cases before him. It is impossible. 128 I thought I read a good deal of what goes on in the City, but about this recent case of Sir Joseph Robinson I myself did not happen to know anything at all. I had never seen it alluded to, until I heard the debate in this House. No one man can know of all these cases, and, therefore, I say that, before a List, of Honours is sent up to the King, that list, as set out by the Prime Minister, ought to be examined by a very strong Committee. I do not believe you could have a better Committee than a Committee of the Privy Council. I would press upon the Government that something has to be done. They cannot leave the thing as it is to-day. They have got to do something. If there is to be a debate in the House of Commons, they may, perhaps, take that opportunity of making the announcement of what action they propose to take, but I would press upon the Government to-day, and especially upon the noble and learned Viscount upon the Woolsack, the request that he will consider the suggestion that was put forward in this House four years ago, for I believe that is the best and easiest way of dealing with the whole matter.

THE DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLAND
My Lords, it is getting late and I promise not to keep your Lordships more than three or four minutes at the outside. The noble Marquess opposite, in the course of a weighty speech, said that he did not believe in the direct selling and buying of honours. He may, or may not, be quite right, but the fact remains that the mass of the public do believe that there is direct traffic in honours, and for very good reasons. I will tell your Lordships some of the reasons. When the case of Sir Joseph Robinson came before the public a short time ago, one of the great morning papers issued a request to its readers to supply them with any information or correspondence in their possession in regard to the sale of honours. They have received a considerable amount of correspondence. I have seen it, and it is of a very remarkable and singular nature.
There are two letters to which I should like to draw your Lordships' attention this afternoon. They are both letters from men who purport to be intermediaries between Downing Street and these people who receive honours. In one case, this intermediary writes to a gentleman living in the North of England, a gentleman of considerable means, to say that he would like to have a confidential interview with him 129 on a very private matter of a complimentary nature, and would lie come to see him about it. He adds: "If you want to know what the nature of the business is, will you go and see—" and he mentions the name of a recently created baronet—" and he will tell you all about the matter, and what the business is. "My friend goes to the recently created baronet, and says: "Who is this, and what is the nature of the business?" The other says: "Oh, I was up in Downing Street the other day, and I mentioned your name, together with others, as well worthy of receiving an honour." My friend says: "Indeed ! That is very good of you. And how much do you have to pay for a baronetcy?" The other replies: "Oh, about £40,000." My friend did not have anything more to do with that little transaction.
The next case was that of a gentleman living in London, also a gentleman of considerable means. I have had a personal interview with both these gentlemen; they have told me all about it, and I have seen these letters. A letter was sent to this gentleman, also purporting to come from an intermediary of Downing Street, saying that he wanted an interview. My friend had an interview with him, and at the interview he was informed that he was considered a person who was eminently worthy of receiving an honour, but he could not expect to receive it unless he contributed a certain amount of money to the Party funds, and the other even mentioned the precise sums which had to be paid. For a knighthood, I think, it was from £10,000 to £12,000, and for a baronetcy, £35,000 to £40,000. The intermediary subsequently confirmed what he said in the interview by writing another letter, in which he repeated that although this person was considered to be quite worthy, he would, of course, have to pay before he could actually receive the honour. My friend, in that case also, did not pursue the subject any further. But we have actually got the letters.
Now this is not a case of rumours which go from one foul lip to another, to use an historical phrase, but there are letters actually signed by people. I am not bringing any charge against the Government. I realise that the people who signed these letters may be touts or irresponsible people, or blackmailers and people who have no connection with Downing Street at all. I think it is 130 probable that they have no connection with Downing Street, because, quite apart from the impropriety, I might say immorality, of the subject, it is foolish to go to men in this crude and open manner and make such offers. But whether the Government have anything to do with the matter or not, the public is bound to believe that they have. These people who receive such letters do not keep silent. They are going about telling the whole thing, and they believe firmly that the people who approached them were authorised to do so by Downing Street.
These things might be ignored if they were not accompanied by a good many other rather doubtful transactions. We have had the unfortunate case that we have been discussing this afternoon, in which the Government have admitted that a Peerage has been conferred upon a gentleman who is not worthy of it. I have had numerous cases in my own experience, and Lord St. Davids has just given another.

§ VISCOUNT ST. DAVIDS
In my case there was no question of money. There was no suggestion of that sort.

THE DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLAND
In many other cases similar instances have been brought to my notice, and to the notice of other noble Lords. And what is also very serious is the extreme number of honours granted in recent years to the Press. Whereas, before 1918, only two or three honours were conferred upon journalists every year, you will find that the number of Privy Councillors, Peers, baronets, and knights who have been appointed since 1918 amounts to no fewer than forty-nine, and that number does not include C.M.G.'s and other unconsidered trifles of that kind.
I would venture to make one suggestion to the Government. At the present moment, whether these people to whom I have referred are authorised or not, they are creating a very bad impression in this country, bringing great discredit upon the Government, and doing serious injury to the honour of the Government. I suggest that the Government should, this afternoon, give an assurance in the following terms: That no offer of honours in return for financial consideration has ever been made by any one, by or on behalf of the Government, within the past year, 131 because the cases to which I have referred have all occurred within the past two or three months. If the Government will give that assurance the matter is to that extent at an end, and the public will know that these people who go about touting in respect of honours are unauthorised. If the Government are not prepared to give that assurance it creates a rather awkward situation, and it will be necessary to press for an inquiry into the whole case.

§ VISCOUNT LONG OF WRAXALL
My Lords, I very much agree with what the noble Duke said in the earlier part of his remarks. I have, within the last few months, received communications from more than one friend intimating that they have seen or received letters of the kind. But the remarkable thing is that when I have approached the head of our Party, who is an old friend of mine, and asked him if he had any knowledge of the suggestions or recommendations, he has stated emphatically—and he is a man of the highest honour, as your Lordships know— that he knows nothing of them. I feel that it is essential that these matters should be probed to the bottom. I agree with Lord Lansdowne in all that he said. He expressed my views far better than I can express them myself; but whatever may be our views as to the extent or reality of these charges of corruption, there is no doubt whatever that the view obtains widely outside the Houses of Parliament, and that it does infinite harm not only to this House but to the whole system of Government and, indeed, to the Commonwealth itself. Therefore, the matter ought in some way to be probed to the bottom.
I do not agree with the suggestion with which the noble Duke concluded his speech—namely, that we should call upon the Government to appear in a white sheet and declare that, whatever other Governments may have done, they have done nothing wrong, and that within the last twelve months so and so has not happened. What may have happened in the past does not so much concern me. I am concerned with the future. I want to know what step the Government are going to take in order to give effect to the Resolution of this House passed in 1917, and what step they can propose to make it impossible for honours to be bought and sold like ordinary articles of merchandise in the market. These allegations are made; whether they are well founded or not I do not know.
132 I have had no dealings with honours of any kind, but I have in the course of my career been concerned in collecting money on more than one occasion for Party funds, and I have only twice been asked if I would undertake that the donor should receive an honour if he gave the money. In each case, when I told the gentleman to whom I was talking that if this was to be the condition of the gift I would not take a farthing of it, and when I further said that I thought the donor would not enjoy the honour if he knew he had bought it in that way—in each case the gentleman to whom I was talking admitted the force of what I said and withdrew the suggestion of any question of honour of any kind. In both cases they afterwards thanked me for the advice which I had given.
Party funds must exist if you are going to have Parties, and they must be collected, but I believe you can collect them without bartering in exchange honours of any kind. Whatever may be the problem—I do not I know if the committee of the Privy Council would do—I hope that some definite arrangement will be arrived at, and that the Government will produce some scheme of their own, because if they do not, I am sure that any practical proposal, from whatever quarter of the House it may come, will receive unanimous support in this country.
There is only one more word which I wish to say, on a totally different branch of the subject—namely, with regard to the Dominions. I heard what the Lord Chancellor said with great satisfaction, but I was profoundly surprised to hear that an honour had been conferred upon a gentleman whose whole career had been associated with one of our great Dominions, without reference to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, and without reference by him to the Prime Minister of the Dominion concerned. I was surprised for this reason: When I was at the Colonial Office, and shortly after I went there, a case occurred in which an honour was conferred upon a gentleman who belonged to one of our Dominions. I had not been consulted, and therefore I had not been able to consult the Prime Minister of that Dominion. I protested at once and pointed out that in these days, when the Dominions are rightly entitled to be described as nations, it is absurd, and indeed impossible, to deny them the right, which each ought to enjoy through its Ministers and its Governor- 133 General, of being able to make their own recommendations for honours.
But, apart from that, if that rule then laid down is not accepted with the utmost strictness and severity, it is obvious that you will have difficulties arising in your Dominions which will become extremely grave. Therefore, I hope that the Government will take such steps as will secure that in future no honours should be granted to anybody outside the United Kingdom, except through the particular Office which represents that part of the British Empire from which he comes; that is to say, the Colonial Office or the India Office. Those are the two great Offices concerned. I hope it will be made impossible for the rule to be broken in future. I do not understand how it came to be broken in this case. It was laid down as a hard and fast rule when I first went to the Colonial Office, in 1917 I think, and I do not understand how in so short a time so important a rule can have been broken.
The noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack did not tell us what form the new regulations will take, but I hope it is a form which will make the repetition of so grave an error as this absolutely impossible in future. I would urge upon His Majesty's Government that this is a question which does not affect themselves alone; it has been a common charge against Governments ever since I have been in public life. It is not a question which they need regard as personal to themselves, but it is a question of the utmost gravity, and it is one which affects not only the honour of your Lordships' House but the honour and credit of the country.

§ LORD BUCKMASTER
My Lords, this debate is closing, and with it, I trust, will close the most unpleasant personal incident by which the debate has been inspired. It has been an unpleasant thing to consider in every aspect, both because of its hidden suggestion—because of what the noble Viscount on the Woolsack called its wider implications—and because I am quite certain that there is no member of your Lordships' House who takes any pleasure in discussing the personal character of any body who is not here to answer for himself. I feel with regard to all these personal illustrations that are given of a widespread evil that that difficulty must be felt. It is a most hateful thing to do, 134 and I am certain that the noble Lord, Lord Harris, was only constrained to the course he took from a sense of public duty which we all respect, and which, I think we all agree, has been productive of very valuable results.
But it would be a most unfortunate thing if, having gone through this painful debate, as I regard it, we should let the matter end here. An opportunity has surely arisen which will enable people of all Parties of good will to join together and see if it is not possible to end this matter for good. Whatever may be said about I careful investigation and the ignorance of the heads of Departments and of the Government, everybody knows that the Government are intentionally ignorant. They cannot know—they dare not know—and the whole of the work is done for them by other people. The assurance that the noble Duke asked for just now could be given with perfect honour by the representatives of the Government, and yet all the statements he made be perfectly true. Anyone who knows the way in which this kind of thing is done, and anyone who like myself has spent a great deal of his life in the law, gets to know very well that it is always done through a person who can be disavowed if it is necessary. The statements, rumours, evidence—evidence which I have seen myself—is far too convincing to allow people to believe that statements such as that made by the noble Duke represent anything like an isolated and individual instance. They are multiplied, and out of their multiplication I gravely fear that the Party funds on both sides—both the great Parties—have been largely replenished in the past.
This debate, I gather, will be resumed next Thursday in the form of a definite Resolution. I do not think it is possible to expect the Government to answer, tonight, anything more than they have already said, because they have not got the matter before them to reply. But I would suggest for their consideration between now and next Thursday whether it is not possible for them to undertake that they will introduce a Bill requiring the publication of all Party funds—Liberal, Conservative and Labour. Let us know where the money comes from. I quite agree with what the noble Viscount said. It has been said more than once in the course of this debate. There is no reason whatever why any man should be ashamed 135 of providing money for the purpose of defending the cause of his Party. If he is an honest politician lie believes that that Party is associated with principles the maintenance of which is essential to the well-being of the country, and there is no reason why he should not back it with his purse. Nor, again, is there any reason why it should not be known. If the Government would do that, we could get rid of half the trouble, because then we I should know who it was who gave the money. We know in due course who gets the honour, and it may be possible on certain occasions to relate the one with the other. But, if that is not done, if the secrecy which has hitherto hedged about the whole of these funds is preserved, I think that, whatever Resolution be passed, the Resolution can be evaded, and the evil will continue.
I should like to add that I do not regard such a suggestion as I have made as interfering in any way with the necessary privacy that private people are entitled to require with regard to the disposition of their money. Political Parties are, to my mind, great agents for the public good. They stand in a different position from any private group of people at all, and therefore there is no reason why their funds should not be known and the contributors to them set out, just like the funds of some great hospital. I believe it has been tried in the United States of America with great success. I believe if it were done here the same success would attend it. But, at any rate, we ought all now to do something more than express our disapproval of what has happened. We ought really to unite in seeing what is the effective step to take by which this abuse may be removed from our public life.

§ LORD CARSON
My Lords, I am only a very new member of this House, and, if I may say so, a very transitory one, and, as far as the future is concerned, the House in one sense means nothing to me, nor to my descendants. But I should like to make one or two observations, and for this reason. We are too fond of carrying on public life in the atmosphere of sham. We are down to-day, for the first time on this question, with a stern reality. And what is that stern reality? It is that His Majesty has been advised by someone that we do not know, at the request, no doubt, of somebody else whose name we are not 136 told, to appoint as a member of His Majesty's House of Peers a gentleman who, when his appointment came to be criticised, has felt bound—and in a dignified way— to say that he no longer wishes to accept this honour.
What a false and humiliating position for everybody concerned ! Let us not now merely satisfy our conscience by saying: "Well, Sir Joseph Robinson has acted rightly in withdrawing his claim to the honour which was offered to him, and which he had accepted though he had never sought it." The noble Marquess who spoke from the benches opposite seemed to think that the idea of corruption in relation to honours was greatly exaggerated. It may be exaggerated; but, as the noble and learned Lord below me has said, all those of us who have been engaged in the law have come across it from time to time in the course of our careers. I have had more than once in my chambers to advise on cases in which I have examined long correspondence which showed that there was a regular brokerage, however conducted, for the purpose of carrying out and obtaining honours. What was the connection between the broker and the Government I, of course, do not know. That is the one thing that we are clever enough to know will never be known and will always be kept in the background. Certainly I was not employed for nothing to try to solve the knotty question that arose between the applicant for honours and the man who could get them, and what it must have cost in time and in money to pursue these investigations led me at all events to believe that this was not a sham agency, but one that was able, by some satisfaction of its clients, to exist, and to exist to some purpose.
That is practically all I have to say about that matter. Before the debate closes I hope that we shall have some further information as to who is at the back of this offer of a Peerage, and then we may be satisfied somehow as to how these things really originate. There is one other point which has been touched upon in the course of the debate which I think ought to be emphasised. Within the last few years the honours conferred upon our Colonial brethren have been called into question on three occasions by great Colonies, and on one occasion I believe the House of Representatives passed a Resolution that none of the citizens of that Colony were to 137 accept honours. How degrading it is for this country that the honours conferred by His Majesty should be repudiated by some of the subjects in the Oversea Dominions. I hope this case at all events may be a warning, and that in future the care of which the noble Viscount, Lord Long, spoke in relation to Colonial appointments will be fully observed. All I have risen for is to throw any small weight I am possessed of into a support of the hope that this matter will not now drop but that some attempt at a solution to save us from this humiliation in future will be made.

LORD HARRIS
My Lords, with your Lordships' permission, I should like to say one word. It is satisfactory, of course, that the final tragedy of a gross blunder has been avoided. But, notwithstanding the advocacy of the noble and learned Viscount, upon which I congratulate the Government and Sir Joseph Robinson, the position is not satisfactory as regards one essential point. I quoted the Resolution of 1917 under which the noble Marquess, Lord Curzon, undertook, on behalf of the Prime Minister, that he would give a definite description of the grounds upon which an honour was bestowed. A few nights ago, in another place, a Member of Parliament explained that he wished to ask a question—which was, in effect, nothing more than the Resolution that I read to your Lordships the other night—but was not allowed to do so.
This blunder has been avoided simply and solely because the procedure in your Lordships' House differs from that in another place. But what I submit is unsatisfactory is that it would have been perfectly possible for the Prime Minister on that occasion to assure the House of Commons that he did accept the Resolution passed by this House in 1917. No such assurance has come from him or from the Lord Chancellor, and, unless it is made in the debate that is coming forward in another place, I want to know whether the Lord Chancellor can give us an assurance that the Prime Minister has accepted that Resolution of the House that was solemnly accepted on his behalf by Lord Curzon in 1917.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
My Lords, upon that question I spoke at the beginning of this debate because it was considered that it would be for the general convenience of the House. I had not, 138 therefore, the advantage of knowing what other Lords were going to say. We are promised another debate, and I shall have a number of observations to make both on what the noble Lord has asked me and upon other matters connected with the subject that is to be discussed.

§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY
Since I addressed your Lordships upon this matter, my attention has been called to the fact that Thursday may be an inconvenient day for your Lordships to deal with this matter. Therefore, I hope your Lordships will not look upon the date as absolutely fixed until I have had some little time to consider the matter.