BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE. (Hansard, 11 December 1924)

THE MARQUESS CURZON OF KEDLES-TON
My Lords, I beg to move that this House do now adjourn.

§ EARL BEAUCHAMP
My Lords, I do not know that I am certain of the day to which the noble Marquess means that your Lordships' House should adjourn, but I hope I may persuade him to say that this House shall sit again on Monday in order that we may discuss foreign affairs at the same time as they are discussed in another place. The absence of the Foreign Secretary in Rome, which has received my most hearty approval, has made it very difficult for either House of Parliament to discuss foreign affairs in the debate upon the Address. Indeed, I received through the usual channels a message saying that it was the wish of His Majesty's Government that foreign affairs should not be mentioned in the debate on the Address and that a debate would take place upon that subject in the course of next week. Having received that intimation, I communicated with my noble friend Lord Grey of Fallodon, who, as an authority upon foreign affairs, is unrivalled in this country, and he abstained from coming up to London in order to speak. I hold in my hand a letter from my noble friend saying that he would like to address your Lordships on Inter-Allied Debts, on Egypt and on the Geneva Protocol Unfortunately, for the same reason as that which has caused the absence of the Foreign Secretary during this week, my noble friend is unable to be in his place after Monday next. He can be here and would be here on Monday; but on Tuesday he is obliged to go abroad. In those circumstances I hope that we may be able to discuss these subjects in this House on Monday next.
I think it is of very real advantage that your Lordships should discuss these questions on the same day as they are discussed in another place. It is, I think, very much more consonant with the dignity of this House that the debate should take place at the same time, and that we should not merely be treated to a réchauffé of a debate in another place. I realise that there may be difficulties in doing this. On a previous occasion an important matter was raised by the noble Earl, Lord Balfour, who also was going abroad. I think that on that occasion he made his speech, and any reply on the part of His Majesty's Government at that time was postponed till a later occasion. If it is any convenience to His Majesty's Government I hope that that is a course 104 which they will pursue. If it is inconvenient for them to speak on Monday, I hope they will make the reply on Tuesday, or Wednesday, or Thursday, or on any day that is convenient to them. But by meeting on Monday my noble friend Lord Grey would be enabled to place his views not only before your Lordships' House but before the country. Those members of your Lordships' House who wish to speak can do so on the same day, and, if he so desires, the noble Marquess can speak himself on a subsequent occasion.
I realise that if we regard this period of the year as being the beginning of a Session it is unusual to meet on a Monday. If, on the other hand, we regard the fact that your Lordships' House will not meet again for another two months, I do not think it is unreasonable to say that in matters of such great importance as foreign affairs it is not asking your Lordships to put yourselves to too great an inconvenience, in order that we may have the discussion and the views of my noble friend Lord Grey, to meet on Monday next. There are not only those three matters which I have already mentioned upon which my noble friend wishes to address your Lordships, but there are also, I can easily imagine, a number of other subjects connected with foreign affairs upon which other noble Lords might wish to address your Lordships' House. It is in these circum-stances, and in order to put myself in order, that I would move, as an Amendment to the Motion of the noble Marquess, that the adjournment should take place until Monday at the usual time.

THE MARQUESS CURZON OF KEDLES-TON
My Lords, in ordinary circumstances I should have been more than glad to do anything to oblige the noble Earl who has just spoken, in spite of the fact that he enunciated an attitude two days ago of consistent and persistent opposition to everything that is likely to fall from this Bench. And perhaps even more, if possible, would I have been glad to do anything to enable this House to have the pleasure and advantage of hearing Lord Grey of Fallodon upon foreign affairs. I recognise the justice of the description to which we have just listened, 105 that that noble Lord speaks with a unique authority upon the subject. But the suggestion which is made by the noble Lord is one without precedent.
There is, so far as I know, no precedent whatever for asking your Lordships in the first week of a Session, indeed after we have only met for three days, to contravene your ordinary practice and meet on Monday, even in order to have the advantage of hearing a speech from an individual member of your Lordships' House. The noble Earl seems to think that there was some such precedent. He was mistaken in his allusion. He referred to the occasion last Session when Lord Balfour made a speech upon Singapore to which His Majesty's Government did not, for reasons of their own, immediately reply. That debate was not upon a Monday; it was upon a Thursday. It was in the ordinary course of business that Lord Balfour spoke upon his own Motion, which was down upon that day, and the only apology that he made was for asking the House to consider so important a subject as Singapore at the very close of a rather long sitting, and he did so because he himself was going away after he had made his speech, and had, therefore, to deny himself the pleasure of hearing the Government's reply a week after. Therefore there is no analogy whatsoever between the case of Lord Balfour and the case which is urged now.
Let me put another point. The noble Earl suggests that we should meet on Monday to have the advantage of hearing Lord Grey. But the position of the member of your Lordships' House who is to reply to Lord Grey has also to be considered. That individual happens to be myself. Indeed, had the Foreign Secretary been here, in the ordinary course I would, have strained any point in order to meet the noble Lord, even at the cost of asking the House to break its normal custom. But it is out of the question that I should be in a position to give an adequate reply to Lord Grey or any one else on foreign affairs on Monday, for this reason. The Foreign Secretary does not return to this country till late on Saturday night or on Sunday, and on Monday, when I should naturally be in conference with him with a view to consider what shall be said in reply in your Lordships' House, he, as we all know, will be busily engaged in preparing his own speech for 106 the House of Commons that afternoon. Therefore we should be driven to this situation—that if the noble Lord, Lord Grey, favoured us with a speech it would be impossible for anybody to reply to it, and we should be in the rather absurd position of meeting, contrary to our invariable practice, to hear an individual speech, and then adjourning to another date in order to enable a reply to be given. I think that would be a very undesirable precedent to set.
May I make one more observation upon what the noble Earl said? He said that in his judgment it was a good thing and a convenient thing that debates on foreign affairs or on other important matters should take place on the same day in both Houses. Quite true. But the debate on foreign affairs in the House of Commons is going to last for three days, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Therefore it is quite possible for us to secure the identity of time that the noble Lord speaks of by having our debate on Tuesday or Wednesday. There is the further advantage that noble Lords will then be in a position to have studied what was said in the House of Commons the day before, or two days before, and to supplement their own knowledge by making any additional inquiries they choose. Although from the point of view of prestige there is much to be said for the debates taking place at the same moment in both Houses, I am not certain from the point of view of public advantage that it is not desirable that we should have here the opportunity of commenting upon what may have been said elsewhere.
Hearing that Lord Grey was likely to be in London at the beginning of the week, and desired to speak upon Monday, I wrote at length to him yesterday, and communicated to him the difficulties which I have confessed to your Lordships, and I expressed an earnest hope that he might see his way to favour us with his presence and his speech on Tuesday or Wednesday. I suppose my letter has not reached him, although I asked him to telegraph a reply. Therefore, at the present moment, beyond knowing from the noble Earl that Lord Grey contemplates going to the Continent on Tuesday morning, I am unable to say whether he will respond to that suggestion. In the absence of any reply I must say that I feel 107 great reluctance in asking your Lordships' House to depart from your ordinary practice, and I hope it may still be found that we shall have the advantage on Tuesday or Wednesday of listening to the unique authority of the noble Viscount, Lord Grey.

§ EARL BEAUCHAMP
My Lords, it is obviously impossible for me, in view of the alliance which exists between the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Haldane, and the noble Marquess who leads the Government, to insist upon forcing this matter to a Division. I shall, therefore, ask leave to withdraw my Amendment. Two observations, however, I should like to make. With his usual dialectical skill the noble Marquess the Leader of the House confused the analogy which I drew between the present occasion and that upon which the noble Earl, Lord Balfour, spoke in this House. I used the occasion of Lord Balfour's speech as an analogy for the reply being made on another day by His Majesty's Government if that was more convenient to them. I should have been equally pleased if the noble Marquess had arranged to speak on the same day. But my analogy did not go further than that, although the noble Marquess represented 108 it as going a great deal further. Unfortunately, I can hold out no hope that my noble Friend Lord Grey will be hero on this occasion, and I must express my very sincere regret that at so early a moment in the new Parliament the noble Marquess the Leader of the House should have used his battalions in order to prevent the Liberal point of view on foreign affairs being placed before your Lordships' House by my noble friend Lord Grey.