HL Deb 17 March 1926 vol 63 cc601-21

VISCOUNT BURNHAM asked whether the attention of His Majesty's Government has been called to the system of compulsory voting for Parliamentary Elections now in force in the Commonwealth of Australia, and whether they will agree to setting up a Select Committee of this House to inquire into the subject and report thereon. The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I am venturing this afternoon to draw the attention of your Lordships to the principle of compulsory voting in Parliamentary Elections, and I hope I am not doing it out of due time. It has been adopted after considerable discussion by the Commonwealth of Australia, which is in reality the most democratic country, not only in the British Empire, but in the whole world. It prevails in some of the States of Australia. It prevails in several of the European countries. I am, however, putting it down here, not by way of Motion, but by way of Question. All I ask His Majesty's Government to-day is to agree to the nomination of a Select Committee which shall inquire into this matter and report upon it to this House by the consecrated means of Parliamentary inquiry.

We have not had any inquiry into electoral systems since 1910. In that year the Royal Commission, presided over by Lord Richard Cavendish, reported to Parliament and it concerned itself mainly with proposals for the introduction of proportional representation, which it did not recommend. Personally I think an inquiry of this sort would be conducted much better by a Joint Committee of both Houses even than by a Select Committee of this House. I can conceive that the terms of reference might be widened sufficiently to include the second ballot and the second preference. All I say is that in the changed circumstances of to day it seem to me imperative that there should be some inquiry as to whether the Parliamentary system as we have it, with Elections on the old principles, which sufficed for another time, are good and sufficient for our own time.

We no longer look to the ballot box with the superstitious reverence that people used to in the latter days of Queen Victoria. Then they regarded the ballot much as a Tibetan regards his praying wheel, thinking it was bound to work well, and to turn out something worthy. I doubt if your Lordships are of that opinion now. We all, of course, rejoice in the present state of tranquillity, and I have no doubt the throat majority of this House would like to see the noble Lords who now sit on the Government Bench sitting there to the end of their natural lives. Whether that is so or not, it seems to me that we are in great danger of drifting with a light heart, but with a perfect sense of inevitableness, into the stormy circle of minority Government. You have now three Parties competing for power in this country, with financial means such as were never at the disposal of any Party before. Their power of promoting Elections is practically inexhaustible. I am bound to say that that seems to me to foretell some danger in the future. What I want to ensure is that if we are asked to listen to the voice of the people, we shall hear the voice of the whole people, not the voice of part of the people only.

I do not think it is necessary for me to argue with those who are so well versed in political philosophy as are the members of this House whether the Parliamentary vote is a right or a trust. We all know what Burke said about it and how he thought it would be best to curtail, and not to extend, the number of voters. We seem to halt between two opinions. Female suffrage is limited to those above thirty years of age and they are supposed virtually to represent their younger sisters. At the same time, if we accept that, even to that extent, the vote remains a trust, surely it is a duty which every citizen is bound according to his citizenship to exercise. Some people imagine that there is something humiliating, or in the nature of an indignity, in compelling men to vote. Why should it be more of an indignity to compel a man to vote than to compel him to perform any other of his civic duties? Half the acts of our lives are done under compulsion.

A NOBLE LORD

I am sorry it is so.

VISCOUNT BURNHAM

My noble friend says he is sorry it is so, but I do not think even he would propose to reverse the present position.

THE NOBLE LORD

I would.

VISCOUNT BURNHAM

At all events, compulsion does exist now and it is well that we should recognise it. Compulsion is exercised by one great Party in the State, and it is exercised very effectively, and I would ask why we should only have it exercised, when a Labour candidate is standing, by those organisations which support his Parliamentary candidature. The real danger seems to me to lie in the apathy and indifference of the majority of voters rather than in the zeal and impatience of the minority. I do not suppose, for example, that the influence of an industry with which I am connected tends very much to stability of mind in the country, but I do know this, that the constant criticism, which some people think carping, in the public Press of the Government of the day is likely to induce people to abstain from voting rather than to commit themselves to any side. I am not asking your Lordships to express an opinion on the matter. I am only asking you to admit that it is worth inquiry.

The example of Australia is recent and cogent, and I have all the figures here in regard to its results. In Australia it was first adopted in the State of Queensland in the year 1915. Before it was adopted 52 per cent, of the electors voted. After it was adopted 82 per cent. voted. It was mainly on the results there that proposals were made that it should be adopted in the Commonwealth at large, and a debate took place, which some of your Lordships may have read in the Australian Hansard, which shows how carefully all The aspects were considered. There is no doubt that the results in Australia have been very remarkable, and from the point of view of those who favour or believe in the necessity of compulsion as being a corollary to democratic government, very convincing. In the results of the Federal Election for the Senate in November, 1925, the enrolled electors numbered some 3,200,000 and the number that voted was 3,015,000, so that the percentage that voted was 91.3. Voting in the different States ranged from 88.7 per cent, for Tasmania to 92.98 per cent, for Victoria, The figures of the Election held in 1922, when voting was optional, were: Enrolled electors, 2,980,000; voted, 1,700,000; percentage, 57.90. The highest percentage of voters previously recorded was in 1917, when it was 77 per cent. Whereas, in 1922, the female voting percentage was 13 per cent, below the male, in 1925 it was only 1 per cent, below and in one State it was even 1 per cent, above the male percentage.

The official view in Australia is that compulsory enrolment is necessary as an adjunct to compulsory voting and ensures approximately complete, up-to-date and accurate rolls. Statistics show that after allowing, (1), for people who are enrolled but who are not qualified to vote, (2), for incapacity through sickness or infirmity, and (3), for those having a valid excuse, for example, death, sickness in the family or approaching maternity, the percentage of electors who are enrolled, who did not vote and were without valid excuse, probably does not exceed 1 pet cent, of the enrolments. This is regarded as a striking example of the desire of Australian electors to obey the law. I think that those figures are very remarkable, especially when compared with our own.

I do not know that I ought to trouble your Lordships with the actual figures, but at the last four Elections the percentages wore as follows: in 1918, 58 per cent.: in 1922, 75 per cent.; in 1023, 74 per cent.; and in 1924, 80 per cent. I cannot help pointing out that the proportion is likely to be very one-sided. Personally I believe—and it is all to their credit that one should say so—that the members of the trade unions of the country vote up to their full strength. I confess that nobody knows how they vote, but it is the business of every branch secretary in the country to see that the members of his branch record their votes, and that is a very effective way of doing it. They are subject, of course, to the usual influence of what is called "moral suasion"—and I am not suggesting that this means more than I say. One must recollect, however, that in those things a new sort of loyalty has arisen in this country. In industrial life "loyalty" means loyalty to the union and "disloyalty" means disloyalty to the union. It is all to the credit, no doubt, of those who formed and maintained the great organisations of Labour that this should be so but it is looked upon as a disloyal act if a member of a trade union does not vote, presumably, for a Labour candidate when a Labour candidate is in the field. I do not for a moment think that there is any such feeling in the ranks of the other Parties in the State.

I cannot understand anybody wishing to go on in the haphazard way in which we are going on now, always trusting to the luck of England to pull us through, never being willing to consider anything on its merits but always trying to see no further than we are obliged to see for the moment. I believe that this will bring a serious reaction in time, and we cannot: charge, democracy with being at fault. I have no idea, in recommending an inquiry of this sort to your Lordships, of suggesting any dodge or device for stemming the tide of democracy or, as Sir James Barrie wittily put it, "damming the flowing tide." I do not believe, that this is possible, and this would not be a way of doing it. We are all ready to accept the considered verdict of the country and we take it from the jury of the electorate. But what we want to make sure is that the jury shall be a full jury and that it shall not be a packed jury. If we deliberately allow ourselves to go to the next Election, all three Parties, as I say, striving against one another and pouring out gold like water in the streets of the constituencies, we have only ourselves to blame if we find the results far different from what we anticipate.

I say this because I am well aware of the resources that are at the disposal of at least two of the Parties—I know very much less about my own—and I speak with some knowledge on that point because some of it is embarked in the trade with which I am myself connected. But I point this out only because of the dangers which seem to loom in the future. All I am asking your Lordships to-day is to agree that the time has come for a fresh inquiry into our electoral system. To-day I am only suggesting that it should relate to the principle of compulsory voting, but I should be quite willing, to ask for a further reference and, if the Government will agree to such a Motion, to extend it to the second ballot and to the second preference. That, at least will be some, assurance that we should get at the real voice of the people which we want to hear and which, when it is expressed fairly and unmistakably, I am sure we are always prepared to obey.

VISCOUNT HALDANE

My Lords, I do not know what answer the Government proposes to give to the Question that the noble Viscount hap put, but I confess that I have been rather disappointed in the case that he has made, and for two reasons. First of all, if there be a ease, it is not one on which a Select Committee, however capable, can properly pronounce. The question is one of broad principle, to be decided by public opinion and not by the report of any Committee.

VISCOUNT BURNHAM

To inform public opinion.

VISCOUNT HALDANE

Yes, but that brings me at once to my great objection to the noble Viscount's proposal. It is a proposal that by the aid of compulsion 3rou should count noses much better and more numerously than you do at the present time. But I do not want to count noses: I want to count minds; and the noble Viscount has shown no indication that by compulsion we shall get any more intelligent voting than we get at the present time. True, you can send people to the polls in flocks like sheep and, when they come there, they will probably do in large measure what you may tell them, but that is not the kind of voting that I want as a guide in estimating policy.

It is a great fallacy to suppose that the mere fact that the votes cast at an Election are not very numerous is an indication that there is something wrong, that you could have got a better and more intelligent vote if you had forced people to come there. Not at all; the real reason for a small vote is that the people have not been interested. Very well, interest them. You see what happens whenever there is an Election in which there is great keenness. People come; forward and percentages rise to that 80 per cent, of which the noble Viscount spoke, and sometimes even higher. But that is because the public have been interested and because constituencies have been moved by the pressure of that which interests them. If there is to be a remedy for the state of things to which the noble Viscount refers—and that there is something that requires a remedy no intelligent person will question—it is not to be got by compulsion. It is to be got by instructing the people in the great political questions of the times and by interesting them. Far more, is to be done in that way than in any other.

There are some things that are wrong in the present system. I think it is quite wrong that women should not be able to vote until they are thirty years of age. I should like to see women put on a complete equality with men and I should be quite content that men and women alike should not vote before the age of twenty-five. Then you would get an approach towards the intelligence which seems to me to be the real desideratum in the whole matter, but as to which there was nothing provided in the noble Viscount's speech. We are told that this has been done in Australia. Every country knows its own social conditions, but I have noticed that no country knows the whole social conditions of another country. Here we have had varied propositions. We have had proportional representation, the second ballot, the transferable vote and a number of things which are regarded with a good deal more suspicion than they were a few years ago. I was myself at one time moved by the speciousness of the proposal for proportional representation, but I have since seen it in operation in two cases which showed what an immense field it opened for organisation and wire pulling, so that the real determining votes became the votes of a well organised minority working the will of its leaders.

That is not what I want. I want to see an educated democracy and a keen democracy. I have witnessed such a democracy. The Labour Party has not got those funds which the noble Viscount seemed to attribute to it. The Labour Party worked with very small funds indeed, and it can work with small funds because, as anybody who has had to do with it and who has gone through Labour elections on a considerable scale knows, the work is done voluntarily by people moved and stirred deeply on the questions in which they are interested. They may be wrong—I am not arguing that—but at least they are keen, they bring their own voters up to the poll and do not depend upon vehicles to the extent that others do. The Labour Party have very little paid organisation—almost none. People come up because they are keen. They may be right or wrong about their views, but it is that kind of thing which we wish to see.

I should like to see the energies of the Primrose League concentrated upon the education of the voters. I notice a great deal more activity on the part of the League in the constituencies than used to be the case. That is a very good thing, and I only hope that the instruction given by the representatives of the Conservative Party will be of that high class which carries conviction. If it is, I have no doubt that they will find it quite unnecessary to use any means of compulsion to get voters to poll. Compulsion is no remedy for a case of this kind. What is wanted is to inspire the people concerned. If you do that, you will get those large votes of which the noble Viscount spoke, and, without being reduced to bare counting of noses, you will get electoral majorities which will ensure that the opinions carried into effect are the opinions of the nation, and not the opinions of mere groups.

LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM

My Lords, I should like to congratulate the noble and learned Viscount upon having made a sound Conservative speech. Having said that, I hope His Majesty's Government will not accede to the request of my noble friend Lord Burnham. What is it that he wants? He wants to set up a Committee to ascertain whether or not it would be advisable to compel people to vote. That is a very simple question. I should have thought that anybody could form his own opinion as to that, and that it is not necessary to set up a Committee to inform people what is the opinion of that Committee.

VISCOUNT BURNHAM

To inquire into the operation of the system elsewhere.

LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM

I am only concerned with what we do in this country. I do not care in the least what other countries do. I am of opinion that other countries should take their example from us, and not we take the example of other people. What is it that the noble Viscount proposes to do? He proposes to say to every man and woman who desires not to vote: "You have got to go and vote," and he says that that is not a bad thing to do, because, fortunately I presume, I think he said half of our actions at the present moment are controlled by officials. I was not aware that half our actions were controlled by officials at the present moment. I think there are a great deal too many and that they interfere in things with which they have nothing to do. This was nominally a free country a few years ago, but of late years, owing partly to the noble and learned Viscount and his friends, and partly to noble Lords opposite, who set up officials to tell us what to do, it is ceasing to be a free country.

What would happen if we set up officials in order to count noses, as the noble and learned Viscount said just now? Why do people not vote? I think there are three reasons. Firstly, there are a considerable number of men, and a very much larger number of women, who do not in the least know anything about political questions, who do not know why they should vote or for whom they should vote, or for what they should vote, and some of them, being sensible people, say: "We know nothing about it and the best thing we can do is to stay at home and carry on our domestic work or our business, and take no part in the voting." Why compel such people to go and vote? The next class are those who only vote if they like the candidate, or if they know him. I remember my first election in Peckham. My wife was canvassing. She went to a house, and saw my photograph and card in the window. She rung the bell and a woman came to the door. My wife said: "I am very glad to see you have my husband's picture and card in the window." The reply was; "Oh! yes, we like his face." What a reason for voting! Yet the noble Viscount would compel such people to go and vote for such a reason. The third class of people remain at borne and do not take the trouble to go and vote because they are infirm, or because it is a wet day or a cold day.

If all those people are to be compelled to vote I suppose you would get them into the ballot box with the aid of a large number of policemen. But having got them into the polling booth and into the ballot box, how can you ensure that they will not write on the ballot paper what they think of the people who have compelled them to vote? I believe that all ballot papers have a number. I believe if you go through all the ballot papers and check them you can find out who did vote, and who wrote something bad about my noble friend. The secrecy of the ballot is destroyed. Then you will have to have an army of officials who will come forward and having examined all these papers—I think there are 20,000,000 people entitled to vote—somebody will have to go and find those who have not voted. I do not know whether it is intended that the offenders shall go to prison if they do not vote, but presumably there would be some fine or punishment of some sort.

VISCOUNT BURNHAM

A fine is inflicted.

LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM

So far as I know Australia is governed by trade unionists, who are a most tyrannical body, and I hope we shall never see this country governed by trade unionists. I trust that the Government will refuse the inquiry asked for.

THE EARL OF MAYO

My Lords, I should like to congratulate the noble Viscount, Lord Burnham, upon his speech. After all, he has only asked for an inquiry, and, in regard to some statements which he made, they have, I think, been interpreted in a way that he did not at all intend. He said there was compulsion in the trade unions, and that is perfectly true. I know nothing about the enormous sums of money that these trade unions are supposed to have, though that has been contradicted by the other side, and I should think that the other side know more about it than most people. But there is no doubt that what Lord Burnham said is perfectly true, that the trade unions have the power of making people vote, because, if they do not vote, their position is made excessively uncomfortable. That is a form of compulsion which we all understand. The noble and learned Viscount, Lord Haldane, referred to well-organised minorities, and said he did not know of any cases, except two, where there was a well-organised minority. In Ireland we have had a form of election which you all know, and there is nothing in Ireland which comes under the category of a well-organised minority. Proportional representation, which has been alluded to during this debate, has been exceedingly successful in Ireland.

I was very glad that the noble Viscount, Lord Burnham, pointed out the dangers that are likely to arise in this country if we do not take notice of the trend of modern thought, and of the growing feeling that the present form of Election is out of date and ought not to continue. I do not know whether I shall live to see a change, I hope I shall. As for saying that thought has not changed on this subject, and that we are going to stay as we are in this country, you might as well say that the moon is not going to shine. We live in changing times, and now the women of the country have votes, and if they were all to vote they could put in what Government they liked, whether a Labour Government, a Liberal Government, or a Tory-Democratic Government. I am very glad that this Question was raised by Lord Burnham, who, in his most interesting speech, mentioned the power of the Press in certain direction. He knows more about that than most of your Lordships. I only hope that many of Your Lordships will read his speech, and think about it when you go home.

EARL RUSSELL

My Lords, there is one difficulty to which the noble Viscount, Lord Burnham, has not alluded, nor has any subsequent speaker. I am not talking of the physical difficulty suggested by Lord Banbury when he talked about getting voters into the ballot box—I did not understand that that was part of the scheme—but neither the noble Viscount nor any one who has followed him seems to have asked himself what would happen if there was no candidate for whom you desired to vote. I have long felt that voting was the duty of a citizen, and that everything should be done to encourage it, and I have even had leanings, like the noble Viscount, towards compulsion. But let me ask him to consider a position which might perfectly well arise. Suppose that there were only two candidates—the noble Lord opposite, a true-blue Tory, and, let us say, a Constitutional Liberal like Mr. Winston Churchill, who had not yet quite joined that Party—and that those were the only two candidates in my constituency. Am I to, be dragged to the polling booth and compelled to vote for one or the other, when neither of them will in the very least represent my opinions or my principles? Is not that a difficulty which has to be met?

The only way, it seems to me, in which you could meet it would be by compelling people to attend at the polling booth and letting them give a blank vote. And that is surely a reductio ad absurdum. You are going to compel the voter to go to the polling booth, and, when he gets there to let him say: "I do not want to record my vote.' That seems to be a fatal difficulty in the way of any scheme. We have three Parties now, and we may have more, and that may happen increasingly—certainly as long as you have single-member constituencies. The difficulty which I have mentioned is one which I think everybody who considers this question must face and must devise some solution for, if the matter is to be further considered at all.

There is one other point that I want to touch upon, because I think perhaps the noble Lord who is going to speak for the Government may have something to say upon it. Of all possible tribunals to inquire into a new form of franchise I should have thought that a Select Committee of your Lordships' House was the most unsuitable. We have nothing to do with the franchise, we have nothing to do with Elections.

VISCOUNT BURNHAM

I suggested preferentially a joint Committee.

EARL RUSSELL

I understood the noble Viscount to refer to a Select Committee of this House—those are the words in the Question. I think that that would be a tribunal which, though it might be extremely competent, would have little authority and would be rather unsuitable for considering a question of franchise, which concerns, practically entirely, the other House of Parliament.

LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEY

My Lords, I am inclined to agree with the latter part of the noble Earl's speech, when he suggested that this is not exactly the House to deal with the franchise by which the other House is elected. But with regard to his earlier remarks, I must, with some knowledge of the application of compulsory voting in Australia, point out to him that it is quite a common thing for those who are compelled to vote to abstain from giving a valid vote. Sometimes they even comment on the merits or demerits of the candidates who are submitted to them, and that, if I am not mistaken—and I do not think I am—happens even in this country, where compulsion is not in force. Voters do sometimes write on their voting papers "Socialism for ever," or "A plague on both your Houses." or various remarks of a nature which does not indicate their political affinity but which expresses their views for the time being.

The question, as the noble Viscount, Lord Haldane, said, is whether you desire to get the instructed opinion of the country or that of the uneducated mass of voters, who are indifferent as to the questions before the country. For my part, I would much rather see an educated minority voting than a majority of fluctuating voters, influenced by the breezes from ail quarters of the heavens, and sometimes influenced by more material considerations. The more you extend the class of indifferent voters, the more you render the country liable to influences, not of intellect, not of opinion, but influences of a debasing and degrading character. The more you have a mass of voters who are completely indifferent and completely ignorant of the political questions before the country the more you are likely to have a potentially corrupt electorate. I confess that I fear the introduction of compulsion on those who otherwise take no interest whatever in politics, for it may well be that if compulsion is in existence it will give a lever to those who use improper methods of persuasion. The more indifferent an elector is the more ready will he be to give his vote away to the Party which offers him some material advantage for it.

I have witnessed more than one Election in Australia, though I have not taken part in any, both under compulsory voting and under compulsory registration. Those are two completely different things. There exists, I think, in the State of Victoria and in the Commonwealth, a system of compulsory registration. Compulsory registration existed before compulsory voting was introduced. I believe that while I was Governor of Victoria. I was on the register of voters for the Commonwealth and, for all I know, I might have been on the register of voters for the State of Victoria. Had I attempted to exercise that vote I think I should have been subject to some criticism as occupying an official position under the Crown—a position which I believe to be one of holding a balance and protecting the permanent interests of the Constitution against any temporary attack. I think I should have been strongly criticised had I taken part in proceedings over which to some extent I and those holding positions similar to mine were placed in supervision. I am well aware, however, that my neighbour in South Australia was proceeded against, I believe by an over-zealous electoral officer, because he failed either to register or to record his vote in South Australia. The matter, of course, was not tried out, but it illustrates the effect of indiscretion on the part of those charged either with the supervision of registration or of voting.

My objection, however, to compulsory voting is not so much that as the obvious difficulty of enforcing the law once it is brought into force. It is true, as the noble Viscount pointed out, that at the last Commonwealth Election in Australia a very considerable proportion of the electors voted, and possibly all who could register their votes did so. No one cares to subject, himself to a penalty for failing to do a thing which gives him comparatively little trouble. But what will happen, not after this present Election, nor after the next, but when people gradually lose interest and discover from their neighbours that they had not voted and that nothing had happened to them? Nothing will happen to the elector who fails to vote. You cannot prosecute 18 per cent. of an electorate. You cannot bring 18 per cent. of an electorate before a bench of magistrates and fine them 40s. each. Examples may be taken, but those examples are very likely to be improper examples of men picked out because some body has a grudge or has informed against them.

To suppose that it is possible to enforce compulsory voting upon 100 per cent. of the electorate is, I think, to hold out an impossible expectation. It will happen, I think, that the law will be on the Statute Book and the man who does not go to the polling booth will be liable to a fine of 40s. But I think it will be disregarded by all who wish to disregard it. I feel confident that a law that is systematically broken is one of the worst laws there can possibly be. A law upon which people look with contempt and derision had much better be repealed at once. If an example of contempt for, and derision of, laws passed by the parliamentary body of a country is once set, a tendency is created towards lawlessness and a tendency to say that a law need only be obeyed if one feels inclined to obey it. That is comparatively unimportant, perhaps, in the matter of voting, but it may be carried to other things, and if the public of a country find that they can safely disregard any law which they have no inclination to obey, the law will be weakened and the influence of parliamentary institutions over the people will be weakened also.

I am not in favour of an inquiry into compulsory voting. The effect of compulsory voting is quite clear and it is well understood that Parliament could enact that voting should be compulsory. The noble Viscount who introduced the subject discussed proportional representation, second ballots, and the like, as well as compulsory voting, and he was gladly followed, I think, by other noble Lords who have spoken. Compulsory voting, of course, has nothing whatever to do with those questions. You may have proportional representation without compulsion and you may have compulsion without proportional representation. You may arrive by different methods at the political opinion of the country. I do not think this is the occasion, indeed, I hardly think it would be in order, to discuss the question of minority representation. The question before your Lordships to-day is whether it is desirable to compel a qualified person who is on the roll to exercise his vote. It can be clone. Such a law could be passed, though I doubt its effectiveness. I do not feel any anxiety as to the danger of people giving invalid votes when they come to the ballot box. All that could possibly be done is to pass a law compelling a man to go into the polling booth. If it is considered to be worth while to do that let it be done, but I feel very strongly with the noble Viscount on the Front Opposition Bench that it is better to have a small instructed electorate than a large and indifferent one.

LORD DESBOROUGH

My Lords, I rise to reply very briefly to my noble friend and I propose to keep rather more closely to the terms of his Question than a large number of the speakers who have addressed your Lordships have done. The first Question is a very simple one—namely, to ask whether the attention of His Majesty's Government has been called to the system of compulsory voting for Parliamentary Elections now in force in the Commonwealth of Australia. That seems to me to be a very definite Question. The second one is whether His Majesty's Government will agree to set up a Select Committee of this House to inquire into the subject and to report thereon.

Your Lordships are very greatly indebted, I am sure, to my noble friend for the powerful manner in which he introduced his Question and for the experience which he brings at first-hand from Australia. I hope he will allow me, although I am only a humble Captain of the Yeoman of the Guard, to congratulate him upon the splendid public service which he did while in Australia, and not for the first time, in the interest of this Empire. I do so with the more pleasure because I find I am totally unable to give him any satisfactory reply as to the intentions of His Majesty's Government. We must all admit, however, that his object is a most noble one. It is, generally speaking, to make the mass of his fellow-countrymen take more interest in Elections than they do at present.

Although his object is a noble one it is by no means new. It is as old as the time of Aristophanes. I believe it is actionable to quote Latin in Parliament, and criminal to quote Greek. Still, in the time of Aristophanes, whom I prefer to quote in the English tongue, people felt and were impressed with the same ideas as my noble friend—namely, that a large number of the people of Athens, who were as intelligent, I am sure, as my noble friend opposite could desire, had to be intimidated to take more interest in political matters. According to Aristophanes, the police of the day armed themselves with a rope covered with yellow ochre, and those who did not show a sufficient interest in public affairs and record their votes, were surrounded by this rope and marked with yellow ochre. By means of this mark of yellow ochre it could be seen that a person was not performing his public duties satisfactorily. What the very large number of female electors that we have at the present moment in this country would think of this method of making them perform their duties I do not know, but I have no doubt that the Select Committee, if it was ever set up, would be able to give us all information upon that point.

We have been told something at first hand about Australia. I quite agree with my noble friend's facts and figures. They were very backward in voting in Australia in times gone by. In 1922 the percentage of voters was That is very small. In 1917 it was 77 per cent. In 1924 the Act to make voting compulsory was passed, but it only came into operation in the year 1925. I humbly submit that we have not yet, at this early part of 1926, had a real opportunity of studying what the effect of that Act is likely to be. The immediate results, as claimed by my noble friend, are that 90 per cent. of the electors went to the poll. That seems a very large number, but we must remember that in Australia an absent vote is allowed. Invalids can vote by post. Supposing 5 per cent. were invalids and voted by post, that brings the percentage down to 85, and probably it would bring it down a great deal more. I am only taking that as a figure. The fact has been referred to in the debate in this House that 5 per cent. of the votes cast, which is a very large proportion, were spoilt papers. That rather bears out the remark of my noble friend Lord Stanley of Alderley, who spoke just now, that you can bring a person, not perhaps into the ballot box, but into the neighbourhood of the ballot box, but you cannot make him vote, or, if you do, he spoils his paper.

A difficulty was suggested by my noble Friend Earl Russell just now. We have three Parties in this country. How many sub-parties they are divided into it is almost impossible to say; anyhow, there are three Parties in this House. It is possible, if I were an elector, that I might have to make my choice, between an enthusiastic follower of my noble friend opposite and an enthusiastic land nationaliser following Mr. Lloyd George. If I had to vote compulsorily it would be very difficult for me to say which of those two candidates I liked best. I think that is almost putting it too high; it would be more correct to say that it would be difficult for me to make up my mind which I liked the less. But I should have to go and pretend to vote. I must say that in those circumstances I think it very likely I should follow the example which has apparently been carried into practice by those 5 per cent. in Australia who voted for both candidates. you would have this difficulty. You might have an excess of goodness and an excess of badness. You might like both candidates very much, or dislike them both very much, and it would be difficult to vote for either of them. In that case you vote for both, which is as good as voting for neither.

It is no new thing even in this country to have a compulsory voting Bill. I have a Bill in my hand which was introduced into the House of Commons on April 21, 1921. The fate of this Bill is not likely to make the Government, more anxious than they would otherwise be to introduce a Bill on this subject. This Bill did not get very far. It was read a first time and then, I think, it disappeared. But it was a Bill that showed some of the difficulties. Among other things it provided that the returning officer should serve a notice on all those voters who had not recorded their vote. In this country there are over 20,000,000 voters. Supposing 80 per cent. voted, and 20 per cent, would not vote. That would mean that 4,000,000 voters would have to be served with notices. This would have to be done, I suppose, in the counties by the clerk to the county council, and in the boroughs by the clerk to the borough council.

Imagine the enormous amount of work that would be thrown upon their shoulders if those unfortunate people had to begin a correspondence with 4,000,000 persons—and when you once begin an official correspondence you are cheaply let off with under ten or fifteen letters. Fifteen times 4,000,000 letters would have to be written on this question! But that is only to begin with. Obviously, every person who had not voted would write an excuse, and the less often he voted the more excuses he would give. He would go into detail in writing his excuses to the unfortunate returning officer, and probably the next Election, or it might be the Election after that, would arrive before the returning officer would have cleared off even a small proportion of the arrears of letters clue to be written to the recalcitrant voters in answer to their excuses. In Australia, I understand, there were 300,000 abstentions—I do not know if my noble friend has later information—and so far there have only been two prosecutions. It does not look as if the law was being very actively put into force. In any case I submit that the law is of such recent date that it is almost premature to make these inquiries in Australia.

There is another point. We are all striving after economy — somewhat ineffectually perhaps, but at all events we are doing our best in that direction—and I am informed that both the Home Office and the Treasury are very much averse to setting up an extra Select Committee of this House, or even a Joint Committee, because, first of all, it would be very unlikely to have much effect, and, secondly, of the expense that it would entail. The suggestion is that the Committee should study the system of voting now in force in the Commonwealth of Australia. Any Select Committee, if they are to study a question, ought to examine a very large number of witnesses, otherwise it would not be a study at all. There is a question of whether this Select Committee would have witnesses brought over here from Australia, or whether they would have to set up a Commission to go to Australia and examine both sides on the spot. I have no doubt, if the latter course were adopted, the people in Australia would be delighted to welcome back my noble friend Lord Burnham, even to the extent of putting up triumphal arches, but on the ground of economy as well as for many other reasons which have already been given by others, I cannot, I am afraid, return a satisfactory reply to my noble friend.

EARL BEAUCHAMP

My Lords, I do not rise to criticise in any way the decision which the noble Lord who represents His Majesty's Government has announced. I think that the refusal to have a picemeal inquiry, as it were, into the matter of electoral reform is very wise and sensible. The suggestion which fell from the noble Viscount who introduced this Question that there should be an inquiry into a number of other things—the second ballot, I think, was one which he mentioned—is one which is much more valuable and one which I hope he will be inclined to push further on a subsequent occasion. But I would venture to take this opportunity of repeating a question which I have already once addressed to His Majesty's Government in relation to the Speaker's Conference, which they have announced will be appointed in the course of this Session to go into the question of women's votes. I do not know whether they are prepared to tell me whether that Conference will discuss other things besides women's votes, or confine itself to that one topic. We shall be glad to know as soon as it is convenient to His Majesty's Government to tell us.

I understood the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Haldane, on the question of votes for women and for men, to express the opinion that on the whole the better system would be that women of the age of twenty-five should be allowed to vote and that no man under that age should be allowed to vote. That is what I understood him to say. That is a very important and striking declaration from the noble Viscount who represents the Labour Party in this House. May I venture to ask whether that is the considered decision of the Labour Party? Do they agree to that?

VISCOUNT HALDANE

I did not say so.

EARL BEAUCHAMP

The noble Viscount now tells us that it is not the opinion of the Labour Party.

VISCOUNT HALDANE

I did not say that.

EARL BEAUCHAMP

It is exceedingly inconvenient if the noble Viscount who represents the Labour Party says one thing and the Labour Party says another.

VISCOUNT HALDANE

I am not aware that! have said so.

EARL BEAUCHAMP

It is not the first time we have found ourselves in that position, and I do venture to say it is very desirable that we should know exactly where the Labour Party stands in this matter. Are they or are they not in favour of taking away the vote of all people under twenty-five? If they are not in favour, I venture to say it is somewhat, misleading if the noble Viscount, who represents the Labour Party in this House, expresses his opinion that that is a desirable course, without in any way leading your Lordships to imagine that it is purely a personal opinion on his part.

THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY)

My Lords, I think the noble Earl will see that I should be much better able to give an answer to his question if I had had any idea that he would put it. The noble Earl will know that any question he puts always receives the closest attention of His Majesty's Government, and if he will be good enough to repeat it on another day I will give him full information.