Lords Sitting of 28 April 1937

Preamble
The House met at a quarter before four of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
LORD MCGOWAN.
Sir Harry Duncan McGowan, K.B.E., having been created Baron McGowan of Ardeer in the County of Ayr—Was (in the usual manner) introduced.

NATIONAL TRUST FOR PLACES OF HISTORIC INTEREST OR NATURAL BEAUTY BILL. [H.L.]
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF ONSLOW): My Lords, I beg to move that Standing Order No. 105 be considered in order to its being dispensed with in respect of the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty Bill. The reason for this is that the Standing Order says that the Bill cannot be read a second time until the Attorney-General has reported, and the Report was somewhat delayed.
Moved, That Standing Order No. 105 be considered in order to its being dispensed with in respect of the said Bill.—(The Earl of Onslow.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now read 2a.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Earl of Onslow.)
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed.

EASTBOURNE EXTENSION BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
WARRINGTON CORPORATION BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
PONTYPOOL GAS AND WATER BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
WOODHALL SPA URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
BRIGHTON, HOVE AND WORTHING GAS BILL.
Read 3a, and passed.
GENERAL CEMETERY BILL.
Read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER (EARSDON JOINT HOSPITAL DISTRICT) BILL.
Amendments reported (according to Order).
KINGSTON-UPON-HULL PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.

PEERAGE LAW DECLARATION BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD STRICKLAND: My Lords, in asking your Lordships to be pleased to read this Bill a second time, perhaps I may be allowed to say that the Bill is framed in order to remove certain difficulties that make it almost impossible to consider the question of Life Peerages on its own merits. There are conflicts of law of an important description created in the first place by the decision in the Norfolk Peerage case, which has reversed the outstanding point on which the Wensleydale case was decided. Then we have the Birkenhead Act of 1922 which entirely changed the law of succession to real property. It has been by legal parallels with the law of real property that the Peerage law has been gradually constructed; but guidance can no longer be sought from the devolution of real property under intestacy since 1922. Your Lordships are aware that Lord Birkenhead's Act entirely abolished primogeniture in intestate succession to real property. It has eliminated the
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distinction between brothers and sisters and the preference that formerly existed. It has forbidden entirely the creation of entails. Tenure of every description has been eliminated with the exception of grand serjeanty, inasmuch as it is a remnant of tenure by personal service to the King, and since Lord Birkenhead's Act became law it is inevitable to hold that Peerage in your Lordships' House has been placed for purposes of parallel in the same position that grand serjeanty was in ancient times—a tenure by personal service to the King.
Moreover, your Lordships' House gave assent to recommendations in the Report of the Committee on Peerages in Abeyance. That was done by Resolutions, followed by administrative instructions. Now it is fundamental in the constitutional point of view that the law is not to be changed by executive orders, and when that has to be done it follows that at an early date a Bill should be passed in accordance with such Resolutions. I think the time has come to give greater strength to this kind of enactment by legislation passed by both Houses of Parliament and formally assented to by His Majesty. The key point is the decision of the Norfolk Peerage case in so far as it has reversed the Wensleydale decision. I beg leave to read a very brief summary thereof in the latest book on Peerage Law (Palmer's). It is as follows:
"Lord Chelmsford, in the Wiltes Peerage case, appears to have considered that where there was a void grant, as for instance, to A, and his heirs male for ever, and the grantee was summoned pursuant to that grant and sat in the House of Lords, the grant might operate only as a grant for life; but this seems unsound."
Now comes the important part of the quotation:
"Perhaps the true view is that in such a case the person summoned, if already a Peer, takes nothing by this void grant, but, if not already a Peer, becomes a Baron by virtue of the Summons and sitting. (See as to this the Norfolk Peerage case, 1907 (A.C. 10))."
In accordance with this, if the Government were to accede to the view held by many that a trial should be made to bring these doubts to an issue by having a case for hearing before the Committee for Privileges, the first objection would be that it would be rather hard on any Peer that he should be made, as it were, a scapegoat, that he should have to incur the anxiety and expense of having it

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decided before the Committee for Privileges whether he had received nothing but, as it were, one of the apples that are said to grow on the shores of the Dead Sea which, when you grasp them in your hand, become nothing but a few ashes. He might, however, of course, find himself in possession of a Peerage descendible both to females and to males and in that event he would have much more than he expected, indeed perhaps more than he wished to have, although certainly from the point of view of many a more desirable Peerage than one in the ordinary form. There is a more effective manner of creating Life Peerages than that to which I have just alluded. We have had it clearly admitted on both sides in the discussion on the grant in the Wensleydale case that there was no parallel in the grant of property under Common Law as it then existed. There would have been no hitch if a Peerage for life were granted with a special remainder, and that remainder might be to the second or third or fourth son. So far as the law goes if you can give a remainder to a second son there is nothing to prevent you from giving it to a twentieth son. Thereby the draftsman could create a Peerage for life with a special remainder probably entirely within the four corners of what the Common Law prescribed.
I have endeavoured to obtain the best advice procurable in Lincoln's Inn on this point and I have been given a reference to "Coke upon Littleton." Lord Coke lays clown that a grant of land would be quite valid to a man and his heirs by his then wife and after to a man's heirs by somebody else's wife. It is obvious that if such a grant would have a valid contingent remainder perfectly good in law, there might nevertheless be some reluctance in accepting Peerages under Letters Patent the phraseology of which was in the archaic language of "Coke upon Littleton," but I would remind your Lordships that for at least two hundred years it was only possible to break entails by what is known as fines and recoveries, fictions to which the officers of the Court were complacent parties but which in effect were only legal forms for barring entails.
That method is open to His Majesty's Government if they decide on not challenging the decision in the Wensleydale case and meeting all the complications
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that follow. I put it to your Lordships, however, that it would be much wiser and more practical to pass a little Bill that has for its object the elimination of what, as also the Redesdale Committee has pointed out, is historically wrong and legally indefensible and what the Committee on Peerages in Abeyance has characterised in perhaps more forcible language. That is that there should be no more calling out of abeyance of ancient Peerages. This Bill attempts to deal with such a Peerage as might be created by issue of invalid Letters Patent and the creation of a Peerage by Writ. It declares that such consequences shall be null and void.
May I now deal with the views entertained very strongly on both sides of the discussion in the Wensleydale case? There were speeches that emphasised most strongly that the King's Prerogative had not been impaired by non-usage and there were those who argued, and went so far as to quote Justinian in Latin in support of it, that non-usage had reached the stage when it operated to bar the King's Prerogative. All that discussion took place without a Message from the King allowing discussion on the Prerogative. If your Lordships do me the honour to give this Bill a Second Reading it will be my duty to go no further before taking steps to ascertain whether there would be support in asking for a Message from the Crown permitting this Bill to proceed, but no such loyal attitude was observed in the discussion on the Wensleydale case. Lord Chelmsford, in the Wiltes case, declared most emphatically that decisions of the Committee for Privileges were not judgments. They were opinions, opinions that could be altered. We all know that the Common Law of England, if it is altered, has to be altered by a succession of accepted judgments of established Courts of Law and not by opinions. We know also that the text books are unanimous that there should be no alteration of the King's Prerogative either upwards or downwards without an Act of Parliament proposed avowedly to deal with the Prerogative.
Can it possibly be argued that the Wensleydale case, which took place only eighty years ago, altered the Common Law as it was then accepted? It was said in debate at that time that there had been no Peerage for life created for four hundred years, but subsequent historical research has shown that there was

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a similar grant at a closer date. I put it to your Lordships that that point is immaterial. The King holds his Prerogative as a trustee for the nation and for the rights of the people acquired and exercised on the faith of the Common Law. The King is the fountain of justice and also the protector of rights and settlements devolving from the Common Law. Therefore, as he is a trustee, his Prerogative cannot be taken away by any other method than by an Act of Parliament to which he himself is a party. If your Lordships were to arrive at the conclusion that the conflict between the Norfolk Peerage case and the Wensleydale Peerage case should be eliminated, I put it to you that it is impossible to eliminate that conflict otherwise than by Act of Parliament. It is a stumbling block that has had this result, that those who wanted nothing done have at least succeeded in getting nothing done; and those who say that they want everything done at once need not be afraid that they will be met with the suggestion that they are organising artistic obstruction. Of course they will say "Where is the solution of the conflict of laws?" I am confident that by passing this little Bill the terrain will be free for approaching the matter on its own merits.
If, however, we stop the complications that would arise from admitting the creation of a Peerage by Writ, perhaps in favour of a Viscount Ullswater descending through a female, then, if the Wensleydale experiment were again tried and this Bill passes, no Peerage in abeyance would be possible. This, however, leaves an earnest question for attention—namely, what would happen if some of the Peerages by Writ which have been in families for hundreds of years were to come into abeyance. That has to be dealt with, and dealt with fairly. Apart from the historical discoveries which show that those Peerages by Writ were not originally Peerages, they must be acknowledged, because there they are and it is no good evoking excessive opposition. These have to be dealt with somehow, and it is not so difficult to deal with them as it appears at first sight.
At the beginning of the feudal system females had no rights whatever either to land held by their fathers as tenants-in-chief or, upon marriage, to land that they might have acquired otherwise in any
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way. Attendance at your Lordships' House was then a service to the Crown—to come and attend the King personally in the High Court of Parliament. Those who held as tenants-in-chief were liable to military service or to other services, such as that of grand serjeanty, but all tenants-in-chief were liable to be summoned to Parliament. Later on the King summoned persons to come to Parliament who did not hold a Barony but only part of a Barony; they were tenants per baroniam. Where there were no heirs male, but a daughter only, the Barony went back to the Crown unless the King exercised his right to marry her off to a person suitable to her station in life, on payment made to him. The money went into the Exchequer as part of the transaction. That went on for hundreds of years: the land carried the bride with it, and the husband became a tenant-in-chief if the land represented a baronial tenancy-in-chief. It was possible that the deceased magnate had held three or four Baronies in chief, and there was enough to endow three or four daughters with land held in chief under conditions that would make their husbands not only rich landowners but also Peers, if summoned.
That was the old feudal system. Possibly the Crown held the view that the more daughters there were, the merrier it was for the Crown to dispose of them! But I fail to trace any legal justification, except the adroitness of the lawyers and pedigree-compilers, for this system of co-parcenary in regard to Peerages. In Scotland, for the most part, the eldest daughter takes; throughout the Continent of Europe the eldest daughter takes, when there are strictly entailed titles and strictly entailed estates. That is still the case. I believe, in Canada, where there are Peerages dating from before the English occupation, and also in Malta, where there are a couple of dozen. This Bill, therefore, contains a suggestion that if now Peerages come into abeyance they should be so dealt with notwithstanding the complication of calling out abeyances. The muniment rooms of every old castle and estate have been ransacked to find traces of grounds for calling Peerages out of abeyance, and it is very unlikely that any pedigree could be formed that would show that any one man had to hold inheritance through a senior daughter and that there were no competitors. Of late,

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however, these abeyances have been called out for persons who could not have acquired one-hundredth part of the inheritance. At the present day there are 50,000 in England who could, if they chose to go to the expense, prove their legitimate descent from Plantagenet ancestors who married Neville wives. The position is, therefore, that when these abeyances are called out they are entirely at the disposal of the Crown. There is no injustice if anybody is left out. Therefore, if the Crown revives these Peerages, should they ever fall out again, by Letters Patent, the advisers of the Crown would be helping a just solution.
Here, my Lords, before concluding, may I make a parenthesis? In these days, when it is admitted throughout the Empire that the right to make and unmake Ministries rests with the House elected on the lowest suffrage, we have to admit that the weight of argument in your Lordships' House is of greater importance than the number of votes that might be recorded on a Division. That being so, there ought to be no objection to an increase of the number of Peers in this House. Why should there be any movement or any suggestion, as there was in the Bill of the late Lord Salisbury, that the Peers by inheritance should elect a few of their number, as they do in Scotland? The hundreds that do not come here often, come here to answer the King's Summons on occasions such as the Coronation, and add to the dignity of the Crown. What is more, if they themselves are not inclined to take part in public affairs, noblesse oblige, and most of them educate their children to fill the Peerage with dignity and in accordance with their traditions. If so anything that there is in this Bill that tends to simplify the possibility of introducing Life Peers should be welcomed by all.
Then we have an Empire which is now being held together primarily by the prestige of the King and of the Royal Family. At the same time those of your Lordships who have been, as I have been, for a large portion of their lives serving the Crown overseas cannot help realising that the desire for social position is perhaps greater in its power to hold communities together in the outside Empire than it is here in England. That feeling has to be cultivated if the Empire is to be held together. I hear such opinion voiced most strongly by the
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representatives of the overseas Empire whom I have the privilege of meeting from day to day. Why should we ignore the fact that the Prime Ministers of the Dominions rendered an immense service to the Empire and the Crown by assuming at a time of crisis the responsibilities that could be read through the lines by experts but not by the general public in the Statute of Westminster, 1931? The Statute of Westminster, the second, namely, De donis, I find has not been revoked, and under that of 1285 the King has power to give and has power to impose whatever conditions he likes. I will add this last word: I trust your Lordships will read this Bill a second time to facilitate the grant of Peerages for life, and I thank your Lordships for allowing me the honour of moving this Motion.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Strickland.)
THE EARL OF MIDLETON THE EARL OF MIDLETON, who had given Notice that he would move, That the Bill be read 2a this day six months, said: My Lords, the noble Lord behind me addressed your Lordships at some length upon this subject on March 24, and I did not gather on that occasion that the interesting points which he brought forward had in fact any great support. I do not think that enthusiasm on his behalf has reached fever heat in the five weeks which have elapsed, judging from the condition of your Lordships' House at this moment. I would put that down to the fact that, although the whole question of the reform of your Lordships' House has attracted large audiences when a practical proposal was put forward, the suggestions which have fallen from the noble Lord to-day are neither practical nor useful.
I do not propose to follow him at any considerable length. I have examined the Explanatory Memorandum, and I am assured by competent authorities that whereas the Explanatory Memorandum suggests that the Bill is to eliminate a conflict of laws, there is no conflict of laws to eliminate, and from that point of view the noble Lord is flogging a dead horse. We are told in the second paragraph of the Memorandum, that the conditions with regard to a Life Peerage would be such that when a Law Lord sits under his Writ a descendible dignity would be created. I am advised that that is not the fact. But it is not a question really of following details. The real ques-

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tion is that the noble Lord is dissatisfied with the decision of Lord Sumner's Committee, which has been accepted by the House for ten years, and under which no difficulty of any description has arisen. On the other side I think the whole speech of the noble Lord is calculated to do harm.
Lord Sumner's Committee made a very careful analysis of the conditions under which all the abeyances were being dealt with. Can we imagine, under present conditions, that abeyances, some of which we are told have existed for an average duration of 304 years and one for 400 years, can be regarded as a proper object for a claim for a seat in this House, when other conditions, including that of the large number of daughters who have died, and of descendants who have gone far away from all the class of public service which it was intended to magnify by introduction to this House, are considered? The Committee made one remark which I think is worth recalling to your Lordships' memory. If we are going to base a change of practice on these abeyances, and on the difficulties which the noble Lord so graphically described, the Committee say:
"The adverse criticism, which these cases have undoubtedly attracted, has been increased in consequence of the historical conclusions which have resulted from the extensive studies of the records."
Your Lordships' House, as I believe, stands high in the estimation of the country; and the Committee say what is very true:
"The recognition of public service or of other merit in the individual to be ennobled, which attends the creation of a Peerage to-day, is not in modern practice a consideration equally applicable, if at all, to individuals in whose favour abeyances of long duration are terminated."
I believe that to be absolutely true, and the more we put in the background the fact that such abeyances are determined under those conditions, the more, I think, shall we add to the reputation of this House.
We have very important questions which some day must be dealt with. I am not going into them this afternoon, but there is the great difference in the strength of Parties, the large numbers of which the House consists, nearly 800, and which it is quite impossible to accommodate if all the noble Lords are forced
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to attend here. All these questions force me to ask your Lordships to deprecate partial amendments, especially such amendments as the noble Lord proposes, which deal with questions which cause no inconvenience of any kind. It may be quite right that we should have a body of Life Peers, and that other individuals without being Life Peers should sit in this House for the periods suggested, but if we do deal with these questions let us have a frank and honest measure, which does deal with these difficulties and not attempt merely to redress partial grievances by a side-wind. The noble Lord said it would be wiser and more practical to pass this measure. I venture to submit that it would he much wiser and more practical to reject this measure, and I invite your Lordships to say "No" to the Bill. In any case I should ask your Lordships, if the noble Lord presses the Bill to a Division, to support me in the Lobby on the proposal for its rejection.
Amendment moved—
Leave out ("now") and at the end of the Motion insert ("this day six months").—(The Earl of Midleton.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM): My Lords, some five or six weeks ago I had the privilege of addressing your Lordships on a somewhat analogous question raised by my noble friend Lord Strickland, and I am very anxious not to repeat what I then said. The noble Lord has made a close study of the discussions in this House, and in the Committee for Privileges, of what is known as the Wensleydale case, and no doubt he has had his mind somewhat coloured by the difficulties then pointed out, and then made the subject of discussion, but I cannot help thinking he has been perhaps a little unduly influenced by those difficulties. He regards them as too much present-day difficulties rather than ancient history.
My noble friend has truly said that if your Lordships give this Bill a Second Reading there will then have to be an humble Address to His Majesty, in order to obtain His Majesty's assent to dealing with the Prerogative in the way suggested by the Bill. That is perfectly accurate, but I cannot help thinking that it is a little bit lacking in the dignity of your Lordships' House to be constantly moving Addresses to His Majesty merely to tinker with the constitution of the House. I

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know that there are a number of members of your Lordships' House who entertain very strong views on the subject of reform. I know that there are members of your Lordships' House who have strong views as to the advisability of creating Life Peerages, and I can quite understand that a comprehensive measure which is intended to deal with these difficulties might one day be seriously discussed, and might fully justify an Address to His Majesty in order to obtain his assent to dealing with the House in whatever way seemed fit at the moment. But I cannot help thinking that it is not conducive to the dignity or to the interest of your Lordships' House to tinker with its constitution and to move Addresses to His Majesty which would only involve dealing with such minor grievances, if my noble friend will allow me to say so, as he has pointed out, arising out of the Wensleydale case.
In the Wensleydale case no doubt it was pointed out, and it has been pointed out since in the very weighty Report of the Sumner Committee, that there are undoubted anomalies in the question of Peerages created by Writ. I think myself that the theory of Peerages by Writ was probably invented in the days of the Tudor Sovereigns by the College of Heralds. It was lent the great authority of Lord Coke's name, and he added to the requirements not only that Writs should issue but also that it should be proved that the person summoned had taken his seat in a Parliament. I suppose he added that in order to cut out the multiplicity of claims which would undoubtedly otherwise have arisen. But since the days of Lord Coke no doubt also historical research has shown that neither the Sovereign nor the subject in the days of the early Parliaments really supposed for an instant that an hereditary Peerage was being created when a Writ of Summons was sent to an individual to attend a Parliament. I admit that, because of that, the theory of Lord Coke, and the theory upon which a certain number of members of your Lordships' House now sit in the House, has been disproved by subsequent historical research.
I admit also, and I think that my noble, friend will admit, that the theory of Peerages by Writ descendible to heirs genera] is so firmly enshrined, not by one decision of the Committee for Privileges, but by repeated decisions of your Lordships' House, that in fact it must be accepted as
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part of the law of the land, although it is contrary to historical fact. To-day there are numerous members of this House, some of them among the most eminent, who sit by virtue of Peerages created by Writ, and nobody suggests nowadays—nobody, I think, suggested until this Bill appeared—that there is any doubt at all as to the validity of their Peerages. Such members—I need only mention one or two—as my noble friend Lord Clinton, who speaks with such authority on agricultural questions, my noble friend Lord Hastings, who has more than once, I think, swayed the opinion of your Lordships' House in debates within the last few years, and the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, who sits on the Front Opposition Bench, and who contributes to your Lordships' discussions at least as much in volume as any other member of your Lordships' House—all of these Peers are here by virtue of Peerages by Writ, which have been called out of abeyance, have been recognised and established, and which nobody now conceives as possibly open to cavilling.
But those difficulties which my noble friend suggests are, to my mind, much less great than the difficulties which are created by his own Bill. I think there would be much more confusion and much more doubt created by some of the provisions of this Bill than are said to be created by the conflict between the practice and the historical fact in the creation of Peerages by Writ. I agree very much with my noble friend Lord Midleton that this question of Peerages by Writ, created and fallen into abeyance, has been amply dealt with by the Report of Lord Sumner's Committee. That was the Report which, your Lordships will remember, was presented to your Lordships in the year 1926. It was the Report of an exceptionally strong Committee, presided over by Lord Sumner, and which had such members as my noble friend Lord Bath, Lord Muir Mackenzie, my noble friend Lord Askwith and other recognised constitutional authorities, and it proceeded, not by means of a limitation of the Prerogative of the Crown, which is what is suggested in the present case, but by means of a series of recommendations, to which they suggest that attention should be paid in any future application for the Crown to call a Peerage out of abeyance.
I hope it is not trespassing too much on your Lordships' time if I remind your Lordships of what the recommendations

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actually were. I will quote from the Report:
"We therefore venture to suggest to the House the following general recommendations to be humbly submitted to His Majesty:—
"In the absence of special circumstances or special reasons to the contrary

"1. No abeyance should be terminated, the first commencement of which occurred more than one hundred years before the presentation of the petition.

"2. No petition should be allowed to proceed, where the petitioner represents less than one-third of the entire dignity.

"3. Except in the case of petitions which have already been presented, it should be an instruction to the Attorney-General that his report to the Crown should advise that no further proceeding be taken in the case of any petition which does not comply with these two requirements.

"4. When the Committee for Privileges is satisfied that any arrangement, entered into between the petitioner and any co-heir, is tainted with any impropriety, no report should be made by it upon the petition except that such arrangement is not shown to have been a proper one.

"5. In considering whether or not the Sovereign should be advised to extend his grace to the petitioner for a termination of an abeyance, the like regard should be had to character, position, services and fitness as would be had in the case of a subject, on whom it is in contemplation to recommend that a Peerage should be conferred."

There is also a recommendation with regard to Bills for restoration in blood.
Those recommendations received the unanimous assent of your Lordships' House, and they have been acted on ever since 1926. Those recommendations most carefully proceed, not by the method of limitation of the Sovereign's power, but by the method of recommendations of standards which should normally be applied in any case of a petition to terminate an abeyance. I cannot help thinking that Lord Sumner's method is infinitely preferable to the method of my noble friend. My noble friend said that it was possible to pass this little Bill in order to enable the Government, if it should be so advised, to test the question of whether the Wensleydale case was still good law by the creation of a Life Peerage. If you are going to deal with Life Peerages you could much more simply pass a little Bill to authorise the Crown to create Life Peerages. That would be a much more direct and simple way than passing this rather obscure Bill to deal with the ques-
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tion of abeyances only to leave the question to be tested as to the legal validity of a decision made some eighty years ago. I cannot help thinking that this is rather an unwise attempt to tinker with the problem.
In addition to that, this Bill in Clause 2 proceeds on most revolutionary lines, because Clause 2 deals with any Peerages which have been called out of abeyance already and it provides:
"Whenever a Peerage heretofore established only by Writ of Summons has to devolve by descent to a female or to a male descendant through a female, no new Writ shall be issued to such descendant unless it be accompanied by Letters Patent determining the descent thereof with suitable limitations for all purposes of law to take the place of the original Writ and to confirm or establish an order of succession such as it may be the pleasure of His Majesty to call to be set up in such Letters Patent.…"
That involves, first of all, that any one who holds a Peerage by Writ which has been called out of abeyance would be left in complete doubt as to what sort of Peerage it was because it would be always necessary for the Crown at some future date to abolish the Peerage by Writ and substitute a Peerage by Letters Patent which would not, as at present, I understand, create a Peerage necessarily descendible to heirs male, but descendible to any one according to whatever arbitrary choice the Sovereign, on advice, chose to make in respect of that particular Peerage. In other words, you would have in that event every one who was holding a Peerage by Writ of Summons, called out of abeyance, in complete uncertainty as to what sort of Peerage he held, and you would have the power created in the Crown by virtue of this Bill to create a completely arbitrary line of descent in the case of all such Peerages by Letters Patent whenever the event occurred which is contemplated in Clause 2. I cannot help thinking that this is a thoroughly unsatisfactory way of dealing with the question, and if this Bill goes to a Division I shall be driven to support my noble friend Lord Midleton.
LORD ASKWITH: My Lords, I crave permission to say a few words in support of what the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack has said. I thoroughly agree with all he has said, particularly about Clause 2 of this Bill. It is a Bill that is not at first sight easy to construe, but I gather it deals with two chief points.

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One is to give legal effect to some of the recommendations of Lord Sumner's Committee and the other is, by Clause 2, as the noble and learned Viscount has pointed out, entirely to alter the position of the present Peers who sit under Writ when a Peerage may fall again into abeyance. As the noble and learned Viscount has said, I was a member of Lord Sumner's Committee, and I believe that that Committee was largely appointed owing to a Question I asked of the then Lord Chancellor, Lord Cave, in March. 1923, as to whether the Government would take into consideration the question of Peerages in abeyance and the powers of the Committee for Privileges with regard to these Peerages, owing to various curious circumstances that I knew of myself as counsel on Peerage claims that had arisen in various claims which had taken place for Peerages that had been in abeyance for a long time or where curious circumstances of an hereditary character might arise. I stated that I would gladly pursue the matter, and the Government eventually took it up, and Lord Cave himself on July 13, 1925, moved for a Committee to inquire into the subject of Peerages, etc., in abeyance and to report to the House on the matter. That was the origin of Lord Sumner's Committee.
The cases were gone into very care fully, and there is a long document showing the history of all the Peerages that had been called out of abeyance, the number of years they had been in abeyance, and the portion of Peerage that sometimes appeared to be claimed—a three-hundredth part in one case, Lord Cave stated. Lord Cave made some scathing remarks about the matter, and the House adopted the Report of the Committee, and there was very little, if any, opposition. The late Lord Willoughby de Broke was rather upset because it might be an attack upon his Peerage. It was pointed out to him that it was no such thing; that his Peerage had fallen into abeyance in the reign of Charles II, but that the descendants of every one of the daughters had died out with the exception of his mother and, afterwards, of himself. The present noble Lord, Lord St. Davids, made some expostulation because, I believe, a certain claim had already been put forward on behalf of his wife for certain ancient Peerages, and there was a condition in these Resolutions that where there were vested interests, in the sense
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of claims having been already lodged, these claims might be considered by the Committee for Privileges.
But the real point of the Committee was this. The Committee had always previously reported simply the bald facts that there was a Peerage, that it was in abeyance, that it appeared to lie between the descendants of certain persons, and that these descendants were so-and-so, with no other comment at all. The importance of the Resolutions was that the Committee for Privileges should be instructed by the House to point out the disadvantages (or advantages) which might govern the real consideration as to whether a Peerage ought to be brought out of abeyance or not, and that His Majesty should know, through his advisers, what kind of claim it was; that he should have more information; that, in proper cases, he should have something to go on, on which a Peerage might or might not be called out. That has worked very well for a large number of years. There are some cases that may come on before very long, but I see no reason for altering the system in the way the noble Lord suggests, and particularly in the way he suggests in Clause 2. Why should a Peerage by Writ be interfered with in the way he suggests? The Committee did not object to Peerages by Writ. It would be most unfair to attempt to throw over the existence of Peerages by Writ or to put them in doubt or hesitation such as would occur under the suggestions of the noble Lord. Therefore I shall follow the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack in any Division that the noble Lord may suggest.
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, the discussion we have had so far has been a learned one and I intervene for a moment or two only because I want to deal very briefly with what I may perhaps call the broader aspect of the question. I understand that the noble Lord, Lord Strickland—and perhaps I may be allowed to compliment him on the most interesting legal and constitutional argument that he developed—is seeking a way of making it easier for advice to be tendered to His Majesty for the issue of Writs for the creation of Life Peerages. That I believe is what the noble Lord, Lord Strickland, has in mind. Now in spite of the compliment paid to me by the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack about the number of times that I inflict myself

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on your Lordships, this is such an important matter that I am going to inflict myself again for a few sentences. The reason why the noble and learned Viscount was able to pay me the compliment which had a back-handedness to it is evidenced by the state of the Benches behind me and this raises, I submit to your Lordships, a really important question.
As my noble friend Lord Snell pointed out in his speech on the last occasion when Lord Strickland brought forward this matter, the official policy of the Party to which I have the honour to belong is to abolish this House. There is some conflict within the Party itself—that of course is common knowledge because it has been debated again and again in our free public discussions at our annual conferences—as to whether that should be done quickly or later and the weight of opinion after much discussion—I am speaking of people who take the matter very seriously indeed and are trying to act in what they think is the best interests of the community—is that it should take place later as there are other matters to deal with which are more urgent. In the meantime, when we are again for the third time likely to be in office, we are faced with the difficulty which faced the Lord President of the Council when he formed two Labour Governments and that is the filling of the important Governmental posts in this House. But matters being as they are you have this situation. The second Party in the State, the alternative governing Party, representing, I suppose, 8,000,000 or 9,000,000 of voters and a very large proportion, at any rate, of the mass of the organised workmen of the country has to assume the responsibility of Government and one of the responsibilities of Government is to maintain a part of the administration in your Lordships' House. It is notorious that we have not the men of the necessary eminence who, for reasons which I need not elaborate, because they are well known to your Lordships, are also prepared to accept an Hereditary Peerage.
I am going a little further into this matter. I would like to see your Lordships' House, while it lasts and as long as it lasts, become more and more a great Council of State. I speak for myself in this matter. In your Lordships' House one of the great estates of
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the realm in the modern sense is unrepresented. There is no Peer in your Lordships' House who has had experience of administrative work in the trade unions; and the trade unions of this country play a very great part in the economic life and in the political life of this country. My noble friend Lord Snell, if he were here, would be proud of what I am going to say, when I compliment him on his working-class origin. He has often expressed his own pride in that and we in my Party are all proud of him. I believe your Lordships also are proud of my noble friend, and of the great eminence he has attained in the service of his country. But my noble friend was not a trade union official at any time. He had no actual experience of the intricate, delicate and difficult work of handling a great trade union; but he is the nearest approach in the whole of your Lordships' House to a trade union leader. And I repeat that in this House one of the greatest estates of the realm in the modern sense of the word is unrepresented.
For that reason alone I think there is a very strong case for the creation of Life Peers. I am not going to mention names but I am going to ask your Lordships to consider this matter from the point of view I have indicated. In the trade union movement we have men of very great eminence indeed. The noble Lord, Lord Askwith, with his intimate experience and the great work that he did on the Conciliation Board, would be the very first to admit that. They would be an ornament to your Lordships' House and they would be welcomed here; but their sons, who would in many cases only inherit their father's savings, would have no desire, possibly, to take part in the work of this House. They come from other strata of society altogether and for that reason alone those eminent gentlemen, who have made a great mark in the industrial life of this country as leaders and managers of great trade unions, would hesitate to accept a Peerage. There have been cases in other walks of life. There was for years a Speaker in another place who did not feel himself able to accept a Peerage because his son, his immediate successor, though well endowed with worldly goods and well able to maintain the dignity of a Peerage, felt for political and personal reasons reluctant

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to face succession to your Lordships' House. His father felt bound to ask to be excused from accepting the customary Peerage.
This question of the representation of the Labour Party in your Lordships' House is already acute, and it has become more acute as a result of the last London County Council election. My noble friend the Earl of Listowel is now, owing to his position in the London County Council, not able to attend here as often as he did. Then my noble friend Lord Snell has again been prevailed upon to become Chairman of the London County Council. Your Lordships will admit that this House is poorer by the gain to the County Hall of these eminent men. In some cases members of my Party of distinction were invited to join this House because they had not heirs. These things are not secret; they are common knowledge. Then there are eminent members of this House who support my Party but who are now getting on in years and it is difficult for them to attend. In point of fact we have about half-a-dozen Peers on this side of the House actively representing the official Opposition. Speaking for myself I do not feel at all competent to carry this burden. Yet it has to be carried, one has to attend to it.
I used to inflict myself on another place also to a great extent. Those were in the days when the situation in regard to the Liberal Party in that other House was much the same as it is in these days in this House. In those days that great historic Party was represented in another place by twenty-seven members. Parliamentary decisions had to be made that were of vital importance to the future of this country, and mistakes were made from which we are suffering to-day. The official Opposition was represented by twenty-seven Liberals and in those years as one of them I inflicted myself on the House of Commons to a great extent, as I have to do here now and for the same reason. If this question of creating Life Peerages can be facilitated—and that is the object of the noble Lord, Lord Strickland—I think that the argument I have put forward deserves a little closer consideration with regard to this Bill than so far has been given to it.
There is also the question—I make no excuse for referring to this—raised on a former occasion concerning the
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Dominions. On this matter I am speaking for myself because it has not come before my Party to my knowledge at any official conferences at which official decisions are taken. Speaking for myself the more I study this matter the more I venture to think there is a great deal to be said for the summoning to your Lordships' House of representatives of the Dominions. There again you have the difficulty that many eminent men, members of the Labour Parties overseas in the Dominions, would be reluctant to accept an Hereditary Peerage. For these reasons I would suggest that this Bill is deserving of very close consideration in Committee. That means that it should have a Second Reading and there should be an Humble Address to His Majesty if your Lordships give it a Second Reading. With regard to Clause 2, which so troubles the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack and the noble Lord, Lord Askwith, I suggest that it is a Committee matter. The Bill can be enlarged. Your Lordships have an advantage over another place because your rules allow common-sense action being taken with regard to Bills. They can be enlarged and amended and the title can be altered in a way that cannot be done in another place. Therefore, I think the Bill should go to Committee and if the noble Lord, Lord Strickland, divides the House I shall certainly vote for the Second Reading.
I want to say a last word about your Lordships' House and the part which the Opposition tries to play here. The machinery in your Lordships' House I venture to say is admirable. It is a vast improvement on the machinery in another place. The noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack and others of your Lordships who have been members of the House of Commons will, I think, agree with me in that. The procedure here is far more efficient. But the great objection from our point of view is the composition of your Lordships' House. I am not now voicing a personal objection but a Party objection. Your Lordships' House is hopelessly overweighted. That is why, as the noble Lord, Lord Strickland, reminded us, so few Peers attend. Why should they? We cannot have real Parliamentary debates here with the present balance of Parties, in spite of the great assistance we have from the eminent and able statesmen who sit on the Liberal

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Benches and who occasionally support but more often oppose us. Unless something is done about it I suggest that it will not be necessary to support this Bill or the Bill of the noble Earl, Lord Midleton, or the other Bills for reform of this House. This House will abolish itself. If your Lordships view that position with equanimity I have no complaint. I have made these one or two comments on the Bill as an individual member of your Lordships' House and I would beg that when the matter of general reorganisation or reform is again considered you should not lose sight of the question of Life Peerages.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (VISCOUNT HALIFAX): My Lords, I had no intention of taking part in this discussion and I only rise for the purpose of saying two or three words. I am moved to do so by the speech to which we have just listened from the noble Lord on the Opposition Benches. The only thing I would wish to say to him is this. I hope that he and his friends will not make the mistake of thinking that we who sit on this side of the House are not as sensible of the weight of the considerations to which he has drawn our attention this afternoon as he is himself. I should suppose that there is probably no one part of the subject of reform of your Lordships' House to which the minds of all who have at any time had to consider it have been more frequently directed than the question of Life Peerages, from the particular angle of the carrying on of the business of your Lordships' House and the due representation of great Parties like the one to which he belongs. I can well conceive that if and when time permitted and it were possible to take these matters into consideration, there might be a greater possibility of reaching a measure of agreement between all Parties on that point than upon many other questions that would inevitably, as I suppose, be bound to be matters of acute and sharp controversy.
The immediate point this afternoon is I think that to which my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack directed attention, that whatever may be the opinion of your Lordships on the question of Life Peerages—and there are many here who have given their minds to that subject—this Bill which has been introduced by my noble friend Lord Strickland would not, in the judgment of those qualified to
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judge, be the best way of achieving that end. It is for that reason that I hope the noble Lord will be satisfied with the interesting discussion he has raised. That discussion will not be felt to be without value for all of us who have had the opportunity of listening to it, and after that discussion I should hope that he would be content not to press the matter to a Division but to leave your Lordships to digest what has passed.
LORD ROCKLEY: My Lords, I had not intended to take part in this debate, but as the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, has mentioned the question of Life Peerages so emphatically and has given his reasons for supporting them, I should like to say that when I introduced the Life Peerages Bill of two years ago I had those views very much in mind, and I think that I covered practically all the points which the noble Lord has mentioned. If there could be any agreement, as the noble Viscount who leads the House says, on that subject, I think we should achieve a great deal in strengthening both the usefulness and the debating power of your Lordships' House. From that particular angle I should like very definitely to endorse what the noble Viscount who leads the House has said with regard to the Bill now before us. I think we have had a useful discussion which has made it clear where the Bill will lead us. The noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack made a very valuable and interesting speech, and I think it would be well to leave the matter there.
LORD STRICKLAND: My Lords, I rise to beg leave to follow the advice of the Leader of the House and to ask permission to withdraw the Bill. I may be allowed to reply briefly to some of the criticism of noble Lords in this debate. The noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, has on several occasions done good service to this House and to the country by expressing the views of the Front Opposition Bench in a manner that engenders a better understanding of the attitude of Leaders of the Labour Party and opens the way to agreement as to a solution of the question of Life Peerages. An agreed solution would be very much to the credit of all Parties. I am satisfied that now there is a good prospect that all Parties will join in considering this question practically and constructively on its merits.

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I beg leave to be absolved from any appearance of challenging established Peerages by Writ and much less the Peerage by Writ which the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, represents in this House. He also represents the effort of the Plantagent King Edward that conquered Scotland to bring tactfully Scotland and England closer together by issuing Writs of Summons to heads of Scottish houses to the Parliament held near the Border. This was a gesture by which the King endeavoured to strengthen friendship and make it stronger by the tie of having Scottish leaders sitting peacefully in the High Court of Parliament in England. Let us hope that your Lordships' House will be inclined to follow the example of that King Edward by making it easier for Ministers to recommend the creation of Life Peers from Australia, Canada and South Africa and other Dominions. Even the gesture of the making of such an offer would be of incalculable value. There is nothing in what I have said which diminishes the position and rights deriving from Peerages by Writ. Clause 2 contains safeguards and I have met with numerous instances of abeyance having been determined by the issue of Letters Patent. There is in fact nothing novel in my suggestion in Clause 2 of this Bill.
Moreover, the drafting of Clause 2 has for its object to equalise the system of succession in England so as to make it the same as in the case of females succeeding even to Earldoms by primogeniture, which is prevalent in Scotland. Surely it would be a step in the right direction to have the same mode of succession in England and Scotland. When these Peerages by Writ fall in abeyance, after all, the re-creator of a new start is the Crown to-day and always has been. This Bill would save litigation, uncertainty and expense. Lord Askwith has perhaps forgotten that the Report of the Sumner Committee, which I have read not once nor twice but more often, was debated in your Lordships' House and it was not accepted in its entirety. It was amended, and an Address was moved to the Crown to approve thereof as amended, and the Crown accepted the amended version. We have therefore affirmed the principle that it is for your Lordships to accept modification of previous law recommended by any Committee. The fact that this Report on Peerages in Abeyance was amended and still
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requires an Act of Parliament to enact it, emphasises the necessity of following the usual constitutional practice—namely, the rule that when Resolutions of either House indicate a necessity to amend the law, the amendment should not be by executive instruction and action but by legislation approved by both Houses.
In reply to the noble Earl, I may observe that Lord Midleton expressed the view in his speech that he had been advised by legal authority that there was "no conflict of laws." Nevertheless when he reads the OFFICIAL REPORT to-morrow he will probably be convinced that the pronouncement of the Committee for Privileges in the Norfolk Peerage case of 1907 which was read to-day is irreconcilable with the conclusions and findings in the Wensleydale case of 1856. It is quite possible to get legal opinions of various descriptions, but I have quoted my authority, which I submit is the best available. That there is a conflict of law on many points is more than evident inasmuch as the Reports of the Redesdale Committee of 1822 and subsequent years were Reports which have been dissented from by a subsequent Committee for Privileges in the most extraordinary and direct manner. Time after time, in the most incomprehensible way, findings have been adopted without any regard for those Reports or for former findings of a Committee for Privileges. My Lords, beg leave to withdraw the Bill.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Does the noble Earl, Lord Midleton, withdraw his Amendment?
THE EARL OF MIDLETON: If the noble Lord proposes to withdraw the Bill, of course I will withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Original Motion and Bill, by leave, withdrawn.

HYDROGEN CYANIDE (FUMIGATION) BILL. [H.L.]
Amendment reported (according to Order).
House adjourned at twenty-five minutes past five o'clock.