HL Deb 01 June 1937 vol 105 cc310-5
LORD SNELL

My Lords, before I read the terms of a question of which I have given the Government private notice, I ask your Lordships' permission very briefly to comment upon certain changes in the constitution of the Government that have taken place since your Lordships' House last met. An old, friendly, and generally respected Prime Minister has laid down the heavy burden of his great office, and my noble friends and myself think that it would not be in accordance with our own feelings, or with the best traditions of our nation, if we were to allow him to depart without some expression on our part of our great gratitude for his many public services. Those of us who were his colleagues in another place knew him far better than even those of his own Party who had not that privilege could possibly have done. We fought many battles, some of which were keen and all of them sincere, but I think I should be borne out by all my colleagues if I said that in those fights he never sacrificed a principle or lost a friend. We never knew him to take an unfair advantage over a minority or to deliver a foul blow in any of our disputes. On our side of the House he had no enemies, and all of his opponents liked him. He had other political enemies of course. What man in his position has not? It is said that he sometimes made mistakes. Is there any man who has not made mistakes? I should hate my own life to end with the reproach that I had made no mistakes! The possibility of that dreadful thing happening does not give me a moment's anxiety.

Mr. Baldwin bore the weight of his great responsibilities with dignity, with patience and with composure, and, if he did not suffer fools gladly, he at any rate did not make them too aware of his impatience. This is not the occasion when one should try to estimate his place among the Prime Ministers of this country, but, if the object of statesmanship is to avoid unnecessary dramatic situations, he succeeded as well as most who have held that high position. I do not believe that Mr. Baldwin had the real temperament of the traditional Party leader. He was not a master of the questionable technique of bluff, but he won and held the respect of his friends and his opponents by higher and more enduring qualities. Speaking for my noble friends and myself, we send to him our respect for his services and wish for him many years of happy leisure among his books and, as I think, somewhat mythical pigs.

I should also like to extend on behalf of my noble friends a word of congratulation to the new Prime Minister. He brings to his great task the prestige of a great name. He has admitted capacities and an unusual gift for clear expression. Those of us who remember his distinguished father will be glad that a great family tradition rests in capable hands. We also would like to offer our sincere congratulations to those of our own House who continue their services and especially to those who assume new responsibilities. It is the wholesome duty of an Opposition to remind Ministers that they do not necessarily appear to other people as they appear to themselves, and, within the rightful limits of our duties, we shall try to make their political lives as uncomfortable as possible and try to secure that their tenure of office is not unduly prolonged. With those limitations we do offer them our very sincere congratulations. I beg to ask now whether the Government can make any statement on the subject of coal legislation.

VISCOUNT MERSEY

My Lords, the noble Marquess who speaks on behalf of my Party from these Benches—[the Marquess of Crewe]—is unfortunately away, and the noble Lords, Lord Gainford and Lord Lothian, are also unable to be here to-day; therefore, unworthily, I have the honour of speaking in their place for a moment. Everything that my noble friend Lord Snell has said is echoed from these Benches. I, personally, have the greatest pleasure in adding a few words to what he has said. I have the honour of knowing Mr. Baldwin a little, and I remember one interview that I had with him some years ago when I was writing a book. He said three things to me all of which I have remembered.

The first thing he said was that when he was at Harrow as a school-boy he had every promise of being a good classical scholar. He said: "I really did know my classics then, and took the greatest interest in them, but when I went up to Cambridge I became immersed in other pursuits and my mind wandered away from my books at Harrow." That was typical of his modesty, because I feel, and I think those of your Lordships who are interested in such matters feel, that those of us who can attain to the level of Mr. Baldwin's classical knowledge have no need to be dissatisfied with ourselves. Another thing he said was that when he went to work in his father's business in Worcestershire he knew every single man employed there by sight and to speak to. That, I remember, impressed me very much. The third thing he said, not voluntarily but in response to a question of mine, was with regard to the very large and very generous contribution that he made out of his own fortune and anonymously to the funds of the Treasury during the War. I feel that all those of us who have read his speeches will agree that no one better than Mr. Baldwin is an example of the pietas and gravitas which he always put in front of his belief—that reverence, that reticence and that dignity which he peculiarly fulfilled. I should place him on the same plane as a man like Sir Robert Walpole—quieta non movere. We, on these Benches, have always regarded Mr. Baldwin as a most liberal-minded statesman, and we greatly regret that he has relinquished his high office; but we shall warmly welcome him when he comes into your Lordships' House.

I have also the privilege of being a slight friend of Mr. Chamberlain, and I extend on behalf of noble Lords on these Benches an equally warm welcome to him as the new Prime Minister. He is the scion of a family which for fifty years has taken a leading part, and a very brave and thoughtful part, in the politics and statesmanship of this country.

THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (VISCOUNT HALIFAX)

My Lords, it was a very kindly and a generous thought that prompted the noble Lord opposite and the noble Viscount who spoke last, associating himself with him, to preface the formal question of which he had given me notice by a reference to the events that have passed during the last few days. The noble Lord opposite spoke I think truly when he said that the time had not yet come to appraise the place that Mr. Baldwin will permanently hold in history among those who have held the office of Prime Minister in this country, and I certainly would feel that it was not for one who has owed to Mr. Baldwin as much in the way of friendship as I have owed to seek to make any such appraisement. The noble Lord ventured to doubt whether Mr. Baldwin could be said ever to have possessed the true temperament of the Party leader. Whatever the answer to that doubt may be, this, I think, at least is quite certain, as has been evidenced by what has been said this afternoon, that for all Parties in this country, as I think for all Parties in the Dominions, and I would almost add for foreign countries also, Mr. Baldwin has come to fill a position far different from and far higher than that which we ordinarily connote by the term of Party leader.

We may all speculate as to what has been the secret of that achievement on his part. Certainly, I suppose, from the angle of our own domestic judgment, it has been immensely due to a constitutional inability on his part to do other than judge of every problem, as of every person that presented itself or himself for judgment, except upon terms of a complete fairness of judgment and of a desire to make judgment reflect the understanding upon which the judgment itself was based. I myself have always felt not the least part of the secret of the influence that Mr. Baldwin exercised over his fellow-countrymen to be the fact that he, as much as any one I have ever known, had the supreme gift of recognising that reason was not always the final arbitrator in the affairs of men. It was not difficult, think, for him to recognise that there was even in the affairs of men something stronger than reason and it was that, at least so I suppose, that on critical occasions gave him the particular power he had of influencing the thought of his fellow men to whom he appealed. It was that, I suppose, that transmuted the confidence that his fellow-countrymen extended to him into something very like real personal affection. It is, as the noble Viscount who spoke last said, a great satisfaction to us all that if his services are to be lost to the country as Prime Minister we shall have the opportunity of watching them still given, as I hope, through the counsels of your Lordships' House.

The noble Lord was kind enough to combine with what he said about Mr. Baldwin a word of welcome of a nonpolitical kind to his successor. He wisely reminded us that it must be the constant endeavour of Ministers to try to see them-selves as others see them. That advice will be constantly no doubt in our minds, but for my right honourable friend the Prime Minister I can assure the noble Lord that his words will be received in the same kindly spirit with which they were given, and that while we may—and indeed I hope we shall—have our political disputes which will be conducted with all the urbanity and the restraint that befits this assembly, it will make those disputes none the less real to know that behind them lies a background of common tradition and common feeling that have made it possible for the noble Lord to give expression to his kindly sentiments this afternoon. On behalf of the others of my colleagues who are members of His Majesty's Government, I can assure the noble Lord opposite and all others that it will be our endeavour, as far as we may, to serve according to our lights the cause of this people and of this Commonwealth and to enable both to make the best contribution that they can to the cause of the world outside.

I think it is perhaps true to say that there is a tendency in all Parties to-day to look upon the affairs of the world less and less with the eyes of Party than might formerly have been the case. The times are too grave and the world is too difficult to admit of anything but the best judgment that liberty of judgment can bring to them and I can assure noble Lords in whatever quarter of the House they may sit that it will be in that spirit that this Government, as I think did the last, will approach all the problems that they may have to confront. We recognise on this side of the House—the noble Lord opposite will hardly think it necessary for me to assure him of this—that the things which we value, or most of them, are perhaps in a different way but a not less real way valued by noble Lords who sit on the other side. It is just that common background of political possession and political tradition that seems to me to distinguish this country from all other countries in the world, and to give to the political life of this country the particular savour of value that those of us who are in it appreciate and are able to make our own. My Lords, I thank the noble Lord again, and the noble Viscount who spoke from the Liberal Benches again, most warmly for the kindness of what they said.