Sitting of 21 February 1910

Preamble
The House met at Two of the clock.
A Message from His Majesty, by Admiral Sir Henry Frederick Stephenson, Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, as followeth:
Mr. Speaker,—The King commands this Honourable House to attend His Majesty immediately, in the House of Peers.
Accordingly Mr. Speaker, with the House, went up to attend His Majesty.
And having returned, the Sitting was suspended.
At half-past Three of the clock, Mr. SPEAKER took the Chair.
Several other Members took and subscribed the Oath, and several other Members made and subscribed the affirmation required by Law.

CITY OF CORK AND NORTH-EAST CORK ELECTIONS.
Mr. SPEAKER: I have to inform the House that I have received the following letter from Mr. William O'Brien:—
"I beg leave to advise you, having been elected for Parliament for the City of Cork, and for the Division of North-East Cork. I have elected to sit for the City of Cork.
WILLIAM O'BRIEN."

SESSIONAL ORDERS.
  MEMBERS RETURNED FOR MORE THAN ONE CONSTITUENCY.
  Ordered, That all Members who are returned for two or more places in any part of the United Kingdom do make their election for which of the places they will serve, within one week after it shall appear that there, is no question upon the return for that place; and if anything shall come in question touching the return or election of any Member, he is to withdraw during the time the matter is in debate; and that all Members returned upon double returns do withdraw till returns are determined.

  PEERS AND PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS.
  Resolved, That no Peer of the Realm, except such Peers of Ireland as shall for the time being be actually elected, and shall not have declined to serve, for any county, city, or borough of Great Britain, hath any right to give his vote in the election of any Member to serve in Parliament.
  Motion made and Question proposed: "That it is a high infringement of the liberties and privileges of the Commons of the United Kingdom for any Lord of Parliament, or other Peer or Prelate, not being a Peer of Ireland at the time elected, and not having declined to serve for any county, city, or borough of Great Britain, to concern himself in the election of Members to serve for the Commons in Parliament, except only any Peer of Ireland, at such elections in Great Britain respectively where such Peer shall appear as a candidate, or by himself, or any others, be proposed to be elected; or for any Lord Lieutenant or Governor of any county to avail himself of any authority derived from his commission, to influence the election of any Member to serve for the Commons in Parliament."
  Mr. LAURENCE HARDY: I desire to move the omission of the central words of the Order, so that, in the future, it shall stand as applying only to Lords Lieutenant, who, I think, occupy a different position to other peers and prelates.
  Sir H. DALZIEL: On a point of Order. I propose to move that the whole Order be not passed, and I would ask your ruling, Mr. Speaker, whether it would not be better to do so now, and whether, in the event of the hon. Member's Amendment being carried, I shall be ruled out of order.
  Mr. SPEAKER: I must take the Amendment first, but, after the Sessional Order has been amended, supposing that it is amended, I shall have to put it as a whole, and it will then be my duty to call on the hon. Member.
  Mr. LAURENCE HARDY: I think it is quite time—in this new Parliament—that we abstained from passing these Orders. I do not desire to enter into the arguments which have been addressed to this House in times past, because, so far as old Members are concerned, they know them extremely well. But I should just like to say one word to those who are new Members,
  17 and it is, if they have any hesitation in voting against this Rule, which has formed part of our Rules for something like 200 years, they may find consolation, at all events, in being informed that I do not suppose there is any old Member of this House who has not during the period of his being in the House, voted both for and against the Rule. And, so far as the Front Benches are concerned, I believe, with hardly an exception, this has been the case. I am not quite sure whether there may not have been one exception in the case of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dundee, who, I believe, on this point, has been absolutely consistent during the time he has been in this House. But the point we are discussing to-day really is affected by matters which have arisen since the House last passed this Rule, and therefore I think we ought to consider three questions in regard to it. First, is this House willing to put the Rule in force; secondly, is it able to put it in force; and, thirdly, in what way at present does it enforce the Rule?
  So far as the willingness of the House is concerned, we have had three occasions within recent years when Members have tried to bring the matter of this Rule to a definite issue. On two of those occasions the Government of the day carried the House with them in refusing to allow it to come to an issue on the Question. They moved in one case the Previous Question, and the Motion on the other occasion was to proceed to the next business. Therefore they have shown unwillingness to approach this Question. Last year, however, we had a third occasion, when the House did proceed a little further and referred the matter to a Committee of Privileges. I should like to ask anybody who has read an account of what took place in that Committee as well as the Report made by the Committee, if they think it is an easy matter for this House to carry this Rule into effect? At all events, for myself, I think the proceedings of that Committee were in no way an encouragement or defence of those liberties for which you asked last week in the House of Lords and which were so freely granted to you. I think, therefore, great unwillingness to carry out the rule has been demonstrated. And so far as we are able to carry it out in regard to the larger matters concerned, I think the evidence of last year's inquiry shows it is very unwise for us to enter upon this course. It is not one which in any way makes our rules respected either by 18 ourselves or by others. There is the third question, how far this rule is enforced at present? I believe the utmost point reached at present is that after the writs have been issued Peers do not actually appear on public platforms. I think that was called by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition last year a "very arbitrary and technical distinction," and everybody who witnessed the course of the last election must agree with that description. How can it, in view of what has occurred, and without going into current politics, how can it, when a General Election is taken upon practically two issues, as to what the Peers have done in the past and what is to be their position in the future, how can it be possible, in accordance with ideas of liberty of speech or with the rights of Englishmen, that those who are so clearly put on their defence shall not be allowed to say a word on behalf of their own case. I am quite sure there is not a Member of this House who would not say it was perfectly right that the Peers should have taken part in public discussions in the country during the Election. And when we knew that they practically did appear on public platforms in nearly every constituency in connection with the party to which I belong, as well as in connection with the other side—when we know it cannot be denied that they took part in the election and yet not a single voice of protest was raised against it, nor did anyone say they were not perfectly within their rights to do as they did, surely it is an absurdity for us, on the first day of the first Session of this new Parliament to pass a Rule which we cannot enforce, which we are unwilling to enforce, and which we admit to a great extent we do not intend to enforce. It is in the belief that we are only exposing our Orders to contempt that I ask leave to move the omission of these words, and I trust it is the last time it will be necessary to take this course.
  Mr. H. E. DUKE: I rise to second the Motion which has just been made by my hon. Friend, and I do so because it seems to me that when this House is about to deal, on the invitation of His Majesty, conveyed in His gracious speech from the Throne, with the most vital constitutional question which has arisen since the time of the Great Rebellion we ought at any rate to begin our proceedings with a note of sincerity. I venture to say that to adopt any Resolution now which condemns, with the authority of this House, the

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  intervention of Peers in the proceedings of elections, intervention which notoriously took place in every one of the keenly contested elections from which we have just come, cannot be looked upon as a note of sincerity in our proceedings. Let me give the House an illustration of what I mean. In the election from which I have just come the colleagues of the right hon. Gentlemen opposite, I think the leader of his friends in the other House, came down to the Constituency for which I happen to have been elected to support the claims of my opponent and described him as a gentleman who was almost Member for the City of Exeter. On the other hand a member of the party to which I have the honour to belong, who sits in the other House, and who had been Member for Exeter, came down to support the cause with which he had been so long associated. Nobody doubted for a moment that each of these Peers had done public service in advancing the cause of one party or the other, and it certainly did not strike any elector in the City that there was any incongruity in their action. Yet each of these Peers, if, in substance, this Sessional Order is passed to-day, will have been guilty of a grave infraction of the liberties of this House. Nobody believes anything of the kind because everybody knows and everybody expects, and perhaps approves, that in the election which may take place next month, or may take place at the end of this year, the question at issue will be the future fate of the Peerage in the Constitution of this country. That will be the question which will be submitted to the arbitrament of the final tribunal in all our great public questions. As I understand, those who are to be indicted upon this occasion before the electorate for a long course of misdemeanours are to be gagged in advance. I think there was, something more than a 100 years ago, a tribunal on the other side of the water where it was found necessary in the interests of injustice to gag the accused and render them incapable of being heard, but the genius even of the French Revolution revolted at its height against a measure of that kind, and everybody knows that if this Standing Order is passed every Peer who desires to appeal to his fellow-countrymen with regard to the great issues which have to be decided will be heard with eagerness as well as with respect. I observe there was a jarring note from some hon. Members of the House, but not
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  from this side of the House, but I venture to say that there is something to be said on both sides of this matter with regard to the intervention of Peers, and if I may presume to apply a touchstone to the sincerity of those who will decide whether this is to be a Sessional Order or not, I should apply that touchstone to the recent proceedings of a Peer, not a supporter of the Party who sit on this side of the House, which I suppose is the most highhanded interference by a Peer in the proceedings of an election which has taken place since this Sessional Order ever came into being.
  There is a constituency in Lancashire known to most of us who know the country pretty well—the Lancaster Division. There was a Member who sat for the Lancaster Division who had special advantages for representing it. He was the greatest employer of labour in Lancaster, and his works were in the constituency. He was a man of very great wealth; he was an exceedingly generous man; he endowed Lancaster with all sorts of advantages, and he was a man of great personal popularity. He sat for Lancaster for nearly 10 years, and he was translated in what at that time seemed to be the ordinary constitutional course of conduct to another place, and those who knew his merits and abilities congratulated him upon that. Now there was a keenly contested election in that division of Lancashire a few weeks ago, and the constituency had come to the eve of the poll. The day before the actual polling, so that there were none of those niceties raised which it is customary to raise on these occasions of distinction between the day after the issue of the writ or the day on which the writ has been received, or the day before; nothing of the sort. The Noble Lord had an election impending and an election in which he was keenly interested, and on the day before the polling, when it was impossible for anybody else whatever to say a word on the matter subsequent to that which the Noble Lord was to speak, he unbosomed himself with regard to the coming contest, and with regard to his future relations with that constituency, in which he was almost the only or universal employer, and in which he appears to have been a very great public benefactor. The message which the Noble Lord delivered was in the form of a circular which I have here. The usual sort of letter on the eve of an election if it had come from the candidate.

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  The message in which the Noble Lord unbosomed himself was a message to this effect, that Tariff Reform—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh"]—I am bound to explain in order to see whether hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite are in earnest in deprecating the interference of Peers at elections, no matter from what side it comes or with what object. The Noble Lord's first message was with regard to Tariff Reform, and it was a declaration by a man who is the proprietor of great works in the constituency, the master of a great industry, the employer of very many people in the district, and his message was that it would be ruin to them. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I will read it, if I may, Mr. Speaker, and it comes very appositely from any man who had the right to address the electors, and I am dealing with the question of whether the Noble Lord had the right, and ought to be permitted to say this. Hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite may think he had the right, and that he should be permitted to say it, and then, of course, they will vote for the Motion of my hon. Friend and myself. The Noble Lord on the day before the polling said this:—
  "My views on political questions are widely known. I have openly declared my firm belief in Free Trade, and I have emphatically asserted that Tariff Reform would seriously injure the trade of Lancaster and the neighbourhood, and consequently every class of inhabitant and that without Free Trade it would have been impossible for my business to have attained to its present position."
  "This is not a matter of opinion, but is one of absolute and indisputable fact, and I take this opportunity with all the earnestness at my command, of warning the electors of this division to have no hand in what is foolishly called 'Tariff Reform.'"["Hear, hear."] Hon. Members opposite think that the Noble Lord ought to be allowed to do that, and then there is an obvious course for them on this Motion, but what one wants to know is not what is thought at a corner below the Gangway, but what is thought on the Front Bench opposite. The Noble Lord struck that which, under the circumstances, was a strong political note, and then the Noble Lord proceeded to refer to the other aspect of his relations with his old constituents, that of the Maecenas of the constituency, and he referred accurately and properly to the benefits he had conferred, and he warned the electors that those benefits were about to cease if the course which he recommended to them was not followed. The Noble Lord referred to the benefits he had conferred, and to the criticism which he had undergone on the occasion when it was said there had been the feeding of
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  20,000 persons during the period of an election. This was an absolutely non-political matter, and nobody suggests here that the feeding of 20,000 persons by an old representative could possibly affect the election. The question was with regard to the future, and this is the paragraph from the circular:—
  "I may as well say that over and over again surprise has been expressed that I should continue in the face of such treatment, to trouble myself any further about the affairs of Lancaster, but hitherto I have always steadily refused to be influenced by the conduct of my slanderers to depart from my usual course."
  "I have now, however, made up my mind that if this sort of thing is to continue. I shall not take any further interest in Lancaster or the neighbourhood, and thus save myself from a repetition of those disgusting exhibitions of political rancour as well as from an expenditure of many thousands a year."Here, when the Noble Lord has been drawn from his privacy—a privacy which the Constitution appears to have imposed upon him—by the criticism of his political opponents upon acts which were supposed to be acts of political generosity, it is suggested that we should have a Standing Order to warn the Noble Lord and all others in like case on both sides in politics that they must not interfere with elections in that way. Whether it is desirable that the Noble Lord should throw the personal element so strongly into a contest where he is not a candidate as it appears to have been thrown in this election circular is, of course, a matter of personal taste. The real question is whether the House should lend itself to the annual farce of declaring beforehand that such a benevolent and kindly interference as that of the Noble Lord in the affairs of Lancaster is a high breach of the privileges of this House, with the intention subsequently of not acting upon any such principle.
  Mr. N. W. HELME: I think it is a matter of regret that so much time has been expended upon the letter which the hon. and learned Gentleman has quoted, but which he did not read in its commencement. I, being the candidate for the division, knew nothing about the letter, and had nothing in the world to do with it. It was sent to the Constituency by a Noble Lord who is a resident in it, and who has been properly described as our greatest citizen, who sat for some years in this House, and now occupies a place in the House of Peers. The letter begins with this expression:—
  "It is with the greatest reluctance that I address this letter to you, but in justice to myself, I feel compelled to do so. Only on one occasion during the whole of my life have I taken the slightest notice of the lying and slanderous attacks which have been made upon me during Parliamentary elections, made, even though I was not the candidate, by those who knew their statements to be absolutely false."

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  We unfortunately have had in the Constituency a spirit of malevolent motive. We have had outrageous attacks made persistently upon the most honoured citizen. Lord Ashton has enjoyed the confidence of the people as representative in this House, and upon many occasions has been assured of it since, and when he is charged with practically corrupt and improper action arising out of the generous present of a new Town Hall, and municipal buildings, it is monstrous that this should be pressed into such a persecution, for that is what it is. Surely any man, be he Peer or peasant, may defend his own honour, and it is a cruel wrong that has been done to represent the facts by the statement that has been made, as it was a cruel wrong to impute such unworthy motives. The facts are these. Some four years ago Lord Ashton was good enough to offer the town of Lancaster a new set of municipal buildings at his own cost, and these buildings have been erected at a cost of some £150,000, and it was Lord Ashton's desire that they should be opened without the slightest public ceremony. This was done in accordance with his usual quiet spirit. The corporation persuaded him to allow it to be publicly opened, and the ceremony was fixed for 27th October, but on the 16th October, by medical advice, he was obliged to withdraw from the arrangements, and they had to be postponed, and they were not completed until December, and then, because of that postponement, his Lordship is charged with practically a corrupt motive in withholding and postponing the opening in order that he might influence the election. It is disgraceful that that should be done. If Lord Ashton had desired not to have any public opening, how could it be held that he was guilty of any corrupt motive in postponing the opening that he personally never desired to have? We have had in that town of ours a new Tory newspaper established, and one of its placards contained this expression: "Food and Politics. Feeding 20,000 persons," attributing the generosity of the donor to corrupt motives. It is impossible for Gentlemen opposite to believe that this was anything but a generous gift on his part, and I trust the House will not for a moment believe that his Lordship had such a motive in such action as he took.
  Mr. T. M. HEALY: I have only one friend in the Peerage of the United Kingdom
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  and that friend is Lord Ashton. I have known him for 25 years and I have stayed at his house frequently. I know the town of Lancaster very well, and I am quite sure that if my hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Duke) knew the facts connected with Lord Ashton or remembered him in this House as Mr. Williamson, where he sat and where he was one of the most generous friends of Ireland, perhaps, that ever came into this Assembly, I am sure my hon. Friend would not have introduced his name in the spirit in which he has done. Lord Ashton probably has conferred more benefits upon his native town than any other citizen of this Kingdom. I do not know any man who has shown the same interest in his town or expended the same benefactions upon it. What are the facts? Having spent upon the town £400,000 or £500,000, and it being known that there is not even a man out of work at any time in the whole district that he does not give employment to, last October, long before the General Election was thought of, long before the Lords had thrown out the Bill which caused the election, and long before any man in this House supposed that any election would take place, everything was ready for the opening of the Lancaster Town Hall and for the generous entertainment which Lord Ashton was about to give. He fell into ill-health. The doctor forbade him, and he did not recover sufficiently to have it done until this month of December. What happened? Every Conservative in Lancaster who knew the facts condemned the attack which was made upon him. Nearly every Conservative in Lancaster took part in the entertainment. The entertainment was organised by a Committee on which the Conservatives of Lancaster had a leading share, and the idea that Lord Ashton intended by his action upon that occasion to practice bribery is one of the most absurd which could be levelled against him. Why did he write the letter? He wrote the letter because he was charged with bribery which the hon. and learned Gentlemen insinuated, but did not dare to make.
  Mr. DUKE: The hon. and learned Member is in error. I made no accusation. I carefully abstained from any accusation of corruption against the Noble Lord. I know nothing about his relations with Lancaster. What I directed attention to was the fact that on the eve of an election the Noble Lord had written a strong address to the electors.
  Mr. T. M. HEALY: If the hon. and learned Member did not insinuate it, then I do not know what provoked the laughter which followed upon his remark. But a newspaper in Lancaster said: "Lord Ashton took no part in the election, and remained absolutely neutral in the matter." The "Lancaster Mail" placarded and replacarded the town with this statement: "Food and politics. Feeding 20,000." It was only when this man, who is the benefactor of almost every citizen in the community, came out and defended himself, he having been attacked for issuing this circular, that he stated what everybody knew that he had long been connected with Lancaster, had long been a friend of the town, and that it was unjust to him at a moment like that to connect his name with such a thing as bribery or corruption. Lord Ashton was not the aggressor. He was the attacked, and I think it is a monstrous thing for anybody who knows him to introduce his name into a Resolution of this kind for purely party purposes. I only wish that every Member of the House of Lords was like Lord Ashton. I only wish that every Member of the House of Lords had done as much good to his town as Lord Ashton has done, and, for my part, in the case of such an old and staunch friend of Ireland as he is, and such a convinced friend of our cause, I am very proud to have this opportunity of raising my voice to-night.
  Sir H. DALZIEL: I hope that the Division taken to-day will be taken upon the broad merits of the Standing Order, and not as expressing any view of the conduct of Lord Ashton or any other individual Peer. I recognise that the Mover and Seconder of this Amendment are in favour of Peers being allowed to take part in elections. I am sorry they have not found it to be their duty to oppose the Standing Order as a whole, for in that way I think we would have had a clear and fair issue, not complicated as to any particular view as to the contents of the Standing Order. I welcome the two hon. Gentlemen who moved and seconded the Amendment, because I take it that we may now consider that they have arrived at the conclusion that the party opposite are going to support them in their opposition to the Standing Order, and I suppose we may take it that this is the first part of the reform of the House of Lords believed in by the party opposite.
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  For my part, I oppose the Standing Order as a whole. In the first place I do so because I think it is wholly useless, entirely inoperative, and only lends itself to a position whereby this House can be made to look ridiculous. Hon. Gentlemen opposite want Peers to have the power to speak right up to the eve of the poll. So do I. The more Dukes and Peers take part in elections the better I like them. Therefore, on that issue, I am glad to see that there is so much unanimity in the House. I know that if I had had a duke writing a letter against me at the election my majority would have been 1,000 more than it was. So far as Scotland is concerned, the action of the Peers who took part in the elections did nothing but good to our side of politics. A letter was written by the Duke of Sutherland in which he warned the poor pensioners on his estate that if they voted Radical they would have poverty overtaking them. That formed an excellent topic for orations on the part of every Liberal candidate throughout Scotland. Scotland gave him his answer. Then, again, we had the Duke of Devonshire and Lord Curzon taking part in a Manchester contest. The Duke of Devonshire delivered a soul-stirring oration, and Lord Curzon, with that modesty which characterises him, approved of the expression which the Duke had made. What was the result? It won the seat for my hon. Friend the Member for North Sal-ford (Mr. Byles), and incidentally it led to the disappearance of one of their most distinguished and trusted leaders. Mr. Joynson-Hicks. Another distinguished Peer wrote a letter in the midst of the election—I refer to Lord Rosebery. He only wrote one letter in support of one candidate, and unfortunately it was addressed to my esteemed friend, Mr. Harold Cox. The result was that he was at the bottom of the poll. In another case our friend Mr. Dumphreys, who won such a magnificent fight for the Tory party in Bermondsey, and who expected to win again, was defeated; and I understand that he puts the defeat down to the fact that a duke lent him a motor-car.
  From our point of view I say that the more speeches we have from Peers the better, in the course of an election. Therefore, I contend it is a simple farce to pass this Standing Order. We had a brilliant example of how the House was made to look ridiculous in connection with a recent case. We had the action of the Duke of Norfolk brought under the notice of the House. The House decided that his action

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  raised a question of Privilege. What was the result? A Committee met, and was presided over by the Prime Minister. There were many other distinguished Members on the Committee. They communicated with the Duke of Norfolk, and asked him to give evidence or express his views on the subject of the complaint which had been made. The Committee was made to look perfectly ridiculous. The Duke of Norfolk wrote a letter, in which he said, "I do not feel that I am in a position to comply with the suggestion which you are so good as to communicate to me." The result was that the Committee met and decided, after due consideration, that they did not think a breach of privilege had been committed.
  I say that we are forced to draw the conclusion that by retaining this Standing Order we are making ourselves ridiculous in the eyes of the House and the country. I say that, especially from the House of Commons point of view, it is time that this Standing Order was repealed. You will have incidentally throughout the whole Session this point again brought forward, and the opinion of the House will be taken upon it. Surely this is the time when we ought to deal with the question, when we are going to take, as I suppose we are going to do in a few short weeks, the legislative power from the House of Lords. I think we ought to associate with that procedure a fuller opportunity for the Members of the House of Lords to take part in the discussion of public questions at the time of an election. I hope the Government on this occasion will not make this a party question. I hope that the Prime Minister, recognising that it is a matter for Members of the House to decide, will not put on the party Whips, and that he will leave it entirely to the House itself, so that in that way we shall get a free and un-fettered vote, irrespective of party.
  The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Asquith): I rise to respond to the appeal addressed to me by my hon. Friend, and I assure him that on this occasion, as on the last occasion when the matter came up, the Government will leave it a perfectly open question for the decision of the House. I can make that statement with the more sincerity because I am one of the people who, in the course of some 25 years of Parliamentary life, have voted in every possible way in regard to this Order. I have voted for the retention of the Order,
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  I have voted for the rejection of the Order, and I have voted for its amendment, and therefore I may fairly claim the privilege of an open mind. I do not think the matter can be fairly disposed of without the House remembering what an enormous change there has been in the condition of things since this Order originally became part of our procedure. In those days constituencies were small, and to a very large extent, in many parts of the country, the electors were at the mercy, or could be placed at the mercy, of territorial magnates or persons exercising proprietary influence. That was the state of things to guard against which this Order was originally passed; but, with the growth in the size of constituencies, the extension of the franchise, and the growing consciousness on the part of the people that, whatever Peers may say, questions are really in their own hands, it seems to me that the original foundation for the Order has to a large extent disappeared.
  We had experience in the last Session of the last Parliament, when the matter was brought under the consideration of the Committee of Privileges. I sat on that Committee, and the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition was also a member of it. We carefully examined all the precedents, and I think the conclusion at which we all of us arrived was that there might be conceivable cases in which this House might legitimately resent and take notice of the action of Peers; yet, under modern conditions, these cases were likely to be so few, and even when they did occur action was likely to be so impotent in the result, that it was hardly worth while to legislate against them. Let me add that the experience of the General Election through which we have passed reduced this Sessional Order to a farce. I do not suppose there was a single election in any part of the country in which one Peer or another did not take part. The artificial cessation of that activity on the issue of the writs was, after all, an artifice of the most transparent and flimsy description. I have practically boxed the compass in regard to this matter, and I have come to the view which I held on the occasion of the first Division in which I took part—namely, that it is not worth while maintaining this Order. But that is only my own personal opinion. The matter is entirely one for the decision of the House at large.
  Mr. A. J. BALFOUR: The case with respect to my experience has been different

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  from that of my right hon. Friend who has just addressed you (Mr. Asquith). I believe I have consistently voted in favour of retaining the Standing Order, not because I thought it could be defended in logic; not because for a moment I supposed that you could draw any distinction in reason between the day which precedes the issue of the writ and the day which succeeds the issue of the writ, but because, being a rather old-fashioned person, I could not see why this House should deliberately invite the occupants of another place to alter a practice which, if not universally observed, was generally observed. And I was prepared to maintain the status quo. Two things have happened since last I spoke on the subject. The first of those things has been referred to already by the Prime Minister. I mean the Committee, of which he and I both were members, which sat upon the Duke of Norfolk's case last October. The results of that investigation came, I confess, as a surprise to myself, and I believe as a surprise to most of my colleagues on the Committee, because we really discovered that the intention of the House, when it originally passed that Standing Order, was not in the least to prevent Peers writing letters to candidates or making speeches. I do not believe that in the days when this Standing Order was made it was the practice for anybody, Peer or Commoner, to write letters to candidates, nor did the modern methods of electioneering prevail in those days in the shape in which they prevail at present. The House of Commons was not concerned with letters from Peers to candidates, or with speeches made by Peers to candidates. What it was concerned to prevent was intimidation by Peers, owing to undue pressure exercised by Peers upon electors, in the election of Members of this House. That was the whole object in view. It that was the whole object in view it is idle, and it is an entire historic misconception to suppose that objection was taken by this House to the expression by a Peer of his individual views on the political questions of the day. That was not the objection. If that was not the objection, why should we invent a new and very absurd objection in favour of a Standing Order which never occurred to the minds of those who originally framed it? I think that the result of the investigation which the Attorney-General and the Prime Minister undertook, and which they shared with us on the Committee, proved conclusively that this House has been under a misconception as to the object of the
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  Standing Order, and its purpose was not served, and cannot be served, by endeavouring to apply to Members of the House of Lords a rule allowing them to make as many speeches as they like before the writ is issued and preventing them making any speeches afterwards. In view of what was shown by the investigations of the Committee, I do not see that there is a single defence to be made for the Standing Order in its present shape. There may be cases of interference by Peers which might invalidate an election. Certainly I know nothing about the case of Lord Ashton at all, except what passed in the House to-day. But I may say that the very generous defence which has been made by the learned Gentleman the Member for Louth missed the real point. I do not know whether it is of importance or not, but the real point was that on the eve of the election a great, a very generous benefactor of a constituency said: "If these things go on my generosity must necessarily be dried up."
  Mr. T. M. HEALY: He has been attacked.
  Mr. BALFOUR: My whole sympathy would be with Lord Ashton if he was grossly misrepresented, and that what he gave out of his free generosity had been by his political opponents represented as something to secure a political advantage.
  Mr. HELME: That is our complaint.
  Mr. BALFOUR: If that is what was done, I can quite understand Lord Ashton's resentment. But it is put forward that the letter was a threat on the part of a great benefactor in a constituency in which he was the most important member, as if he said "I hold certain opinions. I have been subject to certain attacks, and if this sort of thing goes on I will dry up those streams of generosity which have flowed so freely." I do not offer any opinion about the matter at all, but if that be an interference at all it is different in kind and in character from that of some Peers who have come forward. My Noble Friend Lord Ribblesdale came forward after the writs were issued and went down and made a speech in Preston which I have no doubt materially diminished the majority by which his friends were thrown out immediately afterwards. With the exception of that, I do not believe that any Peer has spoken in the Constituency itself after the writ was issued. I remember once Lord Rosebery spoke in Edinburgh when there was

  31
  an election in Leith, but I think that Lord Ribblesdale set an example at Preston of a Peer speaking in a constituency after the writ was issued. I may be wrong, but no such case was before the Committee. After the investigation of the Committee and all that occurred at the late election, and after the manifest feeling on both sides of the House, it seems to me that the old grounds have been really abandoned, and as we freely admit that Members of the other House can take part in the election by speeches and letters in the newspapers, or by any other means of influencing public opinion every month of the year except the weeks after the writ has been issued and before the election takes place, that this very arbitrary exception must now be fully expunged from our Standing Orders, and that we must revert to the more rational and more defensible position of affair's. My right hon. Friend has asked me to say something about the position of the Lords Lieutenant which would be left in if my hon. Friend's Amendment were carried in its present shape. I must say that there is something to be said for it, because the House must bear in mind the case of a Lord Lieutenant or a governor of his county availing himself of any authority derived from his position to influence an election. He is, as I understand, to be precluded from taking part in an election, but he is not to lose this authority. That is increased by the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War (Mr. Haldane).
  THE SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Mr. Haldane): They have no control over the troops.
  Mr. BALFOUR: No, they have no control, but I am not sure that it is not that a Lord Lieutenant may not make a speech. It is not that he may not give his arguments on any question of public policy to his friends and neighbours, but it is that he must not use any authority that he happens to possess from that position to influence the election. I do not believe that it is a matter of any great importance. I do not believe that the authority which the Lord Lieutenant derives from his office is very great. I do not think he has any greater power qua Lord Lieutenant. But, still, on the whole, though I do not take a strong view about it, I rather accept the suggestion of my hon. Friend not to adopt the more drastic proposal with regard to them also.
  Question, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question," put, and negatived.
  Main Question, as amended, put, and agreed to.
  Resolved, That it is a high infringement of the liberties and privileges of the Commons of the United Kingdom for any Lord Lieutenant or Governor of any county to avail himself of any authority derived from his Commission to influence the election of any Member to serve for the Commons in Parliament.

  CORRUPT PRACTICES.
  Resolved, That if it shall appear hat any person hath been elected or returned a Member of this House, or endeavoured so to be, by bribery, or any other corrupt practices, this House will proceed with the utmost severity against all such persons as shall have been wilfully concerned in such bribery or other corrupt practices.

  WITNESSES.
  Resolved, That if it shall appear that any person hath been tampering with any witness in respect of his evidence to be given to this House, or any Committee thereof, or directly or indirectly hath endeavoured to deter or hinder any person from appearing or giving evidence, the same is declared to be a high crime or misdemeanour; and this House will proceed with the utmost severity against such offender.
  That if it shall appear that any person hath given false evidence in any case before this House, or any Committee thereof, this House will proceed with the utmost severity against such offender.

  METROPOLITAN POLICE.
  Ordered, That the Commissioners of the Police of the Metropolis do take care that, during the Session of Parliament, the passages through the streets leading to this House be kept free and open, and that no obstruction be permitted to hinder the passage of Members to and from this House, and that no disorder be allowed in Westminster Hall, or in the passages leading to this House, during the sitting of Parliament, and that there be no annoyance therein or thereabouts; and that the Serjeant-at-Arms attending this House do communicate this Order to the Commissioners aforesaid.
  VOTES AND PROCEEDINGS.
  Ordered, That the Votes and Proceedings of this House be printed, being first perused by Mr. Speaker; and that he do appoint the printing thereof; and that no person but such as he shall appoint do presume to print the same.
  Ordered, That a Committee of Privileges be appointed.
  OUTLAWRIES BILL.
  A Bill "for the more effectual preventing Clandestine Outlawries," was read the first time, and ordered to be read a second time.

  JOURNAL.
  Ordered, That the Journal of this House, from the end of the last Session to the end of the present Session, with an Index thereto, be printed.
  That the said Journal and Index he printed by the appointment and under the direction of Sir Courtenay Peregrine Ilbert, K.C.B., K.C.S.I., C.I.E., the Clerk of this House.
  That the said Journal and Index be printed by such person as shall be licensed by Mr. Speaker, and that no other person do presume to print the same.

Resolved, That Mr. Alfred Emmott be appointed Chairman of Ways and Means.—[The Prime Minister.]

HIS MAJESTY'S MOST GRACIOUS SPEECH.
Mr. SPEAKER reported His Majesty's Speech, and read it to the House, as followeth:—
My Lord, and Gentlemen,
My relations with all foreign Powers continue to be friendly.
The establishment of the Union of South Africa has been fixed at the end of May, when its new Government will be constituted, and soon afterwards the first Parliament, representing a consolidated electorate, will be ready to assemble for its important deliberations.
I am sending My son, the Prince of Wales, to make an extended journey through My
34
South African possessions in the autumn, before opening, in My name, the first Session of the new Legislature at Cape Town.
It is with peculiar interest and pleasure that I contemplate this visit, when My son will hare the privilege, not for the first time, of inaugurating the Parliamentary life of a great united Dominion, and will convey to South Africa, on behalf of Myself and the Umpire, our ardent prayers for the welfare and future progress of her people.
In conformity to the important Measure of last year for extending the functions of the Legislative Councils in India and increasing the number of their Members, those bodies have been elected, and have met. They have entered, with good promise, upon the enlarged duties and responsibilities entrusted to them.
Gentlemen of the House of Commons,
The Estimates for the service of the ensuing year will be laid before you in due course. They have been framed with the utmost desire for economy; but the requirements of the Naval Defence of the Empire have made it necessary to propose a substantial increase in the cost of My Navy.
You will also he asked to complete provision which was made in the last Session of Parliament for the year about to expire, but to which effect has not yet been given.
The expenditure authorised by the last Parliament is being duly incurred; but as the revenue required to meet it has not been provided by the imposition of taxation, recourse has been had, under Parliamentary sanction, to temporary borrowing. Arrangements must be made at the, earliest possible moment to deal with the financial situation thus created.
My Lords, and Gentlemen,
Recent experience has disclosed serious difficulties, due to recurring differences of strong opinion between the two branches of the Legislature.
Proposals will be, laid before you, with all convenient speed, to define the relations between the Houses of Parliament, so as to secure the undivided authority of the House of Commons over Finance, and its predominance in Legislation. These Measures, in the opinion of My advisers, should provide that this House should be so constituted and, empowered as to exercise impartially, in regard to proposed legislation, the functions of initiation, revision, and, subject to proper safeguards, of delay.
I pray that the blessing of Almighty God may attend your labours.

DEBATE ON THE ADDRESS.
Mr. PERCY ILLINGWORTH (wearing Court dress): I rise to move, That a humble Address be presented to His Majesty in reply to the Gracious Speech from the Throne. I could well have wished that this most honourable duty had devolved upon one of greater Parliamentary experience and greater powers of expression than those which I unhappily possess, but I take courage in this thought—that if I am addressing the most critical Assembly I am also addressing the most chivalrous Assembly in the world, whose proud tradition it is to extend their indulgence to its humblest Members, provided their excursions into debate are neither too frequent nor prolonged. I claim comfort in this thought, that perhaps the Leader of the House is desirous of paying a compliment to that county of broad acres to which he and I alike owe allegiance and a common parentage—or it may be to the West Riding, that thriving centre of gigantic industries whose products in increasing yearly volume find their way to the uttermost ends of the earth, let us hope with profit to the producers, and certainly with added lustre to the splendour of British commerce. I rejoice fervently and from the depths of my heart to hear that His Majesty's relations with the great foreign Powers continue on a friendly and cordial basis. It is a well-worn saying, and one which I hope will be no less well remembered, that the greatest blessing which mankind may enjoy is peace, and bearing this in mind I believe Members in all quarters of the House will have regarded with disapproval and with great misgiving the recent efforts which have been made, in totally irresponsible quarters, in almost a spirit of levity, to disturb, if not to destroy, those harmonious relationships, the tendency of which, and the only effect of which, could be to sow distrust instead of goodwill, and to neutralise and not to strengthen the best efforts of statesmen to promote the common interests of the human race. There is another matter which will be a cause of great rejoicing, not merely to the United Kingdom, but to the overseas Dominion, that the Prince of Wales is to set the seal on the South African Constitution by opening in person the first Federal Parliament. It is my privilege to have a close knowledge of that great country alike in times of peace and war. It is a knowledge shared by many Members of
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this House, and a knowledge also of all classes and interests. It is a country whose possibilities, whose destinies, are limitless, and which is becoming by union, bringing with it the fusion, not merely of territories, but of races and interests, one of the chief defenders of the Crown itself, and I venture to say an example to all the ages of the wisdom of freedom and of the arts of peace. After trouble and tribulation of no ordinary kind, we have acclaimed a united South Africa to-day. She takes her place side by side with the other great dominions under the Crown, and I venture to say second to none in history and in achievement. In the emblem by which it is usual, and it is our pleasure, to typify the British race, united South Africa is to be a source of lion strength to the Empire as a whole, and in no portion of His Majesty's dominions will the Prince of Wales be sure of a more royal and loyal welcome than that which awaits him on landing at the Cape. Reference is also made in the Gracious Speech to India, that great problem of our time and race, and the close association of the people with the government of the country is a courageous attempt to deal with difficulties, which will be closely watched, and accompanied also by our prayers and our hopes that it may dispel those thunderclouds of unrest and suspicion which have so long and so recently darkened the country. An increase is foreshadowed in the Naval Estimate in order to provide adequate defence of these shores. However much we may regret this necessity, I think the House and the country generally will meet these fresh demands which are made upon them with courage and with firmness. We are an island Power with vast overseas trade, drawing the bulk of our food supplies, as well as the raw material of industry, from all quarters of the globe. We are vulnerable in a hundred places, and however desirable it may be to other Powers to increase their naval resources, the reason for so doing applies with tenfold force to ourselves. It is none the less a melancholy fact that, no matter how great the financial stress in any country, funds are never lacking for the provision of warlike matériel, and therefore it is to be most profoundly hoped that no legitimate opportunity will be missed to arrive at an understanding, or by the conclusion of treaties, with a view to lessening the crushing burden of armaments, which is scattering to the four winds of heaven the growing

37
needs of social reform, depressing industry and credit, and which is rapidly threatening to sink the civilised nations of the world in the sea of bankruptcy. Reference is also made that financial provision will have to be made for the needs of the year now drawing to a close, due to circumstances, I believe unexampled circumstances, which will be fresh in the minds of each one of us, and which it is to be hoped, in view of the costly confusion and loss to the Exchequer, will not occur again. Legislation of a most important character is promised with reference to the constitution of Parliament and the relationship of the two Houses, and I do not think, in view of the magnitude of this problem, that any surprise will be occasioned that it is the only item set down for solution.
I believe it is acknowledged in all quarters of the House, and in public expression has been given to it, with, I admit, varying degree of intensity, that the system of running two Assemblies in double harness, one based on electoral principles and the other on the nominational and hereditary principle, and at the same time possessing unlimited powers, is certainly a fruitful source of Parliamentary irritation and legislative discomfort; but it is also capable of amendment and improvement in many important ways, and I gather that, with this view, steps are to be taken to set up an impartial revising Chamber—and the House will be quick to realise what they may involve—and to secure to this House the absolute control over finance and extended powers, so that it will have a predominant and final word in legislation. I warmly welcome this pronouncement, because I think it proceeds along that line of natural development, with a view to improving and not impairing Parliament as a whole, and to providing a more elastic and comprehensive instrument for the purposes of legislation. I thank the House sincerely for the indulgence which it has extended to me, and for the attention it has been good enough to give to these remarks. I beg to move.
Mr. C. E. PRICE (who also wore Court dress): I am greatly honoured in being asked on this great and historic occasion to second the Address in reply to the most Gracious Speech from the Throne. I am fully conscious it is due to the fact that it is my privilege to represent in this House a Division which is the centre of the ancient capital of Scotland, and that
38
also, possibly, it is in recognition that that portion of the United Kingdom has not dealt unkindly with His Majesty's present advisers. But before I say one single word regarding the contents of His Majesty's Gracious Speech from the Throne, may I be permitted to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition upon his recovery from the illness from which he suffered in the early days of the late election. In so serious a crisis in our history it is of supreme importance that every section in the House should have full advantage of the wisdom and counsel of its leaders, and certainly no one is more competent to render that service than the right hon. Gentleman.
It is gratifying that His Majesty is able to announce that his relations with Foreign Powers continue to be friendly. It has been truly said "the greatest interest of this country is that of peace." And it is fitting on such an occasion as this we should take advantage of the opportunity to fully and frankly acknowledge no King or Queen has ever contributed more to this desirable state of things than the present occupant of the Throne. His Majesty is, indeed, the nation's greatest asset in the cause of peace. In this connection, I am sure I express on behalf of every Member of this House the hope their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess Henry of Prussia may enjoy their visit to our shores, and that it will contribute to that good feeling and friendship between Germany and this country which every lover of peace so much desires.
And, whilst referring to Germany, may I be excused if I refer to the inter-Parliamentary Conference which took place in the great capital of Berlin now fully eighteen months ago. As one of those who had the privilege of attending it, I am sure I express the feelings of all who took part in it when I say the warmth and the cordiality of the reception given to the representatives from this country could not have been excelled, and has left a permanent impression on our minds of goodwill and friendship of the German people towards this country.
The establishment of a Parliament in a United South Africa is a matter of supreme importance to that great continent and reflects the utmost credit upon all concerned in bringing it to a successful issue. It is sure to contribute in a large degree to the development of that

39
vast territory as well as to the consolidation and the elevation of its people. In the Gracious Speech from the Throne mention is also made of the important measure of last year for extending the functions of the Legislative Councils of India—an experiment which will be watched with sympathetic interest by every well-wisher of that great dependency. For, whilst we are always anxious for the material well-being of the people of India, depend upon it no progress is so vital to that country, as of every other, as the development of her manhood and her progress in the art of self-government.
The House is asked to make the necessary provision for all the services of the State, but I think a unique feature of the appeal is the reference in the one Speech to the provision for the year which is about to expire, and that which will be immediately upon us. What has led to this unprecedented feature in His Majesty's Speech from the Throne it is not for me to say as it is now a matter of history, but it will behove the House to expedite the passage of at least one of those measures in order that as little inconvenience as possible may be experienced by the important business and financial interests of the country.
But the paragraph to which Members of this House will look with most interest will undoubtedly be the one which has reference to the proposals which will be laid before them affecting the relations of both Houses of Parliament. What those proposals will be time alone will reveal, but of this I am sure—they will for ever vitally affect the life and the destinies of the peoples of these islands. Such proposals necessarily demand our best and most mature consideration. Anything affecting the procedure of the great Mother of Parliaments will not only be watched with anxious interest by our own people, but by our kinsmen in the Colonies and our great dependencies beyond the seas. They will also be scrutinised by every nation in the world wherever a Parliament exists and whatever be the measure of the freedom they enjoy. The eyes of the world will be upon the procedure of this House. We shall therefore do well to bear in mind the words you, Mr. Speaker, uttered when your friends and neighbours honoured themselves by presenting to the county authorities of Cumberland a portrait of yourself. Speaking of the House
40
of Commons, you then said on 16th May, 1908:—
"It must be remembered that in the House of Commons the Nation had a body which, when it had once taken a step, found it very hard to reverse that step and to go in another direction. It was therefore most necessary for the House to deliberate very carefully before it committed itself to a particular step."These are weighty words worthy of being commended to the House on this historic occasion. The proposals which will be submitted to us may not exhibit the logical precision desired by the French nation, but, broadly speaking, our people have shown a marvellous genius for adapting its Parliamentary institutions to the varying circumstances and needs of the time. In seeking to accomplish this object no one in this House will question the learning, the capacity, or the courage which the Prime Minister is able to bring to it. But, Sir, I hold any Member who sits in whatever quarter he may who contributes to the solution of the great problem before us, will deserve the best thanks of the nation. It is a great task to adapt that which is with that which is to be.
"Those who would win (he name of truly great, Must understand his own age and the next. And make the present ready to fulfil its prophecy."May I say it is more than likely some Members of this House may consider the proposals about to be made are too revolutionary, whilst others may consider them not sufficiently advanced. We shall all, however, do well to bear in mind the words of a former Member who greatly adorned this Assembly. I mean John Bright. Speaking at a time when an extension of the franchise was under consideration, he said:—
"In the changes we are about to make, I trust my countrymen will exhibit that wisdom and moderation which alone becometh a Christian and a noble people."I beg to second the Address in reply to the Gracious Speech from the Throne.
Question proposed, That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, as followeth:—
Most Gracious Sovereign,
We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in Parliament Assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament.—[Mr. Illingworth.]
Mr. BALFOUR: I think it will be admitted by all Gentlemen with long experience of Parliamentary affairs that the

41
duty of moving and seconding the Address was never carried out with more solicitous regard for the ancient traditions of this House. We have just come from a contested election, fought with great vivacity and occasionally with some heat, but no trace of passions, naturally and indeed almost necessarily engendered under those circumstances, was to be found in the speech of either the Mover or the Seconder of the Address. That is as it should be at this preliminary stage of the Session, which may before it closes see many a battle royal fought out across the floor of the House. It is in strict harmony with all that is best in our Parliamentary memories that we should at all events begin with the note so happily struck by the Mover and Seconder of the Address. I must add one word with regard to something that fell from the Seconder, the hon. Gentleman the Member for Edinburgh (Mr. Price), who was good enough to refer to me in terms which were not only courteous, but which were generous. I hope he will allow me to thank him for the manner in which he was kind enough to express himself on that subject.
I have always thought that the duty cast upon the Mover and the Seconder is really one of the greatest tests of Parliamentary tact to which any man could be subjected, and I think it is an especially difficult task on this occasion because, as the House recognises, whatever else may be said of the Gracious Speech from the Throne, there is very little in it, and it was not within the power of either the Mover or the Seconder to take legitimate refuge in general observations to all the good things that were promised to the House and the country in the way of legislation during the coming Session. According to my experience there appears usually in all Speeches from the Throne a long list of measures which the sanguine expectations of their promoters anticipate will be passed, and which the House of Commons, always credulous in the first few months of the year, really entertains some hope of seeing passed into law. That is not the case on the present occasion, and the only legislative project on which either hon. Member could say a word was necessarily the one legislative project mentioned, though hardly explained in the Gracious Speech from the Throne, with regard to the relations between the two Houses of Parliament. Now, Sir, the difficulty which the two hon. Gentlemen must naturally have felt is a difficulty
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which I feel also, because the traditional duty of the Leader of the Opposition on this occasion is to survey the political incidents that have occurred since the House last separated, and to deal with the legislative projects foreshadowed in the Speech from the Throne. The only thing that occurred since the House last separated was the General Election, and, as I have already said, the only legislative project foreshadowed is some alteration in the relations between the House of Commons and the House of Lords, and possibly some alteration in the constitution of the House of Lords. It so happens that both the General Election and the sentence of the King's Speech referring to the House of Lords are both highly ambiguous in their character, and it is extremely difficult to draw any clear conclusions either from the one or the other.
Before I come to those two, marked out as the main problems on which I shall address the House, I must say one word on two other points, not dealing with legislation, which are referred to in the Speech before us.
6.0 P.M.
The first is in the words in which His Majesty promises that a substantial increase will be effected in the cost of the Navy, owing to the necessities of naval defence. I welcome that announcement with a satisfaction which I find it hard adequately to express. For many months past I have felt the deepest anxiety about our naval position, and I hope I may read into these words the firm conviction that the Government are prepared to face the situation, and to do, at whatever cost, all that may be shown to be necessary for the adequate naval defence of the Empire. We must, of course, wait until the Naval Estimates are submitted before we can form a judgment upon the actual proposals which the Government have in view, but at all events I hail with the utmost pleasure their statement of good intentions.
The other point relates to India. I rejoice to hear that the new development in the machinery of the Government of India has been brought into operation under conditions which, to those who are acquainted with the facts, seem a hopeful augury for the future. It was my duty to offer some comments and criticisms upon the Indian Councils Bill last year. That Bill, however, is passed—the time for criticism has gone by. What we have all now to do as patriots is with a cheerful and courageous spirit to do what we can to make the heavy, laborious, and responsible

43
task of dealing with Indian problems as light as possible for the Ministers responsible. I shall not indulge in any prophecies of ill, which I hope in any case would be unfounded, and at the best would be extremely ill-timed. There is, however, one question which I think I must ask the Government, reluctant though I am to bring Indian affairs into anything which may look like a controversial position. I should like the Prime Minister to explain exactly what has occurred in regard to the annulling of sentences of deportation which appears to have formally accompanied the opening of the first Council. I am not in a position to judge whether or not the agitators whom Lord Morley and the Government have thought it necessary to deport may with advantage be allowed to come back to India. That is a very difficult and delicate matter of administration upon which it would be folly for me to pronounce an opinion. But I am disquieted, I frankly admit, by the method which has been chosen for reversing the sentences, supposing that reversal was in itself desirable.
We are quite familiar with the Oriental practice of celebrating by the release of prisoners any great occasion which gives satisfaction to the community; and this seems an analogous procedure. But that is an Oriental practice. I can quite understand that an Eastern tyrant should think he was doing a kindness to the community over which he ruled with absolute power by releasing prisoners, because too often those prisoners were put in prison not in the interests of the community, not in order to serve any great public ends, but as the victims of a tyrant who owed account to no man, victims of jealousy or of greed. To release such men is a benefit. But surely we pride ourselves rightly on governing our great Eastern dependency by methods which are not Oriental; and if, as I hope and firmly believe, the Government were justified in deporting these agitators, why did they announce, prior to the sentences having expired, as if it were a favour to the community, or in a manner which suggested, at all events, that it was a favour to the public that these men should be allowed to come back? If they were rightly deported, if their deportation was necessary, it is still less defensible that they should come back at all. If it has ceased to be necessary, you should not have associated the termination of their sentence with an event
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with which it has no logical connection whatever. It seems inevitably to suggest to the Oriental mind an altogether false idea of the grounds of deportation. These men were deported, if rightly, in the interests of the Oriental community. Annul your sentence if you like, but take care that it is made clear to every man that it is not annulled to please this or that section of public opinion, or to look as if we were doing a favour, but that each case is being considered on its merits before the victim of the sentence is allowed to come back to the place where hitherto, as we believe, he has abused the liberty which is given to true citizens of the Empire.
I come back to what I told the House was the main theme of the speech, namely, the General Election and the lessons to be learnt from it, with regard to the single project of legislative reform which the Government propose. The election itself was no doubt primarily on the Budget, and on the Budget the country has pronounced. I am not quite sure what it has pronounced, but, at all events, it has pronounced; and when that Budget is again brought forward, and when as I myself anticipate it receives a somewhat chilly but yet numerically adequate support in this House, without doubt it will become law. But that is merely a surface view of an electoral result dealing with a particular measure. I think, if we look below the surface, there are other things of great importance to be learnt, in view of the constitutional changes proposed, as to what is exactly meant by electoral approval of any measure. The electoral approval of Great Britain, though not enthusiastic, is, I suppose, as I have already described it, numerically adequate. I believe that 523 gentlemen took part in the Division by which the Third Reading of the Budget was passed in this House, and the majority was 230. If the Members for those 523 constituencies now go into the Lobby, according to what we know or believe to be their opinions, I understand that those constituencies, instead of giving a majority of 230 for the Budget, will give a majority of 26. I do not know that from that point of view voting for the Budget has been a very successful political investment for those who indulged in it. I quite believe, so far as Great. Britain is concerned, that the constituencies are prepared by a rather narrow majority to support the Budget; but it has never been contended by anybody in England, Scotland, or Ireland that the Budget ever found

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favour with the representatives of Ireland. We know that from the sort of rumour to which credence may very properly be granted, and we know it by a much better test, namely, that the Irish Members have abstained from supporting it formally and explicitly on the ground that they thought it an unjust Budget to Ireland. Why did they do that? They did it for a reason which seems to me perfectly legitimate from their point of view. They abstained, and presumably will abstain again, from opposing a Budget of which they disapprove, because they think the interests of Ireland in connection with Home Rule overrides the interests of Ireland in connection with finance; and they think they are much more likely to get Home Rule from a Government which can only be kept in office if a Budget of which the Irish disapprove is passed. That seems to me to be perfectly legitimate and honourable. I do not know whether it is right or wrong. At all events, now it is carried, it is perfectly legitimate, they consider, in the interests of their Constituents; and they think, on the whole, that those interests are more likely to be served by supporting a Budget of which they disapprove, because by so doing they may get something else which they think more important. Well, Sir, that shows that under the play of our party system, as it now exists, you cannot interpret quite simply the verdict of the public, or the verdict of the constituencies, as meaning the approval of those constituencies to the whole of this or that measure. If the "People's Budget" could be considered in isolation—apart from every other question—the people's representatives would reject it. They did not reject it. They will not reject it. I believe for the perfectly legitimate reason that I have stated, a reason not connected with the Budget. What is it, then?
Let us just consider what happened at the last election with regard to Home Rule? We never heard a word about it in or out of the House, so far as I know, except at the Manchester election. Apart from Ministerial oratory in the heat and stress of a doubtful bye-election, we heard nothing of Home Rule from the Radical party, until, to everybody's surprise, the Prime Minister gave utterance to certain sentiments on the subject at the Albert Hall after the election was certain. It is very interesting to see exactly what happened in Great Britain and Ireland respectively with regard to that statement. It was accepted by the Irish as a perfectly
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straightforward pronouncement of the intention by the present holders of office, should they be retained in power, to carry a Home Rule Bill at the earliest possible moment. Nothing could be more important or more interesting from the British point of view than that statement. If Britain had taken it as seriously as Ireland, or the Irish Nationalists did, in my opinion at all events, other questions before the electorate would really have been dwarfed, vitally important as those questions were. Were they dwarfed by Home Rule? Who in England or Scotland heard anything more of Home Rule after the Albert Hall speech? [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] Well, who heard of it from authoritative sources? I have had 149 speeches of Cabinet Ministers examined. In one speech, and one speech only, was there any voluntary reference to Home Rule. It is quite true that under the stress of cross-examination other Cabinet Ministers had to make pronouncements upon the subject, but never in the course of the natural flow of their oratory did any one of them refer to what, after all, should have been the greatest issue of all before the electorate—if it was an issue! I believe the Prime Minister was interrupted in one of his speeches by some rash auditor who said: "What about Home Rule?" The Prime Minister turned to him, and, with the evident approval of his audience—if I am not misquoting him—said: "I am going to talk about something more interesting." Other Members of the Government—one of the Members for Wiltshire—and Mr. Joseph Pease, who is now a member of the Cabinet, made some utterances about Home Rule, about the exact tenour of which there is some controversy, and I will, therefore, not unduly press it. Mr. Pease has given, I believe, an explanation, or made a statement about the matter, which does not agree with the recollection of others who were present. But at all events, the mere fact that there can be doubt as to what other Ministers said and thought exhibits an amazing commentary upon the universal silence preserved in the course of their speeches—apart from heckling—by every single Member, including the Prime Minister, subsequent to the Albert Hall speech, with the solitary exception, I believe, of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who made one of his impassioned sallies into that sphere of controversial politics in one speech only.
It seems to me that the whole method of the Government in dealing with this Home Rule question was exactly the kind

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of problem that comes before a physician applying a very powerful remedy to a particular disease. He wants the effect of that to be, as doctors say, local and not constitutional. What was necessary was to have an effect in Ireland. What was undesirable was to have an effect in England or Scotland; and the point was: How are you exactly to arrange your dose so as to produce the maximum effect where you want the maximum effect, and the minimum effect where you want the minimum effect? That subtle problem seems to have been admirably solved by His Majesty's Government. They have persuaded every Irishman that Home Rule is the thing that they ardently desire and are struggling for, and they have left every Englishman and Scotsman quite indifferent on the subject, and entirely absorbed by such other great problems as the Budget, Tariff Reform, the House of Lords, and the rest. I do not think I have stated my case inaccurately. I believe, broadly speaking, I have given a strictly accurate view of what has happened in electoral opinion upon this point in the three Kingdoms. I have got something analogous, something bearing upon the same point, to say with regard to the House of Lords. I understand that the number of people who desire to reform the House of Lords apparently includes the House of Lords themselves and Members of all parties in this House. There are questions of great difficulty that, I think, will come on later in connection with this subject, but a general desire to deal with the subject was shown long before all this controversy by the House of Lords themselves. Many Members of that House hold very strong opinions upon the subject. But as between all persons in Great Britain and in Ulster who desire a change—a reform—in the House of Lords, and between those who represent Nationalist constituencies in Ireland, there is really a great gulf fixed. We differ among ourselves. Labour Members want to abolish the House of Lords altogether. Others, with less revolutionary instincts, desire various methods of altering either its constitution, its powers, or its relation to this House. All Members from England, Scotland, and Ulster, however much they may differ as to the character of the change they want in the House of Lords, want that change because they want an alteration, and as, they think, an improvement in the Constitution under which
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they are going to live. That is not, of course, and cannot be, the view of the Home Rulers and Nationalists. They may have an abstract benevolent desire to see the citizens of England and Scotland living under a better Constitution than at present, just as I have a desire that the Government of Morocco may be improved, but it is a purely external benevolence. They want a change in the House of Lords not because they want to improve the Constitution under which they live, but because they want to be out of the Constitution altogether. They are urging the Government, with all the machinery in their power, pressing on them a fundamental change in the relation between the two Houses, not the least because they really object to the action of the House of Lords on the Budget because they do not like it—not in the least because they want to have a permanent improvement in the British Constitution, but because they want to get out of the Constitution altogether. [AN HON. MEMBER: "No, no."] They do, unless you count that shadowy relation of the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament which bulks so largely in the speeches of Radical Ministers, and looms so faintly in the hopes of Irish Members.
In so far as I have accurately represented the result of the elections and the movement of the electoral forces as regards these three great matters—the Budget, Home Rule, and the House of Lords—how can you say that the recent elections, if you look below the surface and study a little the real method by which these things are brought about, how can you say we know what the settled opinion of the country is upon any one of these three great issues? Take Home Rule alone. Home Rule is one of the most difficult and complex subjects which can be dealt with. It was fairly familiar not merely to Members of this House, but to the general public, 15 years ago. In 15 years persons whose business is not politics forget, and necessarily forget, the details of a controversy like that. New generations of active politicians inevitably spring up who do not remember these old fights which began in 1886 and were renewed in 1893; they cannot keep them in mind, and before their opinion is worth anything these controversies must be revived in all their details and people must have before them the real issues at stake. In the meanwhile we are going to pass the Budget of which the constituencies as a whole disapprove, because a certain section of the constituencies want another

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great and revolutionary change of which the majority of the constituencies have no knowledge whatever. That is the exact situation. If England and Scotland during the last election had really been stirred and had been made fully acquainted with all the issues of Home Rule, if they had had them before them as living and immediate issues, you would have had a different verdict from what you have now. If, on the other hand, hon. Members from Ireland below the Gangway had not had expectations of extracting from the party opposite that great change in our Constitution which they desire, you would not have had your Budget. Now the moral I want to draw, if I may—and I have nearly finished the remarks with which I am going to trouble the House—the moral I want to draw is not that in this matter anybody is to blame, although I am not sure that I approve of the Government methods in regard to their treatment of Home Rule at the elections, but it is not upon that that I wish to dwell—but I say these difficulties are inherent in representative assemblies, and they become more manifest and more prominent when you work your assembly by a system of groups.
The system of groups has come, I think, to stay, I am not sure—if it has I greatly regret it—but I think it has come to stay. We have never seen its full effects before. If it so happens, as it did happen at the election for the last Parliament, that one party gets so overwhelming a majority over all others, it can really do what it likes, when it likes, and how it likes. [MINISTERIAL cries of "Oh."] So far as this House is concerned—I make that concession—and it did use that great prerogative that was given it in a very exceptional manner. On other occasions, as in 1893, the Nationalist group had their fortunes and hopes so absolutely bound up with Mr. Gladstone's Government and party that for all practical Parliamentary purposes, and for the time being, they formed one homogenous Parliamentary party. Neither of these circumstances appear to exist, at all events at the present time. Certainly the Radical party, which was in an overwhelming preponderance over all other parties in the last Parliament, has dissolved like summer snow. Is that majority one or two now? I think it is two over the next largest party. Of course I quite agree that even under the group system, as we know it in this House, there is a much closer relation between the Labour or Socialist party, the Irish party
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and the Radical party, than there is between any of these groups and those of us who sit upon this side of the House. These other parties, no doubt, are more or less independent entities, but they all revolve in the same direction, and to use an astronomical metaphor, they all exercise perturbations upon each other. They are all closely connected, and if they do not form one party, they form at all events a very closely connected whole of bodies. I have already pointed out what is the working of our existing electoral system, and I might have enforced all I have said by reminding the House that the Leader of the Irish party has told us that he believes himself to have secured for the Radical party 30 seats in this country in favour of the Budget of which he disapproves.
Mr. JOHN REDMOND: Will the right hon. Gentleman allow me? He is confusing me with somebody else. I made no statement at all calculating any number of seats.
Mr. BALFOUR: Then I unreservedly withdraw. I thought I had seen it somewhere, but I am not wrong in saying the hon. Gentleman said, I believe with perfect truth, that the official manifesto of his party had influenced a great many seats in this country.
Mr. REDMOND: If I did not say it then, I say it now.
Mr. BALFOUR: Although I apologised to the hon. Member for having attributed that statement to him I think my broad argument remains that the hon. and learned Gentleman and his friends have influenced the return to this House of an unknown number of Radical Members who differ from him upon the question of the Budget, though they agree with him upon others, and no doubt in his eye more important questions, such as Home Rule for Ireland, and the destruction of the Veto of the House of Lords, which in his view is bound up not with reform of the House of Lords but more with the granting of Home Rule to Ireland. If I really represented what has occurred in these elections, and if I am right in saying that that is due to no special vice or iniquity of gentlemen concerned in those elections, but if it is the result of the working of our representative institutions under a system of groups, I put it to every moderate man in this House whether it is possible to entrust solely to a representative assembly thus elected the power to manipulate the whole of the Constitution?

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The Government scheme for the reform of the House of Lords I gather to be in the making. I do not understand the sentence in the King's Speech in which these changes are described—that amazing piece of English which appears, in so far as it has any meaning at all, to embody two quite different policies which have no connection whatever, except that it has been found possible to force them into the framework of one ungrammatical sentence. I do not think it much matters whether the Government have put good or bad grammar into His Majesty's mouth, because Ministers and not His Majesty are responsible. Some unkind person said the Speech is always more stupid than the most stupid man in the Ministry. The grammar of the King's Speech is not always very good, but sometimes it is worse even than that of the most illiterate man in the Cabinet. It certainly appears to be so on the present occasion; but, at all events, I hail the ambiguities lurking in that remarkable specimen of the mother tongue. I hail its ambiguities as showing that the Government itself has not yet made up its mind as to the precise character of the change that they mean to introduce into this ancient constitution.
I implore them, and I implore all the moderate men among their supporters, to learn the lesson taught by the last election, which is that, however honestly an election may be fought, it is quite impossible that you should, except in very rare circumstances, when one question only is referred to the constituencies and when only one policy is before men's minds, it is almost impossible that you should be able to say this House represents the country with such accuracy, with such certitude, such confidence that you can entrust to it the unlimited and unchecked power of altering institutions under which we and our fathers have lived so long, and under which freedom has so happily grown to its full height. Believe me, this superstition that a representative assembly necessarily represents for all purposes those who returned it, is a superstition and nothing else, and if you want your constitution to have that stability which all the reformers of this country have hitherto desired to give it, if you want to follow the example which every great statesman in every country in the world is striving to follow, you will be mad, indeed, if you drive to this illogical excess the idea that for all purposes and for the work of all time we
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can be taken to represent the settled convictions of the people, and you will take care that whatever changes are introduced into the constitution to see that it is not the sport of a chance majority.
The PRIME MINISTER: Mr. Speaker. I associate myself most gladly with the very graceful and the very gratifying tribute with which the right hon. Gentleman commenced his speech in acknowledging the peculiar excellence with which the most arduous duty falling upon the younger Members of this House has on the present occasion been discharged. I join with the right hon. Gentleman in those congratulations. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Mover upon his felicity of phrase and charm of diction which, I am sure, delighted the House, and I congratulate the Seconder upon his robustness of statement and directness which was equally gratifying, for he has set an example which may well be followed by those who succeed him in the Debate. Upon those points I am sure we are all agreed. I am not so sure that on the present occasion we can carry our agreement very much further. Before I come to what seems to me to be the essential matter before us to-night, I will refer very briefly to two criticisms which the right hon. Gentleman has made upon the Speech, and the policy of the Government. His first criticism had reference to the release of prisoners who some time ago were deported from Indian territory. I do not think it is accurate to speak of deportation as a sentence, because deportation involves no specific charge, no detailed evidence, and no judicial inquiry, therefore it is not right to speak of the release of these prisoners as the annulment of a sentence. I know this is a proceeding which every civilised government resorts to with the greatest reluctance, and only in cases of proved necessity. It is the first duty of every such Government to prove that that necessity has ceased to exist before giving the persons deported the ordinary rights and privileges of citizens. With regard to these people the Government of India have always regarded a resort to the regulations of 1818 under which the deportations took place as an emergency, but the circumstances under which these deportations took place have passed, and they have had a salutary effect. I may say that it is the deliberate opinion, both of Lord Minto and his Council, and the Secretary of State at home, that there would be no justification on political or social grounds

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for any longer deferring the release of those men. I trust what I have said will be accepted as a satisfactory statement by the House.
There is another point in the right hon. Gentleman's speech to which I should like to make a moment's reference. I do not think he calls it a charge against us—I allude to his presentation of the case, as it appears to him, of the attitude of the Government towards Home Rule. The right hon. Gentleman said that until the speech I made at the Albert Hall after the prorogation at the end of the last Session of Parliament nothing had been heard from me or my colleagues upon that subject. I think the right hon. Gentleman's memory is at fault, and he appears to have forgotten that as lately as the month of March, 1908, within a fortnight of the time when I assumed the office of Prime Minister the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Waterford brought forward a Motion declaring in the strongest and most unmistakeable terms the necessity for what is commonly called Home Rule, and that Motion, with supplementary words safeguarding the supremacy of Parliament, was voted for by practically the whole of the Liberal party, and I myself, as Chancellor of the Exchequer in temporary charge of the House at the time, made a strong speech in its favour. It is true I said then, as I had said before, that we were precluded by pledges specifically given from dealing with that question in that Parliament, and what I said in the Albert Hall was only repeating language which I had used in this House, declaring that the new Parliament would be free, and we should no longer be under that disabling condition. The right hon. Gentleman says, "Why did not you talk about it at the election?" and he asks me why I said in answer to one of those voices with which we were all made familiar during the last election, "I want to talk about something more interesting." I believe in talking about something more immediately interesting. As I pointed out at the Albert Hall—and here I am quite sure my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Waterford will not differ from me—if you are to get Home Rule, or if you are to get any one of those immense changes in legislation which he desires, and which all progressive parties desire, you must make as a condition precedent to that the abolition of the absolute veto of the House of Lords. It was in order that this first step, this first preliminary and
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essential condition of everything that is to follow, should be clearly placed in all its importance before the minds of the electors that my colleagues and I, and the great bulk of my hon. Friends behind me, devoted the greater part of our speeches and our energies to this subject.
The right hon. Gentleman has commiserated or, at any rate, compassionated with my two hon. Friends because they have had to deal with a King's Speech in which there is so very little matter. I am not sure that the precedent set by the present King's Speech, judging by the happy results it has produced at the opening of the Debate—my hon. Friends' speeches have been distinguished by conciseness and other admirable qualities—is not one which may well be imitated in the future.
Be that as it may, I quite admit and acknowledge the charge that, judging by its dimensions and the list of projects which it enumerates, the King's Speech is the shortest on record. Its outstanding feature is that the legislative programme which it invites Parliament to consider consists of a single document. Apart from the financial provision which is necessary for the public services—as to which I shall have something to say in a few moments—the only question on which we announce our intention of making legislative proposals to the House of Commons is the question of the relations between the two Houses. I must not be understood to say that it may not be necessary or expedient to bring forward and pass some departmental and non-controversial Bills, for it is impossible for any Session of Parliament to go through without some such provisions being passed. So far, however, as contentious legislation is concerned, we suggest nothing, and we shall submit nothing else. That is an unusual and an unprecedented course. With all deference to the right hon. Gentleman, who seems to think that the late General Election meant nothing at all, so far as I can make out from the passages of his speech, he treated it as evidence of the hopeless bankruptcy of our representative system. With all deference to the right hon. Gentleman, we take a different view. There is no doubt—there is perfect agreement on this point—that the General Election was caused by the action of the House of Lords in rejecting the Budget, an unprecedented proceeding in our view. The view we submitted to the country was that it was a breach, a glaring breach, of the most

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deeply rooted and firmly established of the unwritten conventions of our Constitution. But we did not regard the rejection of the Budget by the House of Lords as an isolated act; it was the climax of a series of acts in which that House had claimed, and had freely exercised co-ordinate, or I might more truly describe it as an overriding, authority of the acts and decisions of the popularly-elected Chamber. That we said, and said in the plainest terms. Speaking on behalf of the Liberal party, we said that we could not go on under such a system as that. It involves a waste of time, a sacrifice of energy, and a perpetual and recurring loss of credit.
7.0 P.M.
Our appeal to the country was primarily an appeal to give us authority to put an end to that state of things. What did we ask for? We asked first of all that the complete and undisputed supremacy of this House over finance should be restored. We claimed next that the absolute veto at present possessed by the House of Lords over legislation should disappear. We maintained that the other House should be confined to functions which are appropriate to a Second Chamber, and it was our view, clearly presented to the people, that that change must be brought about by an Act of Parliament. I said myself, and I have nothing to retract or qualify, that in our view it was a condition of the tenure of power by a Liberal Government that the new Parliament should, to the exclusion and postponement of all other legislative business, set to work to provide safeguards for the rights of the House of Commons over legislation—that is, statutory safeguards, safeguards embodied in an Act of Parliament assented to by the King, Lords, and Commons. I see that in some quarters, not at all unfriendly quarters, I am supposed to have intended to convey, what I certainly never said, that a Liberal Ministry ought not to meet a new House of Commons unless it had secured in advance some kind of guarantee for the contingent exercise of the Royal Prerogative. I have been engaged now for a good many years in political life, and I do not think that even among Gentlemen who sit opposite there is one who will deny that I am a man of my word. If I had given such a pledge as that I should not be standing at this box at this moment. I tell the House quite frankly that I have received no such guarantee, and that I have asked for no such guarantee. In my judgment it is the duty of statesmen and of responsible politicians
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in this country as long as possible and as far as possible to keep the name of the Sovereign and the prerogatives of the Crown outside the domain of party politics. If the occasion should arise I should not hesitate to tender such advice to the Crown as in the circumstances the exigencies of the situation appear to warrant in the public interests. But to ask in advance for a blank authority for an indefinite exercise of the Royal prerogative in regard to a measure which has never been submitted to or approved by the House of Commons is a request which, in my judgment, no constitutional statesmen can properly make, and it is a concession which the Sovereign cannot be expected to grant. I say this in order that there may be absolutely no misunderstanding on this point. It has, however, very little to do with the real question before us. Is it possible for anyone to deny—even the right hon. Gentleman with his ingenious dovetailing of the issues of the late General Election—is it possible for anyone to deny that that issue, at any rate was clearly presented to the country, and upon that issue the country has returned a not uncertain verdict? You may analyse and classify the composition of the groups of this House as you please, but deal with them as you may, sift them, readjust them, and explain them as you will, it is impossible to deny the fact—no one acquainted with the circumstances can for a moment dispute—that in this House there is a large and, indeed, overwhelming majority which is absolutely pledged to deal with the question of the veto of the House of Lords. If that be so, as I said a few moments ago when I was dealing with the question of Home Rule, it is a condition precedent to all other legislation, and it is for that reason we have omitted from the Gracious Speech all reference to other legislative matter, and are going deliberately to ask the House of Commons to devote to this topic, and to this topic alone, the whole of its opening Session and its still fresh and unwearied energies. Let me go on to say that we propose to proceed in the first instance by way of Resolutions—Resolutions, I need not say, to be embodied and carried into law in a Bill of which they will form the foundations, and embodied and carried through this House in that Bill in the course of the present Session. Procedure by way of Resolution is not procedure for the purpose of delay, but, as I hope I shall show, procedure really for the purpose of saving

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time. We think that method justified by precedents both ways. Some of them are happy precedents and some of them are not very happy precedents for proceeding by Resolution in matters of grave constitutional complexity. We think that method is justified by the importance of the proposals which it cannot be denied or concealed are in the true sense of the term a recasting of our constitutional system. By Resolutions the Government understand, not a series of academic propositions, but a summary of the substance and essence of the measure itself. The advantage of proceeding in that way as the first step appears to us to be twofold. In the first place, it will enable the House at the earliest moment to see and discuss and to express approval or disapproval of the lines upon which the Government are proceeding; and, in the second place, it will enable the Government at the earliest possible moment to see whether in fallowing those lines they have or have not the approval of the House. It is our hope and intention that those Resolutions should be laid on the Table at a very early date, and by a very early date I mean at such a time that their main and governing principles can be debated and determined before the House rises for its first spring recess.
I used the expression "at the earliest possible moment," and that brings me to what is of vital importance to consider—what other matters there are we must dispose of at once. I see that I said in the last speech which I made in the Parliament which has now expired that the first act of the new House of Commons must be to reaffirm the duties in the Budget which the Lords rejected, and to provide for what has taken place in the interval. I should have been more accurate if I had used a rather more comprehensive expression, and said that the first act of the new House of Commons must be to deal with all the exigencies of the financial situation which has been created by the rejection of the Budget, and by what has followed since. How does the matter stand? We are now at the 21st February, and the financial year, as the House knows, expires on the 31st March. This year, as ill-luck will have it, Easter comes exceptionally early, Good Friday on the 25th March, and Easter Sunday on the 27th. Now, I want the House to realise clearly in order that they may appreciate the position in which the Government stand, what has to be done of necessity before those dates if the financial
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obligations of the country are to be met, and if the machinery of Government is not to come to a standstill. In the first place there is a matter which probably has escaped the attention of many people, though, I dare say, it is familiar to most hon. Members, and that is the need we are under of dealing at once with the redemption of the war loan of 1900. The war loan of 1900 amounted to £30,000,000, of which something like £9,000,000 has been paid off, so that the outstanding amount now is about 21 millions. That war loan must be redeemed on the 5th April next. It is proposed—I need not go into details now—to raise the money by Exchequer Bonds issued for a short term of years. That is the scheme. The money will have to be forthcoming on the 5th April. The issue of the new securities will have to be authorised by an Act of Parliament which has passed through all its stages in time for the proper advertisements to be issued, and for due notices to be given before that date. It is impossible that the financial obligations of the country should be met unless that matter is at once taken in hand. So much for that.
The next step to be taken, and it cannot be postponed, is the direct result of the rejection of the Budget by the House of Lords. Under the Appropriation Act the Treasury may borrow, by the issue of Treasury Bills or otherwise, for the purpose of meeting the authorised expenditure of the year, but, if the borrowing takes place by means of Treasury Bills, those bills have all to be paid off by 31st March this year. That is the last day, the expiring day of the current financial year. The amount of Treasury Bills issued for ways and means and now outstanding is £18,800,000, and by the time the 31st March arrives the amount of those bills will probably have been reduced to £17,200,000. There is an advance of £4,000,000 from the Bank, making our total indebtedness on that date on account of ways and means £21,000,000. We must have the means of renewing those bills, otherwise they will all fall due on the 31st March—between 17 and 18 millions, a sum which it is impossible to provide at a moment's notice. We must get from the House authority which can only be given in the form of a Bill, passed through all its stages, to renew those bills as they fall due, for it may be another six months, so that in course of time they may be ultimately met. That is the second measure of sheer necessity from which the attention of the House cannot

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be safely, even for a week, withdrawn. It will be necessary and indispensable to dispose of those matters first; very much in the order in which I am dealing with them. There is no question of legislation or anything of that kind yet. I am dealing with matters of sheer necessity. I come next to the Estimates for Supply. The Supplementary Estimates for the present year must, of course, be passed before the end of the financial year. Not only so, but you must pass before the expiration of the financial year the first Votes for the Army, the Navy, and for the Civil Service, because, as the House knows—new Members may not know, but old Members are familiar with it—you may have your Treasury full to overflowing on 31st March next with money derived from taxation, but you cannot lawfully spend a halfpenny on any part of the public service, except those provided for by a permanent Act of Parliament, unless the House has before the expiration of the financial year given you authority to do so by the necessary Votes of Supply. Therefore, your Navy, your Army, your Civil Service, and your Old Age Pensions all come to an absolute standstill on the 1st April next unless we get through the necessary Votes of Supply. Not only have you to get the grant in Committee and approved on Report, but you have to get your Consolidated Fund Bill, which embodies the supply so granted, through all its stages within the requisite space of time. All these things have got to be done before we can even take up the question of the Budget. Let me say here at once that in view of the very peculiar circumstances in which we are placed as regards the date—the late meeting of Parliament and the early Easter—the Government propose this course, which they believe will be for the general convenience of the House, and which certainly is essential in the interests of the public service and the conduct of legislation—that the House should adjourn for Easter, for what I may call the Ecclesiastical Easter only, from Thursday to Tuesday, and that the House should meet again on the Tuesday, and should go on possibly till the middle of April, or at any rate for some reasonable time until we have been able to dispose of the Budget and of the Resolutions with regard to the House of Lords, which will be put on the Table considerably before then. We think in that way, by taking perhaps a somewhat extended vacation when these
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measures have been disposed of, that we may fuse together for the purposes of this year the Easter and Whitsuntide recesses, and give the House a reasonable holiday, and then set to work during the remainder of the Session, continuously and without further break, to pass the Bill founded on the Resolutions through all the necessary stages. That appears to the Government to be far the most businesslike way of meeting a very exceptional situation. Now I come to the Budget. I have been pointing out that these other measures—the War Loan Bill, the Temporary Borrowings Bill, the various Votes in Supply, and the Consolidated Fund Bill—must necessarily have precedence, because they have all to be passed before the end of the financial year.
What is the situation as regards the Budget? The House will be interested to learn the figures up to the present date. The revenue up to the 19th February, the latest date available, shows, as compared with last year, a decrease of £9,338,000. The excess of expenditure over revenue to the same date is £18,741,000. The falling-of in the revenue is mainly, almost entirely, due to the delay in the collection of the Income Tax, which involves also the Land Tax and the Inhabited House Duty. The Customs Taxes imposed by the Budget are being voluntarily paid, and there is apparently no likelihood of any substantial shortage under those heads, but with the Income Tax it is otherwise, and there is a possible deficit—its exactness is quite approximate, and I include the Inhabited House Duty—of some £25,000,000. No doubt the great bulk of this will ultimately be recoverable. I am speaking from memory, and I would rather not hereafter be charged with inaccuracy; but my impression is that out of a total collection of 39 millions we will only get 14 millions within the financial year. The right hon. Gentleman must see that at present there is no legal authority whatever for the collection of the Income Tax. It has been deducted by the banks from dividends, but that is a very small proportion indeed of the total receipts. This is the quarter during which the whole of the Income Tax under Schedule D practically comes in. There is no legal authority to enforce its collection, and until we get that legal authority the collection will be delayed, and there will be an enormous amount carried over to the first months of the ensuing year. I fear that will be at some cost to the proceeds of the tax in the ensuing twelve months, because it is very

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difficult to get at people twice in the same year. It is the intention of the Government, as I have said, to ask the House to consent, before it adjourns, to the Budget. In some comparatively immaterial points, mainly matters of date, the Bill which passed last year will have to be changed, but, subject to these formal exceptions, it is our intention to ask the House to give retrospective sanction to what has been done, to re-impose the duties which received the approval of the last House of Commons, and, of course, to give its sanction to the ancillary provisions of the Bill with regard to valuation machinery and so forth. For this purpose I need hardly say it will be necessary to resort to some form of more or less summary procedure. It is not necessary or desirable at this precise moment to indicate what it will be.
We think—and this is important—that before the Budget passes from the control of this House the House should, as I have already stated, have an opportunity of expressing its opinion on the main principles embodied in the Lords Resolutions. We wish it to be clearly understood from the first—that as will be the case with the Lords Resolutions, so also with the Budget we stand or fall by them. We regard both of them as integral parts of our policy, and so far as we are concerned as a Government we stake all our credit on carrying them through this House. I have necessarily detained the House, although I hope I have not wearied it, by going into somewhat technical matters, but without a complete and clear explanation of these things it is impossible to understand the situation in which we find ourselves.
Mr. BALFOUR: May I ask if the right hon. Gentleman proposes to defer the Budget until after the House of Lords Resolutions?
The PRIME MINISTER: I said the Budget would not leave the House until the House had had an opportunity of expressing its opinion on the Resolutions. I am not at present committing myself to the precise stages. I said we should have to have some form of summary procedure, but I could not at present indicate precisely what it will be. Still, I do say that before the Budget passes from the control of the House the House will have had an opportunity of expressing its opinion on the Resolutions.
Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: I understand the right hon. Gentleman to
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be speaking of the Budget as something which it is not necessary to pass before the 31st March. Am I right or not?
The PRIME MINISTER: The right hon. Gentleman is quite right. He knows quite well that it is not in the same position.
Mr. T. M. HEALY: Will the right hon. Gentleman remember that St. Patrick's Day falls on the 17th March?
The PRIME MINISTER: I will consider that. The right hon. Gentleman opposite knows that the same necessity for passing the Budget before the 31st March does not exist as exists in Supply.
Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: I think the matter is of some importance to others besides us in the House, and I am sure therefore the right hon. Gentleman will not object to my putting a further question. Is he going to pass the Resolutions, or the equivalent to the ordinary Resolutions, as early as he can and therefore to begin his collection of Income Tax at once, or will he hold over the collection of Income Tax until perhaps after the close of the financial year?
The PRIME MINISTER: It is not a matter of so much importance as it seems at first sight, because even if we did that it would only alter the dates for about a week. But, as at present advised, we do not see our way to separate the various Resolutions which form the Budget, and to take one separately in contradistinction to another. I do not wish to commit myself at this moment to the precise form. I think I have said as much as can fairly be expected of me at this stage. I have made it perfectly clear we mean to pass the Budget and get it through before we adjourn for the Spring Recess, and that it shall not pass from the control of the House until the decision of the House has been taken on the Lords Resolution.
Mr. KEIR HARDIE: May I ask whether it is intended to send these Resolutions to the House of Lords before the Budget passes from the control of this House?
The PRIME MINISTER: As at present advised, I do not propose to send the Resolutions to the House of Lords at all. The Resolutions are an expression of the opinion of the House of Commons and the authority of the Government to proceed to embody their principles in the Bill which they mean to submit to the House. That is the mode of procedure which after much consideration the Government have deter-

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mined to recommend to the House. If the majority of the House are content with it, well and good; if not, we must, of course, bow to their decision. The Parliamentary situation—and here I agree with the right hon. Gentleman—is an unexampled one. There are abundant temptations even to those who are saturated with that greed for office which is always attributed by popular imagination to the occupants for the time being of these benches—there are abundant temptations even to those who are most avid in matters of that kind to discover some easy way of escape. But the situation, though a difficult one, is one which in my opinion makes it the duty of those who are responsible for the government of this country and for the conduct of the affairs of this House to use every effort in their power to bring about this great fundamental preliminary reform of which we believe a large majority of the people are in favour. We can only successfully prosecute that task to a successful completion by concentration and reciprocal confidence. Speaking for myself and my colleagues, I can say with a clear conscience we have, in this matter, only two objects in view. The first is, as far as we are responsible for it, to carry on the King's Government with credit and efficiency, and on the other hand to put an end at the earliest possible moment by the wisest and most adequate methods we can devise to the constitutional condition which enables a non-representative and irresponsible authority to thwart the purposes and mutilate the handiwork of the chosen exponents of the peoples' will. I have omitted a most important part—that it will be our first duty, perhaps as soon as the Address is concluded, to take private Members' days, and even ecclesiastical holidays, during the time this necessary work is being done. Hon. Members should know this for the purposes of the ballot to-morrow.
Mr. JOHN REDMOND: I rise to give expression to a point of view entirely different from that of the right hon. Gentleman who has just spoken. And perhaps it is well that, at the earliest moment in the new Parliament, the fact should be emphasised that the Irish Nationalist Members, although they have been freely included in the calculations of the Government majority by the British Press, in reality stand, as they always stood, apart and independent, and allied to no British
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party, but prepared to accept what they consider good measures for Ireland from any British party in turn. The Leader of the Opposition deplored the change in Parliament which has sprung from the appearance of a number of groups, but he is strangely forgetful of the fact that he himself was a member—in my recollection—of a distinguished group called the Fourth party, consisting, I believe, of four men. I pass that by with this further remark, that he cannot regard the Nationalist representatives in the House as a group in that sense of the word. They are the representatives of the majority of the Irish people. They have been in an independent position, refusing to ally themselves with any political party in this House for over thirty years, and so they will remain; and if that state of things is an embarrassment to British Governments and a cause of friction and trouble in the working of the British Constitution, the remedy is simple and is in your hands. We have been pointing out all these thirty years that it is a mistake to bring representatives from Ireland forcibly to this House, and make them interfere in British matters about which they know nothing, instead of allowing them to remain at home, and in their own humble way attend to their own humdrum Irish matters. Our only business in coming to this House at all is to advance the cause which the right hon. Gentleman, in his Albert Hall speech, rightly called the cause of full self-government for Ireland in all purely Irish affairs. Your British politics do not concern us, except so far as they impinge on the fortunes of our country. We therefore necessarily belong to no English party, and I take leave to say to those who have been so glibly including us in calculating majorities in this House that they have no title or warrant to do so, and that our votes will in this Parliament, as in past Parliaments, be directed by one sole consideration—by what we regard to be the interest for the time being of Ireland.
At the last election we supported the Government heart and soul. Why did we do it? The Leader of the Opposition is curious upon that point. He gave us his explanation. I will give mine. We did not support the Government at the last election, as the Leader of the Opposition seems to think, simply on the Home Rule declaration of the Prime Minister. That declaration was a very important one from our point of view. The Prime

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Minister informed the House in the last Parliament that he and his colleagues felt themselves precluded from dealing with Home Rule in that Parliament, and they tried their hand in dealing with Irish problems by introducing what they regarded as a half measure in the shape of an Irish Councils Bill. The declaration of the Prime Minister was to this effect—that he no longer trusted to half measures, that he and his Government and his party believed in granting to Ireland a full measure of self-government in purely Irish affairs, and, secondly, that the self-denying ordinance which prevented him from dealing with the measure in the last Parliament was to disappear, and this Parliament was to be quite free, so far as he and his party were concerned, to introduce a full measure of self-government for Ireland. That was a most important declaration, but I may tell the Leader of the Opposition that that was not the sole reason why we supported the Government heart and soul at the last election. We supported the Government because that pledge on Home Rule was supplemented by a pledge which we regarded from our point of view as more important still—namely, the pledge which was given with reference to the veto of the House of Lords. We regarded the abolition or limitation of the veto of the House of Lords as tantamount to the granting of Home Rule to Ireland.
Mr. BALFOUR: Hear, hear.
Mr. JOHN REDMOND: I know the simple nature of the Leader of the Opposition, yet I am surprised that he has expressed any astonishment at that statement.
Mr. BALFOUR: I have expressed no surprise.
Mr. JOHN REDMOND: Yes, you are surprised to find me agreeing with what you stated. That is a statement with which I entirely agree, and when the Prime Minister pledged himself not to hold office or assume office unless he could pass the Bill dealing with the veto, then we determined to support the Government. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister will, I am sure, acquit me of any desire to attribute anything in the nature of untruthfulness or prevarication to him. If he says he did not mean it I will accept it, but this is a very serious matter. Allow me to read the words of
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the right hon. Gentleman as spoken in the Albert Hall. He said:
"We shall not assume office, and we shall not hold office, unless we can secure the safeguards which experience shows us to be necessary for the legislative utility and honour of the party of progress."That pledge was repeated in substance by every other Minister, as far as I know, on different platforms. I also have been studying the speeches of Cabinet Ministers during the election. I am not sure that I have had the time or patience to read 149 of them, but I have read a great many, and I have in my possession a pile of extracts in which in substance that pledge was repeated here, there, and everywhere throughout the United Kingdom. We understood the right hon. Gentleman to mean by that declaration that he and his colleagues would not remain responsible for the government of this realm unless he had safeguards, assurances, guarantees—call them what you like—that he might, if necessary, rely on the Royal Prerogative to enable him to pass a Veto Bill through Parliament this year. He has told us tonight that he meant by safeguards the passage of an Act of Parliament. I saw that explanation given the other day in the London "Times," but I could not imagine that if that were the meaning of the right hon. Gentleman he would have remained silent in the face of the universal interpretation in another direction of his speech and allow "The Times" to enlighten the world as to what he meant. I would remind the right hon. Gentleman that his words as I have quoted them are not consistent with the explanation. He says here, "I will not assume office unless I am safeguarded." That is not this case, because he is in office, but I put it to him, supposing that he were defeated and did not come back to this Parliament, supposing that he were elected again for a new Parliament, his pledge would hold good. It was not a pledge for to-day or tomorrow, it was a pledge for the Liberal party for all time. Then he would be called upon by the Sovereign to assume office, but he says he would not have assumed office unless he had his safeguard.
He says that safeguard is an Act of Parliament, but would it not be nonsense for him to say to the Sovereign under those circumstances, "I will not assume office unless you pass an Act of Parliament," the passage of an Act of Parliament being impossible unless he assumed office? I say the words are not consistent with that interpretation, but, anyway, what I rely upon is this, that that was the general

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interpretation placed upon his words—I say that that was the general interpretation placed in this country as well as in Ireland upon his words, and I say that that interpretation was expressed by the entire Press of this country, Liberal and Conservative—that interpretation was expressed on thousands of platforms, and I am sure that there are innumerable men on that side of the House listening to me who have explained and interpreted that pledge in the way that I interpreted it and my Friends interpreted it. I said that the Ministers interpreted it in that way. I will not attempt to weary the House by a lot of quotations, but let me read one only in which I think the pledge was made in even a more explicit form than in the Albert Hall form. In one of the speeches of the Chancellor of the Exchequer—I think it was the one he delivered in the National Liberal Club and republished by him in the pamphlet which is on sale at every bookstall in England at the present moment—he used these words:—
"For my part, I would not remain a member of a Liberal Cabinet one hour unless I knew that that Cabinet had determined not to hold office after the next General Election unless full powers are accorded to them which would enable them to place on the Statute Book of the realm a measure to ensure the limitation of the veto."It is all very fine for the right hon. Gentleman to say that he meant something else, and I accept his word, as I have said, but what are poor simple people like ourselves to understand when we find a pledge of that sort interpreted in only one way all over the United Kingdom, in England, Ireland and Scotland, and repeated in even more explicit terms by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the man who was responsible for the Budget, and the man who I am assured was largely responsible for carrying the measure at the last General Election. There was no attempt, as I say, to contradict the interpretation which was freely put upon the statement, or to explain it away. Not a word was said in the Press, no hint was given to any Cabinet Minister or any Liberal candidate that that was not what was meant. No, I say all through the Election and down to this moment the universal belief among all parties in this country—I know among all parties in Ireland—the belief was that the Government had given a pledge that they would ask for guarantees as to the use of the Royal prerogative, and if they did not get those guarantees they would decline to hold office. It was on the faith of that pledge, taken in conjunction with the
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Home Rule pledge, that we supported the Government at the last General Election, and as to the value of that support there is not one man on that side of the House who will have any question or doubt. I myself went into Yorkshire and Lancashire, and I organised the Irish vote.
Mr. T. M. HEALY: And Louth.
Mr. JOHN REDMOND: And I organised the Irish vote and the Nationalist vote in Louth to some purpose. I went, as I say, to Lancashire and Yorkshire, and organised the Irish vote, and got them, as I think will be admitted by every man who knows, to support the Government with a unity and enthusiasm which they had never shown before at any General Election. One argument that I used to them was that the return of the right hon. Gentleman would mean either that the Government would refuse to take office and they would go from one crisis to another until this question was settled, or else the right hon. Gentleman would obtain the necessary guarantees from the Sovereign. Now it appears that we were entirely wrong. The right hon. Gentleman made one argument which appealed, I confess, strongly to me. He seemed to think that the claim put forward by someone or other about these guarantees was that he should go to the Sovereign immediately, before he had his scheme prepared, before he had introduced his scheme before we had seen it, before the House of Commons had spoken upon it or decided upon it—he should go to the Sovereign and ask him to give him a blank guarantee, enabling him in any event to deal as he thinks fit with the veto under a scheme which had not been seen when the scheme was not known and when it had not been seen by the Government itself. I do not know the Gentleman who made that proposal. I never made any suggestion of that kind. I admit it would be unreasonable, it would be absurd, to expect any constitutional Sovereign to say, "I give you a blank guarantee which would enable you by my Royal prerogative to carry any measure you like without reference to what it is." That to my mind would be an unanswerable argument for the production of the scheme of veto by the right hon. Gentleman. I say that not an hour should be lost about it. It stands in a doubtful and ambiguous position at this moment. From the words of the King's Speech I do not know whether this is some great scheme for the reform of the House of Lords, for altering its whole constitution. That is

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not what we were led to believe, and, as far as I am concerned, that is not what I want. I want the veto limited. When you have limited the veto then you yourselves, if you like, can go on reforming the constitution of the Lords, or you can leave it to the ardent supporters of the Conservative party to do so. I say that not an hour should be lost in producing these Resolutions, at any rate. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman has entirely considered his plan of Resolutions. I remember in the Parliament before last, when the present Leader of the Opposition proposed to proceed on the question of redistribution by Resolution, it was found that under the Rules of the House a Resolution containing details and so forth of that character would have to be practically debated in Committee line by line, as if they were the Clauses of a Bill. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman has considered the length of time it would probably take to get through a Resolution of that kind in this House. I listened with sympathy to the question asked by my hon. Friend (Mr. Keir Hardie) whether this Resolution was going to be sent to both Houses. I think that was a most pertinent question. I will tell you that from my point of view, if the Resolutions are satisfactory to the House of Commons and pass with a large majority in this House of Commons, if the Resolutions were rejected by an overwhelming majority in the House of Lords, then you would be in a position to go to the Sovereign, not only with detailed information as to what your scheme was, but you would be able to say to him, "Here we are now, seized with notice by the House of Lords that when a Bill framed on these Resolutions goes up to them they will throw it out," and in that contingency my belief is that, instead of going on for months ploughing the sands with a futile discussion on the Clauses of a Bill which you have received formal notice will never pass, you ought then to ask for your guarantees from your Sovereign, and if the Sovereign refused them, you ought at once to free yourselves from any responsibility for the government of the country.
What is the alternative policy? I do not stop to worry for a moment about what the Prime Minister called the necessary Supply. Without saying I, under any circumstances, would support the Supplementary Estimates, at the same time trying to look at it from his point of view, I see that it is essential for any Government of this country to make provision, either by
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further borrowing powers or by Supplementary Estimates, or in some way, to prevent the services of the country coming to an end for the two, three, or four weeks' delay which will be necessary. I put that on one side, therefore, but the alternative policy of the right hon. Gentleman is to introduce and to pass into law the Budget before we are satisfied—before we receive any reasonable assurance whatever—that the Bill dealing with the veto can pass into law this year or in this Parliament All I take the liberty of saying is that, in my judgment, that is a disastrous policy. In my deliberate opinion that will be throwing away and wasting the mandate you got from the country at the last election. The issue at the last election is abundantly evident from the speeches we have already heard. It was not the Budget, but it was the unconstitutional action of the Lords in rejecting the Budget. Now it is proposed to send the Budget back to the House of Lords, not under a new system of constitution where they would be forced to carry it, but to send it back under the old system, and to ask them once again, not as a right, but as a favour, to to pass it. In that way you remove all the financial crisis that exists. In that way you will postpone any chance of forcing the veto policy to success. The right hon. Gentleman said in his election address—it is a rather solemn document for the Prime Minister of the country, more serious, I think, even than the Albert Hall speech:—
"There is a larger issue still. The claim of the House of Lords to control finance is novel and a mere usurpation. The experience of the Parliament which has to-day been dissolved shows that the possession of an unlimited veto by a partisan second Chamber is an insuperable obstacle to democratic legislation."He went on to say:—
"The limitation of this veto, is the first and most urgent step to be taken."I respectfully say that was in the mind of the country. I have a bundle of speeches where that statement, that the first and most urgent business of Parliament was to be the veto, is repeated again and again by Minister after Minister. The Chief Secretary for Ireland went further than anyone. He said:—
"The Budget may be important, and Free Trade may be important, but the veto is the thing."The Secretary for Foreign Affairs was as emphatic as anyone. He declared again and again that the question of the power of the House of Lords was the great issue of this election. In his election address he said:—
"It would be an outrage on democratic institutions that the right to force a dissolution should be conceded to the House of Lords."

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They have already forced one dissolution, and you are going now to enable them on your Veto Bill to force a second dissolution inside one year. In my judgment, if you postpone the Veto Bill and send the Budget to the House of Lords, you will justify to a large extent, in the minds of many people, the action of the House of Lords. Remember what their action was. They said, "We do not claim the right to throw out this Bill. All we claim is the right to make sure that the people want it." If you send up the Budget to them without any further protest, then the passage of a Resolution through this House, with the promise of a Bill to go through its stages in the summer, with no assurance that it would pass, will largely, in the minds of many people, justify the House of Lords, you will certainly throw the veto question into a second and subordinate place, and the revolution will be gone. We will be all expected to settle down here quietly in a humdrum fashion for months in a futile discussion of the clauses of a Bill which we all know is certain to be rejected, and then, when all the enthusiasm is dead, late in the year, after several months of this work, you will have a General Election, and in my judgment, under these conditions, you will be beaten by a wearied and disheartened electorate. But it is said—the Prime Minister was not so strong on this as one would imagine—the Budget must be passed immediately to prevent chaos and confusion and loss. That statement has been grossly exaggerated in a great many newspapers in this country. There is financial confusion no doubt. There is a certain amount of what is called financial chaos and a certain amount of loss, but whose fault is it? The financial crisis that exists, if it were allowed to continue on for four or five weeks longer, would not seriously hurt the British Empire and would not seriously intensify the dangers and confusion of the present moment. That financial crisis is a great weapon in your hands. It is a great lever in your hands, and I believe you would throw it away the very moment that you pass the Budget and trust to luck or to another General Election to enable you to get your Veto Bill. We in Ireland are not going to throw away that weapon.
Let me recall to the House in two or three brief words what was our attitude on this Budget last year. The Leader of
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the Opposition was accurate as far as he went, but he did not present the full picture. When the Budget was introduced, the very night that the Chancellor made his memorable statement, I spoke from these benches and at once entered my protest against what I regarded as an unjust Budget to Ireland. Of course, I have regarded every Budget, except that of 1908, as unjust to Ireland ever since the Act of Union, and it is rather interesting for me to recall that, except on the Old Age Pensions Budget, I do not think I ever voted in favour of the Second Reading of a Budget Bill in this House. I protested against this Bill instantly. We took up the Resolutions on which the Bill was founded. Some of these Resolutions we supported because we were in agreement with the principle underlying some of the new taxes. Taxes like the Increment Tax and others we had been for 30 years advocating in this House, but the other taxes that we disapproved of we spoke and voted against. We came to the Second Reading of the Bill, and the whole of my colleagues voted in a solid body against it. We did our best in Committee. We opposed many parts of it, and we supported other parts that we thought in principle we could support. We obtained very considerable concessions from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, which we acknowledged gratefully at the time, concessions which relieved large sections of the Irish people from the burden that is cast upon them, and then we came to the Third Reading of the Bill. It is quite true that we abstained from voting. There was never any question of our voting for the Third Reading of that Bill. It was a question of our voting against it or abstaining. We abstained for two perfectly clear and distinct reasons, one really not dependent on the other although each influencing the other in our minds. First, these large concessions that we got—but those alone would not have induced us to abstain. We abstained because a great constitutional question had arisen. It then was certain that the Budget was not going to pass. We then were seized with notice on behalf of the House of Lords that the Bill was going to be defeated. Every man in the street knew it was going to be defeated. We knew then that this great constitutional issue was going to arise. We declined by a vote, which in practice would have had no effect, to give any show of additional strength to the House of Lords. That is the reason that

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we did not vote against the Third Reading of the Bill.
8.0 P.M.
To-day we are prepared to go further. I stated the other day in Ireland, and I repeat here, let the right hon. Gentleman give us reasonable assurances that he would be able to carry his Veto Bill into law this year, and we will not abstain from voting on the Budget. We will vote for it. We are willing to pay that price, but we are not willing to pay that price for nothing, or for the absolute uncertainty which we believe will end in a situation of disaster and defeat. I do not know what course the situation may take or how it may develop. The situation may yet be saved. I must say to the Prime Minister, and to all his colleagues, that I and my friends on these benches are sincerely anxious to support them in their efforts to deal with the veto of the House of Lords. We are not seeking to create a new crisis or to drive them from office. If anything of that kind happens it will be bad for them and it will be bad for us. We are looking at the situation all round. We are not seeking a quarrel. We are not desiring any break, but we cannot in this matter walk blindfolded. We cannot be a party to a policy of ploughing the sands once more. We cannot be a party to a policy of deliberately, in our judgment, throwing away the great mandate that you received from the electors at the last General Election by acquiescing in the passing of the Budget and ending the financial crisis, and acquiescing in your obtaining no guarantees as to the future of the Veto Bill, acquiescing in going on with the humdrum details of an ordinary Session of Parliament until the time would come when you will pass your Bill through this House, and when you certainly, as you will, know it will be rejected in the other, and when then you will have to go to an election with a fifty times worse chance of success for yourself and your party than you would have if you played a bold and straightforward course now. Whatever the Prime Minister meant by his pledge at the Albert Hall, and whatever we understood by that pledge, the bold policy is the only policy in my judgment for him. Let him say he will not, in the spirit of that pledge, as it was understood, make himself responsible for the government of this country unless he has assurances that he will be able to curb this veto of the House of Lords. On that issue let him go to his countrymen, and do not let him wait till he is kicked to the constituencies once
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again by the action of the House of Lords. I made a speech the other day in Dublin which attracted far more attention in this country than it deserved, and which has been a good deal misrepresented and misquoted. I said then, and I say now, that if the Prime Minister is not in a position to say that he has such guarantees as are necessary to enable him to pass a Veto Bill this year, and if in spite of that, he intends to remain in office and proposes to pass the Budget into law and then to adjourn—I do not care for how long or how short—the consideration of the Bill dealing with the veto of the House of Lords, that is a policy which Ireland cannot and will not uphold.
Mr. G. N. BARNES: I beg to move "That the Debate be now adjourned."
Sir A. ACLAND HOOD: I think it would be more for the convenience of the House if the general discussion on the Address were continued till a later period of the evening, for arrangements have been made for the right hon. Member for East Worcestershire (Mr. Austen Chamberlain) to move the adjournment of the Debate in order that the official Amendment of the Opposition may be moved to-morrow.
Mr. BALFOUR: We are in a very special position to-night. The speech of the Prime Minister and the speech of the Leader of the Irish Party are speeches of the greatest importance. I understand that the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Barnes), who has just moved the adjournment of the Debate, is anxious himself to deal with the situation which has been raised by those speeches.
Mr. BARNES: I am anxious to deal with the situation as from our own distinctive point of view, but we have made arrangements unfortunately to meet and discuss that point of view before taking part in the Debate.
Mr. BALFOUR: Really, the position appears to me to be this. The hon. Member opposite speaks on behalf of the Labour Party, and no one will grudge him that privilege. The real difficulty is that the Opposition have the privilege, and no man will grudge them the privilege of moving what is called the Front Bench Amendment. I suspect there will be other Amendments. I have never known a case where there were not other Amendments to the Address expressing regret that His Majesty had not mentioned other

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matters in his speech. I presume, therefore, there will be other Amendments. If the Debate on the Address is to close early, and I am sure that it cannot be prolonged in view of the immense programme of business of which the Prime Minister told us to-night, it is very desirable that the general discussion should go on to-night. I have nothing to say against the adjournment of the Debate, provided that our privileges are not interfered with, and if the Prime Minister thinks it on the whole right to accept the Motion for Adjournment, and continue on Tuesday the general discussion, giving us first place on Wednesday, we shall raise no objection from this Bench. I thought I might be allowed, on the part of the Opposition, to explain how this proposal appeared to us.
The PRIME MINISTER: I quite recognise what the right hon. Gentleman opposite has said, that it has always been the custom for what is called the official Opposition Amendment to have first place, and that it should come early in the Debate on the Address. I do not know what form the Amendment on this occasion will take, nor do I know how long the right hon. Gentleman wishes the discussion to last, or whether he wants more than one night.
Mr. BALFOUR: Two nights.
The PRIME MINISTER: We must bring the Debate on the Address to a close this week, in view of the business to be gone through. At the same time I do not know that I would like to deprive my hon. Friend (Mr. Barnes) of the right of moving the adjournment of the Debate, for he has given a good reason for adjournment—one of the best reasons I ever heard. I think the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Balfour) might be content with one night for the official Opposition Amendment.
Mr. F. E. SMITH: Might I suggest that an adjournment of an hour should take place in order that the Labour party might decide on their policy?
Mr. W. THORNE: We have already made up our minds. You need not worry.
Mr. F. E. SMITH: If you have already made up your minds why adjourn? If the Debate were continued to-night to a later hour the official Opposition would have two nights for their Debate.
Mr. KEIR HARDIE: There are others besides the Labour party who are interested in the situation at this moment,
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which is about the most serious that any of us, no matter how old his connection with the House, has ever been confronted with at the opening of a Session. We have heard speeches fraught with the most important consequences, and I think that I am speaking in accordance with the memory of Members who have been here for years when I say that it is not customary on the opening night of the Session to prolong the Debate unduly. The general custom is to adjourn about this hour. I do not say that there have been no exceptions. I speak of what has been the general custom. It appears to me that it would be well for the House to agree to the Motion of my hon. Friend, not merely to give the Labour party time to think of all that has been said, but to give all sections of the House time for reflection. This is one of those cases where many words simply confuse wisdom. There is nothing more to be said, apart from the speeches which we have just heard, to represent the official views of the three parties, and it therefore appears to me that it would be not only following custom in this matter, but also showing an act of courtesy towards the component parts of the House that the Motion of my hon. Friend should be agreed to.
Sir FREDERICK BANBURY: I should say it is quite unusual on the opening night of the Session for the Debate on the Address to have such a very early adjournment. As a rule the Debate on the Address lasts nearly a fortnight. My recollection is that when hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite were on this side of the House the Debate lasted very much longer than a fortnight. Now we have been told by the Prime Minister that the Debate is to close this week. I understand that the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. Keir Hardie) desires that there should be plenty of discussion on the proposals of the Government, and yet it is proposed that the Debate should close to-night when only three Members have spoken in addition to the Mover and Seconder of the Address. We must not consent to adjourn the Debate merely because it is inconvenient to one particular group to continue it. There are Members on our side of the House who are desirous of addressing the House upon the general question. If the Labour party have not all made up their minds what course to pursue, there is no necessity for them to stay in the House, and in the meantime we can continue the Debate without them. I agree with the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Keir

77
Hardie) that we are here discussing one of the most momentous crises in the history of the country, and we do not want to adjourn after three hours' Debate merely because hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway have not made up their minds. We have made up our minds. In view of the statement of the Prime Minister that everything has got to be settled before Easter with respect to the Budget, I would suggest that we should be allowed to continue the Debate until eleven o'clock.
The PRIME MINISTER: I would point out that at the close of the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Waterford (Mr. Redmond) nobody rose to continue the Debate.
Sir F. BANBURY: I would be very happy to do so.
The PRIME MINISTER: The hon. Baronet did not do so at the time. Under the circumstances it would appear to be reasonable to agree to the Motion for adjournment
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moved by my hon. Friend, more particularly as we are always in the habit of adjourning early on the first night. As regards the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. A. J. Balfour), I undertake that he shall have two nights.
Mr. BELLOC: I think I speak the view of many hon. Members when I say that it ought not to be within the power of one man or another to negotiate as to when this House shall adjourn. The House of Commons loses its right in that way. We have seen to-night how far the rights of the House may be infringed by the operation of the party discipline system, to which more and more hon. Members are objecting every day.
Question, "That the Debate be now adjourned"—[Mr. G. N. Barnes.]—put, and agreed to.
Resolved, "That this House do now adjourn."—[The Master of Elibank.]
House adjourned at Fifteen minutes past Eight o'clock.

Preamble
Several Lords Several Lords—Took the Oath.
House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.

THE KING'S SPEECH.
THE KING THE KING, being seated on the Throne, and the Commons being at the Bar with their SPEAKER, His Majesty was pleased to make a most gracious Speech to both Houses of Parliament, and then retired.
His Majesty's Speech was as follows:—
"My Lords, and Gentlemen,
"My relations with all foreign Powers continue to be friendly.
"The establishment of the Union of South Africa has been fixed at the end of May, when its new Government will be constituted, and soon afterwards the first Parliament, representing a consolidated electorate, will be ready to assemble for its important deliberations.
"I am sending My son, the Prince of Wales, to make an extended journey through My South African possessions in the autumn, before opening, in My name, the first Session of the new Legislature at Cape Town.
"It is with peculiar interest and pleasure that I contemplate this visit, when My son will have the privilege, not for the first time, of inaugurating the Parliamentary life of a great united Dominion, and will convey to South Africa, on behalf of Myself and the Empire, our ardent prayers for the welfare and future progress of her people.
"In conformity to the important Measure of last year for extending the functions of the Legislative Councils in India and increasing the number of their Members, those bodies have been elected, and have met. They have entered, with good promise, upon the enlarged duties and responsibilities entrusted to them.
"Gentlemen of the House of Commons,
"The Estimates for the service of the ensuing year will be laid before you in due course. They have been framed with the utmost desire for economy; but the requirements of the Naval Defence of the Empire have made it necessary to propose a substantial increase in the cost of My Navy.
"You will also be asked to complete the provision which was made in the last Session of Parliament for the year about to expire, but to which effect has not yet been given.
"The expenditure authorised by the last Parliament is being duly incurred; but as the revenue required to meet it has not been provided by the imposition of taxation, recourse has been had, under Parliamentary sanction, to temporary borrowing. Arrangements must be made at the earliest possible moment to deal with the financial situation thus created.
"My Lords, and Gentlemen,
"Recent experience has disclosed serious difficulties, due to recurring differences of strong opinion between the two branches of the Legislature.
"Proposals will be laid before you, with all convenient speed, to define the relations between the Houses of Parliament, so as to secure the undivided authority of the House of Commons over Finance, and its predominance in Legislation. These Measures, in the opinion of My advisers, should provide that this House should be so constituted and empowered as to exercise impartially, in regard to proposed legislation, the functions of initiation, revision, and, subject to proper safeguards, of delay.
"I pray that the blessing of Almighty God may attend your labours."
House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House that the Clerk of the Parliaments had received (by post) from the Lord Clerk Register of Scotland, and had laid upon the Table minutes of the meeting held on the 28th of January last of the Peers of Scotland for the election of their representatives to sit and vote in the ensuing Parlia-
6
ment of the United Kingdom; and also' return by the Lord Clerk Register of Scotland concerning titles of peerages called at the said meeting in right of which respectively no vote had been received and counted for fifty years last past as at the date of the said meeting: Ordered that the said minutes of election, &c., be printed. (No. 1.)

ROLL OF THE LORDS.
Garter King of Arms attending, delivered at the Table (in the usual manner) a List of the Lords Temporal in the First Session of the Twenty-ninth Parliament of the United Kingdom: The same was ordered to lie on the Table.
Several Lords Several Lords—Took the Oath.
His Royal Highness the PRINCE OF WALES—Singly took the Oath.
Several Lords Several Lords—Took the Oath.

SELECT VESTRIES.
Bill, pro formâ, read 1a.

ADDRESS IN REPLY TO HIS MAJESTY'S MOST GRACIOUS SPEECH.
LORD FARRER: My Lords, in rising to move that an humble Address be presented to His Majesty in reply to the gracious Speech from the Throne I am sensible that the kind indulgence which this House invariably extends to those who are entrusted with this most responsible duty is more than ever necessary at the present juncture in public affairs. A condition exists to-day which has been described by the noble Earl, Lord Rosebery, once leader of this House, as more serious than any within living memory. That veteran statesman Lord Wemyss—I do not think he is here to-night, but I am sure we all rejoice that he is still among us—recently told us in a letter to the public Press that he had had an experience of forty-two years in one House and of twenty-seven years in the other. But even he does not carry his memory back to the period of 1832, the only period of modern English history which I think can be in any way compared to the present.

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I assure your Lordships that, in the quaint, charming, and almost biblical language of our Standing Order No. XXVIII, so far as I am concerned "all personal, sharp, or taxing speech shall be forborn," and I hope also that "as nothing offensive is to be spoken, so nothing will be ill-taken." For no reasoning man who cares for the welfare of his country can help feeling that pure Party strife will have to be banished if the deliberations which must form the chief subject of debate this session are to result in permanent good to our country.
The first paragraph of the gracious Speech informs us that the relations with all foreign Powers continue to be friendly. Those who have lived through the storm and stress of the last ten or fifteen years, to whatever Party they belong, will not, I think, minimise the importance of these words, or fail to subscribe to the sentiment of thankfulness that the greatest of British interests—the peace of the world—remains unbroken. With regard to the affairs of South Africa, so many of your Lordships have had a sad experience of that part of the world that they will not fail to be thankful for the assurance that the date of the Union is now fixed, that the first United Parliament representing the consolidated electorate is about to assemble, and that this Parliament—the fruit of concession and goodwill following a period of lamentable strife—is to be opened under the happy auspices of the visit of the Prince of Wales. No one in this Assembly will fail to re-echo the sentiments of the gracious Speech that the welfare and future progress of that great people may be assisted by the consideration of His Majesty in sending his son to inaugurate this happy and bloodless ceremony. In our late debates we heard more than once of—
Freedom broadening slowly down from precedent to precedent."
Those who recollect the splendid poem from which those oft-quoted lines are taken may also recollect the previous stanza—
"It is the land that freemen till
That sober-seated Freedom chose,
The land where girt by friends or foes
A man may speak the thing he will."
It is, I believe, the devout hope of all of us that that noble ideal of a country pictured by Lord Tennyson may follow the Prince's visit to South Africa, as it has followed his "precedent" in Australia, where the United Parliament was opened by His Royal Highness in 1901.
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Turning to the great Empire of India, which, though perhaps in recent years it has not loomed quite so much in the public eye as His Majesty's South African possessions, yet contains nearly 295 millions of His Majesty's subjects, we are told that the Legislative Councils have entered with good promise upon the enlarged duties and responsibilities entrusted to them. The recent debates in your Lordships' House on this subject were serious, prolonged, and deeply interesting. I believe that all who listened to them felt a certain awe at the vast interests involved and the huge problems opened by those debates. The whole questions of Western and Eastern civilization, of the gradual assimilation of the ideas of each by the other, and the proper limits of autocratic government were debated in this House, at great length, and I think we may congratulate ourselves that they were debated without Party passion, and the result was practically arrived at by consent. It must, therefore, be a satisfaction to all to hear that the results have promise of success, and of adding fresh lustre to the work of those who, I think, are often too little considered—that vast Civil Service of India, who patiently spend their lives for their country's interests, without open show or reward, and are content with Henry Lawrence's celebrated epitaph that they have "striven to do their duty."
From the survey of the distant parts of the world, the world which the weary Titan bears upon his shoulders, the gracious Speech turns to domestic matters, which have, perhaps, absorbed in recent months a greater, though I do not say a disproportionate, share of public attention. We are told that with the utmost desire for economy a substantial increase has been found necessary in the Navy Estimates. Those who sit on this side of the House are sometimes accused—not, of course, in this House, but outside in the country—of undue parsimony in matters of this kind; but insurance, as everybody who has to do with finance knows, is one of the most difficult and complicated problems that can be conceived. Only those who know the risks can fully settle what premium they are willing to pay; and having said this it must, of course, also be true that the premium to be paid must depend on the length of the purse. There is one point in connection with this that we cannot too often consider—namely, that defence is not the only expenditure which is increasing very rapidly.

9
Even in our own marvellously wealthy country your Lordships have often been reminded by Leaders of the House on both sides—I remember two cases at any rate: Lord Salisbury and Lord Rosebery—as well as by all those who have held high administrative positions in the financial affairs of this country, that the purse of no nation is unlimited, and I sometimes think of the Latin maxim we were taught at school: Magnum est vectigal parsimonia.
I recollect very well that in the first debate in which I had the honour of taking part in your Lordships' House, the late Lord Salisbury pointed out that if a nation doubled its national expenditure in twenty years and trebled its local expenditure in the same time it could not possibly go on for ever in that ratio without serious trouble and disaster; and so many of your Lordships take great part in the local affairs of this country that they must well know how serious is the local burden. No system of taxation, I believe, can be found that can ultimately meet this vast expenditure. I sometimes have listened to diatribes on this subject in other places, but I do not believe the matter has been better expressed than in the immortal words of Mr. Micawber in "David Copperfield"—
"My other piece of advice, Copperfield,' said Mr. Micawber, ' you know. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six; result, happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six; result, misery. The blossom is blighted, the leaf is withered, the God of Day goes down upon the dreary scene, and—in short, you are for ever floored.'"
My Lords, I now approach the final paragraph of the gracious Speech, which, perhaps, in some ways may be likened to a postscript of a lady's letter as containing the matter most interesting to all of us at the present time. It is, of course, impossible to pretend that "differences of strong opinion" have not arisen and are not arising on this question. But I think we shall all agree that this is not the moment to accentuate those differences. It will, I hope, be agreed that the statement made in the gracious Speech is a clear and unequivocal expression which will afford your Lordships with all convenient speed the opportunity of discussing at full length this grave question. As I have said before, the tremendous nature of this crisis in our history is, I am sure, fully appreciated by everyone in this House. Nor do I for one desire to question the good faith of any of
10
the methods by which this matter has been raised. A good many wild and whirling words have been heard outside, but the very fact of the variety of opinion expressed by members of your Lordships' House is proof, I think, that change is in the air, that it is hardly resisted in principle, and in some quite unexpected quarters is recognised almost as desirable. I will give a few instances.
The noble Earl, Lord Onslow, who presides over the Committees of this House, in a letter to the public Press the other day talked of the need of a breath of fresh air, following, I suppose, the advice of his late leader, Lord Beaconsfield, who began a speech with the words, Sanitas, sanitas omnia sanitas. In thinking over Lord Onslow's letter I happened to recollect that the windows of your Lordships' House, in which the noble Earl spends so many hours, actually open to the outer air. There is, therefore, nothing betwixt the wind and our nobility; while in the adjoining Chamber the fresh air is, I understand, admitted through medicated cotton wool, and even so the influenza germ, which œquo pede pulsat pauperum tabernas, regumque turres, rages there with a virulence quite unknown here. Then, again, I see that several of your Lordships belong to, or at any rate attend the dinners of, that grand-sounding body, the British Constitutional Association. At a dinner given in honour of Mr. Harold Cox—alas, I was going to say, no longer M.P.—it was suggested by one of your Lordships that those who sit on Party Benches have to "pool their consciences," and that a series of items—each, I suppose, on his own pillar like St. Simeon Stylites—is the ideal form of government.
Then there is, of course, the scheme of Lord Rosebery's Committee, in which so many of your Lordships on the opposite Benches took part; there was the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Newton, whose speeches, if I may say so, often delight the House with their wit and humour; and there are the more serious mathematical propositions of my noble friends Lord Courtney and Lord Avebury. I only mention these facts to show the number of persons on both sides of the House who have proposed schemes of reform. I have tried to digest all these, and I even turned up the Abbé Sieyes, that constitution maker in general. I battened upon Stubbs, Hallam, Tod, and Erskine May, but they are severe

11
reading, and much to my joy I found a reference in the pages of the last named to that prince of writers and Tories, Sir Walter Scott. Indeed, it was to one of his best novels, "Rob Roy," that I was referred for his views on the ancient Scottish Constitution. I was glad to find that "Rob Roy" was referred to. Of one of the greatest American Ambassadors to this country, Mr. James Russell Lowell, this story is told: Oliver Wendell Holmes was supposed to be dying. Lowell went to see him and said, "How are you to-day, Oliver?" to which Holmes answered, "I don't know and I don't care, James; I am in the middle of 'Rob Roy.'" Well, in the middle of "Rob Roy" Andrew Fairservice, the typical Scots gardener, gives his opinion of the efficient Parliament, and with the permission of the House I will read his views on compromise as carried on in the British Parliament—
"And this is what they ca' explaining—the tane gies up a bit, and the tither gies up a bit, and a' friends again. Aweel, after the Commons' Parliament had tuggit, and rived, and ruggit at Morris and his rubbery till they were tired o't, the Lords' Parliament they behoved to hae their spell o't. In puir auld Scotland's Parliament they a' sate thegither, cheek for choul, and than they did na need to hae the same blethers twice ower again. But till't their lordships gaed wi' as muckle teeth and gude will, as if the matter had been a' speck and span new."
On looking up the history of this I found, much to my surprise, that in the old Scots Parliament they did all sit cheek by jowl. Do not let me for a moment be supposed to suggest that Andrew's solution is the right one, but I believe it to be historically true.
I hope I have shown what great varieties of opinion as to remedies there are even among your Lordships' own members; but I venture to hope that it is common ground that we should approach this question with all sincerity and sobriety of thought, and, above all, in an historical and not a polemical spirit. The noble Earl, Lord Rosebery, once suggested that when passions were greatly excited the study of astronomy formed the best possible sedative, because it inevitably made the observer feel what a small insignificant speck he formed in the vast unexplored masses of the universe. So with our deliberations to-day. We are only one of the twenty generations which have existed since Parliaments were formed, and I hope that we may not be one whit
12
less competent than our ancestors to deal with these questions when they arise. It has been said, I think by the historian Green, that Englishmen are so much occupied in making history that they seldom read it. There never was a time when it was more necessary to read history than to-day. We have behind us in this Mother of Parliaments 700 years of splendid traditions from the date when the Great Charter of 1216 put into definite writing those financial conventions which had been growing up as customs. In the words of the historian—
"The vague expressions of the older charters were now exchanged for precise and elaborate provisions. The bonds of unwritten custom, which the older grants did little more than recognise, had proved too weak, and the Baronage now threw them aside for the restraints of written law."
Human nature, especially English human nature, does not change very materially with the centuries, and we have hitherto found out methods of compromise to suit altering circumstances—not, I am proud to think, slavish copies of other nations, but original, living, and satisfactory working methods. It is, I believe, the desire of every Member of this House, without exception, that such methods may again be found, even if the Act involves compromise, and even though many of us may in the abstract prefer custom or common law to rules and Statutes. It is with the earnest and confident hope that such a way may be found that I beg to move that the following humble Address be presented to His Majesty:—"Most Gracious Sovereign, We, your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in Parliament assembled, beg leave to thank your Majesty for the most gracious Speech which your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament."
LORD SAYE AND SELE: My Lords, in rising to avail myself of the great honour given me of seconding the Address in reply to His Majesty's gracious Speech from the Throne, I cannot claim from your Lordships the indulgence you invariably give to those in my position under the First Offenders Act, for, although my offences have been but little ones, I have on one or two occasions trespassed for a few moments on your Lordships' time. Neither do I dare to ask for special indulgence, because I have been engaged recently in the country

13
strongly deprecating your Lordships' action in this House in a matter of common knowledge to all of us. But I shall plead with your Lordships on the ground of the record of my family—a record, save for my small offences, of silence for nigh on a hundred years; and this should guarantee your Lordships to some extent against a lengthy outburst of verbosity on my part on this occasion.
The satisfaction which His gracious Majesty must feel at our continued friendliness with all foreign Powers is doubtless shared with all respect by his loyal subjects throughout the Empire; and if the visit of any royal personage to our shores is an emblem of our friendship with the country from which he hails, then, in the words of the classic, we may say with fervour Ut veniunt omnes, which, I believe, liberally translated is "Let 'em all come."
My Lords, I turn to the paragraph in the gracious Speech relating to South Africa. However we may differ in politics, however sharply the line may be drawn between this and the other side of the House in many matters, here at any rate we are on common ground, rejoicing with common patriotism at the ending of strife and turmoil in South Africa. When I first put this uniform on [the noble Lord wore the uniform of a Colonel in the Royal Scots Fusiliers] it was on January 22, 1879, the day of the Isandlwana massacre of the 24th Regiment by the Zulus. A few weeks after that I landed at Durban, and for the greater part of the next two years was quartered in the Transvaal. I only trouble your Lordships with this personal reminiscence in order to emphasise how clearly I recollect, not only the deep-seated illwill of the Boer for the Briton, but also, to my regret, the like feeling in no way diluted of the Briton for the Boer. My Lords, on the mess table of my old regiment there lies at this moment a Union Jack enclosed in a casket. This flag flew over Pretoria during the siege of 1881. It was buried at the close of the siege to prevent its falling into the hands of the Boers, and it was subsequently dug up and brought to England by the regiment. Can any one doubt—indeed, does not every one know—that if that same flag was taken back to South Africa and hoisted in the same place on the same pole in Pretoria it would be reverenced to-day by Briton and Boer alike. And in the Speech from the Throne
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the crowning point of this glorious history is foretold. It will be in the recollection of your Lordships that in the year 1900 His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales—at that time Duke of York—was designated by our late beloved Queen to open the first Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, and that, in spite of the grievous event which afflicted our Royal House on January 22 of the following year, that expressed wish, by the command of His Majesty, was carried into effect on May 8. And now, my Lords, at the bidding again of his Royal Father, His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales is about to give further personal service to his King and country by opening, in the name of His Majesty, the first session of the new Legislature of South Africa.
The paragraph in the Speech relating to India will be noted with great interest by those of your Lordships who were present at the debate last year. Not only will the speech of the noble Viscount the Secretary of State for India be in vivid remembrance, but also the speeches of other noble Lords who, if they expressed gloomy forebodings, at least impressed us not only by their transparent sincerity but also by their devotion to the country which, in responsible positions, they had served with so much benefit to India and such credit to themselves—and if those gloomy forebodings prove, as the gracious Speech would happily seem to suggest, to be unfounded no one will more gladly hail them false prophets than the noble Lords themselves.
The next paragraph, my Lords, will be read with the deepest satisfaction by all classes throughout the length and breadth of this great Empire. While showing an earnest watchfulness over the resources of the nation, it recognises, in the cause of peace, the paramount necessity of a strong Navy. Whatever Government is in office those sentiments will always prevail, and Britain will never lack men to carry them into effect; and if one great man has just left the Admiralty Board whose work has been thorough and unflinching, another has succeeded him in whom the Navy has, and the country will shortly have, the greatest confidence. I pass over the next paragraph with simply an expression of deep admiration for the Treasury officials, who were left late last year in rather the position of a schoolboy whose promised

15
parental allowance has been lost in the post, who has got home for the holidays, no one quite knows how, and is awaiting the coming term with a light heart.
With a sigh of relief, in which your Lordships will doubtless join me, I turn to the last paragraph of the gracious Speech, and on this I would say but a few words and those with the deepest respect. I allude, of course, to the recent action of your Lordships' House and the outcome of that action. Patriotism finds its home in no particular Party; the desire to do that which is best for our country prevails in all our hearts. Here, then, again, is common ground between us. If we during the past four years have experienced feelings nigh akin to despair at the fate of many of our measures, you who differ from us must often have felt heavily oppressed by the weight of your vast but unrepresentative majority. With all respect, I liken noble Lords opposite to the trustee of a trust with a very wide investment clause, which carries with it deep and heavy responsibilities; and we on this side of the House are like a trustee with a very narrow clause, which scarcely allows us to get for our trust a beggarly three per cent. Surely we should all welcome relief from this manifestly unfair state of things, and if a Bill can be framed through which and by which a Second Chamber will come into existence which will faithfully interpret the will of the nation—which I humbly submit your Lordships' House as at present constituted does not do—then surely patriotism will prevail over party. Parliament will be secured against sudden and unnecessary upheaval, and a two-Chamber Government will be in vogue be the majority in another place Liberal or Conservative.
Moved, "That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty in reply to the gracious Speech from the Throne."—(Lord Farrer.)
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, the two noble Lords to whom we have just listened will, I have no doubt, hardly expect that we shall entirely concur with the whole of the observations which have fallen from them. But, nevertheless, we may, I trust, be permitted to congratulate them upon the manner in which they have discharged a not very easy task; and if I may go a little further I would single out for admiration the sobriety and
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moderation of the language in which they referred to some of the extremely controversial topics dealt with in the gracious Speech from the Throne—language which forms an agreeable contrast to other utterances which have occupied public attention during the last few weeks. Whatever may be the future destiny of this House, we may be permitted to express the hope that the two noble Lords opposite will have many opportunities of taking a useful part in our deliberations.
We shall certainly concur, and concur unreservedly, in what they said with regard to the first paragraph of the gracious Speech—that in which we are informed that His Majesty's relations with all foreign Powers continue to be of a friendly description—and we shall concur not less cordially in their observations upon the second and third paragraphs which deal with the intention of His Majesty to allow His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales to visit South Africa for the purpose of opening the new Parliament which will shortly assemble there. His Royal Highness will add yet another to the many services which members of the Royal Family have rendered to the Empire upon occasions of this kind. We trust that his visit will be interesting and instructive to him, and I think we may say without hesitation that His Majesty could not have chosen a more gracious or appropriate mode of signifying to his South African subjects his personal good will towards them and the sympathy which we feel with these great and rising communities. I noticed a few days ago a very interesting statement that an effort was being made in South Africa to inaugurate the new Parliament by combining in one Government a number of the foremost public men of the country without reference to Party. I gather that a sufficient amount of opposition has developed itself to this proposal to make it impossible of adoption. The matter clearly is one which only those upon the spot who are familiar with the local conditions have a right to comment upon. All that I think we can say upon the subject is that we should have rejoiced if it had proved practicable for the statesmen of South Africa to follow on this occasion the precedent set in similar epochs in the history of Canada and Australia; and if the attempt has, as I am afraid we must believe, not succeeded, it seems to me none the less creditable to those

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concerned in making it. May I interject the remark that the new South African Parliament will include a Senate which will be empowered, among other things, to reject money Bills?
The next paragraph in the Speech has reference to another question of local self-government in another part of His Majesty's Dominions—I refer to His Majesty's statement as to the first assemblage of the new Indian Legislative Councils. The noble Lord who seconded referred to the deflates which took place in this House when the Indian Councils Bill came up for consideration, and he said with great truth that there were some of us who then regarded with a certain amount of misgiving the proposal to give to India institutions following so far and so fully the Parliamentary model as we understand it in Western countries. We should have been culpable, having those feelings, if we had not expressed them, but the noble Lord is quite right when he says that no members of your Lordships' House will more cordially rejoice than we who offered those criticisms if it should prove to be the case that our misgivings were unfounded, and therefore we welcome the announcement that these new councils have entered with good promise upon their enlarged duties. I trust the noble Viscount opposite will not think me needlessly critical if I express slight astonishment that he should not have advised His Majesty to add to this part of the Speech some reassuring words, if they could be spoken, upon the general condition of affairs in India.
Many of us regard those affairs with very grave apprehensions. Public opinion has been shocked by a series of outrages directed against persons of all classes and stations from the Viceroy downwards. We cannot regard these occurrences as merely accidental outbursts of fanaticism; and, indeed, that evidently is not the manner in which they are regarded by the Government of India. In a speech delivered by the Viceroy on the occasion of the first meeting of the Legislative Council at Calcutta Lord Minto said:—
"The progress of the work on which we have been engaged has been marred by a succession of abominable crimes which have forced my Government into one repressive measure after another; and yesterday, on the eve of the assembly of this Council, a faithful and gallant public servant was brutally murdered within the precincts of the
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High Court and in the broad light of day. A spirit hitherto unknown to India has come into existence—a spirit opposed to all the teachings of Indian religion and traditions, a spirit of anarchy and lawlessness which seeks to subvert not only British rule, but the government of Indian chiefs, to whom I am deeply indebted for their loyal assistance."
My Lords, those are very grave and very disquieting words. I think we may regard them as affording ample justification for those repressive measures to which Lord Minto refers, and in particular for the recently introduced measure for restraining the licence of the Indian Press—a measure which I venture to say has not been resorted to an hour too soon. There can be no doubt as to the part which the Indian Press has played in the propagation of these anarchical and seditious doctrines; there can be no doubt as to the entire inadequacy of the law as it stood to deal with such offences; and I think I may also say that there can be no doubt that the proposals of the Indian Council do not err upon the side of severity. One word more about India. I think public opinion here has been a good deal puzzled by the announcement, made simultaneously, I think, with the introduction of the Press Bill, that a certain number of persons who had been deported on account of their connection with seditious movements were to be set at liberty. I feel that these are matters which we are not in a position to judge from a distance, and therefore I for one am ready to wait for the explanations which I have no doubt will be forthcoming and to assume that the Government of India had good reason for taking a step which, at first sight, is somewhat difficult to explain.
Now, my Lords, I pass to the subsequent paragraphs of the Speech. We learn in the first place that the financial measures which have become necessary are to have priority over all other business that will come before Parliament. That is an interesting statement, and I may be permitted to say that His Majesty's Government appear to have adopted the only course which, as businesslike men, they could have adopted, and that I tender them my respectful admiration for the manner in which they have disregarded counsels of a very different kind which they have freely received from many of their followers and supporters. Parliament is to be asked to complete the provision which was made in the last, session for

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the year which is about to expire; in other words, to overtake the arrears which have grown up inevitably in consequence of the rejection of the Finance Bill of last year by your Lordships' House, and I notice with some satisfaction the moderate language in which this question is referred to in the gracious Speech, and in which it was referred to by noble Lords opposite. Your Lordships will remember the prophecies which were indulged in by colleagues of the noble Earl opposite with regard to the consequences which were to follow from our postponement of the Finance Bill. There was to be chaos, inextricable chaos; there was to be a hideous loss to the taxpayers—a loss which could be expressed only in millions of pounds sterling. I am delighted to find that all these vaticinations appear to have been unfounded. With regard to the fact that there are arrears to be overtaken, may I be permitted to make one or two observations? In the first place, do not let it be forgotten that even if your Lordships had passed the Finance Bill in December last, the finances of the year 1909–10 were already many months—I should say probably five months at least—in arrear. So that our action has resulted only in the addition of a few weeks more to an already existing arrear. That is one thing to be borne in mind. In the next place, I greatly doubt whether any arrear has been occasioned which cannot be overtaken by the efforts of those indefatigable officials who are entrusted with the management of our financial affairs. In the third place, I suggest that if any inconvenience has arisen to the public, it might have been very much mitigated and diminished if His Majesty's Government had thought fit to avail themselves of the offer we made to them, the offer, I mean, to facilitate by special legislation the collection of any of the non-contentious taxes which were necessary in order to prevent the accumulation of a deficit. You were in no mood to accept that offer when we made it, and the arrear and inconvenience have no doubt been proportionately augmented. Of the Finance Bill of 1909 all that I will say is that our opinion of it remains unchanged. We remain convinced that in principle it is open to the criticisms which we offered during the long discussions last year. We are also convinced that it is open to the further criticism that you have fixed your taxation at many points so high that the revenue is becoming inelastic and is ceasing
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to respond to the extra demands you are making on those who have to pay. But, my Lords, if the Finance Bill finds favour with the new House of Commons and comes back to this House, I apprehend that we shall have no more to say, and will not only be ready to pass it into law but that we shall quite understand that you should desire to expedite its passage by all legitimate means which may be open to you.
But, my Lords, there are other matters in regard to which, I think, you may find this House not quite so accommodating. I venture to mention one to which no reference is made in the Speech from the Throne, but which, nevertheless, arises out of the proposals embodied in that Speech. I mean the question of Home Rule for Ireland. Home Rule for Ireland was given a good deal of prominence during the electoral campaign, but it was rather a fitful prominence. It was ostentatiously obtruded on the public in the Albert Hall speech, no doubt, from the point of noble Lords opposite, with very excellent results, for we all know that a large number of elections were won by the Irish vote, influenced by the prospects that were then held out. After that the matter was allowed judiciously to drop somewhat into the background. During the last few days, however, His Majesty's Government must have been painfully reminded of the existence of the difficulty by the storm of ultimatums which apparently have been flying about the purlieus of Downing Street. But one thing I venture to say is clear, and that is that Home Rule forms an essential feature in the policy which His Majesty's Government is going to ask Parliament to adopt. It is the veto of the House of Lords that has stood in the way of Home Rule, and the veto of the House of Lords is to go, amongst other reasons, in order that the way may be clear for Home Rule. So the sequence is clear and distinct; first, finance; then, what I would call, for want of a better word, the sterilisation of the House of Lords; then Home Rule for Ireland.
I venture to express my amazement at the audacity of a Government which assumes the right to make such proposals to Parliament upon the strength of the elections which have lately taken place. What have you got to show as the result of those elections? You have a not very

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emphatic pronouncement—if, indeed, it be a pronouncement at all—in favour of the imposition of certain taxes, and this pronouncement has been accompanied by the virtual disappearance of the whole of your official majority. Compare for a moment your Parliamentary position as it stood, last autumn and as it stands now. You then disposed of legions strong enough to trample under foot not only your official opponents, but your own irregulars, who had to be reckoned with at times. You have now—your Whips proclaim it—the two great Parties evenly balanced, and in order to establish a majority at all you have to invoke the aid of allies whom you do not admit to your council table, who ostentatiously proclaim their detachment from you, who dictate terms to you in the most peremptory language, and who, if they follow you at all, do so because they think that by doing so they can achieve ulterior aims which are not in all cases the aims you desire to attain. Do you think this a sufficient mandate to justify you in pulling the Constitution of this country to pieces, in breaking up the Union, and in setting up single Chamber government? I use that last expression advisedly, because I say that if the words contained in the latter part of His Majesty's Speech have any meaning at all, that is what they mean. It is a sentence of death upon the House of Lords. To complete the solemnity of the occasion, the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack might have produced the black cap when he read the fatal words.
What is the crime for which this House is sentenced? We find some description of it in the words of the Speech:—
"There have been differences of strong opinion between the two Houses, and serious difficulties have arisen."
What does that mean? Does it not mean simply this—that your Lordships have had opinions of your own and have had the courage to adhere to them? All that is to be at an end. We may have any opinions we please, but they are not to avail. Two things are to happen. This House is to be subject to the House of Commons in regard to all ordinary legislation. That is founded upon the old charge made so constantly against this House that it obstructs the legislation introduced by Liberal Governments. I am not going to enter into that at length to-night, but
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I will say this: that we have met that charge again and again in this House and out of this House, and we are ready to meet it whenever it is repeated. We have been able to show that if we have rejected Bills, they have in some cases been Bills which you did not dare to refer to the people of this country. We have shown that in other cases, as in the case of the Home Rule Bill, the people of this country approved and vindicated the course which we took. We have shown that yet in other cases, when you have attempted to legislate on subjects with which this House has dealt, your second proposals and your third proposals differed totally from your original proposals. We have shown—and to my mind it is a very convincing piece of evidence—that Liberal Ministers have constantly boasted of their wonderful achievements in the way of legislation for bettering the lot of the people of this country, and we have shown how entirely inconsistent language of that kind is with the theory that the House of Lords is always there to obstruct your legislative proposals.
The other limb of the Government policy is one by which this House is to be deprived of all right of dealing with finance. Why? Are we habitual criminals in dealing with finance? The whole point of the charge against us in the month of December last was that we were doing something when we rejected the Finance Bill which we had never done before. It was a single occurrence, one act of interference, one solitary decision not to take the responsibility of passing a measure which His Majesty's Government themselves described as an extraordinary measure, without obtaining an expression of the views of the people of this country upon it. And, after all, is the noble Earl quite sure that We are going to be convicted of that offence? If public form counts for anything, the present House of Commons contains a majority of members opposed to the Finance Bill of last year. But we know the arts which can be used for the purpose of disarming hostility of that kind, and you may get your Bill. If you get your Bill in the House of Commons, you will get it here, and you will be very lucky to get it. But do you mean to tell me that a victory of that kind is a victory which will justify you in overturning the Constitution of this country? When you have won it, ought you not to consider a little the

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means by which you have won it? Ought you not to consider a little the not very creditable figure which you have been cutting during the last few days while these negotiations with your so-called supporters have been in progress? And then ought you not to ask yourselves whether on the strength of a victory so obtained you have the right so to manipulate the Constitution of this country that the people who have pronounced a not very decisive verdict upon this occasion will never have a future opportunity of pronouncing any verdict at all?
If your Lordships will bear with me for a moment, I should like to say two or three words in regard to the plan of House of Lords reform which is indicated in the gracious Speech. Its language is at some points a little oracular. In the first place the House of Commons is to have undivided authority over finance. I hope the noble Earl when he follows me will be able to give us some idea of what he means when he talks of finance. Finance may mean a good many different things. It may mean Supply, Ways and Means, the provisions that used to be included in the Customs and Inland Revenue Bill, but it may also mean any measure dealing with ordinary legislation in which there lurks some fragment or soupçon of finance. Which is it that you mean? We have had some experience in this House—a rather painful experience—of the manner in which the present privilege of the House of Commons in regard to finance is interpreted. Is the intention of His Majesty's Government this, that supposing we had, for example, a measure of social legislation of first-rate importance, involving, as all such measures must, the expenditure of public money—money of the ratepayers or taxpayers—is it your intention that the House of Lords is to be warned off such measures, and is not to have any right to deal with them in an effectual manner at all? That is a plain question, and, by the way, it is a question which you will be obliged to face, because we understand that these proposals are to be embodied in a Bill. It is to be a Bill defining the relations of the two Houses. In your Bill you will have to let it appear plainly and distinctly what it is that you intend when you talk of "undivided authority over finance." I go further. I am not at all sure that it will not be necessary for you to set up some kind of
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authority which will be able to decide whether a particular measure or a particular provision in a measure is or is not a measure of finance. It would be of no use to let each House interpret your Rule in its own fashion, and it would be an outrage to allow one House to have the interpretation of it, and to impose that interpretation upon the other House.
The other proposal, that the House of Commons should be given predominance in legislation, is perhaps less ambiguous, because we gather from the words that follow that all that is to be left to the House of Lords is the power of initiation, of revision, and, subject to proper safeguards, of delay. I do not know whether your Lordships will be very grateful for permission to initiate measures which the other House may put calmly into the wastepaper basket. I do not know whether you will care very much about exercising functions of revision which may be wholly ineffectual. As for delay, I presume that means that we are to have a revival of the plan proposed by the late Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman—a plan which after all only came to this, that any Bill which the House of Commons chose to read nine times would automatically be imposed "willy-nilly" upon the House of Lords. I hope we may have some information upon these points.
But I find other words of a most suggestive character in this paragraph. We are told that "this House"—which I understand to be the House in which we are sitting—[A Voice: "No"]—there seems to be a doubt; perhaps the noble Earl will give us a ruling.
THE EARL OF CREWE: It is the House in which His Majesty made his speech.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: Exactly; that was my interpretation. This House, then, is to be so constituted as to exercise these threefold functions with impartiality. Surely that is an entirely new development. A few days ago none of us had any reason whatever for believing that it was intended to deal with the constitution of this House. I paid some attention to the speeches delivered by His Majesty's Ministers during the electoral campaign. There was one exception—Sir Edward Grey—who made it clear that

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in his opinion the hereditary principle was out of date and that some form of election was necessary for the establishment of a properly constituted Second Chamber. But that was not the view of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister made several interesting announcements on the subject, but he made one which was particularly categoric and distinct in reply to the inevitable Scottish heckler. The heckler asked him—What are you going to do in order to improve the House of Lords? The Prime Minister's reply was distinct—
"We are not going to improve the House of Lords at all. What we are going to do is to deprive the House of Lords of its veto."
And it is curious that that attitude of the Prime Minister is entirely in accord with a very remarkable statement which he made in the course of the Albert Hall speech. He had been strongly condemning the action of this House, and then he went on to say this—
"It may well be that a process of evolution or substitution may in course of time give us a body better fitted than the House of Lords for the judicial exercise of its functions."
So that if there was to be any alteration at all in the constitution of the House of Lords, it was clearly contemplated that that should be the result of a gradual process of evolution which would take some time to accomplish. All that is changed. You are now apparently going to introduce this session, perhaps try to pass this session, a Bill dealing not only with the powers but with the constitution of the House of Lords. Is it not evident that second thoughts have occurred to His Majesty's Ministers? Is it not likely that, when they read the extraordinarily violent statements made by some of them with regard to this House and to the absurdity of the hereditary principle, it occurred to them that there was something indescribably ridiculous and grotesque in proposing to solve this great constitutional problem by leaving us with a House of Lords which would be a futile expression of the hereditary principle, et preterea nihil? That really was the proposal which held the field for a time. I have no doubt those second thoughts did occur, perhaps rather late in the day, and that that is the explanation of the fact that this proposal for dealing with the constitution of this House has been pitchforked into the Speech at the last moment.
I am not going to ask the noble Earl to
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reveal to us his intentions or the intentions of his colleagues as to the manner in which the new House of Lords is to be constituted. It obviously would be an improper question to ask, and moreover I feel quite sure he would not be able to answer me if I did ask the question. But I am going to ask him another question which seems to me reasonable. We are informed that the proposals dealing with the House of Lords will be laid before us with "all convenient speed." Now what does "all convenient speed" mean? Whose convenience is going to be consulted? We should like to know. Is it to be the speed of a Parliamentary train or is it to be a mile a minute? Are you going to think of the convenience of the exectuioners or the convenience of the victims? I confess I rather like the sentence, because I cannot help detecting in it an announcement by the Prime Minister—a useful announcement—to some of his supporters and perhaps to some of his colleagues that he intends, as they say in Scotland, to "gang his am gait." But I will ask the noble Earl a question specifically. Is it the intention of His Majesty's Government that this Bill is to be not only introduced this session but, if possible, passed into law this session? I think that is a pertinent question. I assume that His Majesty's Ministers know their own minds on the subject and are prepared with concrete proposals, but they have got to get finance out of the way first. Then they have to bring in their Bill, and then they have to get their Bill through the House of Commons.
Now what I am anxious to know is whether it is in contemplation that we should take this Bill dealing with this. House, as we sometimes take Bills, in the very last days of the session, and whether we shall be expected to proceed with it then. Are we to be invited, if I may so put it, to perform the ceremony known, I believe, in Japan as the "happy despatch" in the inside of a fortnight at the beginning of the month of August? I think the noble Earl will encounter a considerable amount of opposition to any idea of the kind. The noble Earl and his colleagues accused us of being revolutionary because we refused to give our concurrence to the Finance Bill until the people of this country should have had an opportunity of passing judgment upon it. What epithet should we apply to His Majesty's Government if they reply

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by attempting to overturn the Constitution and by endeavouring to rush their proposals through Parliament, perhaps with the assistance of extra-constitutional methods which I believe have not been resorted to since the reign of Queen Anne?
There is one further observation which I wish to make on this part of the Speech. I earnestly hope that when I indicate these apprehensions as to the proposals of His Majesty's Government they will not regard me, or regard those who sit near me, as desiring in any way to shirk the discussion of this question of House of Lords reform. We admit—many of us at any rate admit—that there is a House of Lords question. This House contains members who have made that question their own. There is my noble friend on the Cross Benches (Lord Rosebery) who has devoted for many years past a special amount of attention to that question. There are other Peers like my two noble friends who sit near me, who took up this question of House of Lords reform even before they were Members of this House. There is my noble friend Lord Newton, who was instrumental in procuring the appointment of the Committee which dealt with the matter and produced an important Report destined to be often referred to hereafter. I will go as far as this. I will say that in my belief there are not many Members of this House who would not approach this question with an open mind tempered, perhaps, by a sense of the extreme gravity of the problem we are discussing. I will, however, take upon myself to say that there are two things which this House does not want. We do not want to have a sham House of Lords, a House of Lords which would be a mere tawdry and ineffectual simulacrum of what a Second Chamber ought to be. Neither do we want to see a brand new Senate set up in the place of this House, a Senate the powers of which would be co-ordinate with those of the House of Commons and would necessarily come into conflict with them.
But if you are able to show—and you may be able to show—that this House is unwieldy in point of numbers, that it is not constituted in such a manner as to conduce to the efficient discharge of business, then I say we are ready to consider whether we cannot do something to render it more efficient. If you can show that there are Members of this House who for various reasons are unable to give
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a proper attention to the discharge of their Parliamentary duties, we are ready to consider whether means cannot be discovered of relieving them of those duties; and if you can show—and I dare say it is possible to show it—that under our existing system we are exposed to finding the two Houses involved in a deadlock, I say let us like reasonable people try to discover means by which they can be extricated from such an unfortunate position. In all these matters I believe that you will find many of us on this side ready to co-operate with you if you will accept our co-operation. If you will not accept our co-operation, then I think it will be for us to consider whether at the proper time we should not lay before the public proposals of our own for dealing with these points. But I venture to press this upon your Lordships—that for the present His Majesty's Government are seized of this question, and it is for them first to lay on the Table of Parliament their proposals for dealing with it. I trust that my apprehensions and misgivings may prove to be groundless. I trust that we shall find that, if you are going to lay hands on the Constitution of this country, you are going to do it, as the noble seconder said, in a spirit of sobriety and moderation, and that there will be no trace of petulance or of vindictiveness in your treatment of this immense issue. I trust that you will deal with it in a manner consistent with the dignity of both Houses of Parliament, and that you will do nothing to deprive this country of the safeguards which it at present possesses against precipitate and ill-considered legislation by the other House of Parliament.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (THE EARL OF CREWE): My Lords, it is my first pleasant duty to associate myself with what has been so gracefully said by the noble Marquess as to the manner in which my noble friends behind me discharged their respective tasks of moving and seconding the Address. That task is at no time a very easy one, and it was less easy than usual on this occasion, for reasons with which we are all familiar. It fell to the lot of my noble friends behind me rather to describe a situation than, as has often happened in previous years, to run through a list of legislative projects, and, in view of the special difficulty of their task, I am sure we shall

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all agree that they discharged it with marked ability. The oftener that both of them take part in our future debates I am sure, the better your Lordships in all parts of the House will be pleased. This is the first time, as far as I can recollect, when the Leader of the Opposition, in commenting on the Speech from the Throne, has not found occasion to make any remarks on foreign affairs. That is an omission for which I do not blame the noble Marquess.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I merely said that I associated myself with what had been said by the two noble Lords.
THE EARL OF CREWE: It is indeed a happy fact that the state of affairs in Europe and in connection with foreign politics generally should be such that no particular comment is thought to be necessary by noble Lords opposite. But there is one event connected with foreign affairs—a very sad event—to which I am compelled to allude for a moment. Your Lordships may have noticed that an attack was made on Boutros Pasha, the Prime Minister of Egypt, on the afternoon of yesterday. It was a political crime of the type with which in different parts of the world we are only too familiar; and I deeply regret to say that Boutros Pasha died this morning, and that Egypt has lost in him a hardworking, honourable, and distinguished statesman. The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs has lost no time in conveying to the Egyptian Government and to the relatives of Boutros Pasha our warm sympathy with the loss, the sense of which must come home to every one who has at heart the welfare of Egypt.
Then the noble Marquess spoke in sympathetic terms of the paragraph in which the approaching visit of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales to South Africa is announced. Those of us who recollect the debate which took place on the Union Bill of last year will remember how uniform in all parts of the House was the sense of gratification felt at that Union, and we all feel that it will be its appropriate crown that the illustrious Prince, accompanied, as I trust he will be, by the gracious presence of Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales, will be able to undertake once more the task which he carried out so acceptably in inaugurating the Australian Commonwealth. The noble Marquess made one or two observations,
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framed I need not say with the discretion which is habitual to him, with regard to the future political situation in South Africa. That, as he truly remarked, is a matter for the South Africans themselves. But I am glad to be able to say that as far as my knowledge goes, whether or no the future Government of South Africa takes in any degree the form of what is known as a coalition or not, yet I am convinced that the statesmen of all parties in South Africa are approaching their difficult task in a spirit which argues well that we may be able to hope that at any rate no undue spirit of racialism or extreme party feeling will disfigure the politics of the South African Union.
The noble Marquess made a more extended reference to the affairs of India, and he commented on what he considered was an omission from the Speech—namely, that we had not placed in the Speech some definite allusion to the condition of the country. The noble Marquess made that fact the text of some observations of high interest. It is perfectly true, lamentably true as the noble Marquess has said, that secret organisations for criminal purposes, which have been the cause of more than one attempted crime and of more than one successful crime, still exist in India; but in spite of that it is the definitely expressed opinion of the Indian Government and of those best qualified to judge, that there are hopeful signs of an increasing sympathy with the Government in India. The Indian Government believe that the better opinion in India is beginning to assert itself; and this is not surprising because we know that it frequently happens in parallel cases that it is not until that more sane and sober opinion which is always perhaps, too little prone to assert itself is aroused by the perpetration of crimes such as these, that it is possible to discover how strong that opinion really is. I trust that this may be the case in India, and undoubtedly it is the opinion of the Indian Government that it is.
Then the noble Marquess alluded to the Press Law in terms of approbation. The heads of that Act were submitted by the Indian Government to the Secretary of State, and were approved by him. The full text of the Act will in a few days from now reach this country and will be examined by the Secretary of State in Council, and after it may have received any amendment he may consider necessary, will come into

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full operation. The essence of the law is that in all eases the proprietors of newspapers will be required, or may be required, to deposit security which will be liable to forfeiture at the discretion of the Executive. If transgressions are repeated the printing presses will be liable to be seized and forfeited as well as the security. There is an appeal provided for in the Act to a special Bench of Judges. It is hoped by the Indian Government and by my noble friend behind me that this law will have the effect of checking a vast amount of the mischief which beyond all contradiction has been caused by the irresponsible Press in India.
The noble Marquess spoke, moderately but still somewhat critically, on the act of the Indian Government with reference to the deportations and to the recent release of some of those who had been deported. He quoted from a speech by the Viceroy of India in another connection, but in that same speech, unless I am mistaken, the Viceroy stated for public information the reasons which had induced the Indian Government to come to the conclusion that these remissions might properly be made. I am sure that noble Lords opposite, including two ex-Viceroys, will agree with me that Indian Governments have regarded this power of deportation as strictly an emergency power, only to be used in cases of extreme necessity. Because you cannot deny that the procedure of arresting and detaining men for an indefinite time, without charge and without trial, and without, any intention of putting them on trial, is one which is foreign to our usual procedure. It is certainly the opinion of the Indian Government that in these particular cases deportation at that time produced the effect it was intended to produce—a salutary effect. But it would be, I think, hardly fair to say that because Anarchist plots are going on—Anarchist plots always having to be distinguished from a general seditious feeling, it must be remembered—these men ought to be indefinitely detained until you are certain that these underground currents have altogether ceased to flow. That, I think, would be a hard thing to say and something of a shock to reasonable public opinion. The noble Marquess expressed himself as quite willing to trust the Indian Government in this matter, and I hope we may venture to leave the matter there, and to believe that they
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have acted in the best interests of order in India in taking the course they did
With these observations I leave that part of the Speech which deals with affairs outside this country. The noble Marquess naturally devoted no small part of his remarks to those paragraphs in the Speech which are especially addressed to the House of Commons as dealing with finance. It certainly seems to me, so far as I have been able to judge from such attention as I am able to pay to the public Press that the position of the country with regard to finance has not been entirely appreciated. It does not seem to have been altogether understood that the subject which must have the very first claim on the attention of the Government is not the provision of Ways and Means, but the Services of the year; and for this reason, that you can get on well enough for an indefinite time, although your doing so may produce great inconvenience and much loss—you can get on so far as provision of Ways and Means is concerned, for an almost indefinite time, by borrowing; but what you cannot do without definite powers from the House of Commons is to spend any of the money which you borrow or which you raise in any other way. Therefore, the first necessity of this session is the provision of supply for the Public Services.
I digress for a moment from the financial question to say a word about the Navy. The Navy, to which I do not think the noble Marquess specifically alluded, was made the subject of a great many speeches in the course of the General Election. I do not propose to say anything here about a particular kind of speech made by some speakers—not by members of your Lordships' House—with reference to the Navy. It is always a temptation, no doubt, at such a moment to a certain class of persons of a certain order of mind, to treat it as a sort of common form of political controversy to assume that your opponents are indifferent to their national duty. Therefore I think we may sweep all such dusty electioneering rubbish aside. But altogether apart from that, it certainly cannot be denied that the position as regards the Navy Estimates which we shall have in due course to present, is a serious one and will involve considerable further sacrifices on the part of the taxpayers of the country. I do not propose on this occasion, for very obvious reasons, to discuss naval questions at all. I have no

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doubt that when all the facts of the case are in the possession of noble Lords opposite, they will desire to have a full debate on the subject. We shall be quite ready then to meet noble Lords in any critical observations that they may care to make, and I state with no little confidence that, in my opinion, we shall be able to show that we have in no way neglected our duty in regard to this important branch of the defence of the country.
Now, my Lords, I return for a moment to the question of Supply. It will be necessary in another place—I say this really because the noble Marquess's observations on this and on the concluding paragraph of the Speech were, I think, in some degree framed with a desire to obtain information as to the course of business—that, in the first place, the Supplementary Estimates will undoubtedly occupy some little time. But the noble Marquess rather twitted us with having foretold a condition of financial chaos and seemed to think that affairs were, as a matter of fact, proceeding with ordinary financial smoothness. On the contrary, the situation in which we find ourselves financially is most extraordinary and unprecedented. The first thing to be dealt with is the War Loan, £21,000,000 of which is due to be redeemed on April 5, which means that provision has to be made for issuing Exchequer bonds to that amount before Easter. In addition to that the Exchequer have borrowed another sum of £21,000,000; that is to say, £21,000,000 which ought to have been raised by this time and would in the ordinary course have been raised by this time by the ordinary process of taxation, but which has not been raised because your Lordships did not pass the Finance Bill. That means that powers must be taken to issue Exchequer bills running for a longer term. It will also be necessary to appropriate the whole available balance from the Sinking Fund for the purposes of the Treasury. Altogether some twenty-five millions have to be found before Easter, and if noble Lords opposite consider that to be a usual and normal financial position for the country I am afraid I must beg to differ from them. Also, I should like to point out that it is not merely a question of accounts and passing measures rapidly through another place, but it also definitely means a heavy dead loss to the Treasury and to the country. And it is a loss which will be felt, and the confusion will be felt, not merely this year, but, in the
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opinion of those best entitled to speak, it will undoubtedly affect the collection of the taxes for the year 1911–12. That being so, I do not think that the noble Marquess opposite is entirely justified in speaking, as he did, with something almost approaching pride, of the action of your Lordships' House and its effect upon the finances of the country. The whole position is in some degree complicated by a fact for which I do not hold noble Lords opposite responsible—namely, that Easter this year falls on the 27th of March. And therefore all these matters have to be settled some days sooner than would have been the case if the moon had behaved in a different manner.
The noble Marquess next touched upon a matter to which, as he said, no reference was made in the Speech—namely, the subject of Home Rule for Ireland. I have no desire to discuss the question of Home Rule for Ireland at this moment, although I am always willing to do so at the appropriate time and place. But the noble Marquess made an allusion to what the Prime Minister said on this subject at the Albert Hall. Now, I would ask him to remember what occurred. When Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's Government assumed office at the end of 1905 there was a general understanding which, at any rate, bound so many members of the Government that it might be regarded as a Government understanding, that what was known as a Home Rule Bill would not be brought forward during the course of the then Parliament. That was the common knowledge of every one. The Prime Minister, Mr. Asquith, had, after Parliament was dissolved through the act of your Lordships, to meet his supporters again. He either had to repeat that declaration or to say that it no longer held good. It is open to noble Lords opposite to say that we ought to have repeated that self-denying ordinance. What the Prime Minister did was to say that it no longer held good, that he was free—as every Prime Minister and every Government are free on every other subject in the world—to bring in a measure, if he thought fit, before the Dissolution of the present Parliament. What the impropriety of such a proceeding was I confess I cannot see. It seems to me the most natural, almost inevitable, course, and it was one, I think, which was expected, not only by the supporters of the Government, but also by its opponents.
Then the noble Marquess went on to taunt us in a kindly way on what, I think,

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he called our allies—the two Parties who in the House of Commons are neither the Liberal Party nor the Unionist Party—and he made some comment upon our relations with them. I could not help thinking that, when the noble Marquess was speaking, he seemed to be under the impression which some of his supporters in the Press and on the platform appear to have had—namely, that he and his friends had won this election. I should like also to make one other observation. The noble Marquess twitted us with the fact that the Nationalist Members in Ireland are likely to vote with us in another place. You speak of an alliance. Is such a thing entirely new and unknown in our politics? I have never heard that noble Lords opposite and their Party have refused the votes of anybody who was good enough to walk into the same Lobby with them. I will go a great deal further, and say with the utmost confidence that if these despised so-called allies of ours were to see their way to walk into the same Lobby with the friends of noble Lords opposite I do not think we should find them saying non tali auxilio. They would gladly welcome their co-operation if it offered any opportunity which would place them on these Benches.
Now I come to the last subject—that with which the remainder of the Speech deals—namely, the relations between the two Houses. I am not sure whether it was on this or the previous subject that the noble Marquess commented on the mildness of the language used in the gracious Speech. That, I think, follows precedent. It is not usual, I think, for His Majesty's advisers to insert imprecations or strong language of any kind into the gracious Speech. But on this question our position is exactly as we stated it before the Dissolution of Parliament. It was stated by my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack in the course of the debate on the Budget. It was stated by myself in winding up that debate, and it was restated by the first authority of all, the Prime Minister, in his speech at the Albert Hall. That position is that, unless we can obtain guarantees of a statutory character, or, if you like, statutory guarantees—I think that was the phrase I used myself—statutory guarantees that the state of things which has obtained during the last four years will not be a permanent state of things, we cannot either retain or assume office; that is to say, that our retention of
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office is for the purpose of obtaining those guarantees. That is, of course, the reason why, contrary probably to all precedent, no propositions of general legislation are to be found within the gracious Speech.
It is generally admitted—it was admitted by the noble Marquess just now, and, I have seen it admitted, I think, in a hundred speeches—that the present composition of the House is not in conformity with the powers which it claims to exercise. That is to say, your Lordships opposite, the majority of the House, in acting as you do, are conscious that you are acting with a certain lack of authority. I read a great number of speeches, many of them made by noble Lords opposite who do not often appear on the public platform, some of whom, I think, must have felt like the Homeric gods at the Siege of Troy, coming down to take part in the combats of mere mortals. All through those speeches I noticed that consciousness—a sort of apologetic consciousness—of a lack of authority on the part of the House of Lords which they felt constrained to admit; there is, that is to say, a general agreement that something has got to be done. That has been the opinion of many noble Lords in different parts of the House for a long time past. My noble friend Lord Rosebery has often, I think, expressed his astonishment that during all those years when your time was so ample and your authority so undisputed in both Houses of Parliament you never made a serious effort to deal with the House of Lords question. The result of that, of course, is that the question has not remained and could not remain where it was, that it is no longer a question—or, if you like, a question only—of the reform of the composition of the House of Lords, but it has also become a question of its power.
If I rightly apprehend the noble Marquess's observations it is not the intention of noble Lords opposite to propose any discussion of this subject until they have seen, at any rate, the main lines of our proposal. I have noticed that the noble Lord opposite, Lord Newton, has once more put clown on the Paper a Motion for the discussion of the Report of what is known as my noble friend's (Lord Rosebery's) Committee. I had long wondered why that discussion never took place before. I am told there is a practice which obtains among horticulturists of latter days of placing the bulbs of certain

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plants in ice in order that they may flower at some time of the year at which they would ordinarily not be supposed to bloom. I was under the impression that this Motion of my noble friend was, if I may use the expression, now at last going to be taken out of cold storage, and going to be allowed to bloom in your Lordships' garden.
LORD NEWTON: I will take it out whenever it suits the noble Earl or the noble Marquess the Leader of the Opposition.
THE EARL OF CREWE: I was going by what the noble Marquess said. He seemed to indicate that no discussion will take place. I do not at all quarrel with his view, I may say in passing, because it may be more convenient to discuss the question as a whole and at one time. That being so, I should venture to assume that the noble Lord's Motion will not be put down for a very early date. That brings me to the question of the noble Marquess as to the time at which these proposals of ours will be considered. I think it is due to ourselves and to Parliament as a whole—I say frankly that I think it is especially due to this House—that at any rate the outline, and, if possible, more than the bare outline, of our proposals should be placed before the, country as soon as possible; but when the noble Marquess asks me when they should reach this House in the form of a Bill, that of course is a question which I cannot venture to answer because I cannot say how long the discussion may occupy in another place. I have no doubt there will be a full discussion there. I also most cordially agree that there should be full discussion here, and I have not the least doubt that, if the Bill did not reach your Lordships' House in time to give it that fair measure of discussion which it will undoubtedly deserve, you would probably refuse to consider it at all. Whether your action in so doing would be of a just character would depend upon the dates and circumstances which we are not yet able to foresee. Then the noble Marquess asked me if we hoped to pass the Bill this session. I think I can be hardly expected to give to that question an answer beyond the general one that any Government which brings in a Bill hopes to see it passed. After all, this Bill may obtain such a measure of approval from your Lordships' House that you will desire to pass it, and if so you undoubtedly will pass it. More than that I cannot say. The noble Marquess, I feel
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sure, did not expect any very definite answer from me when he asked me to foreshadow, even in the baldest outline, the contents of that Bill. I am afraid I must ask the House to wait until our proposals have been laid before the country, and I do so not merely because it is unusual to discuss the provisions of a Bill in any way before it is introduced, but because anything I might say, knowing how little I could say, would be probably of a misleading character.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I did not press the noble Earl for a full account of the contents of the Bill.
THE EARL OF CREWE: I did not say a full account, but if I remember aright the noble Marquess put one or two searching questions to me as to the meaning of certain words which appear in the gracious Speech. I can only say in conclusion that I hope when we have laid our proposals before your Lordships' House they will be considered, as I am sure noble Lords opposite would desire to consider them, on their merits, without any undue manifestation of Party spirit, and with a desire to arrive at a result which will be of a permanent character and for the benefit of the country at large.
THE EARL OF ROSEBERY: My Lords, I did not intend to take, any part in this discussion this evening. There is, however, one topic so urgent and so vital to this House which is discussed in the gracious Speech and on which I unfortunately do not find myself in full agreement with my noble friend behind me, that I feel it my duty to detain you for a very few minutes while I endeavour to lay stress upon it. Were it not for that I might have been tempted to delay for a moment to consider the various tempting topics which have been raised by my noble friend opposite, such as the announcement made to the Irish on the Irish question at the Albert Hall. With the interpretation of that announcement I for one agree with the noble Earl, but as to the interpretation which was placed on it by others I should say that was a different matter. I think the noble Earl was accurately interpreting what was said by the Prime Minister. I do not think the Prime Minister is bound in the least by any of the comments that may be placed on it by others; but at the same time it cannot be denied that un-contradicted interpretations from authorita-

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tive quarters in other considerable parties of the State were placed on those words and must have had a considerable effect on the electoral vote. I say I do not consider the Prime Minister is in any way responsible for those interpretations.
I should also have liked to wander for a moment into the inquiries, so tempting to one's curiosity, as to what was the nature of the statutory guarantees which the Prime Minister was entitled to demand before, as I understand, he could ever face Parliament again. If my noble friend had thought well to dilate on them and to go into more detail on that subject, I am quite sure he would have spoken to a rapt and fascinated House. Nor am I tempted to dwell on one particular portion of his speech which relates to the measures soon to be introduced with regard to this House, and its relations with the other. As a matter of privilege and courtesy it would seem that a measure affecting the constitution of this House should properly be introduced in this House. There does not seem to be any intention of pursuing that procedure, and so we must be content with the somewhat languid promises held out of, at some future time—ranging from the end of summer to the beginning of winter—being permitted to examine a measure so vital to our existence. Whether that very tardy progress adumbrated by my noble friend will be altogether congenial and agreeable to those fiery horses of the sun of various colours that now drag the chariot of State is a matter into which I will not pause to inquire; but when I see that the coalition—the, what am I to say?—the other members who are accessory to the support of the Government in the other House, are anxious, without a moment's delay, without waiting for the necessary Supplies on which my noble friend has laid such, almost tearful, stress, to be allowed to fly with bared fangs at the throat of this House, I cannot guess, because I am not in their counsels, how agreeable that tardy progress, as of Cleopatra down the Cydnus, of this immaculate Bill will be to the supporters of His Majesty's Government who do not sit behind them, but who form part of the Irish or Labour contingent.
After all, we meet in a very strange condition of affairs. This election is unique, so far as my experience goes, in being an absolute disappointment to every Party
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engaged in it. My noble friends behind me, I do not doubt, counted, with the guileless enthusiasm of their natures, on obtaining a majority over the Government. The Government, engaged in great financial measures beloved of the masses, and also engaged in a vast constitutional contest from which they could hardly be restrained by any counsels of moderation, also reckoned on preserving the unlimited confidence of the country. The Government were also disappointed. The Irish party, always solid, always homogeneous, was also disappointed. It finds itself no doubt still an Irish party, but with a small collection within its bosom of what I believe in savage warfare is called friendly natives—who are, I fancy, about as friendly to the general body of the Party as a friendly lawsuit usually is to those who are engaged in it. The Labour Party also finds its numbers considerably reduced. Therefore, we may say that no Party in the State has any reason to congratulate itself on the result of this election except in so far as it has been rendered more compact by its results.
But there is one feature of this election which is, I think, very worthy of your serious consideration as members of the House of Lords. There is no doubt that a majority of some 120 or 125—I forget the exact figures—are returned to Parliament animated by the greatest animosity against this House. Even then it requires a little analysis before we arrive at a satisfactory conclusion. There is a Government majority, I think, of two as against the Opposition. There is a Labour Party of forty, and—I am subject to correction in my figures—it is also solid as against the House of Lords. Then there is the Irish Party, or two parties, which are, I suppose, equally animated by the wish to remove this House; but with regard to this very important section of the majority of 124, in which I suppose eighty or eighty-two Irish are counted, we must remember that they do not wish the House of Lords removed for large constitutional purposes, but avowedly and solely because it constitutes an obstruction to what is called Home Rule. Bearing that in mind, we must remember that their purpose is only temporary, because after Home Rule is conceded, whenever that may be, I take it that that Irish Party will occupy itself no further with Imperial concerns, and will have little care or reckoning whether any House of Lords exists or not. I think

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it must be said, therefore, that, analysing the majority against the House of Lords, the purpose of the Irish is in the main a temporary and not a constitutional one. I think we may further say that as regards a considerable number of subjects the Irish Party are more in sympathy with the House of Lords than with the House of Commons—questions relating to education, licensing, and so forth, on which the two Houses have been of late in considerable opposition.
I come to the point on which I differ with the noble Marquess behind me. I cannot help thinking that this is a golden moment for the House of Lords, a golden opportunity which may not recur, and that it is one which we should avail ourselves of with as little delay as possible in order to right ourselves with the public, and to put ourselves in a position to resist attacks which may weaken not the House of Lords as at present constituted but the Second Chamber, which is infinitely more important to the country, and so render a public service to the nation. I confess that when I heard the counsels of tardiness from my noble friend, and the counsels of not less leisureliness from my noble friend behind me, I felt my heart sink. Whatever you may say about the majority in the House of Commons, there is one thing every man will tell you who has had anything to do with the elections in Scotland, or I believe north of the Humber or the Trent—which he will tell you emphatically—and that is that wherever the Unionist candidates attempted to gain seats they broke their shins against the hereditary character of the House of Lords. That is the inherent vice of this House, which the country will not tolerate, which, however long you attempt to tide the matter over, you will never succeed in convincing them of the justice of, and that is the very root of the matter to which this House, in my opinion, if it is worth anything at all, should apply itself without delay. I do not wish to see this House forced under compulsion to take a measure which may seem accelerated by that compulsion, and which therefore may seem wanting in the dignity and self-respect which this House owes to itself. I say this is an opportunity which may not occur again of setting our own house in order—an opportunity, without waiting for the somewhat leisurely progress of the Bill which is to come before us, of placing our plan before the country, and
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then allowing the country to judge between the plan of the House of Commons and our own. I take it that after all that is the real issue.
I hear thunders poured forth against what is called the veto of the House of Lords. There is no more a veto of the House of Lords than there is a veto of the House of Commons. There is a concurrent right of legislation, and if in the course of centuries one of the two branches of the Legislature has become either weakened or decayed, or is not in all respects up to the requirements of the times, it is for that branch to strengthen itself. It is then not a question of the veto, but a question of the constitution of our Second Chamber. It is for that reason that I heard with great pleasure, or read with great pleasure, in the gracious Speech from the Throne, that there was to be a measure introduced for regulating the relations between the two Houses, and also for reconstituting this House, as I understand it, for placing it in a position which can scarcely be called predominant with regard to the other House of Parliament. I rejoice, because it seemed to me that the Government had determined to abandon the fatal path on which they embarked a few years ago, when they brought forward those most unhappy Resolutions directed against this House—inept in form, but murderous in substance, because they tended to a single Chamber system.
It is perfectly obvious that when you had reduced this House to the position of lying passively down whilst a Bill is passed three times over its stomach—the process of what the Chancellor of the Exchequer calls going straight to the Throne without the intervention of the House of Lords—it was quite clear that when that had been established you would have had a single Chamber Legislature, and this House would have ceased to exist. I presume—though the language of the gracious Speech is not altogether promising, the undivided authority of the House of Commons over finance and its predominance in legislation hardly looks like the parallel course of legislation to which we have been accustomed—that the House of Commons' measure will not go on the lines of those Resolutions.
What I want to urge is this—that if under this measure introduced into the

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House of Commons this House has to sit clown without resistance under the absolute predominance of the House of Commons, you will have very much the shadowy legislation portrayed in the Resolutions of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. I admit that it is courteous in a sense, it is right in a sense, to wait for the proposals of the Government, though they themselves would have shown perhaps a happier tone if they had introduced them into this House; but that I quite agree, in view of the conditions of their existence, is not practicable. Does that preclude us from taking such measures as we think fit to lay before the country our views of what the reform of the House of Lords should be? Suppose the proposals of the House of Commons or the Government should show a completely predominant House of Commons—I think those are the words in the King's Speech—and a completely subordinate House of Lords, will not the country say this is a Single Chamber that is proposed, and will not they say, What alternative is there to the proposals of the Government? Will it not then be necessary for the House of Lords to have some plan which it may show as the approved alternative of this House?
If the plan of the Government does mean a Single Chamber, as I cannot help fearing it may, is it not certain that it will not pass this House, even if it be the last act of authority this House is destined to exercise. If that be so, is it not certain that the competitive plans must go before the country at a General Election, and that we should be in a position, very unfortunate, very naked, if we had not a suitable plan of our own to put forward? Should not the nation be seized of the plan of the House of Lords to reform itself pari passu with the plan of the House of Commons to establish its predominance over the House of Lords? I should not have dilated so much on this subject if I did not feel most earnestly and strongly the vital character of the opportunity which is now before us. I believe the country expects it. I believe the country, while resolutely opposed to the hereditary nature of this House, is equally determined to have a strong and efficient Second Chamber.
If we in this House do not set our hands to the work, somebody else will do so for us. Suppose you proceed by Resolution. Suppose from this Bench, which exercises
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the power in this House, a series of well-considered Resolutions were to be placed before this House, suppose the House resolved itself into Committee of the Whole House to consider these Resolutions, and after unlimited debate and discussion—I would not check that or diminish that in any way, you cannot discuss these matters too much—you were able to produce a series of Resolutions which recommended themselves to the country as being your deliberate views regarding your own future position, would not that be a great advantage? The one vital objection the country has to this House is its hereditary nature. You may say it would not look well that an election should seem to have driven you into recognition of this fact. You have indirectly already recognised this fact. You appointed a Committee at the instigation of my noble friend Lord Newton, of which the most remarkable result was that unanimously, and almost as it were spontaneously, that Committee came to the resolution that in the future the mere possession of an hereditary peerage should not entitle the bearer to a seat in this House. You have had that principle laid down by your own Committee; you have nothing to do but to affirm it as a House, and you have then taken the first step in the work of your own reform—a work which in my judgment, if it is worth anything, and I have sat in this House as long as most, is the prerogative of the House itself.
I urge this, not so much because of the House of Lords itself, but of something infinitely more important than the House of Lords, or any of its privileges—the existence of a strong and efficient Second Chamber which shall be able to keep the balance of the Constitution and prevent its heeling over to one side, as is desired by many in the other House of Parliament. We have to protect, by the constitution of an efficient Second Chamber, the country from a great tyranny. A great man, a great democrat, a great revolutionist, not inferior, if I may say so, in sagacity or wisdom to any of our present rulers—I mean Mirabeau—said to Barnave—I am sure my noble friend the Secretary of State for India remembers it—that of all tyrannies the most insupportable is that of a Single Chamber. It is because of that tyranny which seems to overshadow us, and which it is the aim of many should overshadow us, that I venture to urge your Lordships

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not to delay, but to take your salvation boldly into your own hands and proceed with the task yourselves.
On Question, Motion agreed to, nemine dissentiente, and ordered to be presented to His Majesty by the Lords with White Staves.
THE EARL OF ONSLOW—Appointed, nemine dissentiente, to take the Chair in all Committees of this House for this Session.
Committee for Privileges—Appointed.
Committee for the Journals—Appointed.
Stoppages in the streets—Order to prevent, renewed.
Appeal Committee—Appointed.

IRISH UNIVERSITIES ACT, 1908.
Statute for University College, Dublin: Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and to be printed. (No. 2.)
House adjourned at a quarter past Seven o'clock, till To-morrow, a quarter past Four o'clock.