Sitting of 30 March 1910

Preamble
The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.
One other Member took and subscribed the Oath.

WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE.
Mr. REA presented a Petition, signed By 1,961 electors of the Borough of Scarborough, praying for the extension of the Parliamentary franchise to women.
Mr. PICKERSGILL presented a Petition, signed by several hundred voters on the Parliamentary Register for Bethnal Green, praying that this House would, without delay, pass a measure giving the Parliamentary franchise to women on the same terms as it is or may be enjoyed by men.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Private Bills [Lords] (Standing Orders not previously inquired into complied with). —Mr. Speaker laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, that, in the case of the following Bills, originating in the Lords, and referred on the First Reading thereof, the Standing Orders not previously inquired into, and which are applicable thereto, have been complied with, namely:—
Wicklow Gas Bill [Lords].
Farnham Gas and Electricity Bill [Lords].
Mersey Railway Bill [Lords].
Bankers Guarantee and Trust Fund Incorporation Bill [Lords].
Stratford-upon-Avon and Midland Junction Railway Bill [Lords].
Ordered, That the Bills be read a second time.
Private Bills (Petition for additional Provision) (Standing Orders not complied with),—Mr. Speaker laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, that, in the case of the Petition for additional Pro-
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vision in the following Bill, the Standing Orders have not been complied with, namely:—
Glasgow Gas Consolidation Bill.
Ordered, That the Report referred to the Select Committee on Standing Orders.
North and South Shields Electric Railway Bill,
To be read a second time to-morrow.
Great Northern Railway (Ireland) Bill (by Order),
Second Reading deferred till Tuesday next.
London County Council (General Powers) Bill (by Order),
St. James's Vestry Hall (Westminster) Bill (by Order),
South Hants Water Bill (by Order), Second Reading deferred till to-morrow.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.

  Naval Engineer Officers.
  Mr. WEDGWOODasked the First Lord of the Admiralty if, under the new scheme of training, sub-lieutenants and lieutenants would be serving in the engine-rooms of our ships from about May, 1911, onwards; and, if so, did the Admiralty intend to carry into effect at once the changes in status of the present engineer officers which were foreshadowed in Lord Selborne's Memorandum over seven years ago?
  The FIRST LORD of the ADMIRALTY (Mr. McKenna): The first officers entered under the new scheme of training will go to sea as sub-lieutenants in May, 1911, and from that date onwards sub-lieutenants, and later on lieutenants so trained will served in the engine-room as required. The changes referred to as having been foreshadowed on page 8 of Lord Selborne's memorandum of December, 1902, have already been carried into effect.
  Mr. WEDGWOOD: Will the right hon. Gentleman state whether there is likely to be any further amalgamation between the existing engineer officers—
  Mr. McKENNA: I have already replied to my hon. Friend on this point, and I have stated that the subject is under the consideration of the Board of Admiralty.

  British and German Destroyers (High Freeboard).
  Mr. MIDDLEMOREasked how many destroyers of the high freeboard type are now completed for the British and German navies, respectively?
  Mr. McKENNA: The numbers are:—For the United Kingdom, 46; for Germany, 45.
  Mr. MIDDLEMORE: Is the right hon. Gentleman quite clear about the last figure?
  Mr. McKENNA: I should not have given the answer unless I was able to give him the correct one.
  Mr. MIDDLEMOREasked whether it was still intended to complete the destroyers of last year's programme by March, 1011, or whether, as was stated in the Navy Estimates, only three would be completed by the end of the financial year 1910–11, leaving seventeen to be completed in the financial year 1911–12?
  Mr. McKENNA: The seventeen mentioned in the latter part of the question are due for completion, during April, 1911.

  Armoured Ships (Great Britain and Germany).
  Mr. MIDDLEMOREasked the First Lord of the Admiralty, whether, in view of the fact that two armoured ships only, the "Neptune" and "Indefatigable," were to be passed into service during the coming financial year, he would state how many armoured ships would be completed between 1st April, 1910, and 31st March, 1911, by Germany?
  Mr. McKENNA: According to official information received from the German Admiralty, the cruiser "Von der Tann" is the only armoured vessel to be reported as completed between the dates named.

  Portsmouth Dry Dock (Tenders).
  Mr. JOHN WARDasked the First Lord of the Admiralty, whether it was proposed to shortly ask for tenders for the contemplated dry dock at Portsmouth; and, if so, whether the contractors would be asked to pay the minimum rate of 6d. per hour, as agreed to between the local contractors and the workmen's trade unions?
  Mr. McKENNA: It was not possible to invite tenders for the dry dock at Portsmouth and terms for its execution have
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  been arranged with the contractors for the new lock on the general basis of their existing contract. The rates of wages most therefore be governed by the existing contract; but such work as the Admiralty find to be of a nature that entitles the men to the 6d. an hour rate will be paid for at that rate, as was arranged under the existing contract after investigation with my hon. Friend's assistance last, year.
  Mr. JOHN WARD: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the sixpenny rate applies if the clause of the contract is in accordance with the Resolution of the House to the whole of the workmen employed on these works?
  Mr. McKENNA: I do not think I can go further than to say that the arrangement arrived at after my hon. Friend visited Portsmouth will be adhered to in the case of the new dock.
  Mr. JOHN WARD: That was only a promise which I agreed to under the special circumstances of the case.
  Mr. McKENNA: The special circumstances are the identical circumstances of the case of the new dock, because the contract for the new dock is amalgamated with the contract for the old dock.
  Mr. FALLE: Will the right hon. Gentleman suggest to the contractors that they should first of all employ the local men at Portsmouth?
  Earl WINTERTON: I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether in questions of this kind it is usual to base the question whether the contract is carried out or not upon an agreement with a private Member of this House?
  Mr. McKENNA: It was not based upon any agreement with a private Member. A question arose as to whether work done by certain men was work which ought properly to be paid for at the rate of 6d. per hour, and my hon. Friend was good enough to go down to Portsmouth to investigate the matter on the spot. A representative of the contractor was present and agreed to the representations made by my hon. Friend that the work was of a kind which might properly be paid for at the rate of 6d. per hour, and that has been carried into effect.

  Nyasaland (Hut Tax and Emigration).
  Mr. REESasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the

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  Government of Nyasaland received from every native who emigrated from the country a Hut Tax double that collected from natives who remained within the Protectorate?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Colonel Seely): The Nyasaland Government has been authorised to collect from all natives who go down to South Africa under control a Hut Tax of 12s. a year instead of the Hut Tax of 6s. a year which they would pay if they remained in the country.
  Mr. REES: Arising out of that answer, may I ask whether this state of affairs does not constitute at least a potential temptation even to a virtuous Government?
  Colonel SEELY: No, sir. I think the Government would be proof against any such temptation. It is a reasonable provision to pay for the expense of looking after the natives who insist on going to South Africa.
  Sir GILBERT PARKER: May I ask whether the effect of this double Hut Tax has been to decrease emigration from Nyasaland to Rhodesia or other parts of South Africa?
  Colonel SEELY: I could not say without notice whether that is the effect, but I should think so. Emigration was not permitted under supervision until up to a short time ago, and then only because we could not stop it, and we thought it better to supervise it. Of course, it would tend to have that effect.
  Mr. REESasked whether the Associated Chamber of Commerce and Agriculture of Nyasaland had recorded and communicated to the Secretary of State a resolution deprecating any encouragement by the Government of organised or regulated emigration from Nyasaland; and, if so, whether any action had been taken on such resolution?
  Colonel SEELY: It appears from the "Nyasaland Times" of the 28th October, 1909, that a meeting was held at Blantyre on the 23rd of that month, under the auspices of the Chamber of Commerce and Agriculture, at which a resolution was passed protesting "against the opening of the Protectorate to recruiting for the labour market of South Africa or elsewhere," but they did not communicate the resolution to the Secretary of State.

  Lead Poisoning (China, Earthenware and Coach-making).
  Mr. WEDGWOODasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, with reference to reported cases of lead poisoning, he could give any reason for the reduction last year of from 117 cases to fifty-eight cases in the china and earthenware industry, or for the increase in the coach-making industry of from seventy to ninety-five cases; and whether he had any official information showing that the closer supervision over the cleanliness of the workplaces and of the health of the workers had caused the improvement in the case of the pottery industry?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Masterman): It is difficult to say to what cause or causes the striking diminution in the number of lead cases in the Potteries is to be attributed, but the depression of trade in the earlier part of the year, the additional inspection provided, and the increased attention to the adoption of precautionary measures, have all contributed to the result. The Secretary of State, cannot assign any reason for the increase in the coach-making industry. This is one of the industries which has been selected for investigation when the pottery inquiry has been completed.

  Police (Weekly Rest-Day) Bill.
  Mr. SCOTTasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he would state, approximately, the additional expense which it was estimated would be incurred by police authorities in England and Wales if the Police (Weekly Rest-Day) Bill were passed into law in its present form and put into operation; and whether, in view of the existing arrangements in regard to the payment of grants from the Imperial Exchequer in aid of local rates, the whole of such additional expense would, under the Bill in its present form, have to be paid by the ratepayers?
  Mr. MASTERMAN: The Secretary of State has no definite information. A very rough estimate based on a comparison of the cost of the county and borough police with that of the Metropolitan police suggests that the total cost to police authorities in England and Wales, excluding the Metropolitan and City police authorities, would be about £250,000 to £300,000. Under the existing financial arrangements the cost will fall in part directly on the rates, and in part on the Exchequer contribution;

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  but, as this charge on the Exchequer contribution will diminish proportionately the amount (if any) available for relief of the rates, the whole cost will, in fact, be borne by the ratepayer.

  Labour Exchanges (Wales).
  Mr. REESasked the President of the Board of Trade, whether it was intended to open a labour exchange in Central Wales in addition to those in North and South Wales; and, if so, at what place in Montgomeryshire such central labour exchange would be established?
  The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Sydney Buxton): Until further experience of the Working of the system has been obtained I am not prepared to say what exchanges, if any, will be required in Wales in addition to those I enumerated when replying to my hon. Friend's question of the 2nd March.

  Assurance Companies Act (Lapsed Policies).
  Mr. BOTTOMLEYasked the President of the Board of Trade, whether, in view of the fact that the Assurance Companies Act of last year made no provision for dealing with lapsed policies in industrial insurance societies and companies, due to the inability of the holders to keep up their payments, he would cause inquiry to be made as to the amount of such lapsed premiums in the hands of the various societies and companies?
  Mr. BUXTON: I am advised that it would not be practicable to obtain the information asked for without statutory powers, which the Board of Trade do not possess. I would, however, call attention to the fact that forfeiture cannot be incurred by any insured person except after due notice given in accordance with the provisions of Section 3 of the Collecting Societies and Industrial Assurance Companies Act, 1896.

  Passenger Vessels (Carrying Capacity).
  Mr. BARNES (for Mr. Charles Duncan)asked whether the number of passengers allowed to be carried decreases as the age of a passenger-carrying vessel advances; if so, what was the basis, if any, of such decrease, or was the matter left to the discretion of the surveyor; and what age would the vessel have to reach before the Board of Trade would cease to grant a passenger certificate?
  Mr. BUXTON: The Merchant Shipping Act, 1894, requires that whenever a
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  steamer is surveyed for a passenger certificate, the surveyor must declare the number of passengers which the vessel is in his judgment fit to carry. The surveyor has therefore full power to reduce the number of passengers if, after consideration of all the circumstances, he decides that it would be advisable to do so. It would not be possible to lay down any general rule for regulating the number of passengers by the age of a vessel, but the Board of Trade would refuse to issue a passenger certificate to any vessel which, owing to age or any other cause, was not fit to ply with passengers on the intended route.

  Loss of Steamship "Ellan Vannin."
  Mr. BARNES (for Mr. Charles Duncan)asked the President of the Board of Trade if he would state what was the condition of the hull of the "Ellan Vannin," according to the report of the last survey?
  Mr. BUXTON: The report of the last survey of this vessel states that the hull was found to be sufficient for the service intended and in good condition, and that the vessel was, in the surveyor's judgment, fit to ply within the limits of the home trade.

  Proposed Catholic School, Wolsingham, County Durham.
  Captain DONELAN (for Mr. Boland)asked the President of the Board of Education whether his attention had been called to the application for the proposed Catholic School at Wolsingham, county Durham, and to the correspondence which had passed on the subject; and whether he could state when the case would be decided?
  The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Runciman): The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. The case is now under consideration. I am unable to name a date when I shall be in a position to give a decision.

  English Pottery Trade (Scientific Teaching).
  Mr. JOHN WARDasked the President of the Board of Education whether, when forming his Estimates for the coming year, he would favourably consider the claims of the Potteries for a college of pottery, in view of the importance of scientific teaching of pottery to the English pottery trade, which is at the present time subject to regulations and restrictions not imposed upon pottery manufacture in any other country?
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: The Estimates for the year 1910–11 have already been published. It is, therefore, impossible to take this matter into consideration in connection with those Estimates. I do not understand precisely what the hon. Member wishes me to do, but if he will formulate some more definite proposal and send it to me I shall be happy to consider whether there is any action that I can usefully take in the matter.
  Mr. JOHN WARD: I shall take advantage of that offer.

  Dauntsey Almshouses, West Lavington.
  Mr. PETOasked the hon. Member for the Stroud Division, as representing the Charity Commissioners, whether he is aware that the inhabitants and householders of the ancient parish of West Lavington, duly assembled at a parish meeting on 31st December last to consider the draft scheme of the Charity Commissioners for dealing with the Dauntsey almshouses in that parish, expressed their unanimous disapproval of the provision in Clause 13 of the scheme, whereby all persons who had been in receipt of Poor Law, relief, other than medical relief, would be disqualified as applicants for admission to the almshouses or to benefit by the charity; and whether he will see that this provision is removed from the scheme and from the draft form of notice of election to fill vacancies among the almspeople, so that poor and honest persons who are in receipt of parochial relief through no fault of their own may be included?
  Mr. C. P. ALLEN: The views of the parish meeting referred to by the hon. Member were communicated to the Charity Commissioners, who have pointed out that they are bound in this matter by a rule of law laid down by the Court of Chancery. They are, therefore, unable to remove the provision containing the disqualification to which objection is taken. The period, however, during which candidates for appointment to the almshouses must not have received relief has in the present case been reduced from two years to one year.
  Mr. PETO: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that under the old scheme there was no disqualification at all? I understand it was only when the matter came into the hands of the Charity Commissioners that this rule was made?
  Mr. ALLEN: If that is so, I can only add that the old scheme worked illegally. I am informed there are several cases,
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  coming down from a considerable time past, all in the same direction.

  Valuations for Estate Duty.
  Mr. REESasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that inconvenience and delay are caused by the necessity which exists under the present rules for the valuation of all estates, however trifling in value, for Estate Duty by the Valuation Department at Somerset House; and whether he will consider the propriety of accepting local valuations for small properties?
  The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Lloyd-George): I am not aware that the system of valuation for Death Duties, indicated in my reply of the 10th inst. to a question by my hon. Friend, is open to the objections to which he refers, and I see no reason for making any alteration in it; but when a system of national valuation has been set up after the Finance Bill of last year has been passed into law, it will, I hope, be possible to utilise the results of that valuation for Estate Duty purposes.
  Mr. REES: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether meanwhile he could do something to gratify the natural desire of local men to do a little bit of business, to which they are quite equal?
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: I quite agree with my hon. Friend that they are quite equal to anything, and their needs are, no doubt, most reasonable; but I think it would be a mistake to set up a mere temporary arrangement when it will be possible in a very short time to set up a permanent arrangement.
  Mr. CAVE: May I ask whether this special Valuation Department has any connection with the Finance Bill of last year?
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: Oh, no. The special Valuation Department of the Death Duties Office has nothing whatever to do with the Finance Bill, except that from the experience I have had I know that we are losing a lot of money owing to very defective and inadequate valuations which are accepted.

  Development Grant (Weaver Navigation).
  Mr. JOHN WARDasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, before allocating the Development Grant and pending the opportunity of Parliament, dealing with the Report of the Canal Commission, he would favourably consider the advisability

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  of granting the sum required to survey the route and to estimate the cost of extending the Weaver Navigation the twenty miles from Winsford to the Potteries, as recommended by the expert witnesses before the Commission, and as forming the first section in the cross canals recommended to join up the Midlands with the Mersey, the Humber, the Severn, and the Thames?
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: I am afraid I cannot see my way to adopt the hon. Member's suggestion. The matter, as my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary stated on the 23rd inst., is primarily one for the Development Commission when it has been constituted.
  Lord BALCARRES: May I ask when the Commissioners will be appointed, as we were promised on the Third Reading of the Bill last year that the names were to be given within two or three days after that date?
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: I can assure the Noble Lord that it is really a rather difficult matter. It is very important we should secure Commissioners who will command general confidence. I am in consultation even with his own friends with regard to the class of men who would appeal to them, and I think it is very desirable we should get a body of men, when they are to dispense patronage of £900,000 a year, who should command general confidence, and therefore I am taking my time over it, and I think I shall be justified.
  Mr. H. A. WATT: May I ask whether the Development Grant is in any way contingent upon the passing of the Budget of last year?
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: The Development Bill has passed, but the cash depends upon the Finance Bill and that is very important.

  Stylepark Estate, County Limerick.
  Mr. LONSDALEasked the Chief Secretary whether the Estates Commissioners have made arrangements for the resale of the Stylepark estate, in county Limerick; whether he will state to whom the house has been granted, and how much land accompanies the house; and whether this person has any other land, and, if so, how much?
  The ATTORNEY-GENERAL for IRELAND (Mr. Redmond Barry): This estate has been purchased by the Estates Com-
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  missioners who have approved of a scheme for its allotment. No arrangements for the disposal of the house and the lands attached thereto, comprising about eighty-four acres, have yet been made by the Commissioners. They propose to advertise it for sale.
  Mr. LONSDALE: Will the right hon. Gentleman state whether it is not the policy of the Estates Commissioners not to make large grants of land to persons already in possession of land?
  Mr. REDMOND BARRY: I am not able to give an answer to that question.

  French Tariff.
  Mr. JAMES HOPEasked the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs a question —of which he had given private notice— whether His Majesty's Government have made any representations to the French Government with a view to obtaining a reconsideration of the tariff through the action of the President of the Republic?
  The UNDER - SECRETARY for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. McKinnon Wood): The answer is in the negative. We could not properly suggest to the French Government the adoption of the course indicated by the hon. Member.
  Mr. HOPE: Are we to understand that His Majesty's Government is, and has been, powerless in the matter although large concessions have been, made to the Government of the United States?
  Mr. MCKINNON WOOD: The hon. Member is not entitled to understand that from my answer. What he asked me was to propose to the French Government that the President should refuse to assent to the tariff.
  Mr. JAMES HOPE: Has anything come of former representations?
  Mr. McKINNON WOOD: There have been many repesentations putting the views of His Majesty's Government before the French Government through the proper diplomatic channels.

NOTICES OF MOTION.
Mr. F. W. VERNEY: On this day fortnight, to call attention to the relations between the artificial restrictions on the use of land and unemployment, and to move a Resolution.
Captain JOSCELINE BAGOT: On this day four weeks, to call attention to the commercial relations between Canada, the United States, and Germany, and the need of closer commercial relations within the British Empire, and to move a Resolution.
Sir JOHN RANDLES: On this day four weeks, to draw attention to the unemployment existing in consequence of the fiscal arrangements with other countries.

RELATIONS BETWEEN THE TWO HOUSES.

  DURATION OF PARLIAMENT.
  Order read for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question [29 th March], "That this House will immediately resolve itself into a Committee to consider the Relations between the Two Houses of Parliament and the question of the Duration of Parliament."—[The Prime Minister.]
  Question again proposed. Debate resumed.
  Mr. F. E. SMITH: We have had the opportunity since yesterday of reading the very important speech delivered by the Prime Minister, and of drawing some more deliberate conclusions from its tenour and contents than were possible yesterday. I imagine that the most striking conclusion which anyone is likely to form would deal with the extraordinary omission on the part of the Prime Minister to meet the expectations which had been generally held out that when the proposals of the Government were made known to the House they would deal with the subject of reform of the Second Chamber. I do not suppose anyone will have forgotten that in the Gracious Speech from the Throne there glimmered faintly and fitfully through the ambiguities of its language, but still equally unmistakably, the expression of an intention to recommend certain proposals to the consideration of the House for the reform of the House of Lords. What is the position which that question occupies to-day? It occupies some political territory even more remote in practical politics than that which at present is filled by the "People's Budget." Surely, as a matter of fact, it is of some importance when we are asked to deal with a Constitution which has existed for 800 years, and when we are told by the Government that an essential part of their plan is, either as a preliminary to destruc-
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  tion or as accompaniment to destruction, that we shall have some constructive proposals of reform indicated—surely it is somewhat astonishing when these proposals are brought forward that, with the exception of a single vague sentence, there is not a single proposal brought forward in the present or relating to the future which has anything whatever to do with the reform of the House of Lords. Surely we are entitled to analyse the position a little more carefully to discover if we can what is the explanation of the entire disappearance from the political stage of the proposals for the reform of the House of Lords. It does not require a very subtle or trained gift of analysis to discover what the explanations are. The first explanation, and the more obvious one, is that on this, which is the very fundamental part of their policy, the Cabinet have not yet reached the commencement of an agreement. They cannot make up their minds whether they intend to reform the House of Lords or not, and up to the present their minds have been continually made up for them. We may take two recent important pronouncements in the country from different members of the Government as an index of the uncertainty which exists at the moment. Not very long ago the Home Secretary made a speech at Manchester in which he said, "I would not myself be frightened by having only one Chamber." [Some MINISTERIAL cheers.] There are some supporters of that. But the Foreign Secretary, in the remarkable language quoted by the Leader of the Opposition yesterday, said a single-Chamber policy meant the political death and damnation of the Liberal party.
  Nothing has struck me as more interesting than the function that is being discharged by the survivors of the Liberal League in the Cabinet. They were put in the Government, if one may trust this dark chapter of domestic history, to act as watch-dogs. The only thing they have ever watched for four years is which way the cat is jumping. I read the whole speech of the Foreign Minister with considerable care, and in the whole of that speech, in the tentative consideration which he gave to the question of Reform of the House of Lords, he never examined it, or purported to examine it from the point of view of the interests of the country or the Empire. He examined it from first to last with unconcealed attention to the one question of what effect it was going to have on the fortunes of the

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  Liberal party. The conclusion he reached was that to go to the country with a proposal for a single Chamber would mean political death and damnation to the Liberal party; and what we see is that, in spite of that prediction, and in spite of the fact that there is not going to be any reform of the Second Chamber, he is still prepared to link his fortunes with the party opposite. But there is a second reason which I am convinced has weighed not less persuasively with the Government, and that is that, as usual on this question of the House of Lords, they have had the orders of their followers. They were perfectly clearly given. The Prime Minister stated at Oxford that he was not in command of a homogeneous majority, and he regretted this fact, and after the great Progressive triumph at the polls, which was so much advertised a few weeks ago, the result is that although the Government—and this point is not disputed—as a Government are convinced that it would have been both in the interests of the country and wise as a piece of party strategy to introduce proposals for the reform of the House of Lords, they are not in a position to do so. I venture to throw out this challenge to hon. Gentlemen opposite. Am I not stating what is within the knowledge of everyone when I say that an overwhelming majority of the coalition which keeps the Government in office will not allow the reform of the House of Lords? I may quote in that connection the observation of the Foreign Secretary:—
  " We are not strong enough to reform the House of Lords with a majority of thirty."
  The House will observe the inference, that although they are not strong enough to reform the House of Lords they are strong enough to destroy it. I will carry that challenge, and I think not unreasonably, a little further, and I would ask whether a majority of the Coalition, or anything like a majority, would tolerate now anything like a reform of the House of Lords? I accept the statements which were made on the Address by many Members who spoke on the other side of the House, and who said that whether reform of the House of Lords is well conceived or not we have obtained no mandate from our constituencies for such reform. I would therefore throw out this further challenge: How many of those who are going to vote oil this Resolution when a Division is taken propose to ask in May or June, or whenever the next appeal to the con-
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  stituencies takes place, for a mandate for a reform of the House of Lords? The House will judge whether I am dealing with this matter fairly when I say that not 20 per cent, of those who are united, and united only for the purpose of these destructive Resolutions, have the slightest intention of going to their constituents in June and asking them for a mandate to reform the House of Lords. If that is to, I say to the Government let them drop their talk of reform of the House of Lords. Neither now nor in the next House of Commons can they reform the House of Lords. The Foreign Secretary has told us that the Government are not strong enough to reform the House of Lords in this House of Commons, and everybody who has observed the statements made upon this point by their supporters, upon whom they are dependent politically, will know that they do not propose to let them reform the House of Lords in the next Parliament. "What follows from this, unless I have mistaken the attitude of the Labour party? It follows that the reform section is a negligible minority of the whole of the ranks of the Coalition. I do not think I am over-stating the attitude of the Labour party in this Parliament when I say that there is very little they will not swallow from the Government— I can never understand why they keep up the farce of separate Whips—and nobody has a greater gift than the Leader of the party (Mr. Barnes) for swallowing his own words; but, on the whole, I think it probable that when they say they are in favour of the abolition of the House of Lords they mean to adhere to that article at least of their political creed.
  Then we have the hon. Member for Waterford (Mr. John Redmond) on behalf of the Irish party saying in the House yesterday that he rejoiced that the Government had laid aside their proposals for reform. Probably he and no other Member of the Irish party will dissent when I say that the Irish party are as strongly as the Labour party opposed to any proposal to reform the. House of Lords, and are merely prepared to give their assent to the destructive proposals embodied in these Resolutions. If that is so, let us face facts. It is the fact that it is indisputable that the whole atmosphere of reform is a farce which would not deceive a child. It would not deceive anyone in this House or the House of Lords. It is the inexpensive coinage with which the Home Secretary and the Chancellor of the Exchequer

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  pay their way among their colleagues in the Liberal League. Therefore, no one, I think, will quarrel with the reasonableness or fairness of the view if I say that I ignore the reform proposals of the Government altogether, and I come to the fundamental position which is that hon. Gentlemen opposite, some of whom do not want reform, and some of whom do, are proposing to eviscerate an Assembly which everyone knows with one instructive vicissitude has weathered the political tempests of 800 years. I propose to discuss whether they will accomplish their object. What is the plan put forward by this Resolution? It is that what the House of Commons says three times is right. That is the proposition. The only historical analogy that I can recollect for the moment is that of the Snark, who said, "What I say three times is right." I think the Resolutions must have been founded upon that precedent. May I be permitted to ask why three times? After all, every Bill has three formal stages in the House of Commons, and I cannot understand why, when once a Bill has been through the House of Commons, you are not entitled to say of it, in that impressive phrase which is so frequently on the lips of the Prime Minister,
  "it is the considered judgment of the Commons of England—"
  like the Irish Councils Bill. I cannot understand, moreover, if you may be wrong once or twice, why you should suppose you cannot be wrong three times. Is it something like an incantation? I take, for instance, the view of the late Liberal Whip Lord Marchamley, better known to Members of this House as Mr. Whiteley. He was the Chief Liberal Whip at the time the Campbell-Bannerman Resolutions were brought forward in the last House of Commons. All hon. Gentlemen opposite who were there voted for them, and many voted for them who have not survived. Lord Marchamley recently wrote a letter to "The Times," and he said it was quite true he was shepherding the democratic sheep into that particular fold, but he never agreed with the Resolutions himself, and he thought they were a great mistake. He thought they meant single-Chamber Government, and he was not prepared to-day to vote for the same Resolutions unless they provided for a dissolution between one of the stages and the final stage in the House of Commons. Therefore I am entitled to
  1308
  say that the Chief Liberal Whip at the time the Campbell-Bannerman Resolutions, which were identical in character with these, were introduced, did not believe in them, and recognised, as he recognises to-day, that the whole point of them is that you abolish Second-Chamber Government altogether when once you say a mere threefold repetition is sufficient to ensure the passage of a Bill.
  This obligation that there shall be a threefold repetition is one of the fraudulent securities with which the Government is never tired of concealing its real object. You have only to analyse the paragraph which always appears in the perorations and the resolutions of hon. Gentlemen opposite and is used as an introduction— "In order to give effect to the will of the people." I am quite prepared to treat this as the touchstone of the whole question and the whole issue between this side of the House and that. I am prepared, and my Friends I believe are prepared, to stand or fall on the adequacy of this formula of yours as applied to the Resolutions. And I advance a counter-proposition. I say that your real object is not, and never was, in these Resolutions to give effect to the will of the people. Your real object, if you stated it honestly, is to give effect to the will of the Radical caucuses, whatever relation they may bear to the will of the people. I think I can show this very shortly. I am quite prepared to test it by reference to one of our great historical controversies, I mean the Home Rule controversy. I suppose no one will quarrel with this statement of fact, that under these Resolutions, had they been operative at the time of the Home Rule controversy in 1892, that Bill would have become law. We shall all be agreed about that. Many hon. Gentlemen opposite would think that was a prospect which would be gladly welcomed. I am not arguing that. We are all agreed that had these Resolutions been effective the Home Rule Bill would have become law in 1892. That is a totally different consideration from whether a Home Rule Bill ought in our judgment to become an Act of Parliament now. The question is, ought it to have become an Act in 1893. May I quote on that an observation made by the hon. and learned Member (Mr. John Redmond), and quoted later in this House by the hon. Member (Mr. William O'Brien):—
  "The trouble with the House of Lords is not that it threw out the Home Rule Bill, hut that the country endorsed the rejection. The House of Lords has never withstood the declared will of the nation."

  1309
  The hon. and learned Gentleman himself candidly assents when I read this extract from his speech. I ask a plain question of the Chief Secretary for Ireland: Was it right or was it wrong in relation to the democratic theory, which I am sure he understands, that the Home Rule Bill should have become law in 1893? If it was right, what becomes of the will of the people, because the hon. and learned Gentleman has admitted what everyone knows—that it was not the will of the people as tested at the following election. [HON. MEMBEBS: "No, no."] I cannot help thinking that anyone who would deny that proposition would deny anything.
  " The trouble as to the House of Lords is not that it threw out the Home Rule Bill, but that the country endorsed the rejection."
  "In order to give effect to the will of the people." That is the proposition. The question I ask the Chief Secretary is, if it was right that Home Rule should become law in 1893, what becomes of your formula that these Resolutions are calculated to give effect to the will of the people? If, on the other hand, it was wrong, in reliance again upon the democratic principle, that the Home Rule Bill should have become law, how do you justify these Resolutions? The Government is driven to the position, which is grotesquely ludicrous, that there is some special virtue in repetition, that if you add obstinacy to error you are entitled to a degree of political success which is refused to error when it stands alone. If there was no other illustration of the profoundly undemocratic character of these Resolutions the Home Rule case will abundantly justify it. But there are plenty of other instances. I take two other cases which have been very much relied on by hon. Gentlemen opposite both in the House of Commons and in the country, the Education Act and the Licensing Act, which were passed by the Government of my right hon. Friend (Mr. Balfour). For three years hon. Gentlemen opposite filled the country with groaning and moaning for these two Acts. They said their passage was unconstitutional, and that any effective Second Chamber would have thrown them out, and that, I am sure, is still their view. They said the people of England did not want those Bills. Then why are you proposing to stereotype Resolutions which will always enable the House of Commons to pass similar Bills into Acts of Parliament? It is not creditable that hon. Gentlemen can be found ready to vote for Resolutions which they show at
  1310
  every stage they are intellectually incapable of understanding. Their whole case is that, in order to give effect to the will of the people, any Bill which the House of Commons passes three times ought to become law. Does anyone doubt that the House of Commons would have passed our Education Act and our Licensing Act three times if it had been necessary? Therefore they ought to become law on your theory. The only comment which can be made is that hon. Gentlemen complain of the evil that there is no Second Chamber when the Conservative party is in power, and what is your remedy? You say you will have no Second Chamber when Liberals are in power. You find a fault and you duplicate it. That is the measure of your statesmanship. You stereotype for all time a system—and I accept for the sake of argument your hypothesis that the Licensing Bill and the Education Bill were not desired by the people—under which we can continue to pass Bills which are not wanted by the people, and you do that under the name of the preliminary formula "in order that the will of the people may prevail." Could political ineptitude go further?
  Let me examine the grievances which are stated in exclusive relation to the last five years. I will not pretend to examine all the grievances which have been alleged, but I think the House as a whole will consider that I am not dealing unfairly with them if I select as the three main counts in the indictment against the House of Lords in the last five years their treatment of the education policy, their treatment of the Licensing Act, and their treatment of the Budget. I apprehend that no one will pretend that you are going to uproot the House of Lords because they would not allow you to tinker with the electorate in their own political interests. Therefore I confine myself to these three main illustrations, which have been the gravamen of their case in the country. Let me ask the House this question: How many people are there now occupying seats in this House who complain of the action of the House of Lords in relation to the Education Bill of 1906? Last night the Solicitor-General stated that the House of Lords threw out the Education Bill of 1906. I think his many occupations must have prevented him at the time from giving that exact attention to the state of the education controversy which was necessary to the giving of a correct statement

  1311
  of what occurred. They did not throw out the Bill of 1906. They insisted upon three fundamental Amendments. [Laughter.] I really think that that merriment must have proceeded from new Members. I can only say that the Minister in charge of the Bill, the present Chief Secretary for Ireland, will agree that either in his own speech on the Third Beading of the Bill, or, rather, when the Bill came back from the House of Lords, he stated that there were three fundamental grounds of disparity and difference between the House of Lords and the House of Commons on the Education Bill; and it was in relation to these three points that the House of Lords introduced Amendments. May I point out to hon. Gentlemen opposite that the three fundamental Amendments which the House of Lords insisted upon were these: First of all, that there should be religious instruction in all schools unless the children were withdrawn by the parents; secondly, that there should be right of entry into all, schools; and, thirdly, that the teachers should be at liberty to volunteer to give religious instruction in all schools. Every one of these points was introduced by the present Minister of Education in the Bill which he proposed. Let us see the extent of the grievance which hon. Gentlemen have against the House of Lords for their conduct. I read from the speech which the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Education made in regard to the Education Bill subsequently brought forward:—
  " When I went to the Education Office I laboured for co-operation and not for conflict.—"'
  rather a reflection on his predecessor—
  " I have since been asked why I have attempted compromise at all. A wise statesman once said that all good government, and, indeed, every human benefit and enjoyment, every prudent act, is founded upon compromise and bargain."
  That is the justification which the right hon. Gentleman made for his Education Bill, which embodied every one of the three fundamental points upon which the House of Lords insisted in the Bill of 1906. And then, so perfunctory is the treatment which the Solicitor-General gives to this question that he tells us the House of Lords threw out the Bill of 1906. Let me ask the Irish party, and the Leader of the Irish party, whether they agreed with the indictment against the House of Lords for their treatment of the Education Bill of 1906? I remember on the Third Reading of that Bill hearing the
  1312
  hon. and learned Member (Mr. J. Redmond) make a grave and weighty speech, in which he recited the grievances which animated his co-religionists in regard to the terms of that Bill, and I remember the memorable sentence in which he summarised them. He said:—
  "I and my co-religionists consider it as an insult, and resent it as an injury.''
  That was the observation made by the hon. and learned Member on the occasion of the Third Reading, when once for all the House of Commons lost seisin of it. Under what circumstances was he able afterwards to give a qualified support to the Bill? He was able to give, only a qualified support to the measure when it came back with Amendments from the House of Lords.
  Mr. JOHN REDMOND: No; it was when an Amendment suggested by us was accepted by the Government.
  Mr. F. E. SMITH: Does the hon. and learned Gentleman deny that that was after the Bill had come back from the House of Lords to this House?
  Mr. JOHN REDMOND: It was an Amendment which satisfied us.
  Mr. F. E. SMITH: May I point out how completely the hon. Gentleman has ignored the whole points Is the hon. and learned Member for Waterford really so simple as to think that after this Government, which had been as adamant for months, in spite of him, and after the right hon. Gentleman had resisted his arguments and despised his threats in the House of Commons, would ever have accepted that Amendment if the Bill had not been sent back from the House of Lords? The House of Lords gave the opportunity of further discussion which alone was the soil from which this Amendment sprang. The hon. and learned Member for Waterford, not only in relation to education, but in relation to other questions, because he wants Home Rule for Ireland, will be very glad of similar opportunities of supporting the Government in future.
  There is a far more striking comment for those who believe in democracy so profoundly and obviously than is to be found in the relation of the Lords to education, and that is, the plain result of the last election. The right hon. Gentleman failed with his Education Bill in the last House of Commons, partly, I agree, because of the action of the House of Lords.

  1313
  Does he think he could carry that Education Bill through this House of Commons? He knows he could not. He knows he could not carry the Second Reading of it in this House of Commons. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] If he does not know that, I must say that he is not particularly observant. If that is true—and everyone who knows the constitution of the House of Commons to-day knows there is a denominational majority in the House— surely everybody can see that that is a final vindication of the attitude of the House of Lords in the last four years. You must develop other and more promising lines of quarrel with the House of Lords. Let me suggest one—the Licensing Bill. What is the history of that measure? Does the right hon. Gentleman believe that the people of England wanted the Licensing Bill or did not? Is it the view of the Government that the House of Lords were violating the will of the people when they threw out the Licensing Bill? The Prime Minister, dealing with that subject, said, "I agree it is not a Bill by which we ever expected to gain votes." As to these champions of democracy, I confess that their attitude is very difficult to follow with any precision. The object of the Prime Minister is to give effect to the will of the people, but he introduces a Bill which he confesses is not likely to gain him the votes of the people, and then he quarrels with the House of Lords because they threw rut the Bill. The Lord Chancellor also dealt with this. He said:—
  "The Bill may be an unpopular measure. So much more reason why this House should pass it."
  That is democracy according to the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, leaving for the moment his invective manner for what I may call his "soapy" manner, said:—
  " It is the greatest opportunity the House of Lords has had to rise to the dignity of its great profession, far removed from the passion that sways the multitude."
  That is to say, the Government appeal to the multitude to punish the Lords for throwing out a Bill which the multitude do not want.
  I take the case of the Labour party, and I think I owe them an apology for treating them separately from the Government. What did the Leader of the Labour party say in regard to the Licensing Bill? He said:—
  " The Licensing Bill did not stir the pulses of the people."
  1314
  The Chairman of the Independent Labour party (Mr. Jowett) said:—
  " It is putting it mildly to say that the popularity of the Licensing Bill was doubtful."
  In view of these utterances am I not entitled to make this moderate claim, that by the mouths of Ministers themselves, and of their supporters below the Gangway, the people of England did not want the Licensing Bill. Had these Resolutions of yours been operative, the Licensing Bill which, ex hypothesi, the people of England did not want, would have been law to-day. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I confess I do not understand why not. I suppose what would have happened is that the right hon. Gentleman would have made his speech three times instead of once. That, of course, might have conciliated the Opposition. Assuming it had not that effect, I apprehend that the position would have been precisely the same as to-day. I claim, therefore, as regards two of the great historical controversies, the whole case has gone of those who say that the House of Lords stood in the way of giving effect to the views of the people. But what is the great case and the final case? It is the one which depends on the Budget. The Prime Minister and the Solicitor-General said last night that the House of Lords had no legal, or, at least, no constitutional right—
  The PRIME MINISTER: I never said "no legal right."
  Mr. F. E. SMITH: I think that the Solicitor-General said no legal right, but it is quite sufficient for my argument that the right hon. Gentleman said that the House of Lords had no constitutional right to reject the Budget. I will adhere closely to that adjective in considering the question. I can say that that proposition, if it had been stated by the great authority of the Prime Minister and the Solicitor-General judicially, is one which, as a member of the same profession, would have commanded my most profound respect, though certainly it would have elicited my most extreme surprise. But put forward, as it is put forward, by Ministers who are in extreme political difficulties, I can only say it is a legal paradox which is defended by the greatest farrago of bad law and bad history ever offered to the attention of the House of Commons. Let me see if I cannot satisfy hon. Gentlemen on that. Mr. Gladstone—I observe that hon. Gentlemen have founded a league in honour of his name at a moment when they are departing from every con-

  1315
  siderable point of his politics—spoke with the most explicit clearness in the discussion which was preliminary to the crisis of 1861. He founded his view upon the supreme importance of the House of Lords keeping open for any proper case this power of rejecting a Finance Bill, and this follows even more clearly, that the Resolution of 1861—unilateral as far as controversy between the two Chambers is concerned; but I waive that—was ostensibly limited to the exercise of an admitted legal right and in a serious case. But I will give the Prime Minister and the Solicitor-General dicta which are both more authoritative and more recent than those which they cited to the House of Commons yesterday. The speech made by Lord Spencer, a colleague of the Prime Minister at that time, in 1894, in introducing the Finance Bill into the House of Lords, is an authority still more valuable than an American speech by Lord Chatham. He said:—
  "We all know that we in this House cannot amend a Money Bill, but we have the full right to throw it out if we so will."
  I did not gather that the right hon. Gentleman dissents from that. His colleague Lord Ripon said even later:—
  "After all your Lordships cannot amend the Bill, and as you are not going to reject it as yon constitutionally could, we may take it that the discussion is ended.''
  I take a final instance on this point, the speech of the Lord Chancellor on 25th March, 1909. When he was persuading the House of Lords to pass the Finance Bill because the Rating Bill which followed was a Money Bill, he said:—
  "The Rating Bill will be a Money Bill. Well, if a Money Bill is brought forward. this House has always power to throw it out."
  The Solicitor-General last night, if he will allow me to say so, was really quite unworthy of his ingenuity and finesse in dealing with this quotation of the Lord Chancellor's, because he said that there is a difference between a Finance Bill and a Money Bill. There is no constitutional difference and no authority upon which such a difference can be founded, and furthermore, in your Resolutions, you do not attempt to draw such a distinction. You take the case of a Money Bill and you treat the case only as a Money Bill. Therefore, as far as constitutional authority is concerned, authority is only one way. But I confess I care far more about the political view than about the constitutional view. If I thought that the people of England by a large majority were op-
  1316
  posed to this Budget it would trouble me very little indeed even if the authorities were against its rejection. I adhere more closely to the true democratic thought. I ask the right hon. Gentleman again if the result of the election has been that the constituencies do not want the Budget, does that, in his view, justify the House of Lords? I give the Labour party as an authority upon that. The hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Snowden) made a speech at Cardiff on 7th March, in which he said:—
  "The Labour party wants to see the Budget passed into law, but unfortunately there is not a majority in favour of it in the House of Commons."
  There we have this spokesman of the democracy who desires that the House of Commons should pass a Budget which the constituencies do not want. That is the Labour view of giving effect to the will of the people. There is not one of us in. this House who does not know perfectly well that the one and only reason why the Budget so far has not been introduced is that the Government has not yet made up its mind, or the hon. Member for Waterford (Mr. J. Redmond) has not yet made up his mind, or the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. W. O'Brien) has not yet made up the hon. Member for Waterford's mind, whether there is a majority in the House of Commons for the Budget; and so the Government cannot introduce the. Budget. I remember being startled in the middle of my election by seeing a large placard on the walls of my Constituency, which contained this legend: "Don't budge on the big, bold Budget." The Government have been doing nothing but budging on the big, bold Budget ever since. It has become a kind of legislative Mrs. Harris, so that many people do not believe even in its existence at all. What a contrast that is with the stimulating utterances of the Home Secretary during the election campaign ! He made a speech at Frome, in which he said:—
  "We are going to rain the Budget through. I appeal to Liberals to join with us in carrying it through at a run, through the Lords or over it."
  4.0 P.M.
  They have been running ever since, but in the opposite direction. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty, in that breezy manner which one associates with the quarter deck, said, on 11th February:—
  "The Budget is going to be law in double quick time, and don't forget it."
  It all comes to this—we are perfectly frank with one another—you are going to destroy the Second Chamber for delaying

  1317
  a Bill which you dare not present to the First Chamber, fresh from contact with the constituencies. Your object is not to abolish the House of Lords because they are in conflict with the people of England, your object is to abolish the people or England when they are in conflict with the Radical party—an undertaking which, under democratic conditions, would be one of very considerable difficulty. Liberal attacks upon the House of Lords have always been chosen for the last thirty years as the sword with which a moribund Liberal Government commits kari-kari. At last, we are told, the revolutionary period is reached. Greater nonsense was never talked. Why, when you are talking of revolution the country is attending to its business with tranquil and indifferent stolidity. There is nobody excited save the leader writers of the "Daily News" and "The Star." There is no revolutionary crisis, for two plain reasons— there is no revolutionary crisis and no revolutionary army. I do not wish to be offensive, but it seems to me that hon. Gentlemen opposite are not the kind of stuff of which revolutionaries are made. The respectable and even benignant countenances with which I am confronted are ill-suited to the red cap of the revolutionary, and they are much better suited, perhaps, to a tea meeting or a pleasant Sunday afternoon. They are not suited to a committee of public safety or the barricade. I may point out, and the rank and file of the party, I am sure, will at least joint in this, that the Front Bench is not occupied by Jacobins. When I see the leaders of the parties and their caucuses manœuvring for a strategical position, I am reminded of nothing so much as the stage donkey, the legs of which move, though not together, but in different directions. I would ask hon. Gentlemen opposite—because we on this side are reproached with being actuated by party reasons—to make up their minds whether they are really well advised in their own interests and the interests of the Liberal party, once for all, to commit themselves to a policy which, as surely as night follows the day, will involve two more General Elections in the next twelve months—giving us three elections in twelve months. The Solicitor-General told us last night that on an exact financial calculation an election cost £2,000,000. I desire to speak for nobody but myself when I express my profound conviction that unless some of us can unite our Parliamentary duties with a happy attention to the vicissitudes of the
  1318
  rubber market we will have little or no money with which to fight another election. I desire to speak for myself in saying that. The policy which hon. Gentlemen opposite offer to the country and to the business community is this: They are going at a time of reviving trade [An HON. MEMBER: "Hear, hear."] Really, did anyone ever contend that even the adoption or practice of Free Trade prevented any revival of trade? They are going at a period of reviving trade to offer the country a long and convulsive agitation, to be followed by two or three General Elections? We have heard from hon. Gentlemen that there are great social problems to be solved—problems urgently crying for legislative treatment. What kind of treatment are they likely to get if this is to be the course pursued? I am profoundly convinced that, if it comes to the choice of the business community as between whether they will have that party which, with all its faults, is at least going to do its best for legislation and that party which says, "We shall give you nothing but three General Elections in twelve months," the Liberal party have nothing to gain from this.
  Mr. J. A. SIMON: In the greater part of the observations of the hon. and learned Gentleman that we have followed, I am sure with attention, I am not very sure whether the indignation which he was ex pressing was genuine or was feigned; for when he told us at the end of his speech that he quite realised that the election taken on this issue could not be accepted by his party, and that at least two elections were the best he could hope for— and I think in his peroration he got three elections—then I began to realise why it was that the hon. and learned Gentleman was so anxious. That being so, it throws a little light on the first matter to which he gave his attention. He expressed great perturbation and great annoyance because the proposals embodied in these Resolutions deal with one thing at a time—the limitation of the powers as distinct from an alteration in the composition of the Upper House. I do not know, I am sure, whether he had anticipated that alongside of some proposals to limit the powers of the other House, there should by some elaborate and contemporaneous suggestion for its reform, with the infinite Amendments possible to his ingenious mind. That may have been his idea, and if it was it shows two things of some service to many of us in this House. The

  1319
  first is that an attempt to combine at one and the same moment elaborate and complicated proposals for reform with a simple proposal for a limitation of powers, is an attempt which would be welcome to the other side. It shows how wise has been the judgment which has proclaimed that we must first deal with the necessity of the moment, that is, we must deal directly and simply with the limitation of the powers of the other House. I really do not know, when my hon. and learned Friend rose to speak, whether he felt himself in a position to defend on any ground of logic the position of the House of Lords in our Constitution. He certainly has not done so. He has endeavoured to meet the proposals, which ho obviously feared, and which have been put forward from his Front Bench, in substance by advancing two propositions which I believe are both unfounded. The first is this, and it is already quite obvious that it is going to be the simple cry from platforms, hoardings, and posters, if and when this matter is discussed at a General Election—it will be said, "Your proposals to limit the Veto of the House of Lords are nothing more nor less than a proposal for single-Chamber Government." That is a view which seems to have received some thought from hon. Gentlemen opposite. Let me just for one moment examine that, and see whether there is not between the two propositions a real difference, and whether hon. Gentlemen are not doing their intelligence some injustice when they attempt to treat this question as one and the same thing. It seems very strange that Members of the Conservative party, the party which has been in authority and power in the House of Commons for the greater part of the last generation, should express anxiety at the prospect of single-Chamber Government; but, be that as it may, whether it be wise or whether it be unwise to adopt a single-Chamber Government, the proposals which are embodied in these Resolutions are not and do not mean single-Chamber Government. To assert that they do is to fail to observe the obvious distinction, a distinction not merely of theory, but of fact, between a restricted Veto and no Veto at all. There is no walk in life in which the distinction between these two things is not perfectly well observed. One may take a very different department of life. There is many a hasty and ill-considered engagement
  1320

  which has been brought to the breaking-off point by the simple process of the veto of the parent for twelve months, and the veto which imposes delay brings about, and necessarily brings about, an opportunity for further discussion, further reflection. Surely hon. Gentlemen opposite are not going to pretend that opportunity for further discussion and further reflection is of no value to them at all? If they tell us that it is useless to give the House of Lords an opportunity to use a restricted Veto, they are, in fact, saying that nobody would ever attend to the arguments of that Assembly. It would be saying that it is of no good giving them an opportunity to speak, and that the only possibility of the House of Lords having any effect upon popular legislation or upon the popular judgment, is by the mechanical interposition of an uncontrolled power of rejecting, and rejecting as they choose and when they choose. Yet they are actually coming forward and announcing that they are the true depository of real democratic feeling. No; a restricted Veto gives an opportunity, first, I say, for further discussion and argument, and, secondly, for further reflection; and the very instances which the hon. and learned Gentleman gave afforded amongst them an illustration of this very fact when he referred at some length to the history of the Education Act of 1906. I was thoroughly familiar with his line of argument on this point, because he had made a speech on the subject before, and had done what is rather mare imprudent, published it in a book. Therefore I have had the advantage both of following his line of reasoning and considering at leisure numbers of the quotations which he has been good enough to give us to-day.
  Mr. F. E. SMITH: I sent the hon. Member a copy of the book containing the quotations.
  Mr. SIMON: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman gave me a copy of the first edition and also of the second edition, for, as one would expect, there were some excisions from the second edition which I am sure my hon. Friend will be grateful for in the future.
  I will not do him the injustice of saying that it is only the third edition we had to-day. Take the illustration which he gave, the Education Bill of 1906. He calls attention to the fact, when that measure went up to the House of Lords, and when the House of Lords returned to this House, and after the interval, and when

  1321
  further discussion had taken place, that a change was introduced into the text of that measure by the House of Commons, and by the Government of the day, and which, as he claimed, and rightly claimed, might not have been introduced, and would not have been introduced, if there had not been the return of that measure by the House of Lords to this House. Does he really suppose that the Resolutions which we bring forward are going to stop that? We are going to recognise that as the true function of a Second Chamber, and it is precisely because that opportunity is still given, still deliberately preserved to the Upper House under these proposals, that it is the height of absurdity to assail these proposals as if they amounted to single-Chamber Government.
  Take another instance. The hon. Gentleman says, and I do not know whether he is right or wrong, as these matters are still matters of controversy, that the Licensing Bill was a measure which, in fact, so far from representing popular wishes, flew in the face of the most popular opinion. I do not know as the thing is still a matter of controversy, and it is an unsettled question, but be it so. Does he really and seriously maintain, if that was the view which the people of this country took of the Bill, that it was going to survive the period of discussion between one House and the other which these Resolutions provide? I do not know how hon. Gentlemen opposite claim to feel any respect for public opinion, and claim to take any serious part in popular discussion, and present themselves as persons who are anxious for popular suffrages, if their views of the intelligence of the people of England are such, that for two years a grossly unpopular and unjust measure, such as in their view it may be, may be discussed in one House and in the other, and yet at the end of that time the steam-roller is to pass over it in despite of the popular will. It is just the case that does not happen, will not happen, and everybody knows is not meant to happen. Some of us, who do not pretend to be too deeply wedded to two Chambers as against one, none the less recognise that proposals which limit the. Veto in that manner are proposals which, none the less, make for the real and for the determined and final expression of popular judgment in these matters of legislation. The instances which my hon. and learned Friend took in the Education Bill and the Licensing Bill are not, if I may venture to say mo, well chosen for the matter in hand, and
  1322
  for this reason, that they are still matters of public controversy. I quite accept the hon. Gentleman's view that the Education Bill of 1906 was a thoroughly bad one, and thoroughly unpopular. Be it so, but there are other people who take the other view. I quite accept his view that the Licensing Bill was a Bill rightly rejected, and rejected by the mass of public opinion in England. Be it so, but there are many who do not take that view.
  Let us bring this matter to a test, not by choosing as our illustration some present matter of public controversy in which two contrary opinions may be fairly held. I will bring it to a test without going into ancient history, but by going back far enough to choose a series of great public controversies which are now settled controversies. Let me take a question, happily settled for all time, and which hon. Members of this House have some good reason to remember. Let me take the removal of tests from the University of Oxford. Is there anybody on any side of this House of any form or faith, or any form of opinion, who doubts to-day that it was right, and wise, and just, to throw open the doors of Oxford and Cambridge to people without regard to their religious opinion? No one disputes it. There may possibly be some hon. Gentlemen who do so, but I do not think any hon. Gentleman who has to look forward to an appeal to popular suffrages will do so. Let us see what the true history about such a matter as the abolition of tests is. For thirty-six years in one form or another those who were speaking, or endeavouring to speak, in the name of the masses of the people of this country, were denied the opportunity, which to-day every man in this House who sits for a popular constituency will admit was very rightly conferred. It was in 1835, if I am not mistaken, that the matter was first agitated in this Chamber, and that there were some efforts made to allow even a despised Nonconformist to share in the education of Oxford and Cambridge. But it was not until 1871 those doors were flung open. In the meantime, what was the history of this revising Chamber so admirably secluded from the gusts of popular passion, so determined to secure that it should be the deliberate, carefully formed, carefully sifted will of the people-that should prevail? Continuously, time after time, in one form or another, not, I am sure, from any desire to do evil, but simply from the necessary circumstances under which that particular House forms

  1323
  its own opinions and lives and has its being, it continued for a whole generation to remove from hundreds and thousands of honest and sober citizens the opportunity of sharing university education. The point is that nobody to-day dares to suggest in any public place that the proceedings of the House of Lords in that regard are not now shown to have been for a whole generation subversive both of popular will and of good government.
  Take another test, that of Army Purchase. Does anybody contend that the view that the House of Lords entertained and the view which it expressed on the question of Army purchase as recently as thirty-five or forty years ago is a view which could be justified on any ground whatever now? Nobody suggests it. Take the Ballot Act. I am not quite certain that everybody who takes part in political agitation in this country is always careful to assert, as the fact is, that the Ballot Act makes a vote perfectly and effectively secret. Be that as it may. Will anybody anywhere in this House stand up now and defend the action of the House of Lords in rejecting the Ballot Act, in endeavouring to introduce a contracting-out clause in the Ballot Act, say that that action was not contrary to solidly-formed public Opinion, and only served to postpone the day when democratic liberties might be developed? Take the history of the Test Act, of the Ballot Act, of the Franchise, or any of the great set of controversies of; the last two generations, and it is true to; say that the last place in England in which the tide of popular feeling has welled up until it has compelled attention to the flood has been this same House of Lords, which we are assured is only acting in the public interests. I have not selected my instances with any other desire than to show that once we get a settled controversy some matter in which all reasonable people in the country are agreed in every case and without exception, everywhere and under all circumstances the House of Lords proved themselves to be wrong. If there be any instances to the contrary I shall be very glad to hear what they may be. It may be said there is Home Rule, but Home Rule is still, I admit it frankly, an active controversy, and going to be more active yet. The Education question is an active controversy, Licensing is an active controversy, One Man One Vote is an active controversy. But can anybody, can the Noble; Lord the Member for the University
  1324
  of Oxford, mention any single controversy which by common consent is settled, where a generation ago there was a division of opinion between one side and the other, where the House of Lords has not shown itself deliberately, obstinately opposed to what has been ultimately discovered to be the real popular verdict?
  Do not let it be said that I take only instances which are musty. Let me take an instance from the very last Parliament, which is recent enough, vivid enough, to be worth quoting in this connection; There are some matters happily which were matters of controversy in the last Parliament, but which are matters of common consent to-day. One of the first was the settlement in South Africa. Nobody who desires to be thought, or who desires to act as a patriot, will endeavour to revive the memories of a bitter controversy. It was a bitter controversy across the Table of this House. When Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman proposed to extend self-government to the Transvaal he was denounced, and bitterly denounced, as a traitor, no less, by the Leader of the Opposition.
  Mr. BALFOUR: Would you mind quoting my speech?
  Mr. SIMON: I am very sorry if I have used language I should not have used. I withdraw it unreservedly, but I am within the recollection of the House when I say that there was never much more bitter, more persistent, and some people thought more unpatriotic criticism. I am sorry if I have used language—
  Mr. BALFOUR: No, no.
  Mr. SIMON: Do not let me be led away from the point I want to make. The point is that there was an acute difference of opinion between the two sides.
  Mr. BALFOUR: On the Constitution.
  Mr. SIMON: On the granting of self-government to the Transvaal. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House himself made a speech which, at any rate, in the view of some people, was unusually bitter, but certainly the rank and file of his followers excelled him in the extent of their denunciation. Suppose the House of Lords had to approve of the granting of self-government to the Transvaal, suppose that accumulated and hereditary wisdom had been called upon to save the English people from a wicked Radical Government, what would have happened? Does any single person dispute that it was only

  1325
  because the granting of self-government to the Transvaal was an administrative act, for which the Government was responsible to the House of Commons, and to the House of Commons alone, that it was possible to lay the foundation of that which everybody now admits is a blessed reform? Therefore I claim, and I submit it to the House, that, whether you take the controversies of the past or whether you take the controversies of a more recent date, whenever one finds a controversy which is settled, and on which both sides in this House, and all sides, are now agreed, we shall find in those controversies, which are the only controversies you can take for the purpose of test, that the theory that the House of Lords showed its superior wisdom is a theory which utterly breaks down.
  The other observation which was made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Walton has to do with the Budget. I very much dislike taking part in the controversies in this House which seem rather more appropriate for the technicalities of lawyers than for the broader considerations which I think ought to prevail. I really do not understand what the hon. and learned Member means when he says that it is constitutional for the House of Lords to reject the Budget. I cannot help thinking he is using the word "constitutional" in some quite new way. It surprises me very much that any competent authority who has been trained, as I know he has, in a matter of this sort should really assume such a proposition to be tenable at all. When one says that certain things are constitutional one is asserting something which is quite different from saying that certain things are legal. I find it not altogether without significance that at any rate when the hon. and learned Member began this part of his speech he seemed to think that the two things were the same. He began by attributing to the Prime Minister the assertion that the House of Lords had no legal right to reject the Budget. No one, I should have thought, ever maintained so absurd a proposition. The way to test whether or not there is any legal right to do a thing is to see whether the courts can prevent it, or whether or not if the thing is done it can be treated as null and void by a court of law. Everybody knows that the moment the House of Lords rejected the Budget any attempt to exact taxes under that Budget became impossible. That is sufficient to show that
  1326
  it was at any rate legal for the House of Lords to reject the Budget; but it shows nothing more whatever, and it is only because there is in the minds of people who have not been trained on this subject a certain amount of confusion between what is legal and what is constitutional that the question arises at all.
  Is it really contended by anyone that there is no distinction between the relation of the House of Lords to a Money Bill and the relation of the House of Lords to ordinary legislation? If there is such a distinction, what is it? The distinction is, and can be nothing else, that from the point of view of legality the House of Lords has the same power to reject a Money Bill as an ordinary Bill, but that from the point of view of constitutional practice and theory it has not. The ordinary matter of discussion in this connection has not been whether it is constitutionally in a position to reject a Money Bill; it has been assumed not to be so; but whether that is not a necessary and inevitable part of the working Constitution of this country. The reason which has always been given is that though you may have controversy between one House and the other as to whether a certain Bill should be passed, you cannot have controversy between the two Houses as to the Budget of the year, because if you did you would not have a Budget. That is precisely the difficulty into which the House of Lords put us last year. Whether one takes the history of the House of Lords in regard to ordinary legislation or in relation to the Budget, no one can seriously put forward the claim that it is in theory an inevitable part of our Constitution. No one can seriously justify the claim made on its behalf by its defenders to-day that it is acting as an impartial Chamber, referring to the people ill-considered legislation without regard to party. One overwhelming fact will always remain, and anyone who defends the House of Lords has got to see if he can get over it. He has to show, if he can, why it is that for the last forty years there has been no instance of any Government measure introduced by a Conservative Government in this House which has ever suffered injury in the House of Lords; while, on the other hand, the list of mutilated and rejected measures introduced by the Liberal party gets longer and longer. The Leader of the Opposition says that that is because Radicals nowadays are people of such extravagant ideas that the House of Lords quite rightly rejects their measures.

  1327
  That is not only the excuse given by the Leader of the Tory party to-day, but it is the excuse which has always been given. It was the excuse given when the House of Lords rejected the Ballot Bill. It was the excuse given when the House of Lords insisted on capital punishment for small crimes. It was the excuse given when the House of Lords refused to admit dissenters to the universities. It was the excuse given when the House of Lords refused to remove Catholic disabilities. It was the excuse given when the House of Lords refused elementary justice to Ireland. It is the excuse which is always given in every generation, by every leader of the Conservative party, because we have across the way a House which is in alliance with that party and with their point of view to preserve for yet another generation the people of this country from the reforms which they really desire. I quite well understand why it is that the hon. and learned Member exhibited so much anxiety on this matter. I quite understand why it is that he appeals that this matter should be dropped. I trust and believe that it is not going to be dropped. I believe that whatever other difficulties may exist in the situation, and they are many, there are no difficulties as long as a plain, simple, and straightforward course is pursued with regard to the House of Lords. I assure the Government, as one who has not been uncritical at certain stages of their proposals, that if their proposals are carried forward, with a simple determination to secure the maximum result in the shortest time, they will find behind them a party which, however it may be composed, is at any rate united in its determination to redress the balance between one House of Parliament and the other.
  Lord HUGH CECIL: It is difficult to take part in this Debate without a sense of the contrast between the atmosphere of unreality that hangs over the discussion and the gravity of the issues involved. Everyone who listened to the very able speech of the Prime Minister in opening the Debate must have felt that, lucid and closely reasoned as it was, it was a speech which in tone and temper would have been more natural in proposing to take the time of the House before Whitsuntide than in proposing, as was actually the case, to change fundamentally the Constitution of the country. That tone and temper have
  1328
  not changed throughout the discussion. As my hon. Friend (Mr. F. E. Smith) said in his brilliant speech, there is nothing revolutionary in the manner and demeanour of the Government; the revolutionary character of their proposals is not justified by anything in the manner of their advocacy.
  The hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Simon) has endeavoured to bring a more detailed accusation against the House of Lords, and in defence of these Resolutions, but I cannot honestly compliment him on the felicity of the illustrations which he has chosen. He told us that he is not concerned with recent controversies or with controversies that are not completely closed. He goes back, picking and choosing, as suits his purpose, to all the controversies of the past. Of course, a controversy that is closed means a Bill that has passed the House of Lords. In the nature of the case he is entitled to assume that public opinion has endorsed the proposals originally made by the House of Commons. He is entirely mistaken if he thinks that the opposition to the University Tests Bill, for example, was confined to bigoted and unreasonable Conservatives or to persons for whose authority he would have no respect. The House of Lords, he thinks, deserves to be abolished, because it resisted the University Tests Bill; but I find on reference to a recent history by Mr. Herbert Paul, a great authority, that as late as the year 1865 Mr. Gladstone wrote, with reference to a Test Removal Bill introduced by Mr. Goschen:—
  " I would rather see Oxford level with the ground than its religion regulated in the manner which would please Bishop Colenso."
  I do not know whether he thinks that the late Mr. Gladstone ought to have been abolished early in his career?
  Mr. SIMON: I do not know whether the history goes on to tell the Noble Lord that in 1867 the University Tests Bill passed the Second Reading in this House without a Division, and that it did not become law until 1871.
  Lord HUGH CECIL: That is to say, the House of Lords did not change its mind quite so swiftly as Mr. Gladstone. The hon. and learned Member actually asks us to alter the Constitution, which has lasted, I do not know how many centuries, because the House of Lords took four years more to change its mind on an important question than Mr. Gladstone did. I may say that the history does go on to state

  1329
  what happened in 1871, and it does not in the least bear out the allegation that the House of Lords is the creature of the Conservative party, or is deaf to the arguments of Liberalism. It states:—
  "Nonconformists, especially those who had supported the Education Act, could not longer be ignored, and in 1871 a measure was introduced from the Treasury Bench, which abolished all theological tests for professors, tutors, fellows, and scholars … Clerical fellowships were also, in spite of Mr. Fawcett and of sound principle, retained. Clogged with these unlucky restrictions, the Lords passed the Bill, and refused to stand by the Chancellor of Oxford (Lord Salisbury), who felt it incumbent on him to propose a new test in the shape of a promise that no tutor or lecturer would controvert the Divine authority of the Scriptures."
  So that it appears from the illustration which the hon. Member chose that the House of Lords actually defied Conservative influences and prominent Conservative leaders, and passed the Bill notwithstanding their opinion. The hon. Member also dealt with the Education Bill of 1906. He said—and I really thought that self-deception could not go further—that there is being retained under these Resolutions an opportunity for the Government to change their minds, and that just as the right hon. Gentleman modified the Education Bill when it came back from the House of Lords, so he could do in the future in a similar case. Does the hon. Gentleman really believe that the right hon. Gentleman sat through all the Debates in this House with a perfectly open mind, always waiting for the light that never came— that he then went elsewhere to the steps of the Throne, when suddenly it came to him; that he exclaimed "How true !" and, coming back, after a few words of conversation with the hon. Member for Waterford, whose assistance he happened to need in order to get up an agitation against the House of Lords, and in order it present a united front in this House, he was converted, and introduced the Amendment? Is there any Member in this House who does not know that the right hon. Gentleman paid not the slightest attention to any arguments in another place? He is a very able man, and he would have to be an idiot indeed if he sat through all the Debates in this House without coming to a conclusion on the merits of the question. Of course he came to a conclusion. He yielded because he wanted to get his Bill through the House of Lords if he could. If the House of Lords had not been able to reject the Bill in the end he would have yielded nothing. What is the use of putting forward pretences which no one believes? These are really the arguments of a falling cause, a cause
  1330
  which knows its own weakness and shelters itself behind excuses which are altogether unreal.
  Following the example of the hon. Member, I have taken the matter out of its order; but in dealing with the second Resolution it is impossible for anyone to have listened to the Prime Minister without being struck by his omission of any reference to what is the principal legislative authority, as things now are, in the Government of this country. He gave a very interesting review, but he said nothing about the legislative power of the Cabinet or about the relations between this House and the Cabinet in the exercise of its legislative power. This point is really of great importance. The power of the House of Commons as now exercised is not exercised substantially upon the floor of this House or in Debate; it is exercised elsewhere. It is, therefore, wholly in the hands of supporters of the Government; while Members opposed to the Government exercise no control whatever over the real trend of controversial legislation. When the Cabinet has once made up its mind and committed its Premier on an important matter, under the existing party system it forces that Bill through this House. [An HON. MEMBERS: "No."] If the Government have a large majority they have no substantial difficulty. At any rate, that difficulty once overcome, when the Bill has once gone through this House, no subsequent discussion would have any reality whatever in it. Does anyone suppose that the second or third time proposed in these Resolutions would be anything but an empty form? Of course it would not. The way this Resolution would be worked would be that in the first year of Parliament there would be a tremendous lot of lobby discussion, and external pressure would be used to get the Cabinet to put forward Bills which this or that section of their supporters wanted to pass into law in the first Session. The Session would extend from January to December. Every Bill that it was at all likely that the House of Lords would reject would be passed through. Then the House of Lords would take any course it thought proper. Whatever course it took, many of the Bills would be rejected. They would all be carried again in the first week of the next Session. Does anybody believe that a great party, with its credit committed to legislative proposals and its supporters out of doors working for them, would submit to have them substantially altered or lost? As the

  1331
  right hon. Gentleman, the Leader of the Opposition pointed out, to substantially alter a Bill, even—as he said in a memorable phrase—"to alter it by a comma," would be to destroy it, and it would need a new Bill. Therefore the Government would have to bring in a Bill and, of course, pass it.
  There is no greater hypocrisy than to represent this House as a free deliberative Assembly. Everyone knows that it is not so. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Does any hon. Gentleman deny it?
  Mr. JOHN WARD: Give an illustration.
  Lord HUGH CECIL: I will illustrate it. I am fortunate enough to sit for Oxford University, and my Friend Mr. Harold Cox is a very striking illustration of the opposite. Hon. Gentlemen profess to reverence this House of Commons. Some wish to make it the supreme authority in the State; indeed, the only authority. When Mr. Harold Cox was driven out of Parliament, did right hon. or hon. Gentlemen opposite do anything to save him?
  Mr. BIRRELL: If the Noble Lord puts the question to me, I say that if I had been an elector of Preston I should have voted for him.
  Lord HUGH CECIL: It is easy to say that now, but the right hon. Gentleman's party did not give Mr. Cox an iota of sup port. Now, forsooth, when the right hon. Gentleman interrupts me to make a party point he makes this profession. The Home Secretary knows very well he could not make a similar interruption. He had not courage or high principle enough to stand up in defence of Mr. Harold Cox. [HON. MEMBERS: "Withdraw."] I am conscious the observation went too far, but the right hon. Gentleman knows very well that I do not throw any doubts whatever upon his moral character. I do say that he acted in a most blamable way in not interfering in that election. The independence of Members of Parliament is not a trivial matter. It is a matter—
  Mr. CHURCHILL: I should like to know how or why I should have interfered in the election?
  Lord HUGH CECIL: The right hon. Gentleman knows quite well that I appealed to him to intervene. Perhaps I should not have mentioned a private matter, but I appealed to him privately, and he refused to do it.
  Mr. CHURCHILL: I had very little authority or power or influence in the matter, but, of course, as far as I could properly, I endeavoured to secure the return of Mr. Harold Cox.
  Lord HUGH CECIL: The right hon. Gentleman took no public step. It was only public steps that would have been of value.
  Mr. BIRRELL: What has this got to do with the discussion?
  Mr. JOHN WARD: What did you do for him?
  Lord HUGH CECIL: I did assist him. I wrote a letter on his behalf. I should be ashamed to defend him now if I had not done whatever I could publicly and openly to help him.
  Mr. JOHN DILLON: That killed him.
  Lord HUGH CECIL: At any rate, we are wandering from the point. He stood for independence of Parliament; but the independence of the House of Commons was finally put an end to, we may say, when it became clear that a Member, however able, could not retain his seat in it without actually playing the party game. Does anyone suppose, for example, that the second and third discussions under this Resolution would have any reality whatever? Members would troop into the Lobbies where the Whips were standing, and would be told that they had to vote "Aye" or "No." Members would pass into the Lobbies like so many sheep. If that be so let us not deceive ourselves by imagining that a Second Chamber would not be disestablished under this Resolution. This Resolution, so far as it goes, is surpassed by the Resolution relating to finance. What is the justification for the Resolution put forward by the Prime Minister? He quoted what he called the dicta of eminent men. I have not looked up all. I was naturally interested in the observations he quoted from Lord Salisbury. I have looked up the speech on the Finance Bill by Lord Salisbury in 1894. I am bound to say that, though I am quite sure that the right hon. Gentleman is quite incapable of anything that is wanting in candour, the quotation of that passage out of its context—probably it was put into his hands and he did not investigate the whole speech—gives an utterly false impression. The speech is a perfectly clear one. Its arguments are perfectly easily understood. It argues that it is well within the constitutional

  1333
  powers of the House of Lords to reject a Finance Bill, yet that it is nevertheless an inconvenient course, and not often to be taken. I will only quote one or two passages out of very many. Lord Salisbury protested, to begin with, against the reference to the Judicial Committee of the Pi ivy Council, which held that the Upper House of a Colonial Parliament was not to amend a Money Bill, and on which the Lord Chancellor founded an argument that the House of Lords could not do it either. Lord Salisbury said:—
  " It appears to me to be a matter of considerable importance, because I do not think in the present state of things the legal power of this House ought to be diminished in the very slightest degree by any action of this House or concession which this House may make."
  Then he pointed out the inconvenience in the passage I have mentioned. He then said:—
  " I do not therefore in the least degree dispute the necessity of the accepted practice that this House should not as a rule interfere with the finance of the year; but at the same time I think it is very, important, in view of the changes which have come over the Constitution, the proceedings, and I must add, the authority of the House of Commons, that we should rigidly adhere to our legal powers, whatever they may be."
  Finally:—
  " I confess I heard with great disquietude the language of the Noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, which seemed to me rather like an attack. The Noble and learned Lord, basing himself upon some extraordinary proceeding of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, attacked the legal powers of the House of Lords. We know not when they may be wanted, hut I earnestly protest against any attempt to diminish them."
  Can it possibly be maintained, in the face of what I have quoted, that Lord Salisbury had any doubt about the constitutional propriety of the course he was taking? He thought, as everyone thinks, that it is a very convenient power not often to be used. No one disputes that. That it is a power essential to the sound working of the Constitution I think is quite, indisputable. It would be possible—my right hon. Friend has already quoted quite sufficient dicta on the other side—it would be possible to quote largely on my side. I could quote the Duke of Argyle and Lords Granville and Grey in support of all I have said: that it is perfectly constitutional for the Lords to deal with a Money Bill. But, in fact, such dicta are not the proper authorities in matters of this kind. The right hon. Gentleman calls them dicta, as if they resembled those answers of the learned which in Roman times were given by great lawyers and which had authoritative force. But they are, as we very well know, the speeches of politicians who have an immediate object in view. You will find amongst
  1334
  both Liberal and Conservative statesmen that in the heat of discussion in stating their case they sometimes exalt, sometimes diminish, and sometimes underrate, the position of this House or of the other House. Well, then, where are we to look for constitutional authority? The answer is perfectly plain. In the Journals of the Houses of Parliament. I invite any Member of this House to point to a single entry, except the entry of last December, which suggests or indicates in any degree whatever that the House of Lords has not the right to reject a Money Bill. It is well known that on more than one occasion this House has expressly recognised that right of the House of Lords to reject Money Bills. They have never denied it, or suggested denial. The nearest they came, before last December, was in the Resolution in 1861, when the House of Commons said that this power was one to be regarded with great jealousy.
  How, then, can it possibly be maintained by anyone who desires fairly to discuss the matter that for the House of Lords to reject a Money Bill is unconstitutional? It may be inexpedient in some particular case. The Journals of this House are the only authoritative source, and the conclusion drawn from the Journals is sustained by examination of the Constitutions which this House of Parliament, or Government, have set up in the Colonies. I believe I am right in saying that in every one of these Constitutions the Second Chamber has been given the right to reject, but not the right either to initiate or to amend. Why is that done if it be not necessary? If it be not needful in the public interest to have that Second Chamber, why was it given? Secondly, how came such proposals in the Constitution at all? Every one knows why that particular rule was inserted. It was copied from what was universally regarded as the rule in this Parliament; it was the rule that regulated the relations between the House of Commons and the House of Lords in this country.
  The truth is that if it were unconstitutional, we should now have to amend the Constitution in order to make it so. No one who really looks into the matter can doubt that a Second Chamber shorn of power to deal with finance cannot properly perform the function of a Second Chamber at all. Let me remind the House of the extraordinary difficulty of distinguishing between political proposals which are clothed in a financial form and financial proposals which are finance pure and

  1335
  simple. There is a controversy as to how far the Budget contained political proposals, and how far it was only financial. The Chancellor of the Exchequer claimed, I think, that it had great social and political value. The Valuation Clauses opened up the great policy that makes for the cheap acquirement of land. In point of view it was not pure finance. In the main perhaps this was not technical tacking, but it was tacking in the spirit, if not in the letter. Take the whole of that class of proposals which are known by the name of the nationalisation of the land, and the nationalisation of the means of production. It would be perfectly easy to nationalise land by a purely financial Bill. You would only have to provide a certain amount of money by means of an Appropriation Bill and by putting certain taxes which would become penal if the owner of the land refused to sell. You could say that if the owner of the land did not sell to the Lands Commissioners who were appointed by the Government or the Board of Trade, he shall be taxed until he is obliged to sell. There would be no difficulty in applying the same principle to railways, and in taxing the railways into the hands of the State. If it is so in these extraordinary cases, it is, of course, so in much smaller cases towards which we seem to be stepping in the immediate future. Let me ask anyone who wishes to give a fair and candid opinion on the matter whether he can seriously maintain that it is worth while having a Second Chamber if that Second Chamber should not be allowed to stop measures of that class?
  5.0 P.M.
  I could quite understand a person saying "we do not want a Second Chamber at all. We would rather have a single Chamber." That is quite a logical and consistent position. We said we must have a Second Chamber with substantial powers over ordinary legislation and over finance, but I cannot understand a person saying "we ought to have a Second Chamber which ought to have some power over ordinary legislation, but when it comes to the nationalisation of land or railways or anything of that character then a Second Chamber is quite unnecessary." Generally the great mass of the people of this country who are supporters of a Second Chamber want it precisely for the reason that a Second Chamber would be a check upon Socialistic proposals; and if you
  1336
  leave open the door there would be an end of all prospect of checking Socialistic proposals. There is nothing in the Socialistic programme which could not be carried by financial means. How absurd it is to say that a Second Chamber is to have no voice whatever in finance. There are opinions erroneous and there are opinions which are silly, and I confess that I am of opinion that the proposal that a Second Chamber should exist and not have any power over finance belongs to the latter category. There is one argument that always impresses me as a good one, namely, that the House of Lords is an insufficient check upon the Conservative Government. That is a good criticism, but it is not so weighty a criticism as the Government think, and for two reasons— the House of Lords does sometimes check Conservative Governments. There were several instances within my recollection. Take the case of Irish land. In 1896 important Amendments were introduced by the House of Lords into the Irish Land Bill. I think I know what hon. Members would say in reply to that, "that they like the Amendments less than the original Bill," but that is always the argument of hon. Members opposite-They always apply the political test, and their political test is whether they agree with the thing done or not. Everyone ought to be abolished who does not agree with hon. Gentlemen opposite, and the more one disagrees with them the sooner one should be abolished; but looking at it impartially, the question is whether the House of Lords interfere with Conservative Governments or not. As a matter of fact, they sometimes did. Parties are not like two cricket teams; they are not merely to be divided into two groups under names like the "Perambulators" and the "Etceteras"—although the term "etceteras" might well be applied to the Ministerial party. There is a real distinction between the two parties—between the party in favour of Conservatism and the party in favour of change; between the party which wants reform slowly and cautiously and the party which wants reform hurriedly and in a revolutionary manner, and violent and radical changes.
  If the Government had said, "We recognise this evil in the Constitution, we want to have a Second Chamber," as indeed the Secretary for Foreign Affairs had said, "that will protect us against a Conservative Government, and here is our plan," then I think it ought to be respectfully considered, and supposing it did

  1337
  nothing but that, I, for one, should be quite ready to consider it. I should be ready to see stronger checks put upon the Conservative Government, especially such Governments as are likely to come into existence in the future. I could quite imagine them doing that, and I should have sympathised with them. But they did nothing of the sort; they have done their best to exclude the House of Lords altogether from the region of finance. I shall be very glad indeed to see such a check, but they do not propose anything of the kind. They complain that the House of Lords does not check the Conservative party, but the Conservative party will be as unchecked under these proposals as before. It will still carry out its wicked will just as freely as now. What advantage is there, then, in multiplying the evil? Why allow both diseases to have a free course. It is like, as I said elsewhere, asking that people should not be vaccinated because vaccination is no restraint upon influenza, and that makes it very unfair to the smallpox. It is quite true that vaccination checks small-pox, but what we desire is that something else should be found to check influenza. But to abolish vaccination because it is unfair that influenza should not have the same checks as small-pox is an inexcusable course, and that is why we complain of your attitude towards the House of Lords. Because the Conservative party is allowed to do foolish things you claim the Liberal party should be allowed to do foolish things. I do not think it is beyond the region of Parliamentary ingenuity to invent something that would restrain the House of Lords. What remedies might be invented? The Referendum is one. The Prime Minister thinks it could never be used except in case of difference between the two Houses, but surely in other cases it would be open to us to invent other machinery that would suit them.
  Now I greatly regret that in the last few weeks the Secretary for Foreign Affairs and other Members of the Government have not been able to prevail on the Cabinet with their scheme of reform. I have the greatest respect, I might say admiration, for the character and abilities of the Foreign Secretary, but I confess to a feeling of great surprise that he should continue a Member of the Government when these Resolutions did not include any reference to reform. What is the point which has been brought out in the course of these Debates? It has been made per-
  1338
  fectly clear that no reform of the House of Lords can ever be carried by the Liberal party. An hon. Friend of mine puts the figures in favour of reform at 30 per cent. We know that there are more than 150 Members of the party opposite who are against any reform. Does anyone who knows anything of Parliamentary methods believe that a party—a coalition which numbers in its ranks 150 Members who are against a particular proposal, can ever carry it? Of course, they will never do anything of the kind. Reform of the House of Lords will never be carried, it is perfectly clear, unless it is carried by the Conservative party. What consolation is that to the Foreign Secretary? So that the right hon. Gentleman's policy, whatever else comes into existence, is gone altogether into the abyss. His plan of reform can never be realised. Holding the strong opinions he holds as to the necessity of the Liberal party adopting reform, it does seem to me inadequate to his high reputation that he should continue to remain a member of the Government. But, Sir, the scheme of reform which he advocates was, I believe, a mistaken one. I believe a completely elective system ought never to be adopted, and for these two reasons: You do not want a Second Chamber which would merely reflect the mind of the first; you want a Second Chamber that would disagree with the first on occasions. The essence of a Second Chamber is that it should disagree on occasions with the First Chamber. No Second Chamber is worth having unless it disagrees with the first, otherwise it is merely redundant. You do not want a Second Chamber of co-ordinate authority with the first. It seems to me, if you elect the Second Chamber on substantially the same franchise as the first, you will have both these evils. If a Second Chamber comprises a larger measure of ability it would supersede the First Chamber precisely as the French Senate, I am told, has superseded the Chamber of Deputies in public confidence and esteem. Therefore I do not think it is a good proposal.
  May I try to make a suggestion which really, I think, would meet many of the objections hon. Gentlemen opposite have found, and which would effect a far-reaching reform and at the same time a reform strictly congruous with the history and traditions of the House of Lords? My proposals would be that the whole of the Lords House of Parliament should be nominated by the King on the advice of his Ministers. Of course there would

  1339
  be a transitional period through which the present House of Lords would have to pass before you got your new system into complete working order. But let us consider my proposal. As I say, I would have the whole Assembly nominated by the Crown on the advice of responsible Ministers. I would make it 400—numbers do not matter for the moment for the purposes of my proposition, but let us say 400 —I would require that 350 of the Members should be chosen from the hereditary Peerage. I think it would be perfectly open to a Liberal Minister to create a Peer in order to nominate him, and so the Liberal Government would be able to fill up the vacancies as they occurred by creating Peers if no suitable person in the hereditary Peerage should be nominated a Lord of Parliament. The result would be that the Chamber so set up would reflect the mind of the average Ministry. If a Liberal Government held office for a prolonged period then the Assembly would gradually become more and more Liberal. If a Conservative Government held office for a prolonged period it would become more and more Conservative. But as Governments in this country normally alternate the general trend of the Assembly would be to get a tolerably equal balance with some slight bias in favour of the late Government. I conceive that to be what would occur. You would have a democratic tenure of appointment, because no one disputes that appointment by the Crown on the advice of the Ministry is democratic. It is the way in which that august body, the Cabinet, is appointed, and no one disputes that the Cabinet is democratic. You would have a plan that would be fair to both sides. I cannot help saying I think the arguments about a plan being fair to both sides is a very improper and unworthy one, although I use it in this case. I do not think we ought to judge great constitutional changes by asking whether they are fair to one side or the other. It is something that has been imported into political discussion. I conceive we ought to have solely before our minds what is good for the nation as a whole and not what this party or that would gain; but, for what it is worth, this plan would be fair to both sides and both sides would have an absolutely equal chance. Whenever a Liberal Government was in power they would be able to appoint Members to that House, and whenever a Conserva-
  1340
  tive Government was in power they would be able to do the same, and this proposal would secure a thing to which I attach great importance. It would maintain the relations between social rank and public service which now exist. Let me take quite a small instance of where the hereditary principle is still respected. I could give a great number of instances, and I will take one. When honours are given on the recommendation of the Crown it is invariably found that the dignity of a baronetcy is preferred to the dignity of a knighthood, and it is preferred because it is hereditary. I have not the least doubt that at this moment the Prime Minister and the Patronage Secretary to the Treasury are probably considering what honours are to be bestowed by the Crown, and they will find in the exercise of that difficult and responsible duty that those recommended for knighthoods will regard those recommended for baronetcies with a certain amount of envy. That shows that the hereditary principle is valued. It is valued in all matters of social rank, and I believe it to be a matter of considerable political and social importance that social rank and public service should be linked together. That is done more conspicuously in the House of Lords than anywhere else. There you have a body, dignified by high rank and by nature, and which is part of the political mechanism of the country, and actually you find that the House of Lords is a nursery of that tradition. You generally find the eldest sons of peers go into the Army or the Navy or other branch of the public service. We differ in that respect from America and France, because to serve the public is what is colloquially called "good form," or, to put it into more classical language, it is genteel to be a politician in this country. We may smile at the idea, but it is really a matter for very considerable congratulation that the public service is dignified, honoured, and respected. There is not an official appointed by a local authority who, by reason of the dignity of his official position, is not preserved from the temptation which assails officials to some measure of corruption. In this way the public service is dignified, the chance of corruption is decreased and the public are better served. I think we may also say that the public health is better looked after. If sanitation is well looked after, and if the dust-bins are properly cleansed, it is partly because in our country the baby that is born a duke is also born a legislator. In view of that intimate con-

  1341
  nection, I consider it a matter of the highest public concern that we should preserve the association of social rank and political service, and the proposal I have ventured to sketch in this connection preserves, with a democratic title, a system equally fair to both sides; you get the association of hereditary peerage perpetuated with the legislative function.
  Nomination by the Crown for life is the proposal I make, and observe it will have the advantage of many other proposals in being a perfectly simple one, having a simple principle underlying it. Fifty of the Members of the new Assembly would be drawn from outside the hereditary peerage, and would comprise those distinguished persons generally mentioned in this connection, such as English Colonial Ministers, distinguished Nonconformist ministers, and other distinguished persons of various kinds. There is this further consideration, that the principle is pressed at the outset, as far as it can be pressed, and, therefore, you get some prospect of finality. I do not know whether the Government have looked so far into the different proposals for the reform of the House of Lords as to realise the great danger of for ever tinkering at the House of Lords in the future. Nothing is less desirable than to have a perpetual constitutional revision. When the Liberal party comes into power we shall have one type of House of Lords, and when the Conservative party comes in power we shall have another type. Let us endeavour to have finality by pressing our principle as far as it can be pressed at once.
  The Assembly I suggest would not be at all insensitive to public opinion, because it would consist of people appointed in middle life, and it would change in character very rapidly. Probably a period of ten or fifteen years would suffice to renew the great majority of the Assembly, and there would be no prospect of an obstinate Second Chamber standing for years against the will of the people. In any case, this danger might be met by adopting some method of appealing by Referendum, which would enable you to overrule the Second Chamber if it seemed unreasonable. I believe by adopting some such scheme as that you would preserve the historic traditions of the Constitution. I think hon. Members in every part of the House will agree with me when I say it is desirable that we should in the future, as in the past, make our changes rather by the method of development and growth
  1342
  than by planting down new institutions in our midst. I am for a reform of the House of Lords of any kind or on any basis rather than the proposals of the Government. Any reform of the Second Chamber would be better than the sham they propose to set up. I confess that I prefer to walk as far as possible in continuity with the past. I remember a saying of Arthur Young when he went to Paris in 1789 and found everyone speaking of making the Constitution as though you could make it like a pudding from a recipe,
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: Hear, hear.
  Lord HUGH CECIL: I am glad the Chancellor of the Exchequer agrees with me that it is most undesirable to make an artificial Constitution of that kind. Are we not in the position of those who seek to repair or restore an ancient edifice which we think needs some improvement? How would you proceed in that case? You would acquaint yourself with the history of the building, and you would attune your taste by study and reflection, in order to know what was congruous and what was seemly. I look upon our Constitution with much more than the reverence with which a man of good taste would look upon an ancient and beautiful building. I look upon it as the temple of the twin deities of Liberty and Order which Englishmen have so long worshipped to the glory of their country. Let us then go into the temple, con over its stones, and saturate ourselves with its atmosphere; and then, continuing its traditions, let us adorn and embellish it, and then we, too, shall partake of something of its renown. Their figures may perhaps be found in it, and their names graven on its stones. In this way we shall attain to a measure of its immortality, and high on the eminence of its glory we shall find that our fame will stand safe and secure—safe from the waters of oblivion, and safe from the tide of time.
  The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Mr. Birrell): The latter part of the speech which has just been made by the Noble Lord, concluding as it did with a fine peroration, is an excellent justification of the wisdom of His Majesty's Ministers in not proposing a scheme of their own for the reform of the House of Lords at this stage. The Noble Lord has a scheme which he has adumbrated to the surprise, I am sure, of his attentive audience. I do not think that he, expert as he is in forming an opinion of the feeling of the audience he

  1343
  is addressing, can feel satisfied that he carried with him any very enthusiastic reception from any quarter of this House. I would remind the Noble Lord, in commenting as he did upon, my right hon. Friend the Secretary for Foreign Affairs remaining a Member of a Ministry which has not put upon the Table any scheme of reform of the House of Lords, of what he himself pointed out, that the scheme of my right hon. Friend, and the scheme of many of us, would meet with the bitter opposition of the Noble Lord. The scheme associated with the name of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs is a scheme for the abolition of the House of Lords; for its total and complete abolition. Under that scheme there is to be an end to the House of Lords we have known, which our forefathers have known, for scores and hundreds of years. That House is to go, the hereditary principle upon which it is based is to disappear, and is not to come back again through any loophole whatsoever. The House of Lords will not then be a House of Lords', but it will be a Second House, a Second Chamber, where any man may sit, be he a miner, a Nonconformist, a landlord, or a merchant; be his quality what it may, he will, if he can obtain the support of a sufficient number of electors in the new constituency, find himself sitting in a Second Chamber for some period which will, of course, have to be named. That would not be the House of Lords which would pay tribute to that sense of heredity for which the Noble Lord so eloquently pleads.
  I confess that to me, with some degree of assent, he almost made a baronetcy acceptable to my mind. Until I listened to him I sympathised with a distinguished Liberal in former days, who, when accepting the honour of knighthood upon becoming a Law Officer of the Crown, said, "Thank God the indignity will perish with me." I confess that so insidious were his arguments that for the moment my sturdy Radicalism was almost undermined, but I recovered myself in the short interval which elapsed while the Noble Lord was concluding his speech. Let us look at the consequence of introducing at this stage of our proceedings a reform of the House of Lords. Everybody has got a scheme. Some have got a scheme for its total abolition, and some a scheme for the introduction into that aristocratic body of the representatives of the people. Nonconformist ministers are to be appointed with an opportunity of
  1344
  exchanging their pulpits for the atmosphere of another place.
  Many of us, at all events, would have schemes of our own. When the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs said that it was impossible in the present state of parties in this House to carry through any reform of that character, he only spoke the language of the sternest common-sense. I think, therefore, we were wise in dealing with the House of Lords as it at present exists. The Noble Lord's scheme, after all, would have small attraction for me, because it would not alter things for the next twenty or twenty-five years, so slow is the process. It would be a long time before it became an Assembly obedient and responsive to public opinion outside. We are bound to assume, and here I am making an observation of a Conservative kind, that the House of Lords, as we have known it for so many years, is likely to remain in existence, at all events for some little time, and we shall have to deal with it on that footing. The Noble Lord did what some of the previous speakers have not done. He dealt with the: Resolutions themselves, and he pointed out how in his opinion they were most foolish and silly Resolutions. I do not complain at all of that. He dealt, for example, with the Financial Resolution. He is one of those who is convinced that whatever Second Chamber you have, be it the existing House of Lords, be it his House of Lords, or be it the Second Chamber of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, it ought to have complete power over the financial provision of the Government. He would be no party to a limitation of their power by an exclusion of finance from their control.
  I do not propose for a moment to follow the example of my legal Friends, and to enter upon the quagmire of Parliamentary Privilege. All I know is that for years and years past the House of Lords has never attempted to interfere with the constitution of Governments. They never took upon themselves to do anything which would of necessity throw a Government out. So far as Liberal Governments are concerned, we have for years past gone on, and we have got into the habit, perhaps more than we were entitled, of totally disregarding their opinion as affecting our position. Liberal Governments, so long as they have had a majority of two in this House, have considered themselves perfectly entitled to remain where they were, although they perhaps could not at any time command more than

  1345
  thirty, forty, or perhaps fifty supporters in the House of Lords. We have gone on with that idea, be it right or wrong, until it has entered into the minds of us all, into the minds of electors as well as of Members of Parliament.
  Nobody has ever disputed that legally the House of Lords can do whatever it likes. It can not only reject, but it car amend a Money Bill. If it does, what can you do to stop it? Nobody can go into a court of law and ask for a writ of quo warranto. If we go to custom, it is only Parliamentary custom. It is not custom such as our old Common Law custom. When there is no precise authority one way or the other, our judges fall back upon what they call the ancient Common Law of the country, which has an authority quite separate from mere Parliamentary privilege. All we know is that the House of Lords has never until the other day thrown out the financial proposals of the Government. They did it then, and there is an end of the matter. It is no use our saying they could not do it. We may say they were very foolish to do it, and I think the present proceeding and their vain attempt to reform themselves shows they did something which, if they had been wise, they perhaps would not have done. All we know is that for years past they never attempted anything of the kind, and everybody knows why they have done it now. It is not because of the Socialism and the land valuation in the Budget, and it is certainly not because of the Lime-house speech of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Great institutions in this country do not engage in a course which must—and which, in this instance has already threatened their existence simply because somebody makes a speech. We are made of sterner stuff than that. Speeches more violent than that made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer have been made by persons who have lived to become pillars of the edifice of State.
  Everybody knows why the House of Lords threw out the Budget. It was because they thought it a favourable opportunity to have a Parliamentary Election on Tariff Reform. If it had not been for Tariff Reform the House of Lords would have done what they did with Mr. Gladstone's Succession Duties and Sir William Harcourt's Death Duties. They would have grumbled and they would have made effective criticisms, but they would have, passed the Bill. Tariff Reform being in the offing they thought it was a very good chance for taking the view of the country
  1346
  upon it. Now all of a sudden they are giving up their hereditary principle. Why? Simply because a number of gentlemen who have either lost their seats or did not succeed in gaining seats in the North of England came back and told the Tadpoles, and Tapers of the Tory party they really cannot hope to win the North of England for Tariff Reform if they have to go there with the hereditary principle behind them. The House of Lords, because of mere electioneering reports from persons upon whose judgment I attach no value whatever, be they Liberal or Tory agents, are now busily engaged in reforming themselves, and they have actually passed a Resolution whilst we are here still fumbling—[Cheers]—thereby exciting the enthusiasm of all the Tariff Reformers in the House, abolishing and destroying the whole basis of their existence. This is indeed a miserable ending of "an auld sang." As a man of strong Conservative tendencies it grieves me to see the hereditary principle for which there is a good deal to be said thus harshly sacrificed at the bidding of Tariff Reformers. We have to deal with the House of Lords as it exists, and I am quite sure that, notwithstanding the promise of the assistance of Tariff Reformers when we put forward a scheme for a reformed Second Chamber on a democratic basis, it will remain what it is for a considerable time. I am old fashioned enough to believe we have got to deal with the House of Lords as an existing institution, and, dealing with it as an existing institution, we have put forward these Resolutions.
  We are told—and the Noble Lord approached the question more closely than some former speakers—that the effect of these Resolutions will be to weaken and reduce the powers of the House of Lords to so contemptible an extent as practically to amount to the abolition altogether of any Second Chamber. That is not the view I take of these Resolutions. I believe the inevitable effect of limiting and defining the powers of the House of Lords will be to a certain extent to strengthen them very much. At the present time the powers of the House of Lords are all in an artistic haze. Nobody can say precisely what they are, and nobody can say precisely what the House of Lords will do. We cannot say what Bills they will pass, and what Bills they will refuse to pass. We cannot say what Amendments they will make and what Amendments they will insist upon. I do not say it in any spirit of disparagement, but they know

  1347
  themselves the delicate nature of the tenure of their office, and they have adopted in a strange and hasty sort of way, but I believe quite genuinely, the feeling that they must not too long resist the will of the country. Therefore, they proclaim themselves to be really better democrats than the Members of this House. As soon as you have been elected to a House of Commons, they say, you bid farewell to your constituents, and exist for four, five, or six years wholly independent of their power to turn you out. You may, therefore, the moment you have become a Member of this House, cease to be a genuine representative and exponent of the people's will. We at the other end of the passage, say the House of Lords, are always ready to gauge, as best we can and with such information as is placed at our disposal, the opinion of the country, and, when we know it pretty securely, why, we bow to it. That is a hazy point of view, and it is one which makes all their powers very uncertain.
  When we come by our Resolutions to limit and define their powers, we inevitably increase them. That has always been the result of definitions. Theologians have pointed out again and again in the councils of the Church that the declaration and definition of a dogma at once increases in a sense the authority of that dogma, whilst it may in other directions limit it. It was so said of Papal infallibility. The Church always believed in Papal infallibility, but, when it was decreed as a doctrine of the Church, it was only Papal infallibility exercised in a certain way, at a certain time, and subject to certain conditions. It was, therefore, a limitation of the power and the extent of that dogma. In the same way it strengthened the Church in one sense, but limited it in another. Here we limit the constitutional and legal powers of the House of Lords in certain directions, but we increase them in certain other directions, because we recognise their right again and again to deal with measures coming up to them from this House, however large may have been the majority by which they passed, and we entitle them, without any demur and without opening them to any hostile criticism, and we justify them in keeping open questions perhaps for longer periods than they would have been disposed to keep or justified in keeping them open had these Resolutions not been passed. It is not therefore correct or true
  1348
  to assert that a Second Chamber, living under these conditions, would not have power well worthy of a Second Chamber, and powers in some respects greater than those enjoyed at present by the House of Lords.
  The Noble Lord and the hon. and learned Member who opened these proceedings in a powerful speech—neither of these distinguished men have ever stood at this box responsible Ministers charged with the conduct and pioneering of a large Bill through this House. I make no claim to be an old Parliamentary hand, but still I have done that, and I did it in interesting circumstances, because in those days we had a very large majority indeed, and the Education Bill, which was the first great controversial measure the Government attempted to undertake, was a question which nobody would deny had played a very large part in the election. God forbid that I should ever attempt to say what issue plays the larger part in any election, but nobody will deny that the education question formed a large proportion of the oratory and arguments of hon. Members and candidates on both sides. Very well. We came in charged with what appeared at first to be a simple issue and a clear issue, namely, to give legal effect to certain principles which had been stated during the election with rather more than the usual clearness. But when we were brought into contact with this House what happened? And here, I think, the Noble Lord cannot congratulate himself upon the temper of mind which he has got into. He has shown a. constant desire to asperse the character of this House as a deliberative Assembly. If ever he gets into—I have no doubt at all he will in course of time—a corresponding position or has such a task as I had he will be quickly and largely conscious of the fact that, however big his majority, however mechanical it may be, as the orators are accustomed to call it when they do not like it—whatever his majority is, he will feel that a man in charge of a Bill—no matter what his majority is—if it is a Bill really affecting the lives and conditions of the people, has got to listen to arguments coming from this House, from whatever quarter they may come. He cannot say—no Minister ever says—simply. "There are only thirty men in favour of this, or fifty men in favour of it, or sixty, and I can come down upon them. My Whips can stand at the door." He simply cannot do it. I do not think that in this House anybody, of whatever party he is

  1349
  a Member, for whatever constituency he may sit, or whatever may be his Parliamentary authority, if he gets up in this House and makes a point, and makes that point good, and supports it by reasonable arguments—it may be by overwhelming arguments—but that the Minister of the Crown who is sitting listening to it feels, "This has got to be attended to. I must make it good." He cannot merely vote him down.
  What happened upon the Education Bill? The moment we brought it forward we found that on all sides candid opinions were expressed. On one side we had the Members from Ireland, who, as they were justified and entitled to, espoused the cause of their poor co-religionists, mostly Irish, in this country. But it was not only these Gentlemen. I had to deal with a large number of Members, and Liberal Members, and Members who sit for Lancashire. Lancashire is a denominational county—you cannot get over that—it is a denominational county, and its Members were infected with denominationalism. I do not say it is a bad or a good thing to be infected with, I only say they were infected with it. Then there was the pure doctrine of the Word, as represented by the West Riding Members, representing the dissidence of Dissent, if not the protestantism of the Protestant religion. They had to be attended to, and to be considered; and there were the Jews. I do not know whether anyone remembers it, except myself, but I remember the deputation of the Jews, and what I said to them. I do not remember whether reporters were present or not. In this review I am only meeting the argument of-the Noble Lord, who does not do justice to this House of Commons, or any House of Commons, if he assumes that any man, with however big a majority, can have his way. Nobody could well have had a bigger majority than I had, but good heavens, Mr. Speaker, I very often was not aware of it.
  We are told that by this Resolution we are trying to force our Bills down the throat of the House of Lords and to disregard, or as one Member said, "abolish the people of England." We are going to abolish the people of England; some junta of Gentlemen sitting upon these benches with a majority are going to do just what they like, wholly regardless of public opinion or outside criticism. How is this to be done? First of all we must do what at last I succeeded in doing with the Education Bill. We passed it through
  1350
  the House of Commons, altered— "rammed it through," somebody said. It was not rammed through with extraordinary rapidity in this House. I was here night after night, week after week— I do not want to say that anybody is in favour of closure by compartments. Nobody hates it more than I do. I know perfectly well that hon. Gentlemen opposite hate it, but will adopt it when they come in. But honestly, I believe that both parties desire to discover some way of getting rid of closure by compartments. It does a Minister in charge of a Bill no good whatsoever, although sometimes, I admit, it may save him five or ten minutes of an awkward situation; but he has got to face it some time. When a measure of this kind has been taken through the House of Commons to the House of Lords, and they will not have it, what follows? They propose Amendments which the majority of the House of Commons do not feel themselves in a position to accept. Then the Bill must come on again in a second Session, and I admit that is a very astounding thought. It has to do so in order that this Resolution may work. That Bill has to come on again. It has been suggested that it will be, of course, a most perfunctory performance, but I think it is fair to say that that will depend on the character and nature of the Bill. If it is a Bill largely affecting the interests, the pecuniary or religious interests of the people of this country, who are reflected in this House, all I can say is, I do not care who are the right hon. Gentlemen in charge of it, and I am quite sure the Education Bill is a case in point. I do not think the Education Bill would have been the same Education Bill in a literal sense as was the Bill even after it left this House the third time; because discussion, consideration, the natural desire to get a Bill through, I agree, would operate.
  Mr. BALFOUR: Would it not come under the Resolution?
  Mr. BIRRELL: Oh, yes, if by agreement; that is part of the Resolutions to which hon. Gentlemen did not give full weight. The latter part of the Resolution —the second one—says, "Bills shall be treated as rejected if not passed by the Lords, without Amendment, or with such Amendment as may be agreed upon by both Houses." That is where the Second Chamber comes in. It makes its Amendments. If this House agrees to these Amendments, the Bill is still within the Resolution.
  Sir ROBERT FINLAY: If it agrees with all of them?
  Mr. BIRRELL: Certainly.
  Mr. BALFOUR: I think it is important to understand the Resolutions. As I apprehend the argument, if the Bill was dropped, the Government might reconsider the whole problem and bring in a new Bill with Amendments—not the Amendments of the Lords—but Amendments which had commended themselves to the Government in the interval given by the action of the Lords.
  Mr. BIRRELL: No; I do not mean that. I mean to introduce a Bill with Amendments agreed upon in another place. That is the only proposal I mean. There you get the full effect of the Second Chamber, a reviewing, debating, and argumentative assembly. It makes Amendments, and if these Amendments are agreed to, the Bill ceases to be a Bill under this Resolution and can pass in the ordinary way, and we shall not be obliged to go through the form of passing it a third time. I do ask the House before they accept the view that this Resolution is a single-Chamber Resolution to consider it as sensible men, who know that this House is not in a glass case, but that all we do is the subject matter of criticism which is extended over year after year, and that we have to give full force to the weight of public opinion. If a Minister of the Crown feels himself obliged to face the difficulties and accept arguments presented to him suddenly across the floor of the House, and feels he has no other choice as an honest man—and Ministers, after all, may still continue to be honest men for the next twenty-five years—if he is bound to do that, consider what the effect of this long consideration must be. I do not agree that this country can debate and discuss any measure of real importance for three years without the opinion of the country being made as definite and determined upon it as it can possibly be on any question whatever. And, therefore, far from curtailing opportunities and limiting debate, this Resolution, I say, increases opportunity and increases debate, and makes, I sometimes think, possible the amount of discussion almost intolerable to which Bills will be necessarily subject by this Resolution. I, therefore, do ask the House to consider and make up their minds before adopting the idea conveyed in the catchword of a single-Chamber Resolution. We are all the great majority of us at any
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  rate, strongly in favour of a Second Chamber, and we have got a Second Chamber now. The only thing is that half the country is deeply persuaded that it exercises its functions in a manner which is not impartial, and that really was our strong platform point against the House of Lords. No doubt when people are attacking the House of Lords it is not in human nature not to make fun of the hereditary principle. It is the easiest thing to do in the world—it is a form of wit within the reach of the meanest. We all wish to make as good points as we can on the platform—it is a good point—you cannot deny it. Nobody can be got to assert that it is a rational basis for a legislative Chamber that a Member should be the eldest son of his father. I am thoroughly persuaded, however, that, is not the real cause of the unpopularity of the House of Lords. As the Noble Lord has suggested, after all there is some feeling for the hereditary principle and that sort of thing, and the Lords are by no means unpopular persons, and if you go into qualifications there you get into difficulties, because you find certain people in the country who think that a Master of Foxhounds is as much entitled and qualified to be a Member as a retired Governor from New Zealand. You will get all that, and though not a sporting man I am all for the Masters of Foxhounds.
  I do not want to go more than I can help outside these Resolutions, and with regard to the financial Resolution, all I can say is I am perfectly certain there is no hope of compromise between parties upon that point. The House of Commons has acted in the belief that it can, by its custom and by the assertion of its own privilege and by resolution, and on the dicta of distinguished Parliamentarians, exercise these full financial powers. The country— I am speaking now of the Radical portion of the country—takes the same view. There can be no compromise upon that question. This House will not tolerate for a moment on that point the downright assertion of right that has now been made by the other place. We are leaving the hazy realms of Parliamentary custom and usage, and we are coming down to the hard facts of statutory provision. I am certain there will be no compromise upon that question. This House, this House alone, must retain the sole power of arranging taxation and appropriating and voting money raised by the taxes. To do anything else would be to deprive ourselves of the position, won, if you like, by encroachment and usage.

  1353
  which we have obtained, and nine men out of ten thought we had securely obtained it until the action the other day of the House of Lords. Therefore I am thoroughly persuaded that whatever you do with the House of Lords, whether you strengthen it by the introduction of Nonconformist ministers or introduce new men as a leaven in the old aristocracy, or whether you abolish the House of Lords as it now exists, and leave the present Members free to be Members of this House or Members of the other House, just as they chose, wholly independent of birth or privilege or distinction, whatever you do, the people of this country in the long run will never allow such a change as would prevent the House of Commons from asserting and maintaining their powers of directing the financial proposals of the country. Upon that point there is no use to entertain any hopes of compromise.
  Lord HUGH CECIL: Does the right hon. Gentleman allude to the Colonies?
  6.0 P.M.
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Colonies have not got a historic House of Commons. The whole thing with them is started de novo. Hon- Gentlemen opposite laugh at that, but on the platform they represent themselves to be House of Commons men. The whole history of the Constitution of this country is the history of the absorption within itself of the powers of this House, and we are not going now, when we practically have attained, or were told we had attained, all that we wanted by common consent, to give it all away in a statutory form even to the old House, or to a new House which may hereafter come into existence by the full vote of the democracy. In regard to the second Resolution, I will not repeat the arguments that have been advanced, but I believe that it will have the effect of strengthening the Second Chamber as a debating and a consulting Chamber. It will increase the power as a, revising Assembly, and in a great number of new cases its powers of imposing delay. To such an Assembly I pay profound respect. The argument has been implied that a Second Chamber of this kind is, of course, more useful when the Liberal party than when the so-called Tory party is in power. Strait-waistcoats are made for lunatics and prisons are built for thieves, and therefore when lunatics and thieves are in office you want a Second Chamber. I do not, however, feel any confidence in hon. or right hon. Gentlemen opposite, and I wish my friend Mr.
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  Harold Cox, to whom the Noble Lord made a brief allusion just now, was a Member of the House now, and for this reason: that nothing delighted him better, and he was never tired of pointing out that almost all the Socialistic measures that we have on the Statute Book proceeded from hon. Gentlemen opposite. He was as dissatisfied with you as he was with us, and that was the charm of the man. Were I a multi-millionaire, which I am not, or even a single millionaire desperately fighting for my wealth, I should be as anxious to see delay and revision and time for better judgment interposed between measures of a Tory Government passing on to the Statute Book as between those of a Liberal Government. We are all Socialists now, and there are hon. Members behind the Front Bench opposite who have, with all the fervour of the deepest conviction, on platforms spread Socialistic sentiments. My hon. Friend the junior Member for the City of London (Sir Frederick Banbury) is in very bad company at the present moment, and, at all events, I do not agree that a Second Chamber is only necessary when the Liberal party—the party of progress—is in power. I do not object to its being called the party of progress, but hon. Gentlemen opposite are also a party of progress. Their social programmes, as I understand, are of the most extensive character, and none of them will get up and declare themselves good old stick-in-the-muds.
  Sir FREDERICK BANBURY: I do.
  Mr. BIRRELL: What is one amongst so many? It does not go very far. However, quite seriously upon this point, it is a mistake to suppose that a Second Chamber is more required when one party is in power than when the other is in power. Whether the party opposite be a party of Reaction or of Reform, a Second Chamber in the present day can only have authority by virtue of gaining time. We all of us appeal to the people, and whether they are right or wrong we have to abide by their decision. What we do desire is that no empty phrase should go forward, that everything should be fully discussed. There is no dissolvent of false rhetoric or sham proposals like time, and it must be a good Bill which stands the criticism of two years. I think these proposals are the best that we can offer at the present time. The Prime Minister, speaking for the Government, made it perfectly plain that he in no way dissociated himself

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  from, on the contrary, he looks forward to, proposals being made which will require full consideration for a Second Chamber which will not be the House of Lords, but which will have to bear some other name and derive its authority from some other fountains of inspiration, and be a wholly different Assembly. Until that time comes we have as wise and sensible men to deal with this limitation of the Veto of the House of Lords, and when these Resolutions came to be fully considered by men accustomed to affairs in this House, it will be found that so far from turning it into an uncontrolled Chamber they will give on the whole increased power to the Second Chamber.
  Mr. GEORGE WYNDHAM: Those of us who sit on these benches awaited the speech of the Chief Secretary not only with an expectation of having a delightful treat, which has once more been gratified, but also with a feeling of growing curiosity. We felt, with great respect to the Solicitor-General, and the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Simon), that the criticisms passed on the plan of the Government yesterday by my right hon. Friend (Mr. A. J. Balfour), and to-day by the hon. and learned Member for the Walton Division of Liverpool (Mr. F. E. Smith) had not been met, and I should not be exaggerating if I said that no attempt had been made to meet them, and no disclosure has been made of the whole policy of the Government. What is the main charge made against the plan and procedure of the Government? It is that unless you have a Second Chamber that is a reality the will of the majority may be overridden by the Cabinet. That is really our case, and nobody has attempted to meet it. Last night the Solicitor-General adduced a series of modern instances in order to make an attack on the House of Lords, and this afternoon the hon. Member for Walthamstow threw over the modern instances, and gave instead a number of antiquated instances. One of the modern instances, which is wholly hypothetical, has reference to the new Constitution in South Africa, and neither of those two sets of instances is in the least relevant to the controversy in which we are engaged. We hold that no far-reaching change should be imposed upon the majority of living electors, and it is no answer to tell us that generations yet unborn of electors will agree with the opinions now entertained, and yet that is
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  the way in which the case is stated. He would be a very bold man who would get up and say that in every one of the antiquated examples given by the hon. Member for Walthamstow the majority of the people living at the time shared the views of the Government of the day. What we care for is that a change should come with a consensus of opinion behind it and not in opposition to the expressed wishes of the great bulk of the people. I will not refer at more length to the speech of the Solicitor-General or that of the hon. Member for Walthamstow, but I come to that of the Chief Secretary. The right hon. Gentleman began his speech by throwing cold water upon the idea of my Noble Friend (Lord Hugh Cecil) of the reform of the House of Lords. He said it would not be popular in any quarter of the House, and that seemed to him to be an adequate reason for the Government of the day not explaining to the country what their idea of a reformed Second Chamber is. He excuses the non-production of their scheme upon this singular plea, that everybody has a scheme. I knew that there had been some differences in the Cabinet, but I did not know that every one of the Members of it had his own plan. The Chief Secretary only referred to the plan which is associated with the name of the Foreign Secretary, and still applying this test of immediate popularity, he said that it abolishes the House of Lords, and, therefore, it would meet with a great deal of opposition. But if I understand it, the plan of the Foreign Secretary is to substitute a real Second Chamber. I am not concerned with the merits or demerits of the plan, but I do say that it differs from the policy of the Government, because his plan is to have a really effective Second Chamber, and their plan is to paralyse the functions of the existing Second Chamber, without setting up anything in its place. The Chief Secretary will not deny that the Foreign Secretary thinks that a strong and effective Second Chamber necessarily must be maintained on the penalty of death and damnation to the Liberal party. The Chief Secretary said that most of us think that a Second Chamber would be a good thing, but was his reference to "the new House which may, I hope, come into being hereafter," a pious hope, which takes the place of the definite elected Chamber of the Foreign Secretary. That is what the Chief Secretary calls dealing with the House of Lords as an existing institution. I am sure I am now quoting him correctly.

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  Dealing with the House of Lords as an existing institution means binding them from any action which could safeguard the will of the people, and at the same time gagging the House of Commons from any speech which could elucidate the fact that the will of the people is diverse from the opinions of the Government. It means having a Second Chamber bound but loquacious, and a Second Chamber gagged but able, of course, to turn out a Government, provided that the Government does not avoid that catastrophe by pandering on every occasion to the wishes of a group who are minorities in this House and who represent minorities of opinion throughout the country.
  The heart of the contention is really here. The Chief Secretary says that his plan does not do what I attribute to it. He declares that the plan of the Government, so far from weakening the House of Lords, will strengthen it, but strengthen it for what purpose? It will strengthen the House of Lords for the purposes of Debate and of delay. I ask whether in the constitution of any civilised country the Second Chamber exists only for the purpose of Debate and for the purpose of delay? That is not what it is there for. It is there, not to oppose novelty, not to oppose change being carried out at too great a pace, though these may be disadvantages; it is there fundamentally for a consensus of opinion behind any great and far-reaching change which is advocated by the Government of the day. The plan of the Government destroys that function of our Second Chamber, and, therefore, brings into our Constitution a fundamental change, a change which would be fundamental in any constitution of which we have knowledge. The Chief Secretary dealt in a tone of delightful banter with the stationary instincts of the Conservative party, but he is quite mistaken, and he belies them if he says the Conservative party as such have always objected to change. Not so. It is not true that they object to change in the Constitution on æsthetic grounds, as he seems to suggest, or that we regard these ancient institutions with so much reverence that we are opposed to any change. You can add a wing to an old building or you may put on an extra storey at the risk of making it top-heavy, but if you make a fundamental change you will knock the bottom out of the thing altogether, and this paralysis of the power of the Second Chamber to consult the people is a fundamental change which, if carried out, alters our
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  Constitution from top to bottom and differentiates it from the Constitutions enjoyed by every other civilised country in the world.
  I think I could prove that very easily by referring to some examples which have already been given. Take the case of Home Rule. We think Home Rule disastrous to this country and to Ireland, but we have never said that if a majority in both countries differ from us for all time they were to be debarred from expressing their opinion if they arrive at it. No one has been such a fool as to say Home Rule is a bad thing for the country now, therefore you may have it in ten years' time. Perhaps I have not put that in a very complimentary way to the Government, because that is exactly their proposal. They say, therefore, you will have it in three years' time. What other people have urged is that the United Kingdom should not have Home Rule until the majority of the electors living in the United Kingdom say that Home Rule is a change which they desire. That change could be carried out in two years behind the backs of the people if the House accepts the policy of the Government. In the case of education the same argument applies. No one is such a fool as to say that it is a bad thing to have a universal system of undenominational education, if more than half the people object to it now, and therefore you are to have it in two years' time. So with licensing, and so with the Budget. Debate and delay do not meet the point—they evade the point. The point is that whether Home Rule be good or bad, and we think it bad; whether universal undenominational education be good or bad, and we think it unjust; whether Licensing Bills of the character with which we are familiar be good or bad, and we think them tyrannical; whether the Budget which we had last year be good or bad, and we thought it menaced agriculture, and would lead, when that new House of Lords, perhaps, comes into being, to the nationalisation of the land—however that may be we are entitled to say that the Government ought not to be able to carry any one of these four great changes unless the majority of the living electors have been converted to those changes, or, at any rate, are prepared to acquiesce in them. Therefore the first consideration which we ought to entertain before we commit ourselves to these changes is that this is a fundamental change in our Constitution.

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  But there is another which I would add to that. It will alter our Constitution far more profoundly than it would alter the constitution which every other civilised country enjoys. Our Constitution—it is a platitude—has grown up and has roots in distant parts. You cannot treat it in a drastic way with nearly so good a chance of escaping the penalties of fundamental change as would be the case if you were applying a fundamental change of this character to the constitution of any other country. In other countries the Parliament, although it does endure as a rule for the period which you propose, cannot be dissolved during that period, but in this country the Prime Minister of the day is armed to a great extent with all the ancient prerogatives of the Crown. He is already a most powerful person. If he can keep a majority—whether composite or compact does not matter—at his back there is scarcely any limit to the power which he wields. Are not you going to increase those powers Alone, as I believe, he can now dissolve Parliament; alone, as I believe, he and the Government of the day can set up Supply, which no one else can do, and can let down Supply, as the Government have recently done. Now to that power—and there are many others which I might enumerate, powers which we have never abolished because we have not had a revolution for more than two centuries, but which we have borrowed from the Crown and placed in the hands of the Prime Minister of the day—you are going to add this, that Parliament is to be curtailed to four years with the threat of dissolution hanging over its head during the whole of that time. If the Government proceed in this reckless manner I believe they will dissolve the Constitution itself. This fundamental change in our Constitution, which is alien from the spirit of our Constitution, is a blow not only at the House of Lords, but at the House of Commons also. If the plan is ever developed to its full conclusion both are to be elected as often as the Prime Minister of the day likes, but he is not to be elected. He is still to remain the nominee of the Crown, and to wield all the powers which belonged to the Crown in times past, and which he can now wield as best seems good to him. The other estates of the realm depend directly on the will of the people, but he, who is not an estate of the realm, is not to be forced to accept direct election as is the case with the President in
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  other constitutions which I have in my mind, and he alone remains, reminding me of a gentleman I heard of the other day who designed aeroplanes and put other people into them, and when asked if he ever flew himself, he said, "No. What is the matter with the earth?" The Prime Minister alone will enjoy the security which is necessary if we are to preserve the balance of the Constitution not in one part of the State only, but distributed throughout all the component-parts of the State.
  Perhaps I shall be told that these fears are chimerical, and that we are in no danger of suffering from the tyranny of a strong Prime Minister, and that Prime Ministers are not always strong. I think that is true, but it does not follow that, to borrow a phrase of Lord Morley, the flexibility and adaptation in this or that Prime Minister guarantees that the wishes of the democracy will be fulfilled. Not at all. A weak Prime Minister exaggerates the power of crowds; he puts the majority of the nation for the time being more completely under the heel of organised and combined minorities—minorities which often desire changes, which are not acceptable to the whole country, and which often desire changes, which are not acceptable even to that party, if we are to judge from the wry faces with which they swallow some of the changes which they are now attempting to digest. To put too much power into the hands of a strong Prime Minister is a bad thing, but it is a worse thing that the Prime Minister of the day should happen to be a puppet pulled by several strings, each one of which is grasped by the firm hand of a militant minority, and it is worst of all if these strings can be entangled in such a way that one, say the uncrowned King of a Nationalist minority, can by pulling one string work the whole. I do not know whether, when the Prime Minister dropped yesterday into poetry in a foreign tongue, that was the Gordian knot which he thought might not be unworthy of his Alexander's sword. He thinks, I am convinced, that it is a danger to the people of this country that a puppet Prime Minister, of the future of course, should be jerked whilst he is armed with the powers and all the ancient prerogatives of the Crown.
  The third reflection which, perhaps, might give us pause before we committed ourselves to this change is that the Ministers, who advocate it, go very near to pro-

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  fessing its absurdity, until it is followed by a reform in the constitution of the House of Lords. The Foreign Secretary does. The Chief Secretary, taking a more sanguine view of the future, does not go as far as that. I am not exaggerating the position of the Cabinet, in so far as it has a collective position, when I say that their plan, as at present developed, is only a truncated instalment of a plan which they think ought to be completed. But these professions are made under circumstances which rob them of any weight. They have not the power to complete their plan in the near future, or in any future which we can foresee. If the Government could not stick to the Budget first and the Veto after, how are we to suppose that they will stick to reform after the restriction of the Veto? We know they will not, not from any lack of will but from a lack of power, because we know they will not be permitted to complete the plan, and if they carry out their present policy we shall only have this first half of it which paralyses the functions of the Second Chamber to a degree for which no parallel can be found in America, France, or any other civilised country. They advance this amazing proposal for reasons which do not bear a moment's examination. The Chief Secretary threw over one of them just now. He said, talking about heredity: "It is good enough, and in any case too tempting when we are on the platform." Arguments against the Second Chamber, based on the ground of heredity have not found a large place in the discussion in this House. If the argument is to be founded on heredity it is an argument in favour of the reform of the House of Lords and not in favour of the plan of the Government. These arguments are irrelevant.
  I will take the argument upon which the Chief Secretary laid far greater stress, and I think it is the best case they have. At any rate, it has force and plausibility—I mean the argument in favour of their charge on the score that the present Second Chamber is unfair. They have developed that argument in a very singular way, for they have attacked the House of Lords chiefly for passing Bills and not for rejecting or amending them. The charge of unfairness is based on the statement that they pass our Bills. That is equally irrelevant. There is much to be said for having a House of Lords which would not be open to the imputation of performing its functions in a slack and idle manner when the Conservative party are
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  in office. I agree, but you could remedy that by reform. You cannot touch it by the plan of the Government. The whole of that argument is quite irrelevant to the plan of the Government, and it cannot be adduced in support of the profound change they are inviting the House to take. There is the other charge of unfairness alleged, namely, that the House of Lords rejects and amends unduly the Bills of Liberal Governments. What evidence is cited in support of that charge? The Education Bill. It does not support the charge. It is adverse to the whole contention of the Government. The case of the Education Bill is familiar. It is not denied that the Government themselves introduced three, if not four, Bills subsequent to the Bill of 1906, and every one tended to approximate closer until the last was almost identical in the most important matters with the Amendments passed by the House of Lords. The argument based on the treatment of the Education Bill of 1906 by the House of Lords is adverse to the contention you are now pressing upon us. I need not remind the Chief Secretary that that Bill would not have the ghost of a chance of passing through this House of Commons.
  As to the Licensing Bill, I am perfectly certain that the hon. Member for Salford (Mr. Belloc), if he were here, would inform the Government that their licensing proposals were not popular in the country, and that the treatment of the Licensing Bill by the House of Lords is adverse to the policy the Government are asking us to adopt. And so with regard to the Budget. It is postponed because it is notorious that it has not a majority of supporters in this House, and still less in the country. These cases chosen by the Government to bolster up their case do afford an argument, but it is an argument against a Ministry which is the creature of combined minorities, and against such a Ministry being armed with any further powers over the liberties of this House and the will and wishes of the majority of the people.
  There is one other reflection to which I may invite the attention of the House. If we look only to the immediate future and consider the practical needs of the people of this country, can anybody pretend for a moment that, so limiting our gaze to the immediate future, this is a wise policy, or one which the country desires? I should like to put this question to the electors of the country, Do you prefer to have what you want and need now, namely, an attempt to reform the Poor Law, or to wade

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  through three or four years of constitutional turmoil in order to get then what we do not want—Home Rule, universal undenominational education, teetotal Licensing Bills, and a Budget for which there is not a majority even in this House of Commons? It may be said that the opinion of the country as to Home Rule is doubtful. We know that on the only two occasions on which the electors were consulted they decided against it. On the other three subjects opinion is not doubtful. It was at the last election that the people of the country vindicated and justified the action of the House of Lords. Therefore in the immediate future there is nothing to be gained, much to be lost, and a good deal to be feared if the country accepts the policy of the Government. It is almost rash to look further ahead, but if you look into the more distant future you can only judge of its features through the light we can glean from the past. In the past this nation has been famous in other lands for its political stability and Imperial power. Imperial power depends upon political stability. Without the first you cannot have the second, and both of these great inheritances of this country have been freely ascribed by foreign observers to the balance of the British Constitution. That description may be ill-founded, but it is not unreasonable to say that it is well founded. It is unreasonable to destroy that balance at the instance of a Prime Minister who confesses that its destruction is not ultimately defensible unless followed by further change which his followers will not allow him to carry out. This change is a fundamental change. It is alien to the character and to the whole genius of our Constitution. It is presented as a truncated instalment of a plan which the Government dare not complete, and it is supported by evidence either irrelevant or absolutely adverse to their case. It is obviously opposed to the wishes and welfare of the people in the immediate future, and not improbably fraught with the greatest menace to the Imperial greatness of our State.
  Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD: We have listened for two days to a Debate the equal of which has not happened since the Reform Bill of 1832. The proposition before us involves a change in the relationship between the two Houses of Parliament. May I respectfully say, however, it does not involve destruction
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  in the balance of our Constitution as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover (Mr. Wyndham) seemed to argue towards the end of this speech. We have listened in this Debate for some sound and solid arguments. There has been a good deal of cavalry charging, both light and heavy, a good deal of literary gymnastics, a good deal of sharp debating practice, fine sword-play, and so on, but the essential fact of the situation, I think, has hardly been dealt with at all. That fact is that at the present moment the supreme constitutional authority, so far as the working of the Constitution is concerned, is a body of men who represent nobody but the class from which they are drawn. They are not even elected by that class. They are that class. They do not require to consult the nation with respect to their decisions. If they go so far as to endanger their own existence, then, of course, they have put themselves in a very difficult and dangerous position, but so far as the normal destruction of ordinary progressive legislation is concerned that House can act without consulting the national will, without considering the national well-being, and without considering any consequences whatever. I am bound to say that I agree with the Noble Lord (Lord Hugh Cecil) that under these circumstances or any circumstances the change which we propose should be of the nature of organic and not revolutionary mechanical change. The difference between him and myself is this: he, in the delightful political Utopia which he pictured with so much chastity of language and felicity of phrase, is of opinion that he can pull down this old fabric and rebuild it that he can put new stones into the structure between the old stones, while I am for preserving what we have got and taking care that it will not fall down and endanger His Majesty's subjects. I preserve, and he rebuilds and restores. He knows perfectly well, from the point of view of constitutional taste and aesthetic fine feeling, that he is in the wrong and I am in the right.
  The simple situation is this. I am not going to look through history and try to find cases where the House of Lords has thwarted the will of the House, of Commons. That is always an unprofitable undertaking in a House like this, but no body can deny the general statement that perhaps not a deadlock but a crisis has come. We have it now proved to us beyond dispute and beyond doubt that the House of Lords is going to reject Finance Bills because it disagrees with some things they

  1365
  contain. The Noble Lord says that is perfectly constitutional. I am inclined to think with the Noble Lord that it is perfectly constitutional, but I do not care. The argument which he tries to apply against us can equally be applied against his own case. What does he mean by a thing being unconstitutional? This proposed new constitution of the House of Lords is unconstitutional and will be unconstitutional until actually the change has taken place. I am much more concerned with the political aspect than the constitutional aspect of the problem. The question that arises is this. Can this House any longer allow a constitutional assumption—allow a habit to regulate its proceedings, or must it take steps to protect itself by statute? I venture to submit that when this Assembly became unworkable under our old Rules and code of honour in debate, and when we made the closure essential to our proceedings, we also made it essential that this House should by Statute protect itself against the encroachments of the other House. I am really beginning to be afraid of my own opinions. I agree with the Noble Lord that the spirit of partisanship has gone so far in this country that we cannot trust to those old methods of honour and to those old Parliamentary usages which forbade any party in the House from laying his hands on the constitution of a democratic Government. I am sorry to say that I am coming to believe that that time has gone, and that the time has come when usage has no longer the sway it once had. We have had the pluck to introduce the closure and statutory restrictions.
  The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover raised some interesting points, and one regrets that there is not time to discuss them all in this Debate. Take one very important point, and one which it is very difficult to get over if it is valid. He proposes to retain the Second Chamber because he is afraid of Cabinet tyranny. That is an important point, and I would probably agree with him, only he would be compelled to convince me first of all that he can devise a Second Chamber that can protect us from Cabinet tyranny. He built up a great fabric about Cabinets passing legislation which nobody wanted, and so on. Is that a pure figment of the right hon. Gentleman's imagination or a fact? I am bound to say that he himself compelled me to doubt gravely his original position when he began to sneer at the present Cabinet because they were moved by minorities. What is the explanation
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  of all this? He talked about my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Waterford as the uncrowned king of the Nationalist party. That is very nice, very excusable, but very imaginary, and altogether irrelevant to the present position. Why the very essential condition of the Cabinet's dependence on the will of the House is that minorities should influence the Cabinet, and, moreover, that the Cabinet should listen to representations which come from minorities, whether they come from Ireland or from anywhere else. I am not at all a supporter in theory of the group Government. I am not at all in favour of coalition government. I like to think that a time will come when we shall have two great parties—a party standing for the status quo and a party standing for progress on well-defined lines—standing for the application of certain principles which when they are applied to our social life will change fundamentally that social life. I hope that that time is going to come. Meanwhile, I have to live in the human, and therefore imperfect, conditions in which I am now. So long as that exists, so long as we have got hon. Members from Ireland sitting as independent bodies in this House, so long as we have got a Labour party in this House, also independent—I pass by the sneers of the hon. Member for Walton (Mr. F. E. Smith) and the others—so long as that state of things exists, whether a Liberal Government is here or a Tory Government is here, it will be bound to listen to those minorities in order that its acts may reflect public opinion outside and the House of Commons opinion inside.
  That seems to me to be the common sense of Government quite apart from any partisan interpretation. I venture to say that the Leader of the Opposition was much more near the point yesterday when he said that the real reason of the existence of the Second Chamber is that whenever the party of progress, or, as he called it, the party of revolution, is in office here, a Second Chamber might check it. My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Simon) dealt with one point which I wanted to elaborate here, but I will not attempt to do it after the way in which he has handled it this afternoon. You say that we have now a Government that is supposed to be a revolutionary Government, or, as you call it, a Socialistic Government. The point which I would like to add to my hon. Friend's remark is this: that that judgment in itself is a partisan judgment on

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  your part, that it is not a fundamental proposition accepted by everybody. I deny it, for instance; I absolutely deny it. So that all that the point amounts to is this, that when the Tory party imagines or says or believes that a revolutionary party is in power, then the Tory party may have the machinery of the Constitution, which may come to its aid to hamper the work of the party which it opposes.
  As a matter of fact, the position is even worse than that. They say that certain changes are revolutionary. They say that they themselves are in favour of change, but that their change is not revolutionary. Our argument, however, is this, that the change which we want is a change which is an essential condition of stability, and not of unstability. So that you and we stand on precisely the same ground in asking for a change that is a condition of stability. But you classify one kind of change as being opposed to that, whilst we classify precisely that same change as being the condition which is required. All that the right hon. Gentleman's argument comes to is this: He wants a partisan Assembly independent of this House sitting in another place, that comes in when he is in opposition to help him to fight the Government. It really amounts to this: What changes are to be acceptable to the other party? Take Tariff Reform. Is there any Member of this House who says that, even if this first Resolution were never carried, if this Money Resolution never became part and parcel of the Statute of this land, and of the opinions of this House, he believes that a Tariff Reform Budget sent up by the right hon. Gentleman opposite would be rejected by the House of Lords on the ground that the country had never been consulted on the j point. The House of Lords would say, "We have a perfect power to determine that this Budget is going to make for national stability." They might say it perfectly honestly, because they confuse national stability with their own pockets. They will say perfectly honestly that they j will accept the Budget, the Budget will go; through, and there will be no appeal to the country. That is exactly what the right hon. Gentleman wants. But what are these safeguards? I believe in safeguards. I belong to a country that lives on safeguards. We think day and night of safeguards. What are the safeguards? We cannot create a system of safeguards outside the system of democracy itself.
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  If the democracy is revolutionarily inclined it would sweep away all safeguards, even the Utopian safeguard of the Noble Lord. If the democracy wants a thing, it will get a thing, even though very grave difficulties may be put in its way in getting it. If unjust and unconstitutional and unwise difficulties are put in its way, yet ultimately it will get it if it desires it. But the greatest safeguard we have got is that the mind of the people may be trained in political intelligence to decline to allow any party in this House or any majority in this House to do what the majority outside does not desire. Hon. Members and right hon. Gentlemen opposite talk about the abolition of the people of England. Why, listening to their speeches, one is inclined to say that they have never discovered the people of England. It is simply futile to imagine that you are going to get, say, the Sovereign to nominate a certain number of gentlemen on the advice of Ministers, or against the advice of Ministers, or that you are going to have a crowd of gentlemen, or of families subject to hereditary principles, being created as a safeguard against the democracy. The whole thing is not only futile, it is mischievous, because it removes your attention from the very weakness which you and we together ought to be studying for the purpose of removing from the electorate of this country. But that is all the worse when we deal with the present situation, because your safeguard now is the representatives of certain economic interests and of certain social prejudices. We cannot listen to hon. Members and Noble Lords opposite without feeling this difference of social prejudice. That is perfectly candid. They do not occupy to us the relative positions of wealthy men and poor men, nor of university educated men and board school educated men. That is not the relation. The relation which they always impress on us is the relation between a Brahmin and a Sutra. I am perfectly aware that that is the case, that the difference between us is a difference of caste and not a difference of social position; and to allege that the present condition is that this Brahmin caste, this twice-born son of England, sitting in another place, armed with the absolute Veto, is the security which is going to stand between us and some wild revolutionary antics of the Cabinet, not a democracy, that happens to hold temporary position and power in this House, is ludicrous. From such a section, the Brahmin section, you can create a most admirable party Assembly,

  1369
  such as the House of Lords is. Some of its members will undoubtedly be distinguished, but the great majority of its members will be much more distinguished by their faithfulness to the party Whip than by the independence, of their political intelligence and conviction. To imagine that you are going to make that god-like instrument of impartiality from such an assembly is one of the most ludicrous ideas that have ever been given voice to within these walls.
  But it may be said that all that simply will not amount to reform. It does not. I am not in favour of the reform of the House of Lords, and, candidly, my reason is this, that I am much more a believer in the fox-hunter—and in that I range myself with my right hon. Friend here—than I am in the ex-Viceroy of India. On the shoulders of our ancient aristocracy tippets hang naturally, and the coronets sit quite properly upon their brows, but on the shoulders of our newer nobility, of those who have just left holiday-making on Blackpool Sands, the tippets do not hang naturally. They are not an aristocracy. They have purchased their way into the other House, and whatever respect—and I am bound to say that, as far as I am concerned, I have a respect for them—we have for the old aristocracy, we have absolutely none for the new. Therefore, I am not at all in favour of the reform. I think that for certain purposes the old aristocracy would do very well. They would give us time to reconsider our Bills, if their House decides that we must reconsider it, and so on. I am quite willing to allow them to do that work. I do not think that you will break the continuation between the dukes and the dust-bin men which was so fully explained by the Noble Lord. It would still be there. They would still have our respect. They will still wield their legitimate and illegitimate influence in elections for this House. They will still enlighten and darken the minds of the people who come under their influence. That is all I expect them to do, and I believe all that this House and the people of the country will allow them to do. And suppose it did make for reform. Then it ought not to be reformed first. The right hon. Member, a countryman of mine, is going to rise I believe tomorrow, to demonstrate to us that the Tory party believe always in putting the cart before the horse. His Amendment is that we ought to reform before we adjudicate what their functions are. Can any more absurd and inverted method of doing
  1370
  business be imagined? Surely the very first thing we have got to find out is this: What are to be the functions of the Second Chamber? And when you have determined its functions then you have got to ascertain how you are going to create the organ of reform.
  7.0 P.M.
  We will have something to say when the Amendments come before us At the present moment everything that has been and can be said in this House regarding the House of Lords, its constitution, and its present powers, undoubtedly points to this, that before you reform you are bound to assign the functions that it has to perform and the place that it is going to occupy in our Constitution. We have heard a great deal about the Education Bill, the Home Rule Bill, and the Trades Disputes Bill. I am bound in a general way to confess that if you have got a House of Lords, or a Second Chamber of any kind, form, or composition, which is able to say to the people of the country, "You will have to work yourselves into a revolutionary movement before you get your will," the House of Lords could over and over again defeat the democratic will, and there would be little indication shown of that defeat in the election returns that may be made. That is perfectly simple. I do not believe that a. single Member opposite disputes it. Yet surely it is the very essence of democracy that such defeats should not take place. If these defeats have to take place, then there is no democracy at all. There is another point. You can get a general desire for temperance reform, or for educational reform, or a general desire to settle the difficulties of the Irish problem; you can get all that, you can get the country determined that these things shall be done, or ought to be done, and while you can get a Government to propose details for meeting the democracy, still not a single scheme can be carried by the Referendum process or by a General Election. What does that mean? That does not mean that the people of the country do not want Home Rule, do not want temperance reform, or do not want educational reform; it simply means, as has been shown over and over again in the case of the Swiss referendum, that after all they do require a legislative organisation that will make itself responsible for details which will embody the general principles accepted by the people, and which will then be subject to the decision of a general election after they have been carried into law and not before.

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  I do not know whether this is heresy or not, but I venture to say, with due humility, it is good, sound, common political sense. What we must look to is that no Cabinet, or no majority in this House shall embark upon legislation which embodies the general principles that the majority of the people outside have not assented to. Another very interesting point has been raised by the right hon. Gentleman who preceded me. He talked, if I may say so without offence, most grandiloquently about the experience of civilised countries, and he challenged us to explain why it was, for instance, that the Australian Commonwealth had a constitution which gives the Senate powers over Money Bills. He said it was because they copied this country. Nothing of the kind. As a matter of fact, the present High Commissioner of the Australian Commonwealth moved an Amendment at the second Convention met to discuss the constitution, the effect of which was that the money powers of the Senate should be the same as the money powers of the House of Lords in this country. That proposal received so little support, that it did not even go to a division, and the Amendment was defeated because it was simply put from the Chair and declared lost. What is the explanation of this money power? It is very simple. When the Australian Federation was started, West Australian, South Australain, and other States, which had independent or separate financial authority, would not consent to giving that up except within very narrow and clearly prescribed limits. The Senate of the Australian Federation is a body which vindicates the quality of State representation. It is not a Second Chamber in the sense that the right hon. Gentleman used the expression; nor is it a Second Chamber that carries out all the ideas that he has got in his mind. One cannot go into all the details, but supposing the right hon. Gentleman proposed to create an Upper House for this country, say, of six Members from Ireland, six from Scotland, six from England, and six from Wales, I feel perfectly certain that every Scotch Member of this House, and certainly every Irish Member, would demand that such a Senate should have power over money bills, because such a Senate would be able to readjust or bring pressure to bear in favour of the readjustment of financial relations which hon. Members from Ireland require in the interests of their
  1372
  country. That is a condition which has nothing to do with our experience
  I would also beg the right hon. Gentleman not to fall into the mistake of making superficial comparisons regarding Second Chamber Colonies. It is perfectly true that there is not a single British Colony that has not a Second Chamber, but it is also perfectly true that there is not a single British Colony—I am compelled to use the word "British"—that has a Second Chamber which is working or has worked. I could take any one of them, but I will take Canada as an instance. Will the House allow me to quote from three reports of absolutely different bodies in Canada? I take, first of all, an extract from the biography of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, written by an exceedingly eminent Canadian publicist—I think the hon. Member for Gravesend knows him—Mr. J. S. Wilson, who wrote a very voluminous and careful life of Sir Wilfrid. This is what he says about the Second Chamber:—
  " Since the very organisation of the Commonwealth the Senate has proceeded on the principle that to question the expediency and justice of our conservative legislation is a, flagrant treason to British institutions in North America."
  That was the opinion and experience of a Liberal Prime Minister before the balance of power in the Senate was adjusted, when the members of the Senate had been nominated by the late Sir John Macdonald. The other day the "Montreal Witness," a sort of independent paper of more or less Liberal views—[An HON. MEMBER: "Oh, oh!"] I will allow my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesend to characterise it as an independent newspaper, and I do not object to his characterising it as of more or less Radical views, with a Scotch Free Church bias which keeps it from being too progressive and revolutionary. Last year, I am sorry I cannot give the exact date, the "Montreal Witness" said:—
  "A House removed from party broils would have leisure for careful and mature legislation on non-contentious, matters. That is all very fire in theory. In practice the Senate immediately became a mere piece of party patronage, where party sentiment is as absolute, if not as great, as in the House of Commons. A few years after a change of Government the Senate is what the House of Lords is to-day, nothing but a lethal chamber where the Opposition may doom any measure to death."
  I come to an authority who is unimpeachable so far as hon. Members opposite are concerned—the Canadian correspondent of the "Morning Post." He wrote the other day that it was intended that the Senate should protect the interests

  1373
  of the smaller Provinces—revise and check hasty legislation. It was intended that men of eminence in intellectual and commercial pursuits, and of independent mind and character, should be appointed to the Upper Chamber. It was intended that the revising power should be superior to ordinary partisan considerations. But all these expectations have been disappointed. After the Laurier Administration came into office, the Senate had a considerable Conservative majority, but from 1879 to 1896 only one Liberal had been appointed to the Upper Chamber, and from 1896 to 1909 not one Conservative had entered the Senate, which now contained an overwhelming Liberal majority. It was clear that with the Conservative Government in power the Liberal Senators might make Government impossible, as it would take many years before the majority could be reduced. I could give hon. Members details as regards South and West Australia and New Zealand which would go to show that, try as you like, and make as perfect a paper constitution as you like, a magnificently balanced constitution, in the end one class or another, one political party or another, obtains predominating power in the Second Chamber and hampers the majority in the Lower House which happens to be of a different colour from the majority in the other House. I am not going into the details of the Resolutions, which we will have time to deal with later on. Quite candidly, I am a single-Chamber man. I believe in a single Chamber as making for honesty in legislation. A single Chamber with full responsibility laid upon it would do a great amount of truly democratic work, but it is absolutely essential that that Single Chamber should be short-lived, so that it cannot go very far away from the public will.
  A very interesting point was raised by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition yesterday as to whether the last two years or the first two years of a Parliament are the more democratic. What does it matter if your legislative unit begins with the last two years of one Parliament and ends with the first two years of the next Parliament? It is all the same. The Parliament, thinking of the coming election, would produce its programme, and the House of Lords, according to these Resolutions, would reject that programme item by item, and the country would decide. When the country has decided, the new Government, if it is in favour of the rejected programme, would
  1374
  proceed to put it into operation, and every interest that was active at the election will try and get the Government to advance measures in accordance with its wishes during the first two years. What is wrong in that? That is carrying out the popular will. The next two years will be the beginning of a new political unit, and the old Parliament dies preparing its programme for the election which is going to settle, either one way or another, the fate of that particular programme. Although I am very averse to these Resolutions— was very averse—the more one considers them the more one sees that they may have a virtue that can only be discovered by experience, and that they would make the work of this House much more real and much more in contact with public opinion than it is at the present moment. The only difficulty about that is that they are far too long postponed. It is very easy to be wise after the event. I am very sorry that we did not have those Resolutions before us before we went to the country. Even as it is there is not a single Member of this House who will dispute this fact— that the existence of the House of Lords on the one extreme, or the limitation of the Veto on the other, was the major, or one of the major points fought out at the last election. This House has got a mandate to settle the matter without further reference to the country, and I hope that the Prime Minister will take his courage in both hands, and carry out this mandate without going back again to the country for its will.
  The Leader of the Opposition ended his speech yesterday in certain sentences of menace. He said he was going to fight every clause and every line, and that he was going to do so because the controversy which is now being opened up is going to postpone social reform. They are repeating the cry of 1885 and 1896 when they fought Home Rule. They pasted every hoarding with "Vote for So-and-So, the Unionist candidate, and Social Reform." What was the effect? The postponing of Old Age Pensions for twenty years. Not until the party then returned in a majority was beaten, and had surrendered bag and baggage at the polls, and returned in numbers so diminished that there has been nothing like it since the Reform Bill was passed, not until that event happened were Old Age Pensions, which was their chief cry in 1895, and which also had been dangled before the people in many constituencies as far back as 1885, not until they were routed at the polls, was that

  1375
  pledge carried out by a Government opposed to them. I accept the challenge, and the Labour party accepts the challenge. As a matter of fact the simple truth is this, that in the social class and in the social interests represented exclusively by the House of Lords, is the source of much of the evils which necessitate social reform at the present moment. So far as we are concerned this is no mere barren political issue. It is a great economic issue, and we lay it down categorically, and we say to the people in the country—and we shall continue to do so until this contest is over, and has been settled in the only way it can possibly be settled—we say that so long as there is a bulwark behind which class interests j entrench themselves, so long as there is a camp impregnable and full of partisan battalions, so long as there is a protecting wall behind which men who have sown not, reap very plentifully, and men who have strewn not, gather most liberally, so long as these things exist in the shape of the House of Lords, thwarting the masses of the country, postponing the realisation of its will, and very frequently defeating it, there can be nothing of social reform except what is a mere sham placed upon the Statute Book.
  Mr. S. H. BUTCHER: Before the hon. Gentleman, who has just spoken, came to the end of his speech, it was very obvious from his general tenour that he was a single-Chamber man, and that although he would if he could get a single Chamber yet he is prepared to acquiesce in the Government proposals. What is there that attracts him in those proposals? Obviously it is this, and this only, that since he cannot obtain single-Chamber Government, he is glad to have a Second Chamber, which is absolutely impotent, even though it is composed of men such as he would decry. That view is quite intelligible, and one is glad after many misleading speeches in this Debate to find somebody who knows his own mind, and who honestly tells us that he accepts these proposals, because this new House, or new Second Chamber, will hereafter be impotent. The plain man outside the House has asked himself what is the meaning of the Government proposals? Is the policy of the restriction of the Veto equivalent to one-Chamber or single-Chamber government? I must say the ordinary man feels no doubt in his own
  1376
  mind on this matter. When we come inside this House, and listen to these Debates, and hear four or five hon. Members who tackle this question, we hear various views legal and ecclesiastical, some of them based upon questions regarding Papal infallibility, others upon questions equally remote from that which is before us. We have had hon. Members assuring us, such as the Chief Secretary for Ireland, that under the Government proposals the powers of the House of Lords would be rather greater than they were before. I am in the position of the plain man, the man who cannot in the plain meaning of the words see anything but a virtual single Chamber under these Resolutions.
  I honestly confess I listened first to the Prime Minister, and then to three or four others, with an open mind to see if, in any sense, there would be a Second Chamber Legislature under the new Resolutions. My point is that no Chamber that is not free to say "Yes" or "No "to a legislative proposal that comes before it, and that is not free to accept or reject, can in truth be called a legislative Chamber at all. You can only call it a consultative committee, with certain limited retarding functions. I go further, and I take the question of Amendment. I say that a Second Chamber which has not the right to reject a measure has not the power to amend, because what does amendment really mean? We have been reminded this afternoon that many Amendments have been accepted from the House of Lords, and that there will be ample time, first of all in delay, and then for discussion of the Amendments; and that they would be accepted by the House of Commons. But why are the Amendments now accepted by the House of Commons that come from the House of Lords? I ask the House to remember the late Parliament, in its flush of victory and insolence, after the election, and I put the question, supposing there had been no effective Veto in the Lords, but merely a retarding and restrictive Veto, which would only operate for a certain limit of years or Sessions, can anybody here say that we should have had any Amendments at all introduced into those Bills? I recall how Bills were passed through, often without discussion, and often without Amendment, and the only reason that the Amendments of the House of Lords, or some of them, were afterwards accepted was that, behind the power of Debate and discussion and delay,

  1377
  the House of Commons knew that there was also the power of rejection.
  I should like to gather up rather briefly what seemed to me from this Debate to be the ground of attack on the Lords. What is the case against the Lords? I would submit that in making out that case the Government use arguments which are not only a little divergent, but conflicting, and contrary lines of argument. The main charge against the Lords undoubtedly has been that they reject Liberal measures, that at the end of this corridor there is supposed to be a lethal chamber, and that Liberal measures which go up there are done for, and that there is consequently a complete paralysis of popular Government and sterility of legislation. That is one side of it, but on the platform what are we told? We have enumerated a long list of Liberal measures which are paraded as the great achievements of the Liberal party. Those have got the assent of the Legislature by the action of the House of Lords, which is represented simply as a body of political assassins. If you take only the four years of the last Parliament you will find that 232 Liberal measures were passed by the Lords and only six rejected. Out of the lethal chamber there came back, perhaps not unscathed, but quite lively and quite sufficiently good to be paraded on public platforms, 232 Liberal measures, so that I think the ground of complaint is not very great. The Lords are denounced for rejecting Liberal measures; they are equally denounced if they accept them. Take, for instance, two Bills of the last Parliament. The Lords accepted the Trades Disputes Bill, and were in consequence called such names as "unprincipled opportunists." They rejected the Licensing Bill, and for that were lectured by Government organs of opinion and on public platforms for pandering to popular prejudice. They were said not to have the courage to pass Bills for the moral improvement of the people against the will of the people. The charge against them in both cases was the same—that they were simply a servile, obsequious Assembly. I observe that it is the Liberal Bills which the Lords accept that leave behind them the most rankling feeling. Their acceptance upsets Liberal plans. The acceptance of Bills which it was confidently expected would be thrown out and added to the account against the Lords leaves an angry sense of disappointment. At any rate, the two charges are obviously inconsistent.
  1378
  Then there is the third case—the Bills which the Lords refer to the people—that very rare and exceptional case, where it seems doubtful what the real view of the people is, and the Lords resolve to submit the measure to the verdict of the people. That is the supreme and crowning act of aggression. That is the great usurpation of the rights of the Commons. We come there, I believe, to the very heart of the grievance. The main objects of the Lords now is, and for the last half-century has been, to discover the will and mind of the people. It is sometimes forgotten that the Lords are not an immobile, stereotyped element in the Constitution. They are a living part of it, and they have adapted themselves to the needs and demands of the people just as the other branch of the Legislature has done. They have a double and a very difficult function to perform. They have, on the one hand, to judge of the merits of the Bill itself, and, on the other, to judge what is the settled will of the people as regards that measure. It is not always easy to discharge that double function. The Lords recognise, however, that there are cases where the verdict of the nation is likely to be different from the passing whim of the House of Commons. When, in consequence of that, they refer a measure to the people, one hears the outcry, "Unpardonable arrogance of the Lords." The phrase is that of the late Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. To think that the Lords can either know or discover the mind of the people better than the House of Commons! Have they some mysterious power of divination, some special intuition which enables them to see into the hearts of the people? No, they have not, and they do not claim to have. They are simply a body of men, versed in affairs, many of them practised in statesmanship, shrewd observers, and, above all, independent men who have not always to look forward to the next General Election.
  The worst and most glaring of their offences is that, as a rule, the Lords are proved to be right in their reading of the mind of the people. Take two crucial instances, and compare them. One is the Irish Church Bill. That measure the Lords accepted, much as they disliked it, but they had satisfied themselves that it was the deliberate will of the people that the Bill should be carried. The other is the Home Rule Bill of 1893 which the Lords rejected. In spite of the different interpretations put upon that rejection by the Nationalist party and the Labour party, I do not think

  1379
  anybody hasdenied that the country at the next General Election ratified the decision of the Lords. We touch here what seems to me to be the centre of the controversy—the phrase "the will of the people shall prevail." That formula is common to both sides of the House, but in its interpretation there is the difference which goes to the very root of the problem with which we are now concerned. "The will of the people shall prevail" means, according to what the Prime Minister told us yesterday, that the will of the House of Commons for the time being shall prevail—that is to say, the will of the majority of the House of Commons, or it may be merely of the groups which form a coalition in the House of Commons, between whom there is in reality no binding agreement whatsoever. The position taken up on the part of the Commons is, "We are the people." That is the assumption. The utterance of the House of Commons on any subject at any time is infallibly true, provided always that a Liberal Government is at the time in power. To appeal to the real people, to go behind the back of the House of Commons, to go to the ultimate authority, is unpardonable arrogance and an insult to the electorate.
  May I refer briefly to the' plan of the attack on the Lords, because you will find there the same inconsistencies and contradictions. On the one hand, the Liberal party all over the country has been busy in denouncing the hereditary principle, but it is the hereditary principle which they make the basis of their revolutionary project. Then, again, as we have already heard, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs declared that there was not a majority in this House sufficient to alter the Constitution, but that there was a majority sufficient to deal with the Veto— in other words, to destroy the power of the House of Lords. Therefore, the argument was that they should first deal with the Veto, and afterwards proceed to reform. What does that mean, but this: Let us first end the Lords for all practical purposes, and afterwards proceed to mend them. What is the upshot of all this muddle and manœuvring? It is that the Government propose to leave a sham Second Chamber and a hereditary peerage. I can conceive some real advantages from the Government point of view in the sham Chamber. Its greatest merit is that it is a sham. It may possibly delude people; it may give them a fancied sense of security where there is none. That, in
  1380
  the eyes of the party opposite, is its greatest merit, but in our eyes it is the greatest danger, and it may mean disaster to the State. There are other minor advantages. The House of Lords at once becomes a dignified retreat for Radical plutocrats, after they have grown weary of villifying the House to which they finally aspire. Another advantage is that it becomes a sort of closed apartment or cage, in which the most distinguished Unionist Peers are shut up and prevented from having access to this House. If there are these great advantages, as well as others, why, indeed, should the Government proceed with any reform of the House of Lords at all? Having dealt with the Veto, having got a House perfectly fitted for their own ends, why should they spoil its efficiency by breathing any life into that dead thing? If they reform it, it must be in some way a stronger Chamber, whereas all that they desire is a Chamber which is a sham and a nullity.
  The Government scheme of reform appears to be that the new Chamber should be in some way an elective Chamber, and I suppose that some of its powers should be restored. But that we do not know, as the Government tell us nothing about the powers of the new body. But if it is an elective Chamber, will it not be a solemn farce to invite the people to send representatives to that Chamber and at the same time to say to it, "Remember your sole function will be to say ditto to the First Chamber. Your business is merely to register the decrees that come up from the other House. You may perhaps revise the drafting; you may improve the English; you may alter a comma here or there; but, as for making any substantial amendments, you have no such right. You are a superfluous Chamber. You are a historical survival, decked out in democratic costume, and, though we do not object to a Chamber which is a harmless superfluity, be sure we shall object if you show any signs of life. If you develop any dangerous energy you shall be promptly suppressed." That being so, why in the world does reform come into the Government programme at all? Obviously no one likes it. It has hardly had a good word in the whole of the Debate. The simple reason is that reform is an unwelcome electioneering necessity. It would never do for the Liberals to go to the country saying, "We propose to retain the hereditary principle pure and unalloyed; the Conservatives propose to alter that principle, and to say that from henceforth,

  1381
  to some extent, birth shall be no title to anyone to belong to the Legislature." Therefore, for the purposes of an electioneering programme, reform has come in. On the Radical side of the House, who desired it? We know the Nationalists do not. Their hope is simply this—that if this whole programme is carried out with sufficient expedition, while the Lords are still in a state of suspended animation, inert and inoperative, Home Rule may be slipped through. It may go through, they hope, in that convenient interregnum between the present condition of affairs and the future reconstituted House of Lords. Are the Socialists in favour of the reform of the House of Lords? Of course they are not. Neither are the disestablishes of the Church, nor the secularisers of the schools, nor the nationalises of the land. One and all they are against doing this beneficent work. The fabric of the House of Lords will be in ruins. Why should it be rebuilt at all? The different groups which form the Radical coalition will then be assured each of getting its own ends by means of that sham, and not a real, Chamber. That being so, it seems to me to be perfectly clear, and we may rest assured of it, that there will be no internal reform of the House of Lords from the Liberal party. Conceivably the first part of this revolutionary drama may be carried out, and the Veto of the House of Lords may be abolished. If that be so, a counter-revolution will undeniably follow. History will repeat itself. The Act will be repealed. The House, which will have been shorn of its powers in a passionate moment, will be re-established again with a remodelled constitution, reconstituted a strong and effective Chamber; strong not, perhaps, in increased power, but strong in moral authority and in the confidence of the people.
  The ideal of the Radicals, of which we know something, is widely different. It as a Legislature which shall seem to express the voice of the people, while it really expresses the voices of the caucus. That was the ideal which prevailed through the last Parliament—through all those years and that period of delirium, and which prevails still. It is still what we hear in the Press and on the platform. One question which is asked on the Liberal side is: "How and how far will any of these changes strengthen the party machine?" If this momentous problem of the House of Lords is to be solved—and I "believe it must be solved—it must be approached hot in the spirit of the wire-
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  pullers, but in the spirit of statesmen. The paramount question must be not what is for the interest of the Liberal party or, for that matter, what is for the interest of the Conservative party, but what is for the welfare of the nation. We must not, and the nation will not allow you, to tear down the patient work of centuries in a few months or in a year's time. We must certainly look to the future, but in doing so we must surely build on the past, and have some reverence for what has gone before and' some sense of historic continuity. Unless the people of England have experienced a mighty change we may be quite sure that they will never consent to pull down the most ancient portion of their Legislature in order to set up an autocratic Second Chamber and a despotic Cabinet.
  Mr. LEES SMITH: The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover (Mr. Wynd-ham) used an argument throughout most of his speech which has been repeated in all the speeches delivered from the other side of the House. It was that we were by these Resolutions setting up a single Chamber. I think one fact has been ignored whenever that statement has been made—that is, that these Resolutions are the beginning and not the end. We shall not have finished with the House of Lords when the Resolutions are passed. If I understand aright the Prime Minister, they are not a complete scheme of reform— they are merely the key of other reforms. The position, as I understand it, is this, that if the Resolutions are passed we shall be able to do with the House of Lords what the nation will. If they are not passed we can only do with the House of Lords that which it itself is willing to consent to. The issue is not between a single Chamber and a double Chamber, but as to whether the future of the House of Lords is going to depend upon the verdict of the nation or upon the verdict of that institution itself. In order to prove this point hon. Members opposite have had to brush aside all that the Prime Minister said with regard to further proposals which were to follow these Resolutions. The ground which they took up Was this, that these further proposals were not contained within the letter of the Resolutions, end that therefore they were no part of the policy of the Government. It seemed to me, when the Leader of the Opposition first stated that, that it was a very strange doctrine. Is it one of the doctrines of this House that no policy can be

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  regarded as belonging to a party unless its details are embodied in Resolutions? What about Tariff Reform? Is not that the policy of the Opposition. Have its details ever been embodied in Resolutions? Is there agreement upon it?
  An HON. MEMBER: Absolute.
  Mr. LEES SMITH: An hon. Gentleman says "absolute." If so, produce your scheme. The point is that the Prime Minister has spoken of what is to follow these Resolutions with far greater precision than has ever been forthcoming from the Leader of the Opposition about the first constructive work of the Unionist party. The Leader of the Opposition and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover referred to the Budget. Both of them argued that the House of Lords had been justified in rejecting the Budget because at the last election there was not a majority of Members returned clearly in its favour. The hon. Member for Walton said:—
  " If the constituencies hare shown that they do not want the Budget the House of Lords were justified in refusing to pass it."
  The House of Lords exists to carry out the will of the people. The people, it is argued, do not want the Budget. The House of Lords were justified in refusing to pass it. The question which occurred to me when the Leader of the Opposition was using that argument was:—"If the Budget is again passed through this House will the House of Lords again refuse to pass it?" According to the doctrine of the right hon. Gentleman that would be their constitutional position, their duty, and yet I remember that in the very first speech the right hon. Gentleman made this Session—the first speech I heard in this House—he distinctly laid it down that if the Budget were to pass this House again the House of Lords would no longer reject it.
  " When the Budget is again brought forward, if, as I must anticipate, it receives a somewhat chilling and yet numerically adequate support from this House, without doubt it will become law."
  It appears to me the Leader of the Opposition did not support his own argument. I suppose the fact was that the Leader of the Opposition had not made up his mind Until he ascertained whether the further rejection of the Budget would be favourable ground. If I understand the point which has been made, may I put another question? It is said that the nation is against the Budget. But there is a clear
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  majority for the Budget in Great Britain. How then is it argued that the country is against the Budget? Irish votes! The argument is because the country, including Irish votes, has sent back a majority not clearly in favour of the Budget, the House of Lords were justified in rejecting it. But will the House of Lords and will hon. Gentlemen opposite apply the same argument to these Resolutions? Behind these Resolutions there is an overwhelming majority. The House of Lords exists to-carry out the will of the people. Will the House of Lords then pass these Resolutions? It appears to me that the Opposition have got to take their stand upon one leg or the other; either, to paraphrase an expression once used in the other House, "to stand upon their Irish leg or upon their British leg."
  8.0 P.M.
  There was one class of argument which was used by the Leader of the Opposition and by the hon. Member for the University of Oxford and by a number of others for which I have a very great respect. It was used with considerable eloquence also by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover. He argued that to pass so drastic a series of Resolutions in so short a time was alien to the spirit of British institutions. I think he then pointed out that our institutions had grown. That is an argument which I might venture to describe as legitimate Conservatism, and I hope I might venture to reply to it in the same spirit. Hon. Gentlemen opposite have always laid down this doctrine when dealing with tariff policy that methods which were adapted to the nation two or three generations ago are not necessarily suited to it to-day; and in accordance with that doctrine, if they come into office they will carry out in our fiscal policy changes as drastic as those we propose in our political policy. If that is applicable to our tariff policy, I ask, why not to the House of Lords? The House of Lords has remained unchanged, for at any rate, seven centuries. Has the condition of the nation remained stationary during the whole of that period I would like to answer that argument in a spirit worthy of it, for it is a large argument.
  In a century, or little more than a century the whole face and the whole political conditions of this land have been transformed. A little over a century ago this was an agricultural, feudal country. During, I suppose, two lifetimes, we have suddenly developed into a great city-bred

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  population, into a great factory nation, into the workshop of the world. As a result at the present moment the dominant element in British life is not the country side, but the great industrial centres. We are an industrial instead of a feudal civilisation. Are not these changed conditions?
  One thing I think is admitted, and that is that an industrial country is always a democratic country. When you get your workshop population living a life of their own, cut off in great cities from the wealthy and the comfortable classes, then you get a distinct working-class sentiment arising. Feudalism dies and democracy arises. These are changes in conditions, and the question I put to those who use the argument of history is this, do not these changed conditions need, according to your own doctrine, a fundamental change in institutions? I think the history of the last century is the answer. Look at this House. A little more than two generations ago this House was dominated by the hereditary principle. A number of its Members represented boroughs which were owned and controlled by Members of the House of Lords, and yet in 1832 this House had to submit to triumphant democracy, mainly owing to the pressure of these great industrial centres.
  Take county government. Up to 1888 the government of our counties was in the hands of the quarter sessions—the very embodiment of feudalism. They had to submit. Take the Monarchy itself. The Monarchy has become a constitutional Monarchy, which accepts the decision of the democracy. This House has had to submit, the quarter sessions have had to submit, the Monarchy has had to submit; but throughout all these changes and transformations one institution alone, the House of Lords, has stood unregenerated, unchanged, and unreformed. I think one can frankly say that if these Resolutions do mean what hon. Gentlemen opposite say they mean—if you like to describe it as revolution—in view of the changed conditions, and in view of the doctrine expounded from benches opposite, I think we are justified in saying that that revolution is as much justified in the condition of the nation, and is as much in accordance with the spirit of British institutions as the great Reform Act of 1832. Hon. Gentlemen opposite speak of revolution, but I wonder whether it is realised that the foundation of the revolution—the undermining of the authority and the position
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  of the House of Lords—has most undoubtedly come from Gentlemen on the opposite benches, and no one has so thoroughly carried out this policy as the Leader of the Opposition.
  Since the rejection of the Home Rule Bill a very ingenious doctrine has been developed by the Unionist party. It has been reflected in every speech delivered from the opposite side of the House, and that is the doctrine that the object and purpose of the House of Lords is to prevent this House from carrying measures which are not in accordance with the will of the electorate. The hon. and learned Member for Kingston (Mr. Cave) said:—
  " It is not this House that mattered; it is not this House whose opinions should be carried into law: it is not the House of Lords; it is the country."
  That is reflected in every speech, and it is reflected now in the House of Lords itself, for the House of Lords now no longer rejects measures—it claims now that it is only referring them to the country. The position, then, is that the Members of the Opposition have for almost two generations, deliberately taken up the position that the House of Lords is the guardian of democracy, and they have openly stated it. But it appears to me that when once you base your defence upon that argument then the case for the extinction of the House of Lords and the substitution of an elective Chamber is complete. If you want a House to act as the guardian of democracy surely it is clear that the only House which can properly effect that purpose is one elected by the democracy itself. To give such a mandate as that to a House which consists of Members who, after all, are themselves drawn from the very class which is furthest removed from democracy is surely a paradox and an absurdity. Let me say in conclusion, although this may be described as revolution, the real revolution has come from the party opposite, because they have been responsible for the revolutionary idea. All that will be done by the party on this side of the House will be to translate into the formal language of institutions the doctrine which Members of the Conservative party have themselves proclaimed.
  MARQUESS of HAMILTON: I beg to move, "That the Debate be now adjourned."
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Debate to be resumed to-morrow (Thursday).

PARLIAMENTARY REPRESENTATIO

  SYSTEM OF PROPROTIONAL ELECTION.
  Mr. ANEURIN WILLIAMSrose to call attention to the need for a more perfect representation of the electors in this House and in other representative bodies, and moved,
  " That, inasmuch as the present systems of electing representatives, whether to Parliament or municipal bodies, result in grave anomalies and injustices, it is expedient to test the system of proportional election, and for that purpose to empower municipal boroughs to apply that system in the election of their councils."
  I had hardly intended to trouble this House with any speech of mine so early in my Parliamentary life had it not been that the fortune of the ballot gave me an opportunity of bringing to the notice of the House a subject which seems to me of very great practical importance—a subject of a non-party character, bearing considerably upon the present crisis, because it seems to me that whatever makes more representative our representative bodies tends to decrease the difficulties involved in the present constitutional crisis. I should like to particularly emphasise the fact that I do not ask this House to approve of the principle of Proportional Representation, but merely to approve of the idea that it is well to test that system if we can find any municipal body willing to test it. I desire to call attention to the anomalies and injustice of the present systems of electing representatives. Those systems are very various, but not one of them can be depended upon to give a complete and accurate representation of the electorate upon elected bodies.
  I will not attempt to enumerate all those different systems. There is, first of all, the single-Member Constituency, which applies mostly to Parliamentary elections in our boroughs, and to some of the wards of our provincial municipalities. The ward returns three members, one of whom retires at the end of each year, and there is always one returned every year. Then there is the double-Member Constituency, which exists in a comparatively few boroughs and in some of the wards of our provincial municipalities. There is also the multiple-Member Constituency, which is chiefly exemplified in London in the borough council elections, where you have wards returning three, six, or nine members, all of whom retire together and are re-elected together every three years.
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  I am not going to weary the House by examining in detail the effect of all these different systems, but I will pay special attention to two of them, namely, the single-Member Constituency in Parliamentary elections, and the multiple-Member Constituency in London municipal elections. First of all, my Resolution refers to anomalies and injustices, which I propose to deal with under two heads: (1) So far as they are local, and (2) so far as they are national. Locally we have the anomalies and injustices connected with the I three-cornered fights, the evils of which I are well known, resulting often in the representative being not really the representative of the majority of the constituency, but of a minority. All that concerns three-cornered fights is so well known to this House that I need not further dwell upon them. But I must call attention to another evil of a local character connected with single-Member Constituencies. The evil I refer to is, to my mind, a very-grave one, and it is the permanent disfranchisement of very large bodies of people in different districts. There are many people who, although they have come to middle life and sometimes to old age, have never been represented in this House, for the simple reason that the man they have voted for has always been defeated, and will, in all probability, be defeated to the end of the chapter in the districts in which they happen to live. Those people are permanently disfranchised.
  It is not only in particular constituencies that this is so, but it exists over large areas of the country. In my native country of Wales you have the permanent disfranchisement of the Conservative minority almost throughout the whole of the Principality. On the other hand, in the Birmingham district you have had for many years the permanent disfranchisement of the Liberal minority. You have in Ireland, in one part, the permanent disfranchisement of the Unionist party; whilst in another part of Ireland you have the permanent disfranchisement of the Nationalists. Those are very great evils, and I hope to be able to show that it is quite possible to have a system of effective voting so that practically every citizen of this country will be represented by some man for whom he has voted, and who really holds the opinions he wishes to have represented. Closely connected with my last point is the very great bitterness which attaches to the contests in ordinary constituencies, and I think that bitterness arises very largely from the fact that each

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  party is in effect not only trying to get itself returned, but also tries to prevent the other side from getting any representation at all. In the present system there is no way of getting yourself represented in the single-Member Constituency except by preventing the people from whom you differ from getting any representation at all, and that creates very great bitterness.
  If you consider the national aspect of the matter you find there are very important bodies of opinion which are practically not represented in this House. For instance, the old-fashioned individualistic Liberals are hardly represented here at all. The Free Trade Unionists are hardly represented here at all; and the Social Democrats, who form an appreciable minority in various parts of the country are not represented here at all. The Socialist party is hardly represented at all here, except so far as certain hon. Members belonging to other parties may happen to hold Socialistic views. That is a very grave injustice to these parties, and it is also a very great loss to the country, because their point of view is not put forward authoritatively here and we lose the services of very able and prominent members of those parties. It would be an immense advantage to us to know exactly the strength of these different bodies of opinion, instead of having to guess at it from the rough-and-ready data to be derived from the present system of elections.
  I would particularly emphasise how the middle point of view, which happens not to be my own, under our present system, tends more and more to be squeezed out from the representative bodies in this country, although it is held by many thousands of people. It was the same in Belgium before they adopted the proportional system of representation. The old-fashioned Belgian Liberals were being steadily crushed out, and the Parliament of that country was tending to be more and more composed of Clericals and Conservatives on the one hand and a party of Socialists on the other. With the introduction of Proportional Representation it was found that the middle party was a real power almost everywhere throughout the country, and although they were insufficient under the old system to get representation, under the new system they became a powerful party, holding a strong moderating position in the Belgian Parliament. So much for those who are not represented at all.
  With regard to the parties who are represented under our present system, they
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  are largely misrepresented. In the first place our present system very often exaggerates a party majority. For instance, in 1900 the Unionists in this House had a majority of 134 after the General Election, but according to the votes actually cast their majority should have been sixteen. In 1906 the Home Rulers had a majority, taking them all together, of 356 in this House, but that majority, according to the votes cast, should really have been 104. That is according to the number of votes, not according to the number of voters, because then you come to the problem of plural voting. I am not going to deal with that to-night—I merely mention it in passing to show that I have not overlooked it. Then, on the other hand, you sometimes find that the majority comes back with a smaller majority in the elective body than it ought to have. I believe that was the case with regard to the London County Council at the election which took place only the other day. Then, worse perhaps than all, sometimes the minority of votes actually gets a majority of seats. It is not sufficiently known that in 1886, although a majority of Members was returned to this House against Home Rule there was actually a small majority of the votes in the country for Home Rule. In the same way in 1874 a majority of seats in this House was held by a minority of votes in the country. The same thing has happened in the United States, in New South Wales, and elsewhere. I do not think I can do better, to sum up what I have said with regard to these imperfections, than to remind the House of the words which the Prime Minister used last night, when he spoke of a General Election as—
  " A process rude, imperfect, and in many ways unsatisfactory."
  I would like to make another quotation from the right hon. Gentleman. I might make many, but I will only give this one more. Speaking to a deputation which waited upon him a year or so ago upon the subject of Proportional Representation, he said:—
  " It is not merely that under our existing system a minority in the country may return a majority in the House of Commons, but what more frequently happens, and what I am disposed to agree is equally injurious in its results, is that you almost always have a great disproportion in the relative size of the majority and minority in the House of Commons as compared with their relative size in the constituencies."
  Going on to describe the proportional system to the House I wish again to emphasise the fact that I am not asking the House definitely to approve of that system. I am only asking the House to

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  say that it is desirable to test it if municipal bodies are found to test it.
  I will explain the machinery of Proportional Representation. It is suggested in the first place that they should be large constituencies, at any rate constituencies returning several Members The least constituency you can have for Proportional Representation is a constituency of three Members. I will take a constituency returning seven Members as a sort of typical Proportional Representation constituency. Where you have a very sparse population it would not be necessary to apply the system at all. You might have constituencies returning three, four, or five Members, but you may take seven as a useful constituency for our present purpose to illustrate the subject. The City of Glasgow would represent such a constituency polled as one unit. Each voter would have one vote. If I were a voter I should have to put the figure "1 "against the name of the gentleman for whom I wished to vote. The ballot papers would bear the names of all the candidates nominated. Having put the figure "1" against the name of the man for whom I wished to vote, I need not do anything more, but, if I like, I could put the figure "2" against the name of the man to whom I would like my vote to be transferred if my first choice were not for some reason available. I could go on to put the figure "3" against my third choice, indicating that my vote was to be transferred to him if neither my first nor my second choice were available. The only thing I need do to vote is to put the figure "1" against the name of the man to whom I desire to give my vote. There is nothing complicated in that.
  The rest is merely a question of counting the votes and following out the preferences indicated by the voters. It is a mechanical and mathematical process with no great complexity. It leaves no room for extraneous or illicit things to come in to modify the result. The result is absolutely and exactly what the electors have, indicated as their wish. You first of all count the votes. You divide them into parcels, one parcel for each candidate. You find certain candidates have a surplus and others have so few votes that they cannot possibly be elected. The surplus votes in the one case, and the votes given to a man who cannot possibly be elected in the other case are, so far as the first choice of the voter is concerned, ineffective votes, and you proceed to transfer them to the candidates who are indicated as the
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  second or other next available choice. In that way, the votes of the voters who give surplus votes, and of those who vote for impossible candidates who come out at the bottom of the poll, are still effective, not for their first choice, but for their second, third, or some later choice. Thus the result will be that each party nominates its list, the voter selects, no party can carry all the seats, the majority always gets the majority of the seats, and all important bodies of opinion get representation. Moreover, the most popular men in each party will, of course, get most votes from their own side, and they will be the men elected for that party. Where you have a really strong independent man, there will also be an opportunity for him to be elected. I do not suppose that will happen in a great many cases, but there would be the opportunity, and it would certainly happen where there was a strong independent man.
  I am afraid I must trouble the House with a little more full explanation of the machinery of this matter. Let us say that there is a seven-Member constituency and that five Liberal, five Conservative, and other candidates are nominated. Altogether, we will say there are fifteen candidates. Let us also suppose that 80,000 votes are cast, which would be about the case. Remember, we are dealing with a city about the size of Glasgow as one constituency. First we should count the votes according to the names which had the figure "1" against them, a parcel for each candidate. The next step would be to ascertain what is called the quota, that is to say, the number of votes which it is necessary for a man to get in order to be sure to be returned. That is easily done, and I think the House will very readily follow the principle on which it is done. It is quite clear that if you have a single Member constituency, never mind how many candidates there are, any man who gets half the votes, plus one, is sure to be returned, because there are not half of the votes left for any other man. In the same way, if you have a two-Member constituency and people are only allowed to vote for one man, then any man who gets a third of the votes and one over is sure to be returned, because, if two men get a third of the votes with one over, there is not a third for all the other candidates. In the same way, if you have a three-Member constituency, it is a fourth of the votes and one over that is the quota or the qualifying number. Whatever your number of Members is, you have to add one

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  to that number, divide the total number of votes, and add one to the quotient in order to get the number necessary to return a Member of Parliament.
  In the present case, with seven seats you divide by eight and add one. Assuming 80,000 votes, the quota would be 10,000 plus one. If you will allow me, I will take names which are well known and honoured by us all here, and suppose these were the five Liberal candidates in the constituency: Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Bright, Mr. Childers, Mr. Lowe, and Lord Hartington. We may suppose that Mr. Gladstone had got 1,000 surplus votes, that is the full quota, and 1,000 over. The problem is to transfer the 1,000 votes to the next choices of the electors—to the people whom the electors had indicated as their next choices. I want to emphasise that there is nothing arbitrary in this; it is simply following out the will expressed by the electors. The question is, of course, whom you should transfer them to. Really we do not know, out of these 11,000 votes, which thousand has to be treated as the surplus thousand. If all those who voted for Mr. Gladstone had also voted for Mr. Bright second, there would be no difficulty. The thousand would be transferred bodily to Mr. Bright. If, of those who voted for Mr. Gladstone first, one-half had voted for Bright second, and the other half for Childers second, there would be no difficulty, because half the surplus would be transferred to Bright and half to Childers. Where the second choices were more varied, we should have to ascertain in what proportion those who gave first votes to Gladstone gave second votes to Bright, Childers, Hartington or Lowe, or of course to other candidates respectively. Then we would divide the surplus thousand among this second choice in the same proportion. I think the House will see there is nothing very difficult about that. It is really a thing involving the rule of three. You recount the whole of Gladstone's papers, dividing them into sub-parcels, according to the men indicated in the second choice. Let us suppose that three-tenths of the ballot papers showing first votes for Gladstone showed Bright second, two-tenths Childers second, four-tenths Hartington second, and one-tenth Lowe second, you transfer the 1,000 second votes in the same proportions, 300 to Bright, 200 to Childers, 400 to Hartington, and 100 to Lowe. In the result you would leave Gladstone with exactly a quota of votes, 10,001, and of the surplus votes given to him not one would be wasted, but they would be distributed
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  equitably among the persons indicated by the electors as their second choice upon the Gladstone papers. I think the House will agree that there is no great difficulty in this matter. What would be the result of this? It would be in the first place that almost every voter would be represented effectively. At the second test election, which we held in the Caxton Hall, over 21,000 persons voted, and at the end of the election there were 18,000, or six-sevenths of the whole, who were able to say that the man for whom they gave their first vote was returned. That is an enormous improvement to introduce upon our present system.
  Under the present system, taking the country as a whole, nearly half the people who vote have the mortification of feeling after all that they are represented by a man who embodies the very opposite of their own views. Under this system fully six-sevenths of the people would be able to feel that the man whom they had made their actual first choice was returned to Parliament, and of the remainder a great many would know that at any rate their second or third choice had got in. That, I think, is a very important thing in itself. Beyond that, every full quota, in this case 10,001, would get a representative, and all important bodies of opinion would be represented. The largest party would, of course, get the most quotas, and, therefore, the majority of votes would always get the majority of seats. The most popular men in the party would get the most votes, and would be returned, and any really striking independent man would be very likely to be able to get a following equal to the quota, and he also would be returned. Moreover, the voter, instead of having only one man of his own party before him, would be able to choose, amongst several, the best man of his own party, and give his vote to the man he agreed with upon most or, indeed, probably all important questions. You would get, in a sense, a perfect photograph of the electorate in the elected body, whereas now after the General Election we at once begin asking what is decided. Somebody says in one part of the country such and such a thing was decided, and in other parts of the country they will say the issue was quite different, and in other places even the people living there do not know what is really decided. There is often real doubt about this matter, and always a sufficient excuse for those who wish to do so to suggest immediately after

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  a General Election under the present system that there is no certainty at all as to what has been decided. Under a proportional system you will have absolute certainty as to the decision of the whole country not only upon the one big issue, but practically upon every issue that was before the electors at the time.
  I ask the House to consider what an amount of strength this would give to any representative body. How boldly such a body would be able to speak to its enemies. I should like to deal with the vast improvement that would be brought about by this system in the position of the representatives, but I think I can leave it to Members themselves. They will see, if they think over it, what it would be for a man if, instead of having a very mixed constituency behind him, he had a consistent body of opinion which he represented upon all important questions. I think it would be an immense improvement. We should have another great advantage. There is a small body of people now who do not really think about political questions and who fly from side to side for extraneous reasons. They are able to turn the balance in a very large number of constituencies, so that in each election the turnover of seats is much greater than the real turnover of votes. We should be able to get over that evil. I come now to the latter part of the Resolution. We ask the House to say that they are prepared to allow a municipal body, that is willing, to test this system. In Belgium the system was applied to municipal bodies four years before it was applied to the National Assembly. Lord Courtney some time ago introduced into the House of Lords a Municipal Representation Bill allowing municipal boroughs to adopt the proportional system. It was very thoroughly and carefully examined by a Committee of the other House and passed through that House. Last Session it was introduced into this House, but not being fortunate in the ballot could not make progress, but if there is any encouragement for doing so that Bill will be introduced again in this House. I cannot go fully into what happens in the London municipalities. I may say the London System is the French scrutin de liste. There is a ward system: a ward with three, six, or nine representatives. The whole of the municipal representatives go out at the end of three years, and each voter has the same
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  number of votes as there are representatives for the wards—three, six, or nine. The result is that very often the majority carry every seat in the ward, and not only that, but where you have a borough similarly situated throughout, the majority has carried every seat in the borough.
  It sometimes happens, on the other hand, that where the wards are various the majority in the borough will only get a minority of seats and the minority will be in a majority. Sometimes it happens where the margin is small that a clean sweep is made. At Lewisham on one occasion they were nearly all of one party in the council. At the next election the whole of the party was swept out and a council was returned belonging to the other party. I need not dwell upon the evils that this system introduces into municipal work. I believe there are London boroughs that would be willing to try the proportional system if they were allowed to have a choice. I ask the House to say, and I hope the Government will give me some encouragement in the same direction, that it is desirable to let them have a choice and to let them try this system. It is a system which is no novelty. It has worked elsewhere. Proportional Representation in one form or another is at work in Belgium, Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, South Africa, Tasmania, and elsewhere, and we want to have it tested here under the conditions prevailing in this country. I hope that the House and the Government will allow me to carry this Resolution and affirm the principle that it is desirable to have it tested so that we may get real information as to its practical working.
  Mr. J. M. ROBERTSON: I beg to second the Motion. It seems to me very proper that the Resolution which my hon. Friend has moved, and which I have the honour to second, should be interposed in a period in which we are discussing the problem raised by the Resolutions now before the House. That discussion, I think, has revealed this. That we are face to face with the great problem of the fitness of a Second Chamber, and the grounds on which a Second Chamber should be constructed without there having taken place any adequate education of the electorate by discussions on the platform. Hon. Members opposite taunt Members on this side with being divided, some of them believing in a Second Chamber, and some of them rejecting the principle. On the other hand, hon. Members opposite appear

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  to be unanimous in favour of a Second Chamber without the least idea of what it is to be like. So I think the honours are even. The House and the country not for the first time in their history find themselves fully up against a grave political problem without any adequate discussion of principles having preceded the measure, and that drawback does not only attach to the problem of a Second Chamber. The discussion has revealed one ground of agreement between the two parties to the controversy, and that is that what is to predominate in the long run is the will of the country, but as to how the will of the country is to be really ascertained there has been even less consideration than has been given to the question of what the Second Chamber ought to be. The Leader of the Opposition yesterday gave as an illustration of the way in which the existing Second Chamber can secure that the will of the country is really given effect to, the election of 1886. He gave that as a special illustration, but, as my hon. Friend has shown, that very election was one in which a minority of the total electorate returned to this House a majority of 104 Members. The actual majority for the defeated party was some 60,000 votes, and if we could ascertain the number of plural voters in the matter it would probably be found that the will of the country was even more grossly misrepresented than it was in the returns made to this House. In the fact of facts like these how can hon. Members on that side of the House feel any confidence that any Second Chamber they may set up will secure in any real sense the will of the country at all, assuming that that will is not secured by the ordinary process of an election?
  I think the figures which my hon. Friend gave, and other figures which might be given, will thoroughly establish the proposition that the existing system of choosing representatives in this country never gives the slightest security that the real will of the majority of the country will be given proportional effect to in this House. You can have a minority of electors returning a powerful majority of Members, and you can have a comparatively small majority of electors returning an overwhelming majority of Members. It is notorious that that has happened in practically every election for many years past. One party or another is represented in this House, it may be as in 1886, on the basis of an absolute minority, by a very large majority out of all proportion to the
  1398
  votes cast at the poll. It would, therefore, surely be expedient at the time when we reconsider the basis of our Constitution that we should go to the very bottom of the matter and inquire if there should not be a radical reform on this point. I recognise, of course, that we cannot hope to carry Proportional Representation until certain other vital reforms are carried; above all, the limitation of the vote to the exclusion of what we call plural voters. So long as that exists Proportional Representation would only continue to give effect to the inequalities of the existing system, but my hon. Friend's Resolution proposes that the principle should be tested by its application to municipalities, and that objection does not lie in that case. Therefore there can be no reasonable objection, I think, to the carrying of my hon. Friend's Resolution and giving effect to it in legislation. If we consider the fundamental principles involved, you might put the matter thus: The whole principle of representative Government is defended, I suppose, from the point of view of one or two rough ideals. Broadly speaking, we elect representatives by counting heads, on the principle that that is the best way of avoiding civil war. Instead of trying strength, we agree to count numbers, and let that settle it. That proposition at once raises a qualifying one, and demands that you should allow minorities to be heard. If you do not merely want to count heads and then roughly decide what should be done before you do anything effecting them, you listen to the minority.
  Our existing system secures neither of those two ideals. You do not really count heads in any rational manner. Your fate is decided by a lot of chances at the election. I believe it is a fact that a slight turn of chances in fifty, sixty, or, say, seventy constituencies, where Members are returned by a very small majority, a slight turn in chances, involving a few votes all over the country, might have annihilated on the hand, or on the other hand might have doubled the existing Ministerial majority. Under such existing conditions as this how have you secured that the will of the country should be given effect to when it can only be revealed in such an extremely inadequate way, that, as my hon. Friend said, there is a continuous, perpetual failure to provide adequate representation for Toryism in Wales, in Ireland, and in Scotland. These are considerations which should appeal to hon. Members opposite. In addition to this, we may point out how in city constituencies

  1399
  in the last election the system works out. For instance, in Nottingham the Liberals had a majority of 2,000 votes all told, and yet they had only one seat out of three. In Sheffield the Liberal majority would have been 3,000 votes, and yet the Liberals only had two seats out of five. The same fortune will also tell against hon. Members opposite. The justification for this Motion is that it is not proposed in the interest of any political party whatever, all alike stand to gain and to be protected by it, and, of course, the sequel, we hope, will be the application of that principle to Parliamentary elections. The result would be to give greater moral stability to the whole of the representative system and save us from such a crisis which we are now facing with very dubious prospects on both sides. It can be specifically urged, in support of my hon. Friend's Resolution, that the municipal elections conducted under the system which he recommends would be a school for the application of the principle and for the preparation of the electors as against the time when we may be able to apply the principle to Parliamentary elections. One of the standing objections against any system of Proportional Representation is that the voter would not understand. I have heard that objection made to Bills introduced in favour of applying the transferable vote to cases in which there are three candidates for one seat. I have heard it argued that a large number of the electors would be incapable of understanding even the simple plan of putting a (1) for one candidate and a (2) for another. I think the answer to that is that it is a little unpatriotic to take for granted that we are the stupidest nation in the world.
  If the people of Belgium, Denmark, Finland, and some of the Swiss Cantons can work the proportional system, surely our countrymen are capable of working it. If there are a certain number of them who would be absolutely reduced to imbecility by the problem of putting more than one figure on a voting paper, it might be suggested that the loss to the nation from their practical disfranchisement would not be of the very gravest kind. In regard to the point raised by the Noble Lord (Lord Hugh Cecil) something might be said as to the effect that this reform would have on the party system. The Noble Lord, if I understood him, regarded it as a very calamitous thing that a Member, who nominally belongs to a party strongly
  1400
  opposed to the majority on some great issue, should fail to keep his seat under the present electoral system, and he pointed to the case of Mr. Harold Cox. But while I consider that the application of the proportional system would certainly give more chances, especially in municipalities where the number of candidates is large, to the independent Member, I will not say I think politicians like Mr. Cox would be very much surer of being elected than they are at present; and I do not think after all that we can seriously, as believers in the representative system, set ourselves to construct a system which would make it certain that they should be elected. After all, the object of a representative system is the election of representatives. If a man holds a political creed, one-half of which is repugnant to nine-tenths of a half of the electors, while the other half is repugnant to nine-tenths of the other half, whatever may be your admiration for his intellectual qualities and your enjoyment of his contributions to the Debates in this House, you can hardly argue that he is typically representative, and you cannot seriously propose to reconstruct your system with a view of giving him a very good chance of getting in. That is not to be looked for. After all, there is always a great field in the country outside for a man of that cast of mind, and I do not know that we in this House are in possession of such absolutely incomparable privileges that we need regard him as being in outer darkness if he has another and a larger area for the exercise of his gifts. But the application of the representative system to larger constituencies would give a proportionately larger chance to a strictly independent man than he has at present, and that ought to be a recommendation in the eyes of Members on both sides.
  9.0 P.M.
  There is just one serious objection which is sometimes made to the principle as a whole and to the application of the principle of Proportional Representation all round that could not be made to the application of it to municipal elections. That is the increase in the size of the constituency. On the one hand it increases the burden of the cost, and, on the other hand, it increases very seriously the burden of the labour laid upon the candidate. That is to say, if a man is candidate for a whole county, or for the whole of' Manchester or Birmingham, the task

  1401
  laid upon him becomes very much heavier, and most candidates are disposed to consider that the tasks laid on candidates already are heavy enough; but I think that analysis of the problem will show that that objection is only seemingly valid. As it is, already, the work of candidates is very largely taken out of their hands or shared with them by organisations which support them, and the tendency of our politics is more and more in the direction of every kind of organisation of that kind, and the same thing as regards the burden of costs. If we should come to apply this principle to parliamentary elections where you have a whole city as a constituency, the choice of candidates by each party representing the prevailing opinion gives a special chance for the independent man. The burden of costs for the majority of the candidates will be decidedly less than at present, and as these costs are, in the ordinary course of political evolution, being more and more spread over the party, and as the practice of leaving a man to bear the whole burden of costly contest is probably destined to die out on the principle that a man should not be penalised for trying to serve his country, the application of this principle of proportional representation would probably have the effect of widening the area of choice of the electors by enabling a larger number of men of capacity to come before them, and the obstacles now set up by the possession of means in so many cases will be, if not absolutely removed, greatly minimised. A municipal election, on the lines of municipalities as they stand at present, would not involve any addition to the total cost, and would mean a reduction of the total cost, and there would be no serious difficulty, in view of the present condition of municipal politics and in view of the fashion in which parties in municipal politics work together, running what might be called the party ticket.
  That phrase suggests one other objection sometimes made, that wherever the party ticket system holds, you tend to make more and more of the caucus. I should be dispose to say in reply to that objection what Mr. Matthew Arnold said in regard to the theatre. Many objections were made to the theatre on the score of morals, and so on. His answer was, "You cannot keep it out; try and make it better. The theatre is irresistible; organise the theatre." In the same fashion, I should say the caucus is simply the application of the principle of organisation to politics. The caucus must come; organise the caucus.
  Sir ALFRED CRIPPS: I agree with what the Mover and Seconder of the Resolution have said, that this Question ought not to be approached in any sense from the party spirit, and I rise from the Unionist Benches in order to give my most hearty support to the Resolution. I think most of the difficulties urged against Proportional Representation may be swept on one side very shortly. For a large number of years after the question of Proportional Representation came to the front it was said either to be impracticable in its application or so difficult in its application that you could not trust the electorate really to understand the system by which they were asked to give expression to their views and opinions. I do not think that an objection of that kind can possibly be held to be valid at the present moment. The charge of impracticability has been shown to be a false charge as regards any proper system of Proportional Representation. It exists in Belgium, Denmark, Wurtemberg, Sweden, Finland, several cantons in Switzerland, and in a very large number of municipalities in the United South Africa for the election of a Senate, although it was not introduced for the election of the more popular Assembly, and not only has it been found to be practicable in those very numerous cases, but I do not think anyone nowadays will be found to state that if a system of Proportional Representation is in itself good it can really be attacked on the ground that it is difficult of application or that those who are asked to apply it could not apply it so as to bring about its full results. Perhaps I may give one other illustration. In the organisation of the Scottish railway-men it was found that without Proportional Representation the election of representatives was not satisfactory. In other words, you did not get a true representation of the men who sought to be represented on the central body, and, therefore, that organisation, for the purpose of getting better representation, has introduced, or is going to introduce, a system of Proportional Representation. One need not argue further as to the first part of the proposition, namely, that Proportional Representation is good in itself. It is quite easily applied, and its applicability has been shown to be a success in a large number of instances. Assuming that it is a practical system, I doubt whether any other question is of greater importance at the present moment than the question of Proportional Representation. I entirely

  1403
  agree with what has been said by the Proposer and Seconder of the Resolution, that under the existing system it cannot be said that we get a true representation of the people in the House of Commons. I do not know whether we ought to talk of it as the "voice of the people" or the "will of the people," but as a matter of fact, under existing conditions, you get neither the one nor the other. You get very different results as regards the political questions, and in future these might have an important bearing in relation to the condition of the country. You get merely a representation of the majority, and even so far as the representation of the majority is concerned you can get a very contorted representation, inconsistent with the wishes and desires of the people, as compared with what would be given if the majority of the people were truly represented.
  But I think there is something very much more important than that. If you wish a true system of representation, and if you wish this House to be what it claims to be —a representation, not of sections of the people, but of the people as a whole—you must have fair representation both of minorities and majorities. I strongly object myself to what was once said by a leading Member on the Ministerial Bench that "minorities must suffer." I think the expression "minorities must suffer" implies that majorities are likely to be unjust and tyrannous. I think the proper principle is that minorities must be represented. If they are represented you prevent their suffering, and you take away the temptation from majorities of using their power harshly or unjustly. The representation of majorities really means the representation of power rather than right. This at least is certain, that if you are to have any representative system which can fully claim to be representative in this House it must be so adjusted that every class and every minority shall have its fair representation, and in that way alone you get the representation of the people as apart merely from the representation of a majority or the representation of a class. I might refer for a moment to what was said long ago by Mill in his "Representative Government." He pointed out there that the representation of the majority was inconsistent with the true idea of the representation of the people. He, of course, was a strong advocate of Proportional Representation, and I should like to endorse every word we find in Mill's well-
  1404
  known work, that whereas representation in the true sense is the best safeguard of rights and liberties, the representation of majorities alone gives temptations to the unjust use of power, and even presses hardly on the rights of minorities.
  Another illustration may be given as regards the effect of the present system. Sometimes it has been referred to as contorted representation, and sometimes it has been likened to what we have in the game of dice. Let me give one or two illustrations of both sides to show that this is not a party question at all. The minority in Wales in the last Parliament was un-represented altogether, and that was very unjust. Even in the present House the representation of Wales is comparatively quite out of proportion to the numbers of the minority. It is true that there are two Members in this House who have been sent here by very slender majorities, but I do not think that anyone will say that the minority in Wales is properly represented at the present time. Now I take the other side of the question. For Kent, Surrey, and Sussex there is no representation on the Ministerial side of the House. As a matter of fact there are over 144,000 voters who represent the same opinions as are represented on the Ministerial side of the House. I think they ought to have a fair voice if this House is to be, as it is claimed to be, representative of the voice and will of the people of the country. It is no consolation to the un-represented minority in one part of the country that there is some other minority in another part of the country suffering in the same way. It has been pointed out that at the present moment we are discussing somewhat large constitutional questions. I do not want to go into these questions on the present occasion, but is it not of the essence of the whole claim of the House of Commons to exercise their powers and their authority that they should be a truly representative body, representing not a majority, representing not a class, but representing all classes in all parts of the country, and giving a fair share of power to minorities as well as to majorities? I think it is only in that way this House in the long run will be really and truly representative either of the voice or will of the people.
  There is one other reason why I am very strongly in favour of Proportional Representation. I know it is not popular in this House to suggest that the character

  1405
  of the representatives might be improved. But I do believe myself—without any reference to any particular Members of the House, I need hardly say—that as a matter of principle the character of the representatives in this House would be improved on the whole by a proper system of Proportional Representation. I believe it for this reason. It would give undoubtedly greater independence to Members of this House. It would allow such a gentleman as has been referred to, namely, Mr. Harold Cox, to be returned as a representative in this House, and it would give larger scope to a number of representatives who on particular points may not agree with the party ticket, and who yet might find a large share of support as regards the opinions of the country at large. It is a very important matter, not only that this House should be representative in that sense, but that it should attract to itself the best possible Members, having regard to the great duties and responsibilities which are entrusted to it by the country. The form of this Resolution is merely to give an option to municipalities to adopt the principle of Proportional Representation. I see the President of the Local Government Board opposite me, and no doubt he will speak upon this subject presently. I wish to put the question to him: Can there be any reason why municipalities who desire to adopt the principle of Proportional Representation should not be allowed to do so? It is not to be forced upon them. They are merely to be given an option to adopt it if they think in that way they can get a better body and better representation for local purposes. I am sure he will bear in mind, when he considers this question, all the great advantages which have been conferred on municipalities outside this country by the adoption of this principle of Proportionate Representation. For these reasons I heartily support the Resolution before the House, and I hope that it may be adopted in no party spirit.
  Mr. GEORGE ROBERTS: I myself am in a similar position to the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken. We are both able to rejoice in the fact that this question is in no way a party issue. I believe it is quite true to say that neither of the parties represented in this House has yet adopted it as one of their points. On the other hand, it is equally true to say that neither of the parties represented here has yet rejected the issue. On this question I
  1406
  am in the position of being unable to speak on behalf of the party with whom I customarily act, because we are in a like position to the other parties in this House, in that we have not yet made a definite declaration on the point. Nevertheless, I have supported for some time the principle of Proportional Representation, because of the fact that I am a democrat in politics. I believe, I may say, that all British parties are democrats, inasmuch as they recognise that the will of the people should prevail. In the prevailing order it is not correct to say that the voice of the people is adequately represented in this House. The three previous speakers have called attention to the great injustice and anomalies which have marked the recent election, and which proved to us that majorities have been greatly exaggerated in this House. One case has been cited of an actual minority of votes cast at the General Election giving a majority of representatives in this House. A system that allows such anomalies as that to be effected cannot be defended. We are a democratic people, and I have not yet learned that there is any party in the State that is going to alter the principle of democratic representation. Therefore it seems to me it is but right that we should seek to have conditions so adjusted so as to allow the actual state of thought in the country to be properly reflected in the representation in this House. We all admit that majorities must rule. At the same time, we claim that minorities should be represented in this House. Yet it is quite possible by an understanding or collusion of political forces in this country to make it utterly impossible even for considerable minorities to have representatives in this House at all.
  I am able to recall an experience in my own career which first of all forced this principle to my notice. I had for some years worked in the public life: of a particular city, and I could there see the possibility that, although the party with which I was associated might ultimately grow to be almost half the electorate, yet a combination of other political forces made it utterly impossible for that party ever to secure representation in that district. I am simply pointing that out as a reason which compelled me to give some consideration to this question of Proportional Representation. Now it is often alleged that the adoption of this principle would lead to the disruption of the two-party system. Personally I am of the view that such a condition is absolutely inevit-

  1407
  able. I do not think you can decree for all time that there shall be two parties and two parties alone in the State. The group system is already developing in this country, and if Proportional Representation did in any way facilitate that process of development, on the other hand I feel that even if you do not adopt the principle you will not prevent the group system coming into existence. I am a Member of a group in this House. We claim, and I think we are able to demonstrate, that we represent at least some proportion of the electorate who are entitled to direct representation in this House, and yet it is possible by an understanding between other parties, absolutely to wipe out this form of representation, which, I think all will agree, is a state of things that never should be allowed to exist. I do not say it is probable that such an eventuality should ever arise. I simply point out that it is possible under the prevailing order, my point being this, that the right of minorities to be represented in this House should not be determined by the attitude of other parties towards them.
  We claim that the principle of democratic representation makes it imperative that those persons who are able to carry with them votes in the country should have corresponding representation in this House. As has been pointed out to me, probably the party with which I am associated might not gain under the system of Proportional Representation. I do not look at this matter merely from the standpoint of party expediency. I claim that the party with which I am associated, or any other party, has the right to the representation that its numerical strength in the country warrants. On the other hand, it has a right to no more than that strength gives them. in the country; and I support the principle because I believe it to be absolutely just, not alone to one party, but to every party in the State, because of the fact that nothing that any other party in the State could do could prevent any particular party or persons securing some representation in this House. Under the existing order, there is no doubt a great grievance, and many cases have been cited, such, for instance, as the 97,000 Unionist voters in Wales who were only able to get representation in this House by what is admitted to be almost a fluke at the last election; a state of things like that cannot possibly be defended. On the other hand, in the
  1408
  southern counties, although the Ministerialist party hold some 135,000 votes they were unable to secure one representative in this House. I maintain that any groups of electors put in a position of a hopeless minority, or, on the other hand, any groups of electors put in a position to secure a majority, causes a state of affairs which is not good for the civic life of our country, and Proportional Representation, I believe, is a principle which would modify that unfortunate condition of things. The hon. and learned Gentleman who preceded me pointed out that the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, at any rate the Scottish branch of that organisation, have decided to adopt the principle of Proportional Representation in the election of its delegates to be sent to the Trades Union Congress. It is sometimes said that Labour movement has been very slow in taking up this great Question of electoral reform, but here we have, at any rate, one of the largest trade unions of the country embracing the principle in an experimental form. We cannot emphasise too strongly the fact that the promoter of the Resolution before the House are not asking the House of Commons to adopt and immediately apply the principle of Proportional Representation, but they are asking it to declare it to be expedient that this principle should be experimented with by municipal bodies in their local elections in accordance with that principle. Another interesting fact of the period is to be observed in the fact that the Social Democratic party in the German Reichstag initiated a Resolution there, and I believe carried it through that Assembly, in favour of the principle of Proportional Representation, proposed to be granted to Alsace-Lorraine. Those are very interesting observations, and are intended as much for the edification of some of my colleagues as for the edification of hon. Gentlemen in other portions of the House. The principle is in no way novel, as has been pointed out. It is in application in many other parts of the world, and to say that is so complex and so difficult that the British people would fail to apprehend it is, as the hon. Member put it, to cast a reflection on our own population. Surely the proposal we are making is no more complex or difficult than the processes which prevail in urban and other elections, where the voters have to wade through long lists placed before them; and if ordinary instructions were given to them they might be relied upon to place their figures before

  1409
  the names they thought proper. In Switzerland the principle has been in practice during the last twenty years for cantonal purposes, and here again it has proved to be so satisfactory that the requisite number of Swiss citizens have already signed a requisition, known as the "Initiative," I believe, so that the whole matter is to be subsequently submitted by Referendum to the people, and there is every reason to believe that the system will be adopted for a general Federal election as well. In the Belgian elections, under the Proportional Representation system, in the year 1908, the Liberals and Socialists, who ran, I believe, on a joint line on that occasion, secured forty-three seats, while the exact proportion to which they were entitled on the proportional system was forty-four. The Catholics secured thirty-seven seats, and the exact proportion to which they were entitled was thirty-six. In Finland the Socialists secured eighty-four seats, and were entitled to eighty, and the Old Finns secured forty-eight and were entitled to forty-seven. In the German Reichstag elections the Social Democrats polled 3,259,029 votes, and secured forty-three seats, and were entitled to 115; the Conservatives polled 1,532,072, and secured eighty-four seats, and were entitled to fifty-four.
  It is urged that the proposal would necessarily increase the cost and general work of an election. Some hon. Gentlemen regard it as absolutely essential that there should be personal contact between the candidate and everyone of the electors. Personally, I feel that this is hardly a desirable state of affairs. I think that with the increased facilities for education and the greater distribution of party literature, there is not so much need for that direct personal contact which hitherto has been regarded as absolutely essential. Rather, it is my hope that the British people will develop that intellectual and civic quality which will induce them to vote for principles rather than for individuals. I believe that under this proportional system there would not be the same need for this personal contact. I generally support the system of Proportional Representation because I believe it will increase activity and give greater stability to parties in the House of Commons, and will avoid those violent oscillations from one side to the other which have become almost a tradition of politics. I heartily support the Motion, and I venture to point out that it does not pledge hon. Gentlemen to the adoption of the principle, though it
  1410
  will afford an opportunity for very valuable experiments being conducted in our country. I believe those experiments would remove the doubts which exist in the minds of many, while they would very largely fulfil the expectation of the advocates of Proportional Representation. Certain I am of this, that once it was generally understood it would give considerable satisfaction to every party, because they would know they had received fair play, that they had secured representation in exact proportion to their numerical strength, and that a majority would still be secured in this House at the same time that the minorities would have legitimate means of being heard.
  Sir WILLIAM ANSON: We enjoyed in the earlier part of the day discussion as to one branch of the Legislature, and we are now discussing the mode of representation in this House, and there seems to be a general desire to come to a conclusion satisfactory to all parties. The Mover of the Resolution and my hon. Friend behind me, as well as other speakers, have gone fully into the anomalies, I may say the absurdities, which result from our present system of election. We have large areas in the country in which one party is at a disadvantage, or grossly under-represented, and no one has suggested that this is really a right thing to happen. I think some party manager, giving evidence before the Commission appointed by the Prime Minister, and which sat during the greater part of last year, suggested that these things were the fortune of war, and that inequalities of one place were redressed by inequalities in another, and that on the whole we had better make shift with the system we have. I cannot think that it is any satisfaction to the Unionists in Wales to feel that the Radicals in Birmingham are almost entirely, if not entirely, devoid of representation. These anomalies are so gross that the attention of the Government has been properly called to them, and I hope that both parties will use their best efforts to redress them. One of the great evils of the present system is not merely the permanent disfranchisement of many capable citizens but also the violent oscillations of parties which takes place at successive General Elections. We recollect the extraordinary change which took place in the position of the two parties in 1885 and 1886, and again in 1895. I do not like to say how many of my political friends lost their seats in 1906, and I think 120 or more of the followers of the

  1411
  Government are now considering how to redress their ill-fortunes in the country at the present moment. I think these oscillations are attributable to the fact that in the single particular constituency you have a narrow choice for the electors who very often do not wish for either candidate, and vote for him whom they regard as the lesser of two evils. At the next election the elector thinks that A was much less satisfactory than he expected him to be, and he says, "I will now try B." The result is that one party secures an immense majority at one time and another at another time. Although in the present state of things we have not an overwhelming majority on either side of the House still we know enough of what happens in this House to feel that these violent changes do not conduce to good government.
  It is worth ascertaining what are the possibilities in the matter. What are the chances of any Government bringing in a measure which would carry out any system of Proportional Representation. It is almost too much to expect that a Government with a very large majority would do so, because the inevitable result would be that the majority would be diminished, if not extinguished, at the next election. The Government might say to themselves, "Though we are bound to be in the minority, yet the swing of the pendelum in a few years hence will bring us back with the same overwhelming majority." I doubt whether the Government, flushed with the success of a great majority, would be likely to bring in a Bill for Proportional Representation. Is a Government with a small majority likely to do so? If a Government with a large majority will not, a Government with a small majority cannot, for the very good reason that Proportional Representation involves redistribution, and redistribution involves a considerable reduction in the representation of Ireland. A Government with a small majority, on whichever side of the House it sits, could not be independent of a solid Nationalist vote averse to any reduction in the representation of Ireland. That seems to me, under ordinary conditions, to put Proportional Representation very much out of the range of practical politics. We now have in this House four solid, distinct, independent views, and we have no party which is really independent of the support of any one of those. A Government, under those circumstances, must live
  1412
  from hand to mouth. Suppose the Labour party and the Nationalist party were to say, "We are not satisfied with either the Government or the Opposition," and that they were to go away from them, what would be the position of the Government? They would be entirely dependent on the help and disengagement of their supporters. If five Members of the Government party were afflicted with influenza and the whole of the Opposition in good health, the Government would go out. It is a question whether Proportional Representation would perpetuate this state of things, or whether a series of General Elections would perpetuate them; and whether this may not bring parties together to consider whether the representation of the country cannot be improved so that it should be a real reflection of political opinion of the country, and not what it is now, a purely haphazard result of the inclination or disinclination of the electors with a limited choice of candidates.
  It is quite clear that the continuance of the present state of things is not desirable in the interests of the country. It is not desirable that one Government after another should have an overwhelming majority and do exactly what it likes, and that its supporters should be ordered about without regard to their individual opinion, nor is it desirable that the Government should be dependent on the support of two or three people. But while we have this system let us consider what are the other evils which are involved besides the oscillations to which I have referred, and besides the permanent disfranchisement of a considerable number of the electors. Nobody can regard with satisfaction the fact that there are many men interested and active in politics who go to the poll time after time with the settled conviction that they will be always in a minority, and that they will never have the opportunity of cheering their candidate as a successful man, and who never feel that their vote is really of any weight in the determination of the affairs of the country. That cannot be a happy position for anyone to contemplate who takes an interest in the politics of this country. One merit of the scheme of Proportional Representation, as so clearly set forth by the Mover of the Resolution, is that everybody would feel that his vote was at any rate worth something, and that it did not go into the ballot box as a waste paper basket and as a worthless contribution to the political life of the country.

  1413
  That alone, I think, would be a substantial advantage.
  Then there is the question of the exclusion from Parliament of men who cannot fall exactly into line with their party, and who, under our present rigorous party organisation, are excluded from politics. Names have already been mentioned to which I need not again refer. No doubt there are men whose critical faculties are so acute that they find it very difficult to agree with anybody, and whose powers of expression are so admirable and so incisive that they make their disagreement unpleasantly conspicuous to their best friends. It is possible that such men cannot hope to find places in an Assembly in which it may be necessary to subordinate their views at a particular time to those of the party with whom they act. But there are many cases of men habitually loyal to their party who nevertheless at some point or other differ from them. Confining ourselves to the past, during the latter half of the last century there may be found men who, if the party organisation had been as close as it is to-day would have been excluded from this House, and whose exclusion would have made a difference to the country. If party organisation between 1880 and 1885 had been what it is now the late Mr. Goschen would not have found a seat in this House, because he differed from his party. I think, also, that if hon. Members were to follow out the career of the late Mr. Gladstone during the period when he was passing from the Conservatism of his youth to the Liberalism or Radicalism of his later years, they would find that he too, if he had not been the representative of a university might have found it difficult to secure a place in this House. Another aspect of the matter is that this close party organisation, with the exclusion of men who are independent and capable of expressing forcibly their differences with their party, leads to an extraordinary increase in the power of the Executive Government. It is the Cabinet and the Prime Minister who determine how the party is to vote. In view of the tremendous oscillations of political opinion in the country, and the great risk a Member runs of not securing re-election, especially if he has been in Parliament for a couple of years or more, a Government which can threaten its party with a dissolution if they do not obey orders exercises a tremendous control. We had a singular instance of that the other day when, owing to a very interesting confes-
  1414
  sion of Lord Marchamley, we got what we so seldom get, a glimpse of the soul of a Whip. We know now what nobody would have believed at the time, that when the late Liberal Whip was shepherding his flock into the Division Lobby on Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman's Veto Resolutions, in his heart of hearts he was not shepherding his flock into the fold, but was sending them down a steep place into the sea.
  I believe that a system of Proportional Representation, giving free play to the choice of the electors, and somewhat freer play to the action of the representatives in Parliament, would correct many of the evils from which we suffer under our present system. I by no means wish to run down or to despair of the party system or the representative system. I believe that our representative system can be made really representative of the country. If any Government would boldly come forward and take this matter up, I am sure we should all endeavour to make this House representative, as it ought to be, of every shade of political opinion in the country, and to secure that no substantial minority was left without a voice in the conduct of the affairs of the nation. I believe also that it is quite possible to retain the party organisation for the purposes of government without putting that strain on individual opinion which, unhappily, it does now. I have ventured to make these remarks because I believe most strongly in Proportional Representation as a cure of many of the disadvantages of the present system. The discussion so far has been in a friendly spirit, and we have yet to hear the President of the Local Government Board. I do not suppose the Resolution can have any practical effect for some time to come so far as Parliamentary representation is concerned; but if Proportional Representation can be tested wherever that test can be applied—and it can be applied in our municipal government with great ease—I feel sure we should watch its working with great interest.
  The PRESIDENT of the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. John Burns): I would ask permission to split the Motion into two parts, so that it can be more efficiently dealt with from the Government point of view. The Motion is: "That, inasmuch as the present systems of electing representatives, whether to Parliament or municipal bodies, result in grave anomalies and injustices, it is expedient to test the system of proportional

  1415
  election, and for that purpose to empower municipal boroughs to apply that system in the election of their councils." So far as Parliament and Parliamentary elections are concerned, my hon. Friend hopes by this Motion and the principle that it embodies, if legislative effect be given to it, to remove many grave anomalies and injustices. So far as he is desirous of removing anomalies and injustices from our electoral system, we go with him to the fullest possible extent. But there are anomalies and injustices in our present electoral system which Proportional Representation would not eradicate, and there are a few which it might extend. The Government take the view that there are anomalies and injustices. For instance, we think that the election for this House spread over six weeks is an anomaly and an injustice that ought not to be continued; that it is prejudicial to trade, I believe it is annoying to the candidate, and the expenses incurred in that process do not result in the best type of man being returned. Riches and a capacity to fight elections for a long period, and the character and quality of the House of Commons do not always go together. Proportional Representation may remove some defects. There are others it would not remove, such, as I have said, the election spread over six weeks, plural voting, possible personation—which is probable in many cases —and the cost of elections. The expenses under Proportional Representation of five or nine-Membered constituencies would unquestionably increase if one of the candidates did not happen to be on the selected or approved list. Then there is the whole cost of election expenses; the question as to whether we should not vote all on one day, or on two days. There is the question of University representation—which some regard as both an anomaly and an injustice. There is a larger question of redistribution, which, whatever you do with Proportional Representation, would still exist, and this Motion would not remove it. There is the question of the second ballot. I am not so sure that after recent experiences all sides would not agree that grave anomalies and injustices were committed by the extension— almost the intolerable extension—of persistent house-to-house canvassing, which in some respect has gone beyond peaceful picketting, and has become absolute intimidation. I am not so sure that from the point of view of the peaceful and æsthetic
  1416
  conduct of elections that we would not nearly all agree upon some stoppage, if not actual prohibition, of the coarse and ugly placards that disfigured the walls, and which, in my judgment, prostituted the elections where some of those abominable cartoons were exhibited.
  I only mention these eight or nine anomalies and injustices to point the moral and prove the wisdom and justice of the Government in anticipating what is practical, immediate, and possible in this Motion by the appointment of a Royal Commission to go into what this Motion embodies, and the other anomalies and injustices which I think it is time we considered. A year ago the Government appointed a Royal Commission, the reference to which I think it is appropriate I should read:—
  " To examine the various schemes which have been adopted or proposed in order to secure a fully representative character for popularly elected legislative bodies, and to consider whether and how far they, or any of them, are capable in this country in regard to the existing electorate."
  This Commission has been sitting now a year. I have every reason to believe that its Report will be soon before the public. I gather from one of the Members of the Commission, who has done his country a service by being a Member of it, that the Report will be almost immediately presented, and as the subject of Proportional Representation has been put before the Committee by competent witnesses, and the other side has also been heard, I think the Government were wise in their decision to anticipate this Motion by instituting the Commission.
  10.0 P.M.
  It is, I think, appropriate, that I should refer to, and I think the House will join with me and share with me the profound sorrow that we all have in the unfortunate, the tragic, death of Mr. Robertson, the Secretary of the Commission, in the recent mountaineering accident in Wales.
  I would like to point out to the Mover of this Motion that it must not be taken for granted that all anomalies and injustices are going to be removed if the Government accepted this particular Motion. In my judgment people have not sufficiently realised that even with Proportional Representation, whether it be by transferable vote by a method of quota or multiple transferable vote, a very small and very select minority would be excluded as larger minorities sometimes now are. As a matter of fact it is as well

  1417
  for all of us to confess that there is no absolute, remedy for any electoral grievance. There is a relative remedy for the disparity that now exists between minorities who sometimes get a majority of seats, and, worse still, majorities who get a minority of seats under the present system. It is also to be borne in mind that some of the injustices of the municipal electoral system which this Motion seeks to rectify are qualified to some extent by the system of voting a certain proportion of aldermen and others on councils, and increasingly the process of co-opting outsiders—very often people who would not be elected at a severely contested election —as members of education and other committees, and thus has removed some of the crudities that attach to the present system. I am really very glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle emphasised the difficulty which would accrue even under Proportional Representation in large areas, where the constituency has three, five, six, or nine candidates. In these, days, with rapid transit by motorcar, it is a very favourable advantage on the side of men who can command the largest number, and is a handicap on the poor man, who cannot command any motor car at all. Proportional Representation in itself would not remedy the anomaly and injustice which prevailed in the last election on both sides by the indecent use of motor cars to keep other people out.
  There is another aspect of this Motion which I would ask the minorities in this House to bear in mind. My own view is that in respect to some of these existing minorities, or, to call them by a colloquial term, "groups," it is a moot point as to whether the views that they hold as strongly as they do would secure the advantage they at present have if Proportional Representation were applied to the electoral system of this country. I am under that impression because I have been invariably on the side of minorities. I doubt whether the Labour Members would find that it would be the advantage to them that for the moment their spokesman to-night thought it might possibly be. The absence of the Irish Members from this Debate indicates that they are content with the present system, and that they are suspicious of the merits of this particular Motion. It is a mistake to assume altogether that Proportional Representation is going to lead to an election of a higher quality and character and personnel such as was implied by one or
  1418
  two speakers in the House. Belgium has been quoted as an illustration of the way in which everybody has been made contented and happy by Proportionate Representation. I have only to read one or two paragraphs from a report which has been furnished to show a different view:—
  " Those on the extreme Left especially view it with a certain dislike, and the Socialists instinctively feel that even though they themselves way, in Opposition, derive benefit from it, it is on the whole a Conservative, or as they would say an obtrusive and reactionary agency ‥‥ On the other hand the present system is open to the criticism that it in some respects defeats its own professed ends. It is in practice fatal to the representation of small minorities or to the presence in the Chambers of independent members. ‥‥It is no doubt an unsatisfactory symptom in almost all the Legislatures of the present day that the old system of alternative Government by two, or at most three, great parties, the Right, Centre, and Left of the Continent, and the Tories, Whigs and Radicals of England, is being modified throughout Europe by the detachment from these main bodies of numerous smaller political groups, many of them class or local, or what is sometimes vulgarly called ' faddist,' and that, even the Mother of Parliaments is not quite exempt, from this tendency, which finds perhaps its most extreme expression in the German Reichstag. That Belgium, unlike her neighbours, unlike even the sister kingdom of the Netherlands, should so far have resisted, it may be an advantage or the reverse, but it is at least a somewhat singular consequence of a reform one of whose main objects was to protect and voice the interests of minorities."
  So it is evident that the evidence from Belgium is not quite so conclusive as some hon. Members seem to suggest.
  When I heard my hon. Friend the hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir Alfred Cripps) suggest that if we had a proper system of representation, instead of there being two Conservative Members for Wales and a majority of twenty-two there would be eight or ten, I felt a suspicion that progressive politicians from Wales are not enamoured of a system at the moment which would convert the two Conservatives into eight or ten. It is no compensation for Wales to say that Surrey and Kent and Sussex, which now return no Liberal or Radical Member at all, would have, under this system of Proportional Representation, twelve or fourteen. I only mention this not in any party or controversial spirit, but to illustrate that minorities, even under a Proportional Representation, may suffer. I believe that some of the minor anomalies and injustices Proportional Representation would remove would be supplanted by others unless you had electoral reforms of a more substantial character following closely on the heels of Proportional Representation.
  Now I come to the question of personnel and character of Members of Parliament. I have only been eighteen years a Member of this House, and I do not believe,

  1419
  whether we have Proportional Representation or any other, the character, quality, and personnel of the Members of this House would be materially affected. I am one of those who share the view that the personnel of this House is not worse than it used to be. I believe, from the point of view of its loyalty, disinterestedness, honesty, and incorruptibility it will compare to-day with any Parliament of twenty or fifty or one hundred years ago. The only reason I mentioned that is I do not want those who favour Proportional Representation to get it into their heads that it would mean the return of a number of glorified superior persons, who, however excellent they may be, are, from the point of view of Government or Parliament, better away from the House of Commons than in it. If these people are of such transcendent ability and genius, and if they have all the talent which has been attributed to some of them, and if they are defeated at one election, I am sure other opportunities will be given to them to look elsewhere; and if they cannot get an ordinary constituency some of them may find in a university constituency a refuge which is not always a sanctuary. I am asked what the Government are going to do with regard to this Motion. That makes my task very simple. The Government, so far as the principle of Proportional Representation is concerned, as embodied in this Motion, are going to let the House have its own way, and do its own bidding according to the views of individual Members. The Whips are not going to be put on—that is a sign this is a reasonable Government. We intend, so far as the principle of Proportional Representation is concerned, as expressed in this Motion, to leave the matter to the House. With regard to the second portion of the Motion, which speaks" of empowering municipal boroughs to apply that system in the election of councils," the suggestion was that this could be done either by the simple consent of the Local Government Board or by the issue of certain electoral orders, or by a general order giving the local authorities the power to carry out these experiments if they wished. Before I come to say a final word upon this point I would like to say that I do not see that the municipalities are in favour of conducting municipal elections under a system of Proportional Representation. On the contrary, I believe that 295 towns, large and small, have expressed themselves in
  1420
  favour of the present provincial system of electing one-third of their members at a time. They regard that as being an infinitely better system than that which prevails, I think unfortunately, in the London Metropolitan Borough Councils, when all the members go out together. It destroys the continuity of municipal representation and administration. Beyond expressing themselves in favour of the provincial system and not the system which prevails in London, none of the municipalities have given a strong lead, so far as I can gather, in favour of Proportional Representation even being applied to municipal elections. I do not want to throw the least element of discord into this Debate by quoting distinguished politicians and statesmen who, on previous occasions, have spoken on this subject, but I may mention that men like John Bright and Lord Beaconsfield were under the impression that any serious departure from the two-party system tempered by one or two reasonably large groups would tend to instability, and would perhaps threaten a complex and large Empire, as the British Empire is through its Parliamentary institutions, and expose it to shocks and caprices under Proportional Representation which would not be possible under the two-party system. My right hon. Friend on my right has very sound views on nearly all questions, both public and private, but I do not think I am saying more about his view on this subject than I ought to do when I say that he regards Proportional Representation as politically the eighth deadly sin; that Proportional Representation should take the position of bimetallism and perpetual motion; and that just as it is one of the most fascinating, so it is one of the most illusory problems that could disturb mankind. Whether that view is shared by many it is not for me to inquire into, but I put it to the friends of Proportional Representation that several of the cases they have quoted are not apposite and cannot be applied to a system like we have, which is ancient, governed not only by tradition and history, but by a long continuance of the two-party system. It is not apposite to give instances like Wurtemburg and Austro-Hungary where acute religious differences, have determined the introduction of Proportional Representation apart from any great regard for political equity. It is hardly fair to quote the election by a Scottish trade union of one of their officials by a system of alternative vote, because the conditions are different.

  1421
  There the question to be determined was the personal fitness and capacity of the man to be officially elected for an administrative post. In such an election you do not get religion, social forces, and political hostility introduced as we do at Parliamentary elections, and sometimes at municipal elections. In conclusion I have to say that as to Proportional Representation being applied as expressed in this Motion, we will leave that to the House to decide by vote, but I must tell the House that we cannot accept that part of the Motion which relates to giving local authorities the option to apply this principle to elections. If we could do that by an order or by the simple consent of the Local Government Board our answer would be relatively easy, but to do what the Motion requires, namely, to pledge ourselves to bring in a Bill this Session to give effect to the latter part of the Resolution, the Government are not in a position to give that pledge.
  Mr. ANEURIN WILLIAMS: Should I be in order in suggesting that I really did not ask the Government to promise a Bill, and I submit, with all respect, that there is nothing in the wording of the Resolution which implies that. I only ask the House to approve of the principle. I will bring in the Bill.
  Mr. BURNS: It was worth my while to emphasise that to elicit the clear and direct statement my hon. Friend has just made. If all he wishes is for the House to vote on the principle of Proportional Representation, and if the Motion, however it may be treated, is not to be regarded as a pledge to bring in a Bill either this Session or next, or to take definite action until the Royal Commission on Electoral Reform reports, then we apply to the latter portion of the Motion the condition we apply to the, former part; and the Government is prepared to leave this matter to a vote of the House itself.
  Sir HENRY KIMBER: I should like to call the attention of the House to the fact that this Question was started, and very wisely, by the Mover as a non-party Question, and as one which really ought not to have mixed up with it the question of its effect upon parties. The Mover was very careful to keep it in that position, and the Seconder also, except that he referred to its effect upon parties in coming to the conclusion that it would not in any way affect the action of parties. It remained for the occupants of the Front Benches on
  1422
  both sides—and it was very natural they should—to look at the Question from the point of view of its effect upon the position of the parties inside this House. Hon. Members should not allow their minds to be occupied by the effect of the system upon the parties here. The sole question is how the will of the nation—which I understand to be the nation's opinion—should be best expressed inside this House. Whether it affects this party or that disadvantageously is immaterial. It is only right that on the democratic principle on which this House is formed, the true representation of the people and of the people's mind, their opinion should be given a reflex in this House, regardless of consequences. In order to be a direct representation of the people, this House must reflect the people in a fairly proportionate manner, all the opinions of the people outside. That is a question not merely of the representation of the people, but of the distribution of seats, which is a part of a much greater question of Proportional Representation. It is a question which I have laboured at during the last eighteen years in this House. I have succeeded in extracting the assent of successive Prime Ministers, representing both sides of the House, and I have got the subject into two King's Speeches, and yet nothing has been done. What have been the facts? During the twenty-five years I have been in this House the disparity in the representation of the people here has risen from eight to one to thirty to one. By sight to one I mean the proportion of the largest constituency to the smallest. At the time of the last Reform Bill, after which I entered Parliament, that was the proportion as represented here. It was not a large disparity, but it has increased year after year and has now risen to the enormous disparity of thirty to one. The result upon the whole is this, that some two-thirds of this House are returned by one-third of the electors of the country. One-half of the total electorate, which is 7,700,000 odd, sends 454 Members to this House, and the other half only sends 216, making up 670. How can we be said, in any fair sense, to represent the people or the people's opinions outside? You can take it another way. The one-half which returns the 454 Members, that is, more than two-thirds of the House, elect them by an average of 8,400 odd electors; and the other half, send the 216, who have on the average 17,287 electors. How can that represent the opinion of the people? Yet we pretend we represent the people.

  1423
  When we come inside the House we split up in a different fashion, but unfortunately it does not correspond with the numbers. It would be easy to show how one-half of our Members—
  Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is dealing with an entirely different problem which has nothing to do with Proportional Representation; he is raising the whole question of redistribution.
  Sir HENRY KIMBER: I will abandon that. My only object was to show the position we are now in, and our desire, the desire of the whole House, will be, I believe, to remedy this disparity under which we suffer. I admit it is only a part, a small part, of the larger question. It might be immaterial in the early centuries of Parliamentary Government that minorities should be un-represented. What the country wanted then was to get able business men who were willing to come to Parliament, and it was necessary sometimes to use force. I believe it is on record that some Members, Knights of the Shire, and Members for boroughs, were put in durance vile for not attending diligently and daily in this House, but we must bear in mind that all through this House has consisted, and still consists of 670 representatives of majorities only, and that there are 670 important minorities which are not represented at all. It was immaterial at a time when everybody was intent when they were sent to this House on doing one thing, and that was to administer the affairs of the country to the best advantage. The party system sprung up in the course of centuries, and now it has become grossly accentuated to such a degree that the commonweal of the country is apt to be lost sight of, and it is becoming so intense that we have seen in this Debate how Gentlemen on the Front Benches have been constrained to look upon this question from the effect upon their particular party. I do say that the one thing we want represented in this House is the nation's will, and we must represent now, not only majorities but minorities, and the only question that remains is how best to do that. There are several ways in which that can be done. The second ballot is one way suggested. That has proved a failure and to be an instrument in the hands of wire-pullers who can defeat the very object we have in view. Proportional Representation is the only method that I have yet seen or
  1424
  studied which can meet the difficulty. It may appear at first sight to be a little complex and difficult to understand, but if anyone will give a small half-hour to the study of it they will see that it is one of the simplest things on the face of the earth. I am gratified at the sympathetic reception which the proposal has received from the President of the Local Government Board. and I do hope that the system may be tried in a small way in municipal affairs, and that eventually we may succeed in getting it adopted for the election of Members of this House. I cordially support the Motion.
  Mr. W. P. BEALE: I do not propose to add anything to the argument about the general Question, but I do ask to touch on one point which the President of the Local Government Board made when he referred to the difficulty in the way of making a concrete experiment of this method of election upon municipal bodies. However difficult it may be to get them to adopt it, possibly on account of the matter which he mentioned that they prefer a system of retirement every three years, I want to call attention to the fact that there is one case where the experiment could be very easily tried, I think, with very beneficial results, namely, the election of the Scottish School Boards. There, so far from its being a matter against which any opinion is pronounced, I am told that resolutions have been passed expressing approval of a new departure in this direction in Glasgow, Dundee, and Govan. In the system which is advocated in the main, that which was elaborated in the Schedule to the Municipal Reform Bill introduced recently, the difficulty does not exist of first defining the areas. The areas already exist in the Scottish school boards—that is to say, the districts already returning several members—and the simple question, therefore, presents itself how best to secure that the representation of different interests or different opinions in that electoral district shall be in proportion to the numbers who have those interests or hold those opinions. It is a very simple case upon which to try the experiment. I have prepared a Bill for this very purpose, but have, of course, delayed its introduction until this Motion is disposed of. The subject is not a new one. It has been well considered. It was suggested on the Committee stage of the Education Bill, and there it received approval in the proportion of eighteen votes to two. It

  1425
  would have been brought on again on the Report stage, but the Secretary for Scotland preferred, in order to shorten discussion, that the people who wanted to provide for the representation of minorities should return to the cumulative system.
  The question, therefore, which presents itself in applying Proportional Representation to these particular elections would be a question between the existing cumulative vote and the system of proportion. The Mover of the Resolution made it clear that the principle only requires to be understood, and that when you know the number of votes given and the number of vacancies to be filled you can ascertain the number, which may be called a quota, which will serve as a perfectly solid basis for declaring when a man is elected. The principle is only carried further in this way, that if votes are given to a man who has more than the quota, those votes are literally not represented, and there is a certain amount of voting power which is not effective. It is right therefore that these should be transferred to the other non-elected candidates, and so on until you have exhausted all who have voted. Then comes in the old principle that when none of them have a quota you take the one who has least, and in order that the votes given to him may be effective you transfer second preferences to the other non-elected candidates. In this way it is clear that the majority cannot get any more representatives elected than they are entitled to by their numerical strength. It is also equally clear that whenever the minority have one more than the proportion they must be able to secure representation. I will only mention one other, advantage of the system, which, I think, has not been mentioned. Under the ordinary system a minority cannot protect itself except by elaborate caucusing, but under the proportional system a minority which is entitled to one representative would get representation. I only mention that because it is one of the advantages of this system which should not be lost sight of. I know it is irksome to try to understand the full arithmetical process of counting the votes, but I hope hon. Members will take it on faith that the system is possible, and that they will keep an open mind for giving it a trial in the election of Scottish school boards or of any other boards where it may be found practicable.
  Sir MARK STEWART: I have had as large an experience as any Member in this House in regard to Scottish school boards and the system of electing members. I stand here as the oldest chairman of a school board in Scotland, and I have had my lot cast in a very argumentative and polemical county. A very ordinary number for a school board in Scotland is five or seven. It is always a great point on the part of the electors to get a majority of members, so that the party having the majority of members may have the election of the chairman. If the Board has seven members the effort is to get four of one party returned. Party feeling runs higher in these elections than in any other, whereas there ought to be no party feeling whatever. The best men in the parish ought to be elected for the school board or the parish council, and I think this system of Proportional Representation would put a stop in a great measure to that party feeling. I hope the hon. Member for Plymouth (Mr. A. Williams) will consent to put in the words "or school board." I think if he would do so he would confer a great gain on the political morality of Scotland in regard to school board elections. The adoption of the system of Proportional Representation would not only be a good thing on the whole in connection with Scottish elections, but it would do away with the absurd system of cumulative voting, which is a great hindrance and annoyance in school board elections. Under the system of cumulative voting one candidate may get a large number of votes, while another candidate who only gets a few votes may be the better man of the two. I have great pleasure in supporting the Resolution.
  Mr. CRAWSHAY-WILLIAMS: I rise to support the Motion of the hon. Member for Plymouth. I do so more particularly, in the first place, as it does not involve any pledge on the principle of Proportional Representation; and, in the second place, because it is not proposed to introduce this system nationally, but only municipally and only experimentally; and, in the third place, because the system proposed is entirely permissive. My right hon. Friend the President of the Local Government Board said that no instances had been given which could be taken as a likely parallel to the principle proposed in this Motion. But, as a matter of fact, the same principle has been applied in our

  1427
  Colonies—in Johannesburg and Victoria. In these two places it has proved successful, so successful that it was proposed to extend the principle very much further afield. One thing which stood out during this Debate is the general consensus of opinion as to the defects of our present electoral system. Those defects may be classed under two heads. First, where with a single-Member constituency there are more than two candidates and a Member is returned who does not represent a majority of the electors voting at the election. A second, and very much more far-reaching difficulty, is that over any number of single-Member constituencies the results are not usually an accurate representation of the voice of the people. The remedies for those two defects fall also into two classes. If you are only going to deal with single-Member constituencies some form of second ballot, preferably that known as the alternative vote, is amply adequate. But if you wish to obtain an absolutely accurate photograph of the opinion of the electorate over the whole of these Islands, some system of Proportional Representation is the only system which will effect what is needed. The whole system centres in the matter of the constituencies. Are you going to go for the single-Member constituencies or large multiple-Member constituencies?
  The alternative of large multiple-Member constituencies is undoubtedly open to some objections. There is the objection, of course, that these large constituencies would be rather difficult to manage for the candidates. I have a certain amount of sympathy with that when I think of travelling all over Leicestershire in the case of Leicestershire returning seven Members. Another objection is that it would not be understood of the people. I do not want to cast reflections on the intelligence of the people of this country, and to say that they are more stupid than the inhabitants of any other country, and I do not think that that is a valid objection, because whenever it has been tried it has been found that the people do understand it, and understand very quickly. But we must remember that we live in a country which I am afraid I must call more or less essentially conservative. The people are doubtful of change, even, I am sorry to say, when the change is for the better, and in finding some remedy for the present inequality I do not think that that
  1428
  remedy should be too far-reaching or too ideal. At this stage we should be more or less practical, and not try to do too much. Another objection that has been advanced to the Proportional Representation system is that you would be likely to get Members into this House with, if I may say so, only one idea in their heads. There is something, I think, in that objection. An anti-vivisectionist may be a very great authority on vivisection, but I submit that an accurate knowledge of vivisection may not entirely qualify him to deal with the question of the House of Lords, though perhaps it might be considered so on this side of the House. But I think that there is undoubtedly that objection to be advanced against the Proportional Representation system. By some it is said that the Government would be unable to carry on business with such small majorities and such heterogeneous parties as would be obtained under Proportional Representation. That, I think, is not such a valid objection as appears at first sight. The question of by-elections will also have to be considered in connection with Proportional Representation; and lastly, I think, there is undoubtedly a preference in this country for personal rather than corporate representation—for representation by a responsible person whom you can see and question rather than by a body of men. That may or may not be a proper feeling, but undoubtedly it exists. You have to consider all these things in connection with Proportional Representation. On the other hand, you have also to consider the disadvantages of the single-Member system, and there are very grave disadvantages. There are ample figures which show that that single-Member system would lead to unequal representation. It does seem to me that some hybrid scheme might be possible. In towns, where the level of intelligence may be slightly higher than in the surrounding districts, you may possibly find the electorate ripe for Proportional Representation. In the country districts, to my mind, the system of the alternative vote would meet the case for the present. Any scheme, if it is to be a real one, must involve equal electoral districts, although, as my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth pointed out, redistribution is not an absolute necessity to the introduction of Proportional Representation. Any scheme to be real must be rounded off

  1429
  by some method of dealing with the plural vote. I think this question of Proportional Representation is one which ought to be approached in an absolutely non-party spirit, and is one on which we can all unite. I believe we all desire to see the wishes of the people properly represented, And undoubtedly a step in that direction would be these experiments by municipalities in Proportional Representation. I do not think there is the slightest necessity to fear the result of such experiments. The principle has been tried in Johannesburg and Pretoria, and all the prophecies of evil with regard to it have been shown to be wrong. Success has attended the experiment. In the first place it was said that there would be many spoiled votes, but though the population of Johannesburg, coming from all parts, is to a certain extent illiterate, the number of spoiled votes amounted to only 1 or 2 per cent, of the whole of the votes. It was also said that there would be a difficulty in candidates getting in touch with the electors, and also a difficulty with regard to expenses. But the expenses were not great. The evidence shows that two Labour candidates who were returned out of three who stood incurred expenses which only amounted to £6 each. That does not show that the cost of an election under the Proportional Representation system would be increased to any considerable extent. As to the advantages, you do, I think, with all due deference to my right hon. Friend the President of the Local Government Board, tend to get a better personnel. The hon. Member quoted as follows from an opinion in the "Morning Post" as to elections in Johannesburg:—
  " It is hoped that in this way the force of the appeal to sectional interests may be minimised, and that men of known standing and integrity, who are not prepared to sacrifice the interests of the whole community to those of a few streets, will stand a better chance of being elected. If that is so, men of this description will be more encouraged to come forward in the future than they have been in the past few years, and we may look for an improvement in the personnel of the Council."
  Those hopes have, I think, been fulfilled. At any rate, in the reports I have read they have been said to have been fulfilled. The chance of expression and the trial of strength of the different parties in a municipality, or for the matter of that, in the State, under a system of either alternative voting or Proportional Representation, will be able to be made without resulting friction and resulting minority representation of the wrong
  1430
  kind, which at present is the outcome. I do believe that opinion is quite favourable to some experiment in this direction in this Kingdom. This proposal is only a permissive proposal. It is not a pledge of any kind as regards Proportional Representation, and I think that some chance ought to be given to any pioneers who are ready to start along this path and to try whether it is possible for us in this Kingdom. For these reasons I support the Motion myself, and I ask the House to support it also.
  Mr. ANEURIN WILLIAMSrose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put"; but Mr. SPEAKER withheld his assent, and declined then to put that Question. Debate resumed.
  Sir FREDERICK BANBURY: I would like to point out the extraordinary position in which we are. In the earlier part of the sitting to-day we were occupied with improving another place, and now, in the evening, we are occupied in improving ourselves, or supposed to be. I think, first of all, we had better improve ourselves before we attempt to improve the other place; and when we have we can think of what we can do in other directions. We had the President of the Local Government Board making a most Conservative speech, with which, if I may be allowed to say so, I thoroughly concur. I only wish that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary was here. He probably would have described his Radical colleague as being one of those who stuck in the mud and went back to old-fashioned ideas. He and I are together on this occasion, and if there is a Division I am not at all sure we may not tell together. I wish to express the hope that what is merely a pious opinion may not be pressed to a Division. It is nothing but a pious opinion. We are nothing but a debating society at present, and the hon. Gentleman who Moved has assured us be is not introducing a Bill.
  Question put, and agreed to.

  POLICE SUPERANNUATION (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Read a second time, and referred to a Standing Committee.

  LICENSING (CONSOLIDATION) BILL.
  Order read for resuming adjourned.
  Debate on Question [29th March], "That it is expedient that the Bill be committed to a Joint Committee of Lords and Commons."—[Mr. Simon.]
  Question again proposed. Debate resumed.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Message to the Lords to acquaint them therewith.—[Mr. Simon.]
  Adjourned at Two minutes after Eleven o'clock.

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