BILLS OTHER THAN MONEY BILLS.

§ The PRIME MINISTER

moved: "2. That it is expedient that the powers of the House of Lords, as respects Bills other than Money Bills, be restricted by Law, so that any such Bill which has passed the House of Commons in three successive Sessions and, having been sent up to the House of Lords at least one month before the end of the Session, has been rejected by that House in each of those Sessions, shall become Law without the consent of the House of Lords on the Royal Assent being declared: Provided that at least two years shall have elapsed between the date of the first introduction of the Bill in the House of Commons and the date on which it passes the House of Commons for the third time. For the purposes of this Resolution a Bill shall be treated as rejected by the House of Lords if it has not been passed by the House of Lords either without Amendment or with such Amendments only as may be agreed upon by both Houses. Less than a fortnight ago, on the question that we should resolve ourselves into Committee, I addressed the House at considerable length on the subject of this Resolution. I do not propose upon the present occasion, now we are in Committee, to make more than two or three very brief supplementary observations. The object of this Resolution, as I then explained, is to provide the machinery, simple machinery, for avoiding what our experience has shown to be a serious, and when a Liberal Government is in power I may almost say a chronic, Parliamentary evil—I mean a deadlock between the two Houses. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, in following me upon that occasion, disputed the existence of the evil. He seemed to think these deadlocks of which I spoke were either the offspring of Radical imagination or the creatures of Radical perversity and wrong-headedness. That they are not the offspring of Radical imagination, perversity or wrongheaded-ness is sufficiently obvious to those of us who were Members of last Parliament. It 896 is quite true that we have no experience of Parliamentary deadlocks between the two Chambers in long stretches of our political history. I cannot recall such an instance during the ten years I sat in this House between 1890 and 1900. During that halcyon time people at home began to forget that there was such a thing as the House of Lords. To realise the urgency of the problem of the deadlock one has only to turn to the comparatively insignificant part which the functions and position of the House of Lords played in political controversy during the General Election of 1906, and the paramount, I might say the predominant part, which they played in the General Election of 1910. It was the experience of four years, and I do not think I exaggerated when I described it a moment ago as a continually chronic state for which a majority of this House, and we believe the majority of the people of this country, call for some effectual remedy. That is the first question we deal with in our domestic policy. What is the object of that policy? It is to secure that which I believe, theoretically and ostensibly, politicians of all parties and in all quarters of this House have every desire to secure, that which is the primary purpose of democratic Government, namely, the will and opinion of the majority of the people for the time being shall both in policy and in legislation prevail. That is what we believe in, and the machinery here suggested, although I do not for a moment hold it out as offering a final or adequate solution of the problem, but the machinery here suggested is at any rate an effectual palliative of the evils under which we have recently suffered. It brings about the desired object, or tends to bring it about, with the minimum of friction and change, and it is recommended for the consideration of the Committee. What will be the state of things supposing statutory effect is given to the Resolution which has just been read from the Chair? How will it affect the absolute Veto which the House of Lords now possesses in legislation? That Veto will remain untouched except as to measures in regard to which the presumption is overwhelmingly strong that the decision of the House of Commons expresses the opinion of the people.

I quite agree, and I acknowledged when I was speaking a fortnight ago in the Motion to go into Committee, that there are conceivable and, indeed, actual cases in which the decision of the House of 897 Commons does not necessarily, and, perhaps, does not even presumptively, express that opinion. You might have a case, a conceivable case, of what is called a scratch majority combined together under the coercion of party exigencies for a particular and transient purpose. You might, again, have a conceivable case, and I am not sure it has not occurred in our own time, of a crumbling and decaying majority which has lost all popular favour—[EARL WINTEETON: "Hear, hear"] —I see the Noble Lord's memory, and that of his friends, goes back to the year 1904—a crumbling and decaying majority, which has lost all touch with popular feeling, popular opinion, and popular will, and which seeks to take advantage of its waning powers for party interests in the last Session of an effete or moribund Parliament. These are conceivable cases. They are cases one of which, at any rate, has been exemplified in the very recent experience of many of us who sit here. I agree that the Second Chamber, even such a Second Chamber as the House of Lords now is, has its use, and ought to be allowed to exercise its powers to meet and prevent such an abuse of constitutional forms. It will be able to do so under our scheme. What is the effect of that scheme? You have a Parliament substantially curtailed and shortened in its duration—a Parliament the effective life of which, according to previous precedent, will not exceed four years—you have that shortened Parliament divided into two periods of legislative or potential legislative activity. In the first period—its first two years—in order that a measure passed by the House of Commons may overcome the Veto of the House of Lords and become part of the law of the land, it has to be passed in three Sessions; there must be an interval of two years between its first introduction and its final passage into law, and those two years will be preceded by a General Election, which, unless our popular democratic machinery is a mere cipher and sham, gives an enormous presumption that the Members of the House of Commons, fresh from contact with the constituencies, really represent their opinion and their will. What is the second period into which I have divided Parliamentary life in the new House of Commons under the shortened Parliamentary system. There, again, a Bill only passes into law as against and above the Veto of the House of Lords in three Sessions. The first two Sessions will be the Sessions of the expiring Parliament, and, before 898 the third Session arises, in which the final step has to be taken, there will be a fresh appeal to the people, and therefore the judgment of the new House of Commons may be fairly taken again as representing the opinion of the people.

I pass from the region of speculation, conjecture, and imagination into the more prosaic assumption of probability. What possible risk is there, under these conditions, of the House of Commons really distorting and perverting popular opinion? We are as anxious on this side of the House as are hon. Gentlemen opposite not to erect an independent power in the State which will be able to override and misrepresent the will of the people, and, under such conditions as are provided for in this Resolution, we believe that contingency to be very remote and so unthinkable that practically it is a negligable possibility. Again, let me point out 6hat the legislative measure which is to have advantage in the new Parliament must be the same Bill. I think the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition made some criticism the other day upon this question of identity. He asked what did we mean by the same Bill. As the last paragraph of the Resolution says, if Amendments have been made by the House of Lords in a Bill in the first Session when it went up there and when the Bill is reintroduced here, and these Amendments are accepted as an integral part of it, everybody will agree that, to all intents and purposes, that is the same Bill. There is no doubt about that.

4.0 P.M.

I am disposed to think further that in the actual working of this system — I am referring to a statement made by Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman when he brought in this Resolution three years ago—we might possibly find ourselves able when we are working the machinery of this Bill, to incorporate in some form or another a provision to the effect that, although Amendments are not actually agreed to by the House of Lords, yet, as the result of a conference between the two Houses—a conference held in conformity with Standing Orders or Rules which each House would be at liberty for itself to adopt—an agreement might be arrived at that in certain particulars the Bill should be introduced in a reamended form; but it might also, for this purpose, be treated as the same Bill. The right hon. Gentleman says that by requiring absolute identity in the Bill introduced for a second time and the Bill introduced in the previous Session, we 899 should be offering a premium to the Government of the day not to insert in its measure, after reflection and consideration, changes, Amendments, and improvements which possibly its own supporters, and certainly public opinion in the country, might desire. That I admit is the only really relevant or cogent criticism which has been addressed to this proposal. I admit that that might happen. On the other hand I am quite certain that the Government which was acting under this remodelled procedure for which this Resolution provides would have the strongest possible inducement to make its Bill in its original form as perfect as it possibly could. A good deal of the haste and precipitation now incident to legislation when it is first brought before the House of Commons would be avoided if the persons responsible for putting that legislation forward were conscious that, unless it was in a form in which it could be presented again twelve months afterwards it could not take advantage of the quickened procedure. Quite apart from that, I really cannot bring myself to think that a Government conscious of its responsibilities and responsive to public opinion would not, in the case suggested by the right hon. Gentleman, be prepared, if it was satisfied that the Bill originally introduced required much or substantial amendment to introduce it as a new Bill. In that case it would only lose one Session and the Government would still be able to pass it in the third Session and take advantage of the way of escape which this machinery provides from the absolute Veto of a hostile House of Lords.

We are told, and told with truth, that the machinery we are here proposing is without precedent. So it is. But where else would you find a Second Chamber like the House of Lords? I noticed the other day what seemed to me a very instructive incident in the proceedings of the French Legislature. There was a conflict at the last moment with regard to some provisions in the Budget between the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. The Chamber of Deputies were asserting their right to resist any Amendments originating in the Senate which imposed new taxes. The Senate defended their constitutional powers to make such amendments, though they ultimately gave way. I observed that in the course of the debate somebody in the Senate said, "You are treating us as though we were the House of Lords." M. Rouvier, a French statesman who has been 900 Prime Minister as well as Minister of Finance, who was defending the prerogative of the Senate, said: "We, like the Chamber of Deputies, are elected by universal suffrage." Ours is a plan which has reference to evils which we actually suffer, and to a Second Chamber which actually exists. As I said a fortnight ago in introducing this Resolution there is considerable democratic authority and precedent for another mode of getting rid of deadlock between the two Houses of the Legislature, the method of the joint Session, which has been introduced in the Australian and South African Constitutions. As I said, speaking on the proposal of the hon. Member for Kingston (Mr. Cave), I am far from wishing that by anything we pass into law to-day we should prejudge that method of solution if and when we have a different Second Chamber to deal with. The Government have declared throughout that it is their view that the continued existence of the House of Lords as a Second Chamber on its present basis is an anachronism and an impossibility. It is an integral part of their policy—a policy which cannot be attained at a single step—to get rid of that anachronism. I said on 28th February:— These proposals with regard to the Veto, we are putting forward without prejudice, and in contemplation of changes in the constitution, structure and functions of that body. I said again, on 29th March:— I do not put forward the Resolutions and this one in particular, as a final or adequate solution of the problem with which we have to deal. That problem would still remain a problem calling for complete settlement, and in our opinion that settlement does not brook delay. The Resolutions, and this one in particular, deal with things as they are. We regard them as the first, most urgent, most necessary step if we are to emancipate the House of Commons from the thraldom—for it is no less—of the House of Lords. The Bill founded on these Resolutions—though we shall propose, in conformity with the declaration I have just read, and with other declarations made by my colleagues, to introduce words in the Preamble which will clearly indicate the need for change in the constitution of the House of Lords as a Second House, would, of course and of necessity in its operative clauses not travel any way beyond the Resolutions to which we are now asking the Committee to assent. But, as I said, if I may quote myself again:— We must take the House of Lords as it is. We must take the working of our Constitutional system as we experience it, day by day, year by year, Session by Session, Parliament by Parliament. 901 It would take you a very long time, however excellent may be your intentions, and however great the degree of unanimity as to the direction of the change to set up a Second Chamber in substitution for the present. I do not think myself the task is insuperable. I think it is urgent. I believe in the necessity of a Second Chamber. I do not believe that even the limited power which this Resolution would continue to entrust to the House of Lords could be fittingly and efficiently exercised by a body constituted like that House. But we are confronted with urgent, practical necessities, and it is to get rid of a practical difficulty by a thoroughly practical means of escape that we offer this Resolution to the approval of the Committee.

§ Mr. WALTER LONG

I very much doubt whether anybody, whatever his political views may be, or however enthusiastic he may be on behalf of a reformed procedure, could listen to the grave and weighty speech of the Prime Minister without being struck by the strange sense of unreality in our proceedings, which has before been referred to both inside and outside this House. The Prime Minister, for instance, said there were circumstances under which the reforms to which we are asked to give our assent to-day would have a particular operation, and talked of a particular phase of Parliament when there was a crumbling majority; and when he concluded his speech by declaring himself as being in favour of a Second Chamber and his colleagues also, was anyone in this House ignorant of the fact that many of those who constitute the majority which is going to justify the proposals which the Government is making are not only not in favour of a Second "Chamber, but openly advocate its destruction and the creation of a single Chamber? They, while supporting the Government at this time, frankly say, "We want to abolish the Second Chamber. We do not care what comes after, but we wish to abolish it in order that we can get our way." Yet this is a majority which is not to be described as a crumbling or vanishing majority, but as one justifying the Government in making the most revolutionary change in the Constitution of this country which has ever been proposed. I think we have some title to complain of in the way in which the position of the Government, in many instances, changes from time to time. Certainly I do not think anybody on this side of the House who has followed this controversy up to 902 the present realised that there was a variation in the operation of this Resolution, if adopted, to so alter a Bill which became a matter of difference between the two Houses that it will be possible to agree upon changes to the Bill.

That, I think I am right in saying, is a new announcement, and one which has not been made before, involving a new plan; and I respectfully submit to the Prime Minister whether he and his colleagues have considered how a scheme of that kind would work. We are not regarding only a conflict between the two Houses and between the Leaders of the two Houses, and it is quite possible that some such arrangement could be arrived at as between them; but nobody knows better than the Prime Minister that by doing that he is going to ignore the private Member element in the House if an attempt is at once made to get the Bill through all its stages. The private Members, however, are entitled to have an opportunity of expressing their views and getting changes made, and, therefore, if the Bill is capable of amendment so that it shall be materially altered from its original form, you are, I venture to submit, prolonging the discussion on the second stage, and this does away with a great deal of the advantage gained by your first procedure. If, on the other hand, the second suggestion made by the Prime Minister be adopted, that you are to recognise that the changes are too great to make in the one Session, and the Bill is dropped that Session, a great portion of the time that you think you are gaining by this great change is lost, and the Resolution becomes not only dangerous, as we regard it as being at present, but also very unworkable.

The Prime Minister said very little to-day—he told us he had said most of that on the previous occasion—about the justification for this Resolution. He made a passing reference to the elections of 1906 and 1910, and he said that in the election of 1906 the House of Lords played no part, while in the election of 1910 they played a prominent part. But surely that was an announcement hardly worthy of the Prime Minister. Is it to be wondered at that there has come a change? Has he forgotten the Resolution of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, which declared war upon the House of Lords, and, therefore, is it a matter for astonishment that after this Resolution the position of the House of Lords in the election should be very different from that which it occupied in 1906? The Prime Minister made a statement, 903 which struck me as being rather ominous, that in the Bill which we hear a good deal of, but of which I predict that we shall see very little in this House, the reform of the constitution of the House of Lords was to be inserted in the preamble. I suppose that insertion will have attached to it about as much importance as there is to another phase we frequently hear of, that "the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament" is to be secured whenever the time comes for passing a Home Rule measure. I respectfully ask the Committee what it is that they really want and how are they trying to do it? We have been reminded of the circumstances which led to the election, and we have been told that there is a strong desire throughout the country for some reform. So far as we are able to ascertain what public opinion is—I do not say there are not those who are in favour of the abolition of the House of Lords, but I believe the bulk of those who in this country favour some reform of the House of Lords do it on the ground which the Prime Minister referred to when he was talking of the French Debate the other day. They have told Members of Parliament and candidates at public meetings that the authority of the House of Lords ought not to be respected because it is not an elected Chamber.

Has anything been done in these Resolutions to bring about that reform? Is there any attempt on the part of the Government to deal with that very thing which the people, so far as they have asked for anything in this respect, have asked for? And, on the other hand, are you not doing that which only a very small section of the people have asked for, most of those being people who desire the abolition of the Second Chamber, namely, paralysing and rendering impotent the Second Chamber before you proceed to reform it? Never was there a clearer case of putting the cart before the horse than in this instance, and never was there a case when it was more incumbent upon the Government, if they mean to deal with a grave question, to have dealt first of all with the constitution of the Chamber, and then with the powers which they propose to entrust to that Chamber. In my opinion, not only are the Government failing in this case to carry out the recognised real desire of the people, but the time they have selected to.recommend this reform to Parliament 904 is surely the most extraordinary moment that could have been selected. The Prime Minister talked of a crumbling majority and of the action of the House of Lords in regard to the Liberal party. He talked of the action of the House of Lords when a Liberal Government was in office. To what was he referring? I presume to the various Bills with which the House of Lords interfered during the late Parliament, the Budget, of course, the Education Bill, and the Licensing Bill. I am not selecting these three because they are specially favourable to my case, and hon. Gentlemen can throw in any more that they like. What has been the practical result of the last election as regards this House? We learn from day to day from the newspapers the various negotiations which are passing or are alleged to be passing to make the passage of the Budget a possibility. There is not a man in the House who is ignorant of the fact that the Government could not reintroduce into this new House the Education Bill that they attacked the House of Lords for rejecting. Could they reintroduce into the House the Licensing Bill about which they made so much clamour when the House of Lords rejected it?

§ Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL

indicated assent.

§ Mr. WALTER LONG

All I can say is that if the Government really believe they could induce Parliament to carry legislation to which they attach so much importance as they attach to the Licensing Bill all the information which reaches me, all the information that is open to the ordinary individual, points in a very different direction. But at all events that is only one of the things. I say with every confidence that this points to the fact that the time the Government have selected for the introduction of this Resolution is one when the House of Lords has acted in a particular way, and when the result of an appeal to the country has been to show that the measures upon which the Lords so acted have not had the approval of the electors. What, therefore, is it that you are finding fault with the House of Lords for? What is it that you are seeking to effect by the Resolution? You are finding fault with the House of Lords, not because-they have acted contrary to the will of the people, but because thy have acted contrary to the will and the desires of the Liberal party, because you cannot get your way, and not because the will of the 905 people is not to be obeyed. Surely this controversy about the two Chambers has not arisen for the first time. We have heard of it at different times for many a year past. Surely there never was a moment so inopportune as this to reopen the controversy. The Government are endeavouring to punish the House of Lords because they thwarted the will of the Government and interfered with the plans of the majority of the Liberal party. The Prime Minister told us how he believed his scheme would work. I have had very considerable experience in this House, of which I have been a Member for thirty years, and whose proceedings I have watched very closely. I ask the Committee to follow me, and I will present what I believe is no imaginary picture. I believe it is what will happen in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred if a Resolution of this kind is adopted. I do not select these measures because they are specially favourable to my case; I do not care what measure is taken so long as the circumstances connected with its production and carriage are suitable for comparison. I will take the Bill which is most often referred to, the Home Rule Bill of 1893, which passed through this House and was rejected by the House of Lords. This is a case which would be covered by this Resolution, or the Resolution would be worthless. It was a Bill which sought to give a form of self-government to Ireland, and in regard to some very important provisions in it there was a very marked difference of opinion in many quarters among those who were supporters of the general principles of the Bill. The Bill was rejected by the House of Lords in 1893. Under this Resolution it would have been passed again in the House of Commons in 1894. The Prime Minister's plan under which differences over the Bill might be adjusted between" the two Houses would be absolutely worthless in regard to a measure like the Home Rule Bill, because the differences between the two parties were too acute and far too much matters of principle to make agreement possible. Therefore you would have passed the same Bill again in 1894.

You then come to the crucial Session of 1895, when the Bill is passed into law, of course under closure^ Resolutions and without discussion. If you are going to have prolonged Debate in these subsequent years, the whole value of your Resolution as a means of getting through business disappears. In 1895 the Govern- 906 ment went to the country, were defeated, and had against them a majority of over 100, and for several years afterwards they had but little chance of returning to office. If your Resolution is not meant to apply to important questions of this kind, to what is it meant to apply? I am not now dealing with imaginary suggestions. Surely this is a relevant fact. If similar circumstances arise, so far as we can judge by a precedent in the history of recent times, and if your Resolution were in force, would not the result of it be not to give effect to the will of the people, but to ratify and make statutory what the Government of the day and the party in office desire, and what the people when they were given the opportunity of considering would resent and reject?

Let me take a measure of a different kind, namely, the Workmen's Compensation Act. The Committee will remember the circumstances of the Bill of 1894, called the Employers Liability Bill. That Bill was passed through this House, and was dealt with in this way. The House of Lords introduced an Amendment which somewhat extended the measure by admitting the principle of contracting out. The Bill was sent back to this House, and the Government of the day thought the Amendment so restrictive that they preferred to lose the Bill altogether rather than agree to that Amendment. [An HON. MEMBER: "Hear, hear."] Yes, but what was the subsequent history of the Bill? In 1906, when the present Government were in office, an Act of Parliament was passed, and in that, subject to certain provisions and limitations—[An HON. MEMBER: "Hear, hear."] I am dealing with the facts, and hon. Members who disagree with me can dispose of my argument when they come to reply. I am at present asking the Committee to consider the Resolution now before us from the point of view not of ordinary party controversy, and not from the point of view of one who believes that it will do great harm to the Constitution, but from the practical point of view of passing legislation through this House. The Liberal Government of the day rejected the Bill of 1894 because the Lords introduced an Amendment which admitted the principle of contracting out. Twelve years afterwards that principle, guarded I admit, but still in a most effective form, is to be found in the legislation of 1906, and yet if your procedure had been then in existence, that Bill in its original form would have been passed into 907 law. You have no right to say that what you did in 1894 was for the good of the people. It was because the Government of the day, and particularly the majority of the day, desired it, and I say that from either point of view this Resolution would not do what is claimed for it, while it would do immense mischief by the system which it proposes to adopt. I venture to say that I have, at all events, to some extent justified my contention that this procedure is not intended to effect, and is not likely to effect, that which everybody says ought to be given effect to, namely, the will of the people. It is procedure which, if effective at all, will enable the majority of the day to do what they think right at the moment by placing Bills on the Statute Book which the people of this country do not approve of.

There is another aspect of this case, which more closely still affects this House. The Prime Minister told us that in making his calculation he reckoned that in the first Session of a new Parliament some important measure would probably be introduced. We know from our experience that the procedure we adopt in order to carry an Act of Parliament is one which is very faulty, and to which, I believe, almost every Member of the House, wherever he sits, is in his heart opposed— I mean closure by compartments, which is adopted now in connection with almost every measure of first-class importance. What is to be the effect of this Resolution? It would be necessary in the first Session to introduce a Bill to which you attach immense importance. Does anybody believe that a new Government coming into office with new men fresh to their offices —however able they may be, but having a limited knowledge of the special demands and needs of the Departments they are called upon to administer—should be called upon to bring in some measure of vast and far-reaching importance? Why would it be necessary to do so under the new procedure? In order to get advantage of your Resolution, and that the measure may come up not for mature consideration, but that it may come up in time for passage at any cost in the limited time available for your legislation. Already by your procedure in this House you have done a great deal to deteriorate the legislation that is passed. Nobody doubts it. I do not think anyone on the Ministerial side of the House doubts the truth of that proposition. It is one which they them- 908 selves would advance if their position and ours were reversed—namely, that under the system of strict closure by compartments you get clauses into Bills which are not as perfect as they ought to be, or as they would be if the House had more time for their consideration. Now you are following out this procedure.

§ Mr. JOHN WARD

You invented it.

§ Mr. LONG

I never suggested that closure by compartments is anything, that the present Government are responsible for. That is not the point with which I am dealing. I am asking the House to consider what would be the effect of the proposed procedure on our legislation. If the hon. Member says that we invented it, I reply that may be true, but the Liberal Government have used it ten times more than we did. There is not much to be made out of that from the hon. Member's point of view. I am asking the Committee to realise that under closure by compartments you are sending Bills constantly out of the House which have not had the consideration here which they ought to have had. If it is of vital importance that the Government should introduce important measures in the first Session of a new Parliament I say many of them will not have the consideration given to them which they ought to receive. Does anybody doubt that the Education Bill of 1906, if it had been instroduced in the second or third Session of the last Parliament instead of the first would have been a very different one from what it was? I think no one can doubt that. Hon. Members know perfectly well that Bills hastily introduced, and to whose clauses there has not been given the time which ought to have been given, are more common in the first Session, yet under the Resolution now before the Committee it will be essential that legislation should be introduced in the first Session. The first year of a Government must obviously be the one in which" they will derive the greatest benefit from a Resolution of this kind.

I have already referred to the encroachments which have been made on the time of private Members. Hon. Members on both sides of the House will agree that steadily private Members are getting less and less share in the business of this House. There never has been a Session since I have been in Parliament when they have had so little time as in this Session. Under the closure by compartments rules 909 they get less chance of exercising their influence upon Bills when they are passing through their different stages in this House, and yet hon. Members on the other side are going to give their sanction to the passage of a Resolution which will make things, bad as they are now, worse still. What is this Resolution to do? I defy anybody to deny what I now say. It is not going to give effect to the will of the people. It is not going to enable the will of the people to be supreme, but it is going to give the Government of the day and the party supporting them an amount of power which no Government ought to possess, and a power which will enable them to become despots if they are so minded. I believe anybody who will listen to the case will see that I am not exaggerating. I am not dealing with the imaginary results, but with the facts as they occur to us. Hon. Members who support this Resolution are going to make the position worse than it is at present. The Prime Minister talked about compromise arrangements between the two Houses. There is one case which many of us remember—the Reform Bill of 1884. There was a controversy over that measure as bitter as anything could possibly be. There were two views as to what ought to be done, and there was a temporary deadlock between the two Houses. There was none of the pettiness and trouble then which we now see. Lord Morley, in his life of Mr. Gladstone, tells us how that controversy was brought to an end. The conclusion of it all was that the arrangement arrived at is embodied in the Act passed about twenty-five years ago. The solution arrived at was based upon an agreement between the two Houses. I should have thought that was the example which the Government would take as a model for the new procedure instead of making this attempt to destroy the House of Lords altogether. The Prime Minister tells us that the House of Lords are still to have powers which they can usefully employ, and of which they have no cause to be ashamed. Does anybody think that the Lords when approaching the consideration of some great Bill will do so in the same useful manner, knowing that if their decision is adverse to the Government of the day they will be exposed to having their decision laughed at and thrown on one side, and that if the Government come into office again they will be able to carry the measure into law? "We have heard something this Session of log-rolling—of whispers and rumours and efforts made to 910 get this and that section of Members of Parliament into a particular Lobby. It has struck many of us as being very bad and regrettable, and we hold that it is a pity legislation should be passed in this way. But what will it be in future? If you get to work on a Bill brought in by a Government with a weakening majority, just enough to keep them in office, would you not get log-rolling ten times worse? It will be the object of those who want a particular Bill passed to keep the Government in office as long as they can in order that the statutory period may be arrived at which will enable them to pass it. Public opinion may have been aroused, by-elections may have been going against the Government of the day, but that will be all the more reason why you should not lose the fruit for which you have only got to wait until it is quite ripe: you only have got to wait a statutory period that something may become law. You will risk nothing. Every effort will be made to induce men of different views and with different objects to come together into the same Lobby in order that there may be some harvest for the Session or the Parliament drawing to an end. I venture to say that the influence of a Resolution like this on the life of a Parliament will not be for good, but will be for bad. I have tried to give some practical reasons why I believe this Resolution is altogether unsuited to our procedure, and for those reasons I for one shall certainly oppose it. I shall oppose it with all the strength in my power for another reason. I marvel sometimes when I hear the speeches made by right hon. Gentlemen and hon. Gentlemen opposite, in which they tell us, in reference to existing conditions, that there have been deadlocks and that a Liberal Government can do nothing. And yet when on other, platforms they are seeking to advocate Free Trade, they tell the electors that this country is the greatest, the most prosperous, and the wealthiest country in the world, and that there is no country to compare with it. I believe as fully as any man that this country has grown great, and I believe that her people do enjoy an enormous advantage, and I believe that not a little of these good results is due to the action of our Constitution as it has been. I do not deny for a moment that there is some room for reform, and it is not a little remarkable that the moment chosen by the Government is one in which the House of Lords has itself made definite suggestions. I do not deny that there may be necessity fox reform, but I do 911 believe, as I have said, that under our present system this country have grown great and strong and this people have prospered. I believe that by a Resolution like this you are striking a fatal blow at our Constitution, and therefore at our country; and holding that belief very strongly I shall resist and oppose this Resolution and this attempt not to reform but to destroy the House of Lords with all the strength that I have at my command.

§ Mr. BARNES

The right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down, in his concluding observations deprecated a Government with a waning majority seeking by all sorts of wiles to prolong its own life over the two years necessary to get its Bills passed. I think that the right hon. Gentleman must have forgotten the circumstances of his own Government between 1900 and 1905. At all events, there was no necessity for the Government between 1900–5 to seek for anything of this sort, because they knew all the time that they had a Second Chamber at the other end of the passage which was in all respects exactly of the same character as the Government in office. Therefore that is sufficient answer on that particular point. The right hon. Gentleman, in his argumentative speech, opened up by referring to some Members of a party in this House which had demanded the abolition of the House of Lords, and said that they wanted the abolition of the House of Lords in order that they might have their own way. I think that that can only refer to those with whom I am associated on these benches. I take the liberty of saying to the right hon. Gentleman that that is not the reason by any means why we want the abolition of the House of Lords.

§ Mr. WALTER LONG

I was referring to the action of the Nationalist party in Ireland who have declared on more than one occasion that they desire the abolition of the House of Lords because they regard it as the only barrier to Home Rule.

§ Mr. BARNES

At all events, I might say that the cap fits us as well as the Irish Members, and though I know that the Irish Members have in their minds the abolition of the House of Lords as the preliminary to Home Rule, and that, therefore, in that sense the abolition of the House of Lords means their getting their way, yet, so far as we are concerned, we want the abolition of the House of Lords, not because we want our way, but because we want the 912 people to get their way. The more discussion and Debate I hear in this House on these attempts to mend the House of Lords, the more it seems to me they all strengthen the demand which we have now made, and which was made long before we came here, that the House of Lords should be ended instead of mended. The right hon. Gentleman has also said something about the Government having put the cart before the horse in defining the powers of the House of Lords rather than in altering its character and Constitution. The latter, as I understand him to say, should have come first. There is a sufficient answer to that in this, that the people at the recent election were not consulted about the alteration of the character and constitution of the House of Lords, but they were consulted as to whether or not they were in favour of these particular proposals now before the House. But I wish to go further, and, at all events, offer some word of warning as to what will await any proposal of the character suggested by the right hon. Gentleman in regard to the character and composition of the House of Lords. I take it from what he said that he and his party would be in favour of altering the character of the House of Lords so as to make it an elective Assembly. For my part, I think that that would be a remedy worse than the disease. I could understand an elective Assembly if you are going to have it of the same character as this, selected by the same people and over the same area; but in that event I do not see any use for it, because if this Chamber were elected at the same time it stands to reason that the other place would endorse the action of this place.

But that is not what is in the minds of the right hon. Gentleman and those who think with him. Probably they have in their minds something of the character suggested the other day by the hon. Member for Leith Burghs (Mr. Munro Ferguson). What he has in his mind is an elective Chamber, consisting of a limited number of superior persons, necessarily rich persons, who would represent constituencies of very much larger areas than those represented by the Members of this House. That would result in this, that the expenses incidental to an election in such a case would be such that the Second Chamber would consist, as it does now, to a very large extent, of plutocratic people, thinking in line with those Gentlemen who sit opposite, and therefore a body which might be expected and relied upon to do 913 exactly the same as that body does—that is to say, to oppose a barrier against the democratic forces of this country and in favour of the interests of rich people. The right hon. Gentleman mentions two Bills which he said rather illustrated the absurdity from his point of view of these particular Resolutions. He said that the Home Rule Bill, having passed the House of Commons in 1893, and having been rejected by the House of Lords, did not meet with the approval of the people in 1895, and that that Bill, under the operation of this Resolution, would, notwithstanding that fact, have become law. He Assumes that that would have been something contrary to the wish of the people. I deny it. I say that the people of 1895 did not vote against Home Rule. The people are always liable to be misled and confused and bamboozled. They are always liable to be confused when elections come round after a Bill has been adopted or otherwise by a previous Parliament, because there is the introduction of new issues which are of more interest and which affect the people in their everyday life more than that particular Bill. I remember the 1895 election. I have already mentioned one fact which I think was in the minds of the people more than anything else. That was the question of industrial depression at the time, and the question of unemployment, which was, I suppose, more acute then than ever before or probably ever since, up to last winter. The people in 1895 voted against the Government that had been in office from 1892 to 1895 very largely because of the inactivity of the Government in regard to the problem of unemployment, which they considered to be a matter of much more concern to them than Irish Home Rule was.

But there were also positive ideas in the minds of the people. The party opposite, probably quite sincerely, thinking that the defeat of Home Rule was an object of more concern to the country than anything else, made all sorts of promises to the electors of 1895. Among the rest is it necessary to remind the right hon. Gentleman of the promise made by the Leader of the Opposition at the election in East Manchester? Does he forget that the Leader of the Opposition, speaking not for himself only in his individual capacity, but speaking for the whole of the Conservative party at that time, definitely and specifically promised to the people of this country old age pensions; and yet we 914 know that for ten years after there were no old age pensions. But there was another thing that figured in the minds of the people in 1895, and which induced them to vote against the Government which had introduced Home Rule. The question of social reform was one which was present in the minds of the people. I suppose that for more than twenty years before we had had a Socialist agitation carried on for that purpose at street corners, in trades unions, or co-operative societies, or wherever two or three men could be got together; and the party opposite exploited, and deliberately exploited, that feeling by promising to bring in something in the nature of social reform. There, again, I say, was an issue in the minds of the people in 1895 which induced them to vote as they did, and which had the incidental effect of defeating Home Rule, yet was not a vote against Home Rule. The right hon. Gentleman also said that the Employers Liability Bill was so altered in character by the House of Lords that the Government of the day adhered to the Bill in its original form rather than accept the Amendments or alterations introduced by the House of Lords.

5.0 P.M.

Therefore the Bill for the time being was lost. He argued that because the principle of contracting out was introduced into another Bill twelve years later, the measure might have been passed twelve years before if the House of Commons had accepted the advice of the House of Lords. I think it is not necessary to remind the right hon. Gentleman that the principle of the Compensation Act of 1906 was far different from the principle which was introduced by the House of Lords into the Bill twelve years before. The principle which that Assembly sought to introduce into the law was to enable individual employers, without any safeguard at all, to deprive the people of this country of the benefits of the Bill which the House of Commons intended that they should have; whereas the principle of only four years ago certainly embodied the idea of contracting out, yet at the same time secured for those under the contracting out schemes all the benefits of the Act of Parliament. The words were, "that the benefits shall not be, at all events, less than the benefits under the Act." Therefore I say it is altogether beside the issue to advance such an argument, and the House of Commons were acting in accordance with public opinion in 1894 in refusing 915 the Amendment of the House of Lords. The House of Commons four years ago also similarly acted in accordance with public opinion in accepting the contracting out principle, but safeguarding it in such a way as to make it altogether dissimilar from the ideas sought to be imposed upon this House years ago. I agree with the Prime Minister when he said that, even with the passing of these Resolutions, there is still too much power left in the hands of the House of Lords, irresponsible as that Assembly is to anybody, and having regard to its previous records. We on these benches have never left in dubiety what are our intentions. We are in favour of these Resolutions because they clip the wings of the House of Lords. We want to abolish the House of Lords—we do not see any need for an Assembly of that character. At all events, we do not want any House of Lords selected or elected over large areas, or selected in any way that we have heard of. We do not think that any such House of Lords would be a body reasonably calculated to prevent either the people injuring themselves or the House of Commons trying to injure the best interests of the country. There may be a danger of that sort, but the obvious remedy is to shorten the life of Parliament not merely to five years but even to a shorter period still than that. At all events that is our alternative. We, as well as hon. Members on the other side of the House, want only the will of the people embodied in legislation. We can see no prospect of the present House of Lords or any other Second Chamber that we have heard discussed improving upon the legislation likely to be passed through this House, and therefore we are in favour of its abolition. But we are also in favour of taking these Resolutions, and the Bill that will be founded upon them, as a means whereby the evil may be for the present lessened, and when the time comes for the discussion of these further proposals indicated in the speech of the Prime Minister to-day we shall give them our anxious and careful consideration in the light of the principle I have just enunciated.

§ Mr. LAWSON

On a point of Order. May I respectfully ask whether it will be in order to discuss under the Resolutions, Bills that contain matters foreign to or different from Money Bills, and which are really in form ordinary Bills?

§ The CHAIRMAN

What we have to discuss is this Resolution. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to advance an argument on a Bill then probably he could do so, but I could not tell him whether it will be in order or not until I heard what he said.

§ Sir HENRY CRAIK

I listened, as I always do, with interest to the speech of the hon. Member for the Blackfriars division of Glasgow, because he never fails to put clearly before us his own view. But in the particular speech he has made to-day did he not prove a little more than was necessary for his case? Did he not tell us that the people are often bamboozled and so uncertain at elections that they cannot be relied upon to make known definitely what it is they wish as the result of any particular election? Is that what the hon. Member really intended to prove in regard to the people whose interests he represents? Is that the respect he has for his fellow-countrymen and their methods during elections? The hon. Member proceeded to discuss the details of various Bills. What did he prove with regard to the mere expediency of having a Second Chamber or not? If he goes into details, if he shows that further consideration will lead to the introduction of any valuable element into a Bill which was not there before, what does the hon. Member do more than prove that consideration and reconsideration is the proper thing for good legislation, and not the rapid passing of Bills with as few safeguards as possible? The last part of the hon. Gentleman's speech was the most useful and most instructive of all—it was that part in which he distinctly stated his wish and upon what ground he supported the Resolution now before the House. There was no question in his speech of what we have been told by the Prime Minister and by other Members of the Government about strengthening, improving, and consolidating the power of the House of Lords. What the hon. Member for the Blackfriars Division and his Friends wish is, what he told us perfectly plainly, namely, that the House of Lords should be abolished, and it is because these Resolutions in a certain way help in that direction that he and they are ready to support them. The first point on which it seems to me we can congratulate ourselves with regard to this Resolution is that we do not need to dwell upon precedents or the traditions of history. I agree completely with the view which the hon. Member for Leicester put forward in his very forcible speech the other night, that what we 917 have to look at is not so much precedents or traditions of history and the raking up of old records, as to what is really expedient in view of the present state of things to-day. There can be no question about precedents now; there can be no discussion as to what is the precise power of the House of Lords with regard to Fiscal Bills. It is quite plain now that you are taking away from the House of Lords the power which not the most extreme Member on the other side can for one moment deny that they at present possess. What are you doing, further, for the first time in the history of this country? You are introducing that which was a bane to our greatest political writer, Edmund Burke—a written Constitution. For the first time you are tying yourselves up by a written Constitution against which Burke often used all the battery of his eloquence and his philosophy. No one disliked it more; no one saw better than he how alien it was to our national character and traditions.

You are now introducing these violent changes for the first time. To do what? In most constitutions surely the object is to impose certain safeguards for restricting the powers of the Legislature, to keep them within certain prudent limits. But what are the first words which you are going to put into your written Constitution? They are words which will take away the safeguards which have hitherto existed by usage and tradition. You are taking a new step in our own history, a step never taken by anybody who has previously had a part in framing the Constitution. And why? You are doing it, we are told, to avoid a deadlock. We have heard a great deal about deadlocks. Surely the word "deadlock," in its ordinary sense, according to the usage of the English language, has a distinct meaning? A deadlock does not mean when two rival powers find themselves worsted. A deadlock means, if the English language has any meaning at all, when two rival powers get into grips with one another in such a way that neither one nor the other can take a step or do anything one against the other. That is a deadlock, and it is absolutely necessary that for such a deadlock, there should be an outlet. But is it a deadlock if for a certain time, it may be for months or weeks —in the present case it is only weeks—or even for two years, your effort, which you believe, to be according to the will of the people, is stopped? Is that a deadlock? It may be a useful way of putting it in a political controversy, but it is not the 918 meaning according to the English language or ordinary parlance. The whole history of our political changes goes to show that they have been attained by slow steps. Our grandfathers were not daunted because they were stopped for a year, two, three, or ten years, or even a generation. They believed that they had at their backs the support of the people, and it was because they were convinced they had that support they believed they would prevail against the House of Lords in the long run. And their triumph and victory were not the less because won after a hard struggle. They did not lose patience during the struggle, and stigmatise delay as a deadlock. Why make this important change in our Constitution at this moment? I do not say by whose fault it is, nor do I refer to one party or the other, but it is sought to make this change when it is perfectly certain that the power of the Cabinet, the Executive, and the bureaucracy has within the last few years become enormously strong. Debate has been stopped in our House, the closure has become more frequent, the guillotine is constantly in use. I am not going to quarrel about whose fault it is, or who are most responsible for this state of things. I blame both parties, and I am not disposed to follow with absolute submission the decree of one Front Bench or the other. I believe myself that any Minister who boldly set out and had courage enough to tackle the question, and appeal to the old sense of honour and of self-respect and of the dignity of this House, might be able without any long delay to cast aside these fetters on our Debates, and enable us to discard the use of the guillotine. Whatever may be the error, or the Tightness or wrongness of those occasions, one thing is absolutely certain that you are choosing this moment to take away the power of the House of Lords at the very time when your own power for Debate is most threatened, and is most curtailed, and well nigh abolished altogether. You are doing it also at a time when the power of the Executive as against the legislative power is getting greater and greater, and threatening even to swamp the liberties and free government by this House. The fact is you are asking this in the interests of what you call democracy.

If I may ask the question, what is it that hon. Members mean by democracy? Do they mean by democracy a settled form of government, or a certain popular element in the nation whose interests 919 have to be studied, or do they mean, what is the puniest and smallest of all, merely a. certain set of principles which they as a party happen for the moment to be advocating. I know that the Chancellor of the Exchequer's idea of democracy at this moment is the Budget and all that the Budget involves. The Chancellor of the Exchequer admits it. But what do you mean when you speak widely of having democratic influence in your legislation? It might mean anything of a great many things. Surely democratic influence means that you should give large powers to the people, that you should be sure that the people's will in the long run prevails, and that you should give to them, in their wisdom after careful concentration and consideration, the power of deciding the way in which they wish to be governed. It is not a question of the support of this party or the other, or that the House of Lords may happen for the moment to support, one particular set of Gentlemen sitting on the Treasury Bench, or whether one particular set of Gentlemen should form a Cabinet, or that their schemes should be for the time preserved. That is not the fixed interest of the nation, quite the opposite. But it is that the nation should have its own will and power, and that it should assert its will. How are you going to do that, but precisely in the same way that in the long run any nation, or any class, or any power asserts its will, namely, by having the opportunity of consideration and reconsideration, and not of being bamboozled, as the hon. Member for Blackfriars said— bamboozled into giving their votes in a certain way in the hurry and heat of one election. In order to give the people that sovereign dignity and supreme power and of carefully considering their decisions you must have a Second Chamber. You must have a Second Chamber that shall insist when perhaps the people have been bamboozled that that bamboozling shall not decide the fate of the nation for ever, and in order that the people may have, like any sane and wise authority, the power of thinking over again and not deciding in the light gusts of temper and even the caprices of one General Election. That is democracy, and that is what I assert and argue will be supported and increased and gain further dignity by the power of reconsideration which the Second Chamber now gives. 920 I do not presume to read history, for others can read it better than I can, but with all humility I would venture to point out these two salient features that have emerged from all my studies. The first is that each generation is apt to think that the opinions, that it seems to be captured by for the moment, are opinions that are gradually swelling, and that will always go on increasing in strength, that will perpetually live, and that will remain in generations hence; the other thing that history teaches is this, that there is nothing so certain as that the course of history moves by the pendulum, that views oscillate backward and forward, and that the fate of nations is moved by the ebb and flow of the tide, and not by a constant and unbroken stream. How do you know that the opinions you are so proud of to-day, and of whose triumph you are so certain, will be the opinions that will prevail a generation, aye, or half a generation hereafter? We have heard, for instance, a good deal about plural voting, and we were told that that was one of the wrongs the House of Lords perpetuated. Do hon. Members forget that only a generation ago two prominent advocates of plural voting were Mr. Bright and Mr. Cobden, who told their supporters over and over again that their duty was to create faggot votes and to multiply voters wherever they could? Where were faggot votes made use of less than a generation ago with such effect if not in the well-known historic election of Mid Lothian which Mr. Gladstone fought? You have forgotten all that, and in these days plural voting is a thing which it is considered necessary should be absolutely divorced from all Liberal ideas or from the tenets of the Liberal party.

§ Mr. BYLES

Were not those faggot votes a substitute for the working class votes which have since been received?

§ Sir H. CRAIK

The hon. Member forgets that the Midlothian election was after the working people had received votes. Let me ask hon. Members, Suppose the House of Lords is abolished to-morrow, what about the complexion of your single Chamber? Do you think it will always be precisely the same, do you think you will always have a majority of 124 or varying between that and 350 which you had at the previous election? [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no."] You do not think so, but then is it not just possible that you may have a Second Chamber that may be of no use to you? If you do not have 921 a Second Chamber that is of use to you, what is your alternative for this unhappy country of ours but that we are to move from quicksand to quicksand, reversing from Parliament to Parliament our acts of legislation? Surely it is better for the interests of the nation as a whole that you should be content to move forward slowly and with caution, and that you should be content to have the system of consideration and reconsideration by which you would make sure that you are reaching most successfully the aim and goal you wish. Do you not press that rather than the alternative Parliaments legislating and undoing that legislation, one after the other and a system of turning your back upon what one Parliament has done, and keeping the nation in a constant ebb and flow of distraction, disturbance, and excitement. For those reasons I shall certainly vote against this Resolution.

§ Mr. NEIL PRIMROSE

I hope the House will extend to me that indulgence which it is accustomed to grant to Members who address it for the first time. My reasons for voting for this Resolution are quite plain. I am emphatically in favour of a Second Chamber, and I believe that if the House of Lords is not radically and thoroughly changed, the country will not want a Second Chamber at all. Further, I believe that a Bill which will secure that can only be passed by the conditions which these Resolutions will bring about. I hope that one day we shall see the House of Lords reconstituted in a manner which will give us a Chamber—which shall be fair, which shall not forward the aspirations of any political party, and which shall be free from the influences of any class or any particular interest, and which shall perform its functions under the inspiration, so far as human nature can be under that inspiration, of impartiality and commonsense. I understand that there are a few Members on this side of the House who support this Resolution from different motives. They support this Resolution because they hope that it represents the beginning and the end of the policy of the Government with regard to the House of Lords. I hope that those hon. Members are in a minority. I admit that that minority is very articulate, but, at any rate, I hope it is a minority, because as regards a Second Chamber I feel that we must consider two things. In the first place, a Second Chamber is required to check the depredations, if I may say so, 922 of the Conservative party; and, secondly, the hon. Member, who is opposed to a Second Chamber stultifies his own opinions, because he is practically declaring that for his political opinions and his political ideals time has no countenance as to the common sense or impartiality of those opinions. I think, and I have every ground for believing, that the Government policy is proceeding on the lines of some reconstitution of the Second Chamber. I am sure we all heard with great satisfaction the Prime Minister's speech to-day, in which he expressly stated that this was not a final policy. I read in the newspapers that the Lord Advocate, whose speeches receive so much attention on both sides of the House, is in favour of a Second Chamber. The Secretary of State for War, whose speech is in the recollection of every Member of the House, stated categorically that these proposals were not a whole policy in themselves, but would lead up ultimately to some change in the Constitution of the House of Lords. Lastly, but not least, there are the speeches of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Those speeches have been absolutely consistent. All through the election the right hon. Gentleman's speeches were on the lines of an elected Second Chamber, and I cannot believe that a Government which contains the Foreign Secretary and has never repudiated his views can mean to pursue a single-Chamber policy. If I may refer to one quotation from a speech of the Foreign Secretary, his famous sentence about "death, disaster and damnation," I would say that it may be necessary for a leader to lead his party to death, it may be necessary for some great principle to face overwhelming disaster, but there can be no cause or reason why a leader should lead his party to damnation. That implies an atmosphere of moral degradation which can be neither advisable nor heroic, and I think, if we leave out the other speeches; of Ministers, in that expressive word "damnation" the advocates of a Second' Chamber may find salvation.

With all sincerity I welcome these declarations from Members of the Government. I think there could be no policy more fatal to the country, or more suicidal to the Liberal party than the advocacy of a single Chamber. I know that Scotland is rather advanced on this point, but in English constituencies I think if; would be absolutely fatal to the Liberal party as a whole to try to win an election on lines such as those. I would take my own 923 Constituency as an example. I take it as an average Constituency, though naturally I think it is far above the average. No electors were more infuriated against the Veto of the House of Lords than were my Constituents. They considered that it was founded on a basis of injustice, and that it was exercised in a wanton and unconstitutional way. But throughout the election, on every occasion when the question was raised, they agreed that a Second Chamber was necessary. I support these Resolutions because I believe that the reasonable demand of the Liberal party for a reconstituted Second Chamber—and for myself no reconstitution can go too far— can only be satisfied by the condition of things which these Resolutions will bring about. It is because these Resolutions are a, means to that great end that I shall be glad to record my vote in their favour.

§ Mr. STEPHEN GWYNN

I think the Committee will agree that the speech to which we have just listened, with its distinction and charm, has gone far to convince us that, after all, there is something In the hereditary principle. I am glad that the hon. Member (Mr. Primrose) should recognise that the Veto Resolutions are a condition precedent to that scheme of reform which has been adumbrated under such distinguished auspices in another place. I think it is an evidence that the hereditary principle, perhaps, needs something to correct it, and that the influence of the hon. Member's constituents has been salutary in the extreme, and has added what was needed to a natural hereditary endowment. I am glad that in this Debate we are dropping the discussion of precedents. So far these discussions have naturally tended to a consideration of almost archaeological matters, and have therefore failed to recognise that we are virtually in the presence of a new set of facts as compared with the time from which those precedents were mostly drawn. In the present House of Commons, as in the last Parliament, there are lour parties, but of those only two have representation in the House of Lords. An Irish Member or a Labour Member in the House of Lords would be almost a contradiction in terms. That in itself goes to prove how wide is the cleavage between the two Houses, and how impossible it is that the old theory can be carried out in its fullness. We have corroboration of that in the fact that whereas there used to be talk about creating four or twelve 924 peers to turn the majority you have now to assume the creation of 400 or 500. It is quite obvious that the whole machinery has got out of gear, and I agree with the hon. Member (Mr. Primrose) that it will be a desirable thing to reform it once you have decided clearly how much you are going to allow that machinery to do and what is to be the limiting function of the House of Lords. I am not at all sure that the party which controls the Houee of Lords has the least desire to limit that power. On the contrary, they apparently seek to extend it. The right hon. Member for East Worcestershire (Mr. Austen Chamberlain), speaking in the country on Saturday, declared plainly that the power of the House of Lords as a check ought, on the whole, to be extended. The hon. Member for Dulwich (Mr. Bonar Law) the other day made the most remarkable assertion in the course of these Debates when he declared that in his opinion it should in future be considered right and expedient for the House of Lords to interfere directly in administration—that if they considered the Votes for the Army or the Navy insufficient they should throw out the Budget. That we are in the presence of a new state of facts is shown by the circumstance that there is now in the House of Commons a party which disparages the House of Commons itself, and which is determined, as far as possible, to limit its power. That, I think, never existed in the days when there was not that wide distinction between the Commons and the Lords indicated by the facts to which I have referred.

We are bound, therefore, to approach the whole matter from a new point of view. I have heard it argued that we on these benches cannot really be taken as opposing the Veto of the House of Lords on its merits, and that we are opposed to it merely because we want Home Rule. Surely the history of our party shows that we are essentially a democratic party. To all intents and purposes we have a large number of constituents in Great Britain who are undoubtedly democrats of the democrats, and from that point of view we represent democratic opinion on a purely British question. The Chancellor of the Exchequer earlier in the Session made a statement which I am sure would never have come from an English Minister. He reminded us that Scotland, Wales, and Ireland had a special interest in this question, and that is the aspect of the matter which I wish to develop. It practically comes to this—that the demo- 925 cracy of England, if sufficiently in earnest, if it feels itself sufficiently aggrieved, as in the case of the Trade Disputes Bill, can always force its will through, and that the House of Lords will yield not to conviction, but to the fear of the democracy at its own doors; whereas, in regard to legislation dealing with the interest of the smaller nations, the veto of the House of Lords is virtually absolute. This is proved by the case of Wales. For many Parliaments there has been practically a unanimity of opinion amongst Welsh Members in favour of Disestablishment in Wales. That is a question which appeals to us in Ireland, because we can see the effects of Disestablishment; and those of us who are Irish Protestants believe that an Established Church greatly mistakes its own interests in dreading disestablishment. But for Wales it is a national question, a question of strong national sentiment, and upon that matter Wales expressed practical unanimity by electing Members who were in favour of it. Someone has said that the Lords have never rejected a Welsh Disestablishment Bill, but everyone knows that in a matter of that kind the vote of the Lords is absolutely a foregone conclusion. No Minister could be expected to waste his time and his power in attacking a question which has not behind it all the forces of the democracy—such forces as the Lords fear—the democracy of England at their own door. Yet it is a national question for Wales, and it is national feeling that is set aside. I do not know whether hon. Members are familiar with an admirable article by Professor Dicey, a well-known Unionist, relative to the different measure of success of the Union with Scotland and the Union with Ireland. He points out in that article that one of the reasons why the Union of Scotland was so successful was that great national interests, feelings, and institutions, of which the Church is the chief, were preserved and safeguarded. In Wales and in Ireland national interests and national feeling have been set at naught. Still, we are told that this Parliament has become an Imperial Parliament. Surely, from the point of view of Members of the Unionist party, Imperialism, if it is to have any value nowadays, must realise that local sentiment, the sentiment of small -nationalities, and the national idea must be taken into account, and that the Empire must reconcile itself to the national idea. I claim that in the case of Wales and Ireland, and to some extent in the case of Scotland, the Lords have failed in that 926 respect, and have been a weak spot in your Constitution.

I come next to the case of my own country. It is noticeable in this controversy that the case for the Lords has largely rested upon the value of the service they did when they rejected the Home Rule Bill of 1893. I do not know whether all the Members of this House are equally convinced that so great a service was done at that time. I think some will agree with me that better work might have been done in Ireland during the last fifteen years if we had been set to do it ourselves. It has been argued, and I do not want to argue it now over again, by the Leader of the Labour party and also from these benches, that the rejection of the Home Rule Bill of 1893 was the rejection of the principle of Home Rule. It was far more than that. If ever there was a question before the electorate which had been thoroughly argued out it was this question of Home Rule, between the years 1880 and 1890, and the people gave a clear decision upon it; they decided with their minds fully instructed and fully alive to the issue; they decided for it, and a vote was given for it in the House of Commons, but the Lords rejected it. Then the attention of the people was distracted to other issues, and no Home Rule Bill has been introduced from that day to this, and yet no one will assert that in the meantime the demand for Home Rule in Ireland has weakened or abated, or that those of us who believe in the need for Home Rule will say that the need is less now than it has ever been. What has been the history of opinion upon that great question in the years since 1893? You have had again and again most remarkable expressions of opinion from your transmarine Dominions, those Colonies whose feelings and opinions hon. Members of the Unionist party profess to be so susceptible to and sympathetic with. Canada and Australia have declared in favour of Home Rule for Ireland. They know what it would be if they had the Veto of the House of Lords standing between them and their liberty, and that also makes them sympathise with the democracy of this country on the question now before us. Scotland is for Irish Home Rule, Wales is for Irish Home Rule, and Ireland herself has not changed and shows no signs of changing. But what of England? In the Parliament of 1906 there was a majority of 200 or 300 recorded in favour of the principle of Home 927 Rule for Ireland. In the election of that Parliament, although it is said we could hardly take the whole vote of the electors as a vote for Home Rule, the Unionist party on every platform told the people that if they voted for the Liberals they were voting for Home Rule. The case of Home Rule was identified with the Liberal party so far as the Unionist orators could secure. No doubt the Liberal party had decided that they would not risk a conflict with the House of Lords upon that issue, which was not an English issue, but was, to a certain extent, an alien issue, not directly affecting the people of this country. In the last election Home Rule was plainly put before the country. There could be no mistake about that. The result is that we have a majority in favour of it, and we have a British majority of sixty-two in favour of it, in spite of all the eloquence of the other side and all the vilification that could be invented. That represents the judgment of the people as expressed in this House of Commons. Let us go outside and see what the state of English opinion is upon this question. I am one of those whose duty it has been to try to focus English opinion upon it, and I have seen how the Irish Leader has spoken in all the great towns throughout England, and how everywhere he got an unanimous and enthusiastic welcome, and how multitudes of Englishmen came to hear him. It may be said that you can always get a party meeting to hear a famous speaker, but I would like to mention a curious fact that has come under my notice, and that is that in any of the universities of this country, so far as my observation goes, if you ask the young men, who make up the real life of these universities, to vote on Home Rule they will nearly always vote for it. I have twice over seen the matter discussed at Oxford, and once the eloquence of my hon. and learned Friend (Mr. John Redmond) persuaded the Union, the training ground of so many of the Members of this House, to vote for Home Rule by a majority of two to one—a majority of 150. Again, when there was another speaker there was a majority of 60, but there was a smaller House.

§ Captain COOPER

What about Cambridge?

§ Mr. GWYNN

I went to speak in Cam-.bridge, and the Noble Lord (Viscount Castlereagh) also spoke, and the associa- 928 tions of his name, together with his eloquence, carried the day. I think there was a majority of three or four against Home Rule. It is quite true that on another occasion the Motion was only carried by a majority of one at Cambridge; still, even that was a change, because in the 'eighties and 'nineties there was no more chance of carrying the Resolution there than in the House of Lords. In my own college at Oxford—which is, I think, the most Conservative in that very Conservative University—I went down to speak, and I am glad to say the vote was two to one in favour of Home Rule. I remember that in the 'eighties I had to import my support of one speaker from outside the college. These things all indicate a movement of opinion. I do not think that is all.

Who are the people now who make up the Opposition on that side of the House? I am sorry the hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. S. Storey) has just gone out, because I would like to ask him what he meant by an argument which he used in the Debate the other day. He was arguing that he had never ceased to be a Liberal, that the Liberal party was the party of progress, that Tariff Reform was a policy of progress, and that therefore every Liberal ought to be a Tariff Reformer. Somebody interrupted and said, "Tariff Reform is reactionary," and he turned round and asked, "What is Home Rule?" Home Rule may be a return in a way to a previous policy, but I think it is not fair to call it reactionary on that account. The hon. Member won one of the greatest victories for the Tariff Reform party in the recent election, and I take it that what he meant was that, though he has changed his view on economic questions, no change has taken place in his views upon the freedom of the nation for which he fought so long and with such great distinction. Who are the people in this country who are opposed to Home Rule? I see the hon. Member now in his place, and I hope I have not misrepresented him. I will take one instance, and ask the Committee to consider what happened in Manchester a few months ago when an Irish delegate from America came over and made his appearance in that city, where some forty years ago he was sentenced to be hanged. So far as I could ascertain there has not been in recent years such great popular enthusiasm shown in the streets of Manchester as there was on that occasion to greet the return of that man who risked his life to save his comrade, and who 929 used these words in the dock at Manchester, "God save Ireland," words which have become the watchword of our race and have gone over the hills and under the waters of the world. Surely that proves that there must have been a great change in the feeling of the people of England, certainly a great change in Manchester, when so much honour was accorded publicly to a returned Fenian. No one who faces the fact can deny that since 1893 there has been a great change in popular feeling in England on the Irish question. They have been very much influenced by the analogy of South Africa, and they have been influenced by the opinion of the Colonies. But who can believe that that change in the opinion of England has had any reflection in the House of Lords?

I am in favour of limiting the powers of the House of Lords for the sake of Scotland, because Scotland feels that she cannot allow the Lords to have the final word on Scotch questions. I am in favour of it also for the sake of Wales. I am to a certain extent a Welshman, though it is far back.

6.0 P.M.

I am against the Veto of the House of Lords for the sake of Wales, but above all I am against the Veto of the House of Lords for the sake of Ireland. What has been the special function of the House of Lords with regard to Ireland? The Noble Lord the Member for Oxford University (Lord Hugh Cecil) said, as a sort of extenuating circumstance to the charge that the House of Lords had never altered Tory measures, that they had altered Irish Land Acts; but in what sense did they alter them? They altered them as they did the Evicted Tenants Acts that were passed with the consent and the concurrence of the right hon. Gentleman who was then the Leader of the Irish Unionist party in this House. They altered them in such a sense that Lord Clanricarde, against whom they were passed, was able to defy them in the Law Courts, and thereby to throw the people of Ireland, as the House of Lords has again and again done, back upon violence. That is the kind of sympathetic answer that the Irish cause has ever got from the House of Lords. They have always been the most anti-Irish element in Great Britain. Indeed, one has only to consider the case of the Noble Lord the Member for Oxford, to whom I have referred, to understand how this looks to the people in Ireland and to 930 the people in England. Take the case of the Noble Lord and all he stands for. He is a typical House of Lords man. I do not agree with one of my hon. Friends, who declared that there was no reality in the hereditary principle. I believe there is a great deal in the hereditary principle, and I recognise in the history of certain families in the House of Lords an element which is very honourable to the public life of England—traditions of honourable service handed down from father to son. There is no family, I think, in which that tradition has been more honourably illustrated than in the family of the Noble Lord. But consider how the case looks to us in Ireland. What are our associations with that great family? The debt between Ireland and the Cecils is long and deep. It began with the very day of the foundation of the illustrious House: in the day when the policy of conquest in Ireland was changed for a policy of extermination, and for a policy of sweeping away the Irish race.

It is a desperate saying that it is human nature to hate those whom you have injured, but that is manifested in every utterance upon the Irish question by the heads of that illustrious and famous family. They mask their hatred with contempt, but hatred it is; but the national movement in Ireland lives in spite of them. That is the difference between the House of Lords as it looks to you, the people of England, and as it looks to us, the people of Ireland. And just because the House of Lords is the most narrowly English thing or institution you have, and responsive only to its own people, so it is unfit to have a Veto and a final vote in the legislation of this Imperial Parliament. I take it that a system of laws should be the crystallisation of the popular conscience conforming to it, rigid, but always capable of change upon the pressure of popular feeling. That has been the growth of your English Constitution —it has not been the way with us in Ireland. The House of Lords for us has always been like an iron barrier—it has eaten into our flesh—there is no such elasticity between the House of Lords and its Veto in the relation and the hopes and beliefs of the people of Ireland. For that reason the House of Lords has driven us back constantly in past centuries upon the councils of despair, and now we hold when, as I claim to have shown, we have convinced not only the people of this country but the people of the whole Empire of the righteousness of our cause, that it is a measure of public justice and 931 expediency that the House of Lords should no longer be a bar and a check, and that this inanimate Veto upon a reform, which embodies the whole aspirations and the whole striving tendency of our race, should be abolished.

§ Viscount CASTLEREAGH

The hon. Gentleman who has just sat down can hardly escape suspicion of entertaining, with regard to the proposals now before us, some bias against the House of Lords. His concluding words point strongly to that conclusion. I was very sorry to see that one who is so fair-minded on these questions was inclined to allow himself to be carried away by his bitterness against the Chamber which he believes has stood in the way of Home Rule for Ireland. He alluded to the election of 1895, and it has also been alluded to on several occasions in these Debates. I am convinced, if democracy means anything whatsoever, the verdict given in 1895 by the people of this country was a verdict adverse to Home Rule. I do not think there can be any doubt in regard to that.

The Prime Minister in his speech today has hardly removed that atmosphere of unreality which I consider surrounds this present Debate. The right hon. Gentleman touched upon an aspect of the question which was certainly of an interesting character, and that was that he does not look upon these Resolutions as permanent Resolutions, but rather of a temporary character. That is a situation which we have been endeavouring for some time past to point out, namely, that this Debate has served to show that these Resolutions are supported by Gentlemen sitting in different parts of the House from entirely different points of view. Some Gentlemen are in favour of the absolute abolition of the Second Chamber; others are in favour of a Second Chamber; and another section goes so far as to desire a strong Second Chamber, but there is a concentration upon one point, and that is that those proposals should be carried. I cannot help thinking that in this development of opinion there is some ulterior motive, and this ulterior motive is to be found in the fact that it secures eighty votes from Members sitting on the Irish Benches in order to help to pass the Budget. I do not think it can be denied by those who have closely and carefully considered these Resolutions that they really mean single-Chamber Govern- 932 ment in this country. To say that you desire to strengthen the Second Chamber by the virtual removal of its powers is to circulate a fiction which I do not believe could deceive anyone. The Prime Minister to a certain extent elucidated the question when he told us that these arrangements were to be temporary arrangements. They are arrangements for a time, and they are meant merely to tide over the present moment. I am convinced, if you desire to constitute a Second Chamber, you will never find a body of self-respecting individuals to submit to such conditions as you are trying to impose upon them. You may certainly find a body to obey your behests, but such a body will neither command the attention of this country nor the respect of any civilised community in the world. The chief complaint against the Second Chamber is that it acts as a barrier in the way of Liberal legislation, and that while the Conservative Government is in power this Second Chamber adopts a somnolent and passive attitude to legislation. What is your remedy? Your remedy is to establish a Second Chamber during Unionist legislation. Your desire is to establish a Second Chamber during the Radical administration of exactly the same character as is to be allowed during the Unionist administration. Could there be a more fatuous proposal? The policy known as "filling up the cup" will be in the memory of hon. Gentlemen who have been any length of time in this House. I do not think many hon. Gentlemen on the other side, and certainly not the Chancellor of the Exchequer, disguised their ideas or intentions in regard to the policy known as "filling up the cup." I am perfectly certain, if we were conversant with the Welsh language, we would be in a position to produce far more instances of that policy than we are at the present moment. We know perfectly well what that policy was. It was to bombard the Second Chamber with measure after measure, one more impracticable and impossible than the other, in the hope that they would reject them. That was the case in regard to the Trades Disputes Act. It was a matter of the greatest possible disappointment that that Bill was not rejected by the House of Lords, because hon. Gentlemen opposite believed that it was a bad Bill, and that view was shared by the Government. They had a Bill of their own, and they were not in favour of the Bill brought forward by the hon. Gentlemen opposite. 933 We know perfectly well that the Trades Disputes Bill was one of the most important, if not the most important, that came before the electorate in 1906, and, although I did not agree with that Bill in any way, still there was a demand on the part of the electorate that it should be passed into law. It was passed into law, and I do not think that any evil has resulted from it.

This proposition which we are discussing to-day appears to me to occupy in the minds of the Government a position of primary importance from the time they have allotted to it in this Debate. Personally, I should have thought that once you removed the power of the House of Lords on the question of finance you would have taken the vitality out of it, and it would practically fall to the ground, but the Government think differently, and they have brought in this Resolution, to which they have given more time than to the financial Resolution. The question of the Executive and its relation to the House of Commons is touched very closely by this Resolution. At a time when there was, to a certain extent, freedom in this House, when the private Member was a little more than he is to-day, and not a mere cipher, when the Government was controlled and also represented by the party in power, I think something might have been said for this Resolution. But when Debate is more than ever restricted, when it is possible for the Government to be an oligarchy responsible to no one maintaining their power as long as they possibly can, I say that a Resolution of this kind is absolutely detrimental to the idea of party government in this country. In my opinion this proposition will result in nothing more than a farce of the most degrading description. What do we see now? The proposition is that should a Bill pass three times through the same House of Commons it shall then be sent to the Second Chamber, and that Chamber will have to pass it. At the present time First Readings of Bills in this House are, to a large extent, a matter of form, Second Readings are restricted, and the Committee and Third Readings are passed through this House contaminated and stultified by the action of the closure. When a measure has passed upon three occasions through this House what will be the result? It cannot be said that such a measure is desired or even asked for by the democracy of this country. In my opinion there are no guarantees and no safeguards that the democracy will 934 have any opportunity of deciding on this point. I do not think the insidious form of the disease which is represented by closure by compartments and the guillotine has been realised by those who have not previously sat in this House. The system has increased in a way which I am perfectly certain hon. Members would never have imagined. A Motion for the closure means that the Government have made up their mind as to the form in which the measure shall pass the House of Commons. They then fix the time limit and select one or two Ministers to take charge of the measure. I think that is a most dangerous attitude for a Government to take up.

In these circumstances, when a Bill can be passed through this House of Commons by the same majority—we must bear in mind that the party system is becoming stronger every day and party loyalty is more incumbent upon Members of the party than ever it has been before—it is quite possible a measure can be passed three times by a majority absolutely out of touch with the electors, and such a Bill might become law. We had a clear and conclusive instance of this in the last Parliament. In the month of November the Chancellor of the Exchequer said the majority in favour of the Budget expressed the will of the people of this country. [An HON. MEMBER: "So it did."] What has happened to 110 of those hon. Members who were loudest in support of the Budget in the last Parliament? They have been defeated, and others on this side have been elected in their places. An hon. Member opposite said the majority in favour of the Budget in the last Parliament was unprecedented, and he argued on that account that the Budget should pass. I think the last General Election has been conclusive on this point, because it is now well known that the Budget which the Chancellor of the Exchequer said represented the will of the people would not pass the House of Commons, and it depends on the communications between the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the hon. Member for the City of Cork whether this Budget passes this House at all. I should like to allude for a moment to the position of the Crown with regard to a measure of this description. I do not view the position with complacency, because the question will not be dealt with by the democracy, but only by a section of it, and that section need not necessarily be a majority. This section will call upon the Crown under these circum- 935 stances to ratify the Bill passed by the House of Commons. That is a position which hardly any hon. Member of this House would desire to see this country adopt. I do not think it is a sound position, and it is not one which has been contemplated in this aspect, and should not be contemplated. It is, however, roost important to consider it in this light, and for these reasons I sincerely hope these Resolutions will not pass through the House of Commons.

§ Mr. PONSONBY

The Noble Lord who has just sat down (Viscount Castlereagh), like a great many other hon. Members opposite, has endeavoured to justify the House of Lords in all it has done during the past year, but at the same time acknowledges—or, at any rate, most of the speakers who preceded him acknowledged—that it ought to be reformed. To me that seems rather puzzling. If the House of Lords is an ideal Second Chamber, why alter it in any way. I take a very special interest in this particular Resolution, because in the two years I have been in the House of Commons I have always considered this question to be one of paramount importance. I went so far at the beginning of the last Parliament to move an Amendment to the Address urging the Government to introduce a Veto Bill in the last Session. I was very much blamed on this side of the House for my action on that occasion, but in view of subsequent events I cannot say that I regret having taken that course, I think the whole situation would have been a good deal simpler if such a Veto Bill had been placed before the last House of Commons. I have not, however, got up to indulge in recriminations. On the contrary, I want to give the Government my heartiest and fullest support in the passage of this Resolution. I am very glad that the question of the reform of the House of Lords has been relegated to the Preamble of the Bill, and I could do without it even there. I do not think these Resolutions in any way prejudice the question of the reform of the House of Lords being discussed in the future. The reform of the House of Lords is a question which will probably be discussed at length. There are 670 Members in this House, and if you were to detach those Members who are in favour of keeping the House of Lords absolutely as it is at the present time, detach those who are in favour of single- 936 Chamber Government, and take the rest of the House and ask them to put on a sheet of paper their idea of a reform of the House of Lords, I venture to say you would not get two Members to agree. I have talked this question over with many of my Friends, and I have never yet found two schemes to coincide. We have not consulted the electorate on the subject. This is a very large question, which will take some years to thoroughly thresh out. In my opinion a democratically constituted Second Chamber would be a fifth wheel to the coach, whilst on the other hand the House of Lords, as it exists to-day, is a drag on the wheel of progress. When we are going up the hill of progress the drag is put on, and when we are sliding down the hill to reaction it is taken off.

The Leader of the Opposition said in the course of a speech he made in the earlier part of these Debates that the Liberal party, or the party of progress, had become revolutionary, and that was-why some check was necessary. I am too much of a Britisher to be frightened by this talk of revolution, in fact I am frightened more by the danger of reaction, because we have no check against reaction, and there is nothing to stop us going down the hill towards Protection, conscription and other evils with which the present Tory party are associated. I should like to compare these Resolutions with the Motion upon which they are founded which passed the House of Commons in 1907. There are some differences between the two. To begin with, the idea now finds favour that Bills which have passed in the last two or three years of one Parliament may be carried on into the next Parliament and passed into law should a General Election return the same Government into power. I heartily approve of this new idea, and I think it very greatly strengthens this Resolution. In the next place I find that conferences have not been mentioned, or at any rate they have not been touched upon with sufficient clearness in the course of these Debates. Conferences are not mentioned in the present Resolution, and I think quite rightly, because it would be a mistake to make them statutory. I think the result of a Bill founded on this Resolution would be to encourage conferences of an informal character and the formalisation of conferences would be a distinct gain. Everybody knows that now informal consultations of a private character take place when there is a very 937 great difference of opinion between the two Houses. Those representing the views of the two parties in the two Houses meet privately with a real desire to overcome the difficulty, and to arrive at a compromise where it is possible without any sacrifice of principle. I think such conferences are a good thing, because after all the object of the legislation of one party is not to steal a march over the other party, but is really to do what, according to its lights, it thinks is the best thing for the country. I believe informal conferences of this kind would be a gain, but hitherto these small consultations have taken place, and have seldom led to any good results, for this reason—that the representatives of the Government have gone there hat in hand, and the representatives of the Opposition and of the House of Lords have gone there as dictators, and have been able to press their view and to insist, because really they have got the whip hand, always being able to threaten the rejection of the Bill under discussion. In future to these conferences the representatives of the Opposition and of the House of Lords will come, as they should, not as dictators, but as representing the views of a subordinate branch of the Legislature. The Government representatives will be only too ready to meet them, and to prevent any difficulties on smaller matters where adjustment can be arranged; but it is too much to expect that a Government should sacrifice its principles to suit the convenience and the whims of a non-representative body. It is not that a Liberal Government claims infallibility any more than a Conservative Government. All they ask, in the name of common justice, is just to be treated with ordinary fairness. I do not use the word "fairness" as I might use it in speaking of a game. It is not a game between one party and another. It is really only right that each section of the democracy should be able—anyhow, to some extent—to express its ambitions, its wishes, and its views in the shape of legislation when it has the opportunity.

This particular Resolution strikes me in this way. We are trying to protest not so much against the actual Veto of the House of Lords on any legislation as against the frequency with which that Veto is being used, so that it is now becoming customary —and I suppose you would say therefore constitutional—for the House of Lords not to allow a single Session to pass without the exercise of its absolute Veto at least 938 three or four times. This is a growing arrogation of power which must now once and for all be stopped. I say it is growing, and I would like the House just to listen to a quotation from a speech of the Duke of Wellington, made in the House of Lords in 1846, on the repeal of the Corn Laws, when that Bill was before that House. The Duke of Wellington said:— I now ask you to look a little at the measure in respect of which you are going to give your votes this night; to look at the way in which it comes before you, and to consider the consequense