PARLIAMENT BILL

§ Mr. Churchill (Woodford)

Yesterday, after several courtesies which I acknowledge, the Leader of the House and Lord President of the Council cited me as a witness in this case. Therefore, I thought it my duty to come here and testify, although I must admit under some protest from my medical adviser. I frankly admit that I like this old controversy. I like to feel that what I thought right 36 years ago, the great party which I now lead, and the famous party which I then served, and also as I well believe, the mass of the nation, think right now. It is in the evening of life that these are gratifying sensations. I am glad to look back upon the days when I used to address the fathers and grandfathers of those who sit opposite and who fell away from the Liberal and Radical theme and lolloped into the slatternly trough of collectivism. Therefore, I in no way resent the references which the Lord President has made to my previous convictions, speeches and records, and I am particularly obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for the quotation which he made from my explanation of the Parliament Act 36 years ago. I am sorry I could not hear him, but I read the report, and for greater security I have a copy with me. He said: 204 The present Leader of the Opposition, in the 1910 Debates which led up to the consideration of the Parliament Bill, which became the Parliament Act, 1911, expounded what he conceived at that time to be the policy underlying the proposals which were passed into law in the Parliament Act, 1911. He assumed that Parliaments would on the average last for about four years, and he said that in the first two years of a Parliament the controversial questions upon which the Election had been fought would normally have been disposed of. Then, the argument continues, in the second two years of the Parliament there would be two classes of Bills—Bills upon which there was a broad measure of agreement between parties, and fresh controversial measures, which the Government might bring forward, but which, if rejected by the House of Lords, would await what he called 'the ratification of a new decision of the electorate'."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th November, 1947; Vol. 444, c. 39.] Well, Sir, I had forgotten this speech. When this Debate was advertised, I asked that my past speeches should be looked up, and I intended to read them all; but there were about 30, so I did not find the time to do it. But this speech exactly represents where we stand today, and what the Parliament Act was intended to establish. In these confused and baffling times, it is right to recur to broad general principles. The spirit of the Parliament Act, and the purpose of that Act, were to secure the intimate, effective and continuous influence of the will of the people upon the conduct and progress of their affairs. That was the purpose—not the will of the governors or the governesses of the people, but the will of the people.

The right hon. Gentleman, after quoting this passage, which I must say was an odd selection on his part—a little act of personal friendship, I think, because nothing can be more helpful to me—said that he doubted whether even in my Liberal days I was a very good democrat. I certainly spoke for a united Government and party, of which Mr. Lloyd George and I were supposed to be the Radical spear-point, and I spoke at a time when political controversy was very keen—more sharply followed by the mass of the people from day to day than it is now, when newspapers were able to report every word, and every word was minutely scanned by friend as well as foe. I am sure that if I had diverged at that time from the general line of the Liberal Radical Party, and had, so to speak, made what the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) would call "a diversionary error," it would most cer- 205 tainly have been pointed out. In those days Ministers left office because of some slight diversion, not too serious a diversion, from what was the settled, clean-cut policy of the party. Therefore, I think that I was speaking with full authority.

I do not feel that the Leader of the House has any right to suggest that I was not a good democrat in those days, and not a good democrat now, How does the right hon. Gentleman conceive democracy? Just let me explain it to him, Mr. Speaker, or explain some of the more rudimentary elements of it to him. Democracy is not a caucus, obtaining a fixed term of office by promises, and then doing what it likes with the people. We hold that there ought to be a constant relationship between the rulers and the people. "Government of the people, by the people, for the people," still remains the sovereign definition of democracy. There is no correspondence between this broad conception and the outlook of His Majesty's Government. Democracy, I must explain to the Lord President, does not mean, "We have got our majority, never mind how, and we have our lease of office for five years, so what are you going to do about it?" That is not democracy, that is only small party patter, which will not go down with the mass of the people of this country. Presently, we shall convince the party opposite that the will of the people will prevail. We accept that tribunal, and all their plans will be to shirk it.

The right hon. Gentleman has an obvious, unconcealable, well-known relish for petty dictatorship. He has many good qualities, but he should always be on guard against his propensity and love to "cat and mouse" people from morning until night. Look at all the power he is enjoying today. No Government in time of peace has ever had such arbitrary power over the lives and actions of the British people, and no Government has ever failed more completely to meet their daily practical needs. Yet the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues are avid for more power. No Government has ever combined so passionate a lust for power with such incurable impotence in its exercise. The whole history of this country shows a British instinct—and, I think I may say, a genius—for the division of power. The American Constitution, 206 with its checks and counterchecks, combined with its frequent appeals to the people, embodied much of the ancient wisdom of this island. Of course, there must be proper executive power to any Government, but our British, our English idea, in a special sense, has always been a system of balanced rights and divided authority, with many other persons and organised bodies having to be considered besides the Government of the day and the officials they employ. This essential British wisdom is expressed in many foreign Constitutions which followed our Parliamentary system, outside the totalitarian zone, but never was it so necessary as in a country which has no written Constitution.

The right hon. Gentleman spoke about Parliament, about the rights of Parliament, which I shall certainly not fail to defend. But it is not Parliament that should rule; it is the people who should rule through Parliament. That is the mistake he made, an important omission. All this was comprehended by those who shaped the Parliament Act and the settlement which developed upon that Act, so that it was never mentioned again for 36 years until now. That is what the Government are seeking to mutilate, if not to destroy. The object of the Parliament Act, and the spirit of that Act, were to give effect, not to spasmodic emotions of the electorate, but to the settled, persistent will of the people. What they wanted to do they could do, and what they did not want to do they could stop. All this idea of a handful of men getting hold of the State machine, having the right to make the people do what suits their party and personal interests or doctrines, is completely contrary to every conception of surviving Western democracy. Some reverence for the laws ourselves have made, Some patient force to change them when we will. We accept in the fullest sense of the word the settled and persistent will of the people. All this idea of a group of super men and super-planners, such as we see before us, "playing the angel," as the French call it, and making the masses of the people do what they think is good for them, without any check or correction, is a violation of democracy. Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No 207 one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time; but there is the broad feeling in our country that the people should rule, continuously rule, and that public opinion, expressed by all constitutional means, should shape, guide, and control the actions of Ministers who are their servants and not their masters.

I remember, many years ago, the late John Morley talking to me about a Greek word, born in the classical cradle of democracy, meaning the wish, the will, and the determination, with special reference to the gods, or to destiny, or, as it was adapted, to the desire of the mass, the inward desire of the mass of the people. This implied, that there should be frequent recurrence, direct or indirect, to the popular will, and that the wish—the —should prevail. That is what the party opposite is afraid of, and that is what this Act is devised to prevent. [HON. MEMBERS: "Rubbish."] That is the first broad submission which I make to the House upon this important Measure. I do not expect to convert hon. Members opposite in a few minutes, but I am going to show them the language which can be used against their policy and which will be used on every platform in this country.

However, it is argued that the present Second Chamber is a biased and unrepresentative body; that it does not act evenly between the two sides or parties in the State. Let me just look into that dispassionately. There is, of course, a difference between the two sides in our political life. Temperament, conditions, upbringing, fortunes, interests, environment decide for every individual in a free country which side he will take. One side claims to be the party of progress, as if progress was bound to be right, no matter in what direction. The other side emphasises stability, which is also very important in this changing world. But no one would rest content with that. This is an unreal and far too narrow a dichotomy. I heard that word 40 years ago as a debating rejoinder from Mr. Asquith. I went home and looked it up in the dictionary, and I do not think that it has been used in this House until now. Both 208 progress and stability are needed to make a happy country. But the right hon. Gentleman complains that the present Second Chamber has, from its composition, an undue bias in favour of stability.

Well, Mr. Speaker, if you have a motor car—and I believe some are still allowed—you have to have a brake. There ought to be a brake. A brake, in its essence, is one-sided; it prevents an accident through going too fast. It was not intended to prevent accidents through going too slow. For that you must look elsewhere, to another part of the vehicle; you must look to the engine and, of course, to the petrol supply. For that there is the renewed impulse. To prevent your going too slow you must look to the renewed impulse of the people's will; but it is by the force of the engine, occasionally regulated by the brake, that the steady progress of the nation and of society is maintained, and tens of millions of humble people are given steady conditions in which they can live their lives and make all their plans for their homes, their families and for bringing up their children, and have a chance of bettering themselves, and, at the same time, forwarding the cause of the whole community. [An HON. MEMBER: "Two million unemployed."] Two million unemployed under a Socialist Government. Never has that figure of two million unemployed occurred under any but a Socialist Administration. [Interruption.] It is really a matter of history and arithmetic. Never has there been a substantial rise above two million except under a Government headed by the Socialist Party.

§ The Prime Minister (Mr. Attlee)

I think that the right hon. Gentleman must have made a mistake in the date. The peak date for unemployment was in the Coalition Government of 1931.

§ Mr. Churchill

It was in the Coalition Government of 1931 that reduced the unemployed from the figure of nearly three million to just above one million, and it was the right hon. Gentleman, even in these days of full employment and shortage of labour, who managed to raise unemployment to over two million at the beginning of the present year by gross mismanagement of the fuel problem. All this myth about the tragedy of unemployment between the wars—[HON. MEMBERS: "Myth?"] The myth is that 209 it was due to the Conservative Party, yet all the peaks and heights were reached and all the most serious causes occurred during the brief terms when the Socialists were in office.

I have been drawn from the general thread of my argument, which I am most anxious should be comprehended by hon. Members opposite, if not for their conversion, at least, for educative purposes. I was speaking just now about the "brake." If the Socialist Government do not like the character of this particular brake, certainly we are not defending it.

§ Mr. Kirkwood (Dumbarton Burghs)

What has that to do with this Bill?

§ Mr. Churchill

Certainly we are not defending it. I must say that the Government themselves seem to be a little more reconciled to it than they used to be, judging by the number of Socialist hereditary nobles who are being created. If they do not like the character of the brake, why do they not propose the reform of the Second Chamber? We are quite ready to confer with them and to help them in such a task. As the Socialist Government now stand, they maintain the hereditary principle. The hereditary Chamber is to have one year's suspensory veto but not two. One year's suspensory veto by a hereditary assembly is the true blue of Socialist democracy; two years is class tyranny.

One is astonished that the human mind can be constrained into such silly postures. But then the explanation is furnished and backed by ever-accumulating evidence that this Bill does not arise out of any consideration of general principles, or of the needs of the State, or of the practical requirements of the day, but only out of a deal between Cabinet Ministers quarrelling about the nationalisation of steel. There is no doubt however, that what His Majesty's Government seek and intend is virtually what is called single-Chamber Government. On this issue there are wide and world-famous arguments. No free country enjoying democratic institutions that I know of has adopted single-Chamber Government.

§ Mr. Ronald Mackay (Hull, North West)

The State of Queensland has single-Chamber Government.

§ Mr. Churchill

It is the exception which proves the rule. No free country—

§ Mr. Speaker

I think it is a mistake for hon. Gentlemen to interrupt continuously. It would be much better if each one waited and heard the arguments whether they like them or not, and then they could listen to the arguments in reply by the Home Secretary.

§ Mr. Churchill

I am glad to be reminded because I asked this morning for a check-up to be made over the British Empire, and I was not aware that there was a single-Chamber Government in Queensland, but that State is only part of a federal system.

§ Mr. Warbey

What about Norway?

§ Mr. Churchill

No free country of which I have heard up to the present—I quite agree that there might be some countries throughout the world—which is enjoying democratic institutions has adopted single-Chamber Government. The United States, the Swiss, the Dutch, the Belgians, the French even in their latest constitution have a Second Chamber. Eire has created its own Senate. Our Dominions, the most democratic countries in the world, all have, with the exception of Queensland I am reminded, sought and preserved two-Chamber Government—what clever people would call bi-cameral Government. All feel that between the chance vote of an election on universal sufferage and the permanent alteration of the whole slowly built structure of the State and nation there ought to be some modifying process. Show me a powerful, successful, free democratic constitution of a great sovereign state which has adopted the principle of single-Chamber Government.

§ Mr. Warbey

I have told the right hon. Gentleman of one.

§ Mr. Churchill

Norway is not a very powerful State and would not have been a State at all but for our exertions. I am speaking of the general experience of the world and I say that the overwhelming majority that I know of have a Second Chamber, mostly with lesser powers than the popular assembly and with a different outlook and function. By the way, all this insistence on Norway or Queensland by the other side of the House illustrates 211 and proves my point that it is single-Chamber Government which hon. Gentlemen opposite seek.

§ Mr. Churchill

The hon. Gentleman the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) is not in this matter at all. There are quite a lot of matters in which he takes an interest but this is not one of them.

§ Mr. Churchill

I do not mind in the least being interrupted. It does not worry me—

§ Mr. Churchill

I do not give way unless I think it worth while. Some of the foreign countries arrive at the two-chamber system by a proportion of members retiring every two years or every year; some by a franchise based on a higher age limit; some by the influence of local authorities standing on a different foundation; and some, like the Canadian Senate, are nominated for life and retire gradually by the effluxion of time. In some there are joint sessions where a majority decision decides in case of deadlock. I remember in 1910 we worked in the hectic interval between the two Elections of that year in conference with the Opposition but it broke down as so many other things do, on figures.

But all these constitutions have the same object in view, namely, that the persistent resolve of the people shall prevail without throwing the community into convulsion and disorder by rash or violent, irreparable action and to restrain and prevent a group or sect or faction assuming dictatorial power. Single-Chamber Government, as I have said, is especially dangerous in a country which has no written Constitution and where Parliaments are elected for as long as five years. When there is an ancient community built up across the generations, Where Freedom broadens slowly down From precedent to precedent", it is not right that all should be liable to be swept away by the desperate measures of a small set of discredited men. A thousand years scarce serve to form a State. An hour may lay it in dust. 212 This is the argument against Second-Chamber Government, which is evidently so espoused on that side of the House. In this field the outlook of His Majesty's Ministers is marked by the same meanness of thought and spirit which characterise so much of their action and which destroys their power to help or unite and save our suffering country. They wish to keep the present Second Chamber on the hereditary basis so that they can abuse it, insult it and attack it and yet to cripple its powers, although those powers stand on 36 years of modern Parliamentary title so that, in effect, it is both vulnerable and powerless. That is their tactical method. By this artful, and insincere scheme they hope to substitute for the will of the people the decisions of the Government. This sinister intrigue will be exposed by us, without fear, to the electorate resting upon a universal suffrage.

The Government say—let us look closer into the point—"We have the right to pass into law everything we mentioned or even hinted at in our election pamphlet, 'Let us Face the Future.'" It is arguable whether a Government, which is losing daily the real support of the nation, has the right to claim that such a bill must be paid even within the limits of what they call their mandate. At any rate no one should be under any delusions on this matter. There is no constitutional or legal bar upon the right of a Government possessing a majority in the House of Commons to propose any legislation they think fit whether it has figured in their pre-election promises or programmes or not. The people have no guarantee, except the suspensory power of the House of Lords or Second Chamber, nor can they be given any other guarantee that Measures never thought of at the Election and to which they object will not be imposed upon them.

Look around at what is happening every day. The idea of a mandate is only a convention. A band of men who have got hold of the machine and have a Parliamentary majority undoubtedly have the power to propose anything they choose without the slightest regard to whether the people like it or not, or the slightest reference to whether or not it was included in their election literature. I will not expatiate upon the kind of laws they could pass if all is to be settled by 213 a party majority in the House of Commons, under the discipline of the Whips and the caucus. But anyone can see for himself, and it is now frankly admitted on the opposite side of the House, that what is aimed at now is single-Chamber Government at the dictation of Ministers, without regard to the wishes of the people and without giving them any chance to express their opinion. There is, in fact, only one thing that they cannot do under the Parliament Act, 1911, and that is to prolong the life of Parliament beyond the five years' span to which we reduced it in those old days. I must say I am very glad we thought of it.

As a free-born Englishman, what I hate is the sense of being at anybody's mercy or in anybody's power, be he Hitler or Attlee. We are approaching very near to dictatorship in this country, dictatorship that is to say—I will be quite candid with the House—without either its criminality or its efficiency. But let the party opposite not imagine they will rule our famous land and lead our group of Commonwealths and our Empire—or what is left of it—by party dodges and Cabinet intrigues. Lots of people have tried to break the British nation and make it do things it did not want to do. Some were British and some were foreign. They all came a cropper. Do not imagine, I say to right hon. Gentlemen opposite, that you have got this country in pawn. The British are a proud people and, more than any other country in Europe, they have known how to control their rulers. [Interruption.] You are our rulers now and we are going to show you that there are limits to your control.

Let hon. Members opposite not delude themselves by supposing that by raising this issue they will draw an ancient red herring across the fundamental economic and imperial issues now at stake which involve the life of Britain as a great Power. Why are they devising dodges to keep themselves in office, and to get the last scrunch out of their freak majority and legal term? Is it not ignoble, is it not indeed most imprudent, for these incompetent Ministers, amid all the miseries they have brought upon us, to adopt the attitude, the arrogant attitude, "We have got our majority. We have got our ration of time. Let us exploit them to the utmost. To hell with the will of the people. We will teach them from our superior knowledge what they ought to 214 want." Is it not much better to recur to the simple process of keeping in touch with the people, and of not being afraid to consult them, or even to take dismissal at their hands?

Why are the Government so afraid of appealing to the people for what they tell us is their great, democratic, philanthropic policy of Socialistic progress into the brave new world? Why are they so afraid? No one has obstructed their will. They have carried all the Measures they wished. They have brought us low and they are bringing us to ruin. What more can they want? Yet—and the Bill brings it before us effectively at the moment—when the Government may be the most execrated of all Administrations, they will claim the right, against the will of the people and, if they choose, without any consultation with the people, to exercise unlimited legislative power.

This is a dictatorship that we are lacing, a timid, incompetent dictatorship, but a dictatorship none the less, and one that at any time in the lifetime of this Parliament may be replaced by a deter mined, totalitarian oligarchy. Is the party opposite really to be entitled to pass laws affecting the whole character of the country in the closing years of this Parliament without any appeal to the people who have the vote and who placed them where they are? No, Sir, democracy says, "No, a thousand times No. You have no right to pass legislation in the closing phase of a Parliament which is not accepted or desired by the mass of the people." It may well be that Ministers on that Bench are going to be more hated than any Government which has held office since the franchise was extended in the great Reform Bill of 1832. It may well be that not only bankruptcy but actual starvation will come upon this island, largely from their mismanagement.

How do we know that, in the next 18 months, we shall see the same feeble despots in office? They may be replaced at any time by a convulsion in this House or at Transport House, or in the complicated party structure of the Government majority, by other men, no less mischievous but more malignant, more ruthless. These may hoist themselves into power, men who have never presented themselves to the electors as leaders of the nation. Are they to have the full, 215 unbridled authority to pass any laws they choose irrespective of the views and feelings of the whole nation regarding the Government or the Bills proposed? These are issues which are before us now on the Second Reading of the Bill on which we shall give our vote.

There are, I must admit, moments when I am sorry for the Lord President of the Council, a man outpassed at the moment by his competitors, outdated even by his prejudices, scrambling along trying to regain popularity on an obsolete issue and on an ever-ebbing tide. I hope he will not mind my quoting or adapting some lines, although they are of a martial character, about his position: Crippses to right of him, Daltons to left of him, Bevans behind him, volleyed and thundered. It must have been very harassing.

Then there is another line: What tho' the soldiers knew Some one had blunder'd. There is even one more line a little further on in the poem which may not be irrelevant: Then they came back, but not, Not the four hundred.

§ Mr. Kirk wood

The wish is father to the thought.

§ Mr. Churchill

I see that the Home Secretary is going to follow me. I am sorry for him, too. He always wears the air of injured innocence which we might expect to find on the face of a virtuous and respectable mayor or alderman who has been caught in a somewhat disreputable and compromising situation. I ask him: does he really think he can cling to office for 2½ years more until this Bill has passed into law under the workings of the Parliament Act?

The last election was abnormal. There had not been one for 10 years. There had been a total cessation of ordinary party warfare, on our side at least. A large portion of our voters, our men, were abroad—several millions-and out of touch with any of the party associations with which they would have been ranged had they been at home. It was abnormal. I have no doubt that in party circles it is calculated that the majority gained at the last Election, whatever may be said 216 about it, will be able to run on for its full legal term and make the British people drain their cup to the last dregs. No doubt it will be helpful—here I see the hand of the master craftsman, the Lord President—

§ The Lord President of the Council (Mr. Herbert Morrison)

The right hon. Gentleman has promoted me.

§ Mr. Churchill

Craft is common both to skill and deceit. No doubt it will be helpful to party discipline to be able to say to an unhappy, disillusioned party, "We must hold together until we get the Parliament Bill through and thus carry our glorious nationalisation of steel which will put the country right once and for all. Hold on." It is a powerful appeal, "Hold on, boys, for another year. Let us have a full run for our money. Let us get all out of it we can." I do not think it will happen that way. If there were a General Election tomorrow the Socialist majority would vanish. If they wait another year, they themselves will vanish for a considerable period, unwept, unhonoured, and unsung—and unhung. They have paralysed and stifled the whole native life-effort of our people. Do not let them delude themselves by supposing that they will escape on the issue of "the Peers versus the People." The electors are going to vote on their mismanagement and on their partisanship in this grave crisis in our history. Their calculations will not succeed. They will not escape, even by this partial Measure, the will of the people, and the longer they try to do so, the more decisive will be the condemnation they will receive at the national hands.

§ The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Ede)

In the first place, it is my duty and my pleasure to express to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill) our happiness at seeing him here today. We missed him yesterday. He has endeavoured to do the best he can to make up for our disappointment. We congratulate him on his return to health and thank him for the strain to which he must have subjected himself in preparing and delivering the speech to which we have just listened. We also desire to congratulate him upon having at last convinced the party now sitting behind him that the 217 Parliament Act, 1911, is a constitutional safeguard. He will recall that Lord Curzon, Mr. F. E. Smith and other notabilities of the Conservative Party of 1911 promised that as soon as the Conservative Party again obtained a majority they would wipe what Lord Curzon elegantly described as "this smudge" from the Statute Book. But this afternoon, although they received his remarks with no great enthusiasm, he is at least entitled to feel that one of his major achievements in life has been to convert the Tory Party into a belief in the Parliament Act, 1911. Our view of the Constitution was well expressed by the right hon. Gentleman in a speech he delivered on the First Reading of that Bill on 22nd February, 1911. He said: We believe in democracy, we believe in representative institutions, we believe in democracy acting through representative institutions. We believe that Ministers should back their convictions by their offices. We believe Members of Parliament are representatives and not delegates. We believe that Governments are the guides as well as the servants of the Nation. We believe that the people should choose their representatives, that they should come to a decision between men, party and policy, judging their character and judging the circumstances of the hour; that they should choose their representatives and then trust them and give them a fair chance within the limits of their commission for a period which should not be unreasonably prolonged; then these representatives should be summoned before their constituents, who should judge them in relation to all the circumstances proper to be considered, and in relation as well to the general effects of their policy, and should either confirm them in their places as representatives or choose other men to take their place."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22nd February, 1911; Vol. 21, c. 2035.] That is our belief of democracy as well as that of the right hon. Gentleman in 1911.

§ Mr. Churchill

And now.

§ Mr. Ede

May I say that a great part of his speech was devoted to disapproving some of those propositions, as was strikingly done last night by the hon. Member the senior Burgess for Cambridge University (Mr. Pickthorn). He claimed that it was the prerogative of the House of Lords to be able to determine when and in what circumstances a General Election should take place: … if, after two or three years of office, it appears to the House of Lords … that a Bill passed by this House is not one which public opinion really goes with, that can be held up, not for long, at the worst only for 218 as long as it takes to win an election."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th November, 1947; Vol. 444, c. 151.] We take this view of the constitutional position, that the Government is made and kept in office by the House of Commons. The moment a Government loses the confidence of the House of Commons, not necessarily to the extent of suffering defeat in the Lobbies, but in such a striking way as to make the loss of confidence quite evident and palpable, the House of Commons has the right to expect that that Government will resign and can, of course, remove it from office. It removed in that way the Chamberlain Government in 1939—

§ Mr. Kirkwood

In 1940.

§ Mr. Ede

I am sorry, 1940. The Government was not defeated, but so many of its regular supporters voted in the Opposition Lobby, so many abstained, that the Government of the day was changed.

§ Mr. Churchill

That really does not quite do justice to Mr. Chamberlain, because the reason why he resigned was not because of any defeat in the House of Commons or that he could not gather support to continue, but because he felt that nothing short of a National Government could save the country.

§ Hon. Members

Oh.

§ Mr. Ede

The right hon. Gentleman was in the negotiations but I have been told that there was an effort to restore Mr. Chamberlain to office after that vote, before the right hon. Gentleman formed his Government.

§ Mr. Churchill

I strongly urged Mr. Chamberlain to continue as Prime Minister.

§ Mr. Ede

That does not disprove what I am saying. That was in wartime. In normal times when a Prime Minister finds himself in that position, that his Government has lost the confidence of this House, he has an alternative before him: either he can recommend the King to send for someone else, or he can appeal from the decision of the House of Commons to the electorate. That is constitutional and I am sure the right hon. Gentleman, who has been in many Governments, will not disagree with that. That is the constitutional position and we say that is a position 219 which we think is the proper one for the Government of this country. We do not accept the doctrine—

§ Mr. Churchill

The Prime Minister has no right to demand a Dissolution—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—and the right hon. Gentleman in his great position must not be inaccurate. He can submit to the Crown a request for a Dissolution—[HON. MEMBERS: "It is the same thing."]—but if the Crown does not grant that request, the only remedy of the Prime Minister is to resign. Let us get it right.

§ Mr. Ede

I purposely do not want to bring into this discussion, for obvious reasons, the exact point at which the Crown can assume responsibility.

§ Mr. Churchill

The right hon. Gentleman need not be shy about it. It is all history.

§ Mr. Ede

I do not think I have misstated the position. At any rate, one thing is quite certain, that the first General Election of 1910 settled that the House of Lords has no right to send the Government to the country—

§ Mr. Ede

The House of Lords, in rejecting Mr. Lloyd George's Budget, passed a resolution in the form that they declined to give the Bill a Second Reading until the opinion of the country had been expressed on it That position, which was the line of argument adopted by the senior Burgess for Cambridge University, who, I regret, is not in his place this afternoon, we are not prepared to accept. Neither do we accept the views that have been expressed by the right hon. Gentleman with regard to what can happen during the period of a five-year Government. He said that he did not desire to suffer under a dictatorship, be it of Hitler or Attlee. We have suffered under the dictatorships of Baldwin and Chamberlain—

§ Mr. Churchill

That is all rubbish.

§ Hon. Members

Order.

§ Mr. Ede

I regret that although the right hon. Gentleman said that I generally wear an air of injured innocence—

§ Mr. Churchill

You are living up to it at the moment.

§ Mr. Ede

—for some reason or other I always appear to be most provocative to him in encouraging him to make replies. The position for which we ask is the position which was established by the Act of 1911 as laid down by the right hon. Gentlemen in the Debate on 7th August, 1911. We seek no privilege, we desire to obtain no handicap, we look for no facility which the Conservative Party have not already, and have not long, enjoyed. All we seek, all we ask, all we demand, all we are willing to take, is political equality for all parties in the State. We wish to be placed by the Constitution in exactly the same position as is the Conservative Party. We wish that our House of Commons shall have the same powers they have always enjoyed. We think that the millions of electors whom we represent are entitled to be admitted to as full and responsible citizenship, are just as competent to return Governments with plenary powers as the millions of electors whom we freely admit support hon. Gentlemen opposite.

That is the claim, and no higher claim, that we make, and those were the words used by the right hon. Gentleman in replying to the Vote of Censure when Mr. Asquith announced that he had obtained the Royal consent to the creation of the necessary peers to carry the Parliament Act. We do not desire—let us say this quite frankly—to be mixed up in another arid controversy about the Peers versus the People. That is why we have introduced this Measure at this time, before the next appeal to the country comes. Even if the peers accept the suggestion made to them this afternoon by the right hon. Gentleman, that they should delay the passage of this Bill for two and a half years, the matter will have been settled and we shall be in a position to carry the legislation to which we are committed.

I found it difficult to ascertain exactly at what point the right hon. Gentleman was dealing with the Bill, and at what part of his speech he was dealing with matters more relevant to a general Vote of Censure on the Government—

§ Mr. Popplewell (Newcastle-upon-Tyne. West)

In other words, clowning.

§ Mr. Ede

No, really, it is always good comedy when the right hon. Gentleman is speaking. Taste in comedy differs, but I always enjoy it highly and I have paid 221 large sums of money for worse comedy than we have had this afternoon.

I therefore propose to pass to the Debate which was held yesterday, and to deal with various speeches made by hon. Gentlemen opposite. The hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Hogg), as usual, gave us a long moral lecture on the iniquity of our proceedings, and regretted that we did not take the opportunity of relieving him from passing to what I believe he called earlier in the week "the political ghetto." I cannot myself be taken as subscribing to that doctrine. He said there were three things which we ought to have done, and he put them in a certain order. He said that in the first place a democracy must choose whether it will have a system composed of one or two Chambers. and: Secondly, that if it decides in favour of two Chambers, it must attempt, at any rate, to resolve the difficulties inherent in deciding the composition of the Second Chamber, assuming the first to be an elected one. … Thirdly, when it has dealt with those two preliminary questions, it must come to a conclusion on the, powers which it proposes to give to any Second Chamber which it forms."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th November, 1947; Vol. 444, c. 79.] In spite of what has been said this afternoon, this Bill leaves the question of one or two Chambers exactly where it was before this Bill was introduced. I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that he has the order of the proceedings the wrong way round. Before one creates a new Second Chamber, or alters the power of the existing Chamber, it is essential to determine what powers the body is to exercise. We hold the view that the restricted powers which we propose in this Bill are the maximum powers which should be allowed to any Second Chamber, no matter how constituted, and so far from feeling that we are taking the thing in the wrong order, we feel that the order in which we propose to deal with the matter is the correct one. The hon. Member for Hertford (Mr. Walker-Smith), as usual, made a speech well directed towards the point at issue, but he used a somewhat peculiar phrase, which I asked him to explain at the time. He said: The Second Chamber, in my view, must not be a mere replica of the First Chamber, but should be complementary to it."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th November, 1947; Vol. 444, c. 136.] 222 I do not know exactly what the last phrase means. One of the difficulties which has always confronted the party opposite has been to get an agreement about what the form of the Second Chamber should be. What the right hon. Gentleman asked for was a Second Chamber which would give the Liberal Party as good as chance of getting its legislation through as the Conservative Party had, and every scheme that was prepared by the Conservative Party in the days when he was dealing with the subject broke down because it failed to do that.

I notice in this morning's "Yorkshire Post" that the hon. Member for Kings-ton-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) has a scheme for what he calls a more efficient House of Lords. Undoubtedly from his point of view it may be more efficient, because certainly it would never contain, as proposed by him, a majority of votes, or even an equality of votes, of people subscribing to the doctrines of this Government. As my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council said yesterday, any proposal that the Conservative Party wishes to put forward for a reformed Second Chamber will be considered, but it must conform to the requirements laid down by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford in 1911, so that it gives us exactly the same chance of passing our legislation as it would give to the Conservative Party. Short of that, any effort at getting a reformed House of Lords is not likely to be acceptable.

This Bill, we are told, is brought forward by the Government in order to pass a Bill for the nationalisation of steel. But there are other Bills which we are bringing forward which may equally need the opportunities afforded by this Measure if they are to receive appropriate treatment from the Legislature.

§ Colonel Dower (Penrith and Cockermouth)

What are they?

§ Mr. Ede

I am just going to deal with one of them. In my recollection, and I have taken steps to check this, on only one occasion within living memory have the House of Lords seriously embarrassed a Conservative Government in trying to get its legislation through. That was on the Children and Young Persons Act of 1933. This House deprived the justices 223 of the power of ordering whipping for juvenile offenders. It went to the House of Lords, who reinserted that power. It came back here, and the right hon. Member for West Bristol (Mr. Stanley), after there had been another exchange between the two Houses, advised this House to accept that proposal, and not to lose the Bill. Now we have a Bill before Parliament this Session which makes the same proposal, it is true, in a more extended form. Have we any guarantee that, in order to enact that Measure, we may not need the powers which this Bill gives us? The idea that this Measure is required for one Bill only is one of the delusions which the Conservative Party likes to hug to itself.

Among the heritages that a Home Secretary has when he goes into Office are the books in a cupboard in the Home Office. Among them I discovered when I went there that on his departure from the Home Office Sir John Simon, as he then was, had left the whole of his copies of the "Liberal Magazine" for the early years of this century. I assume that when he left the Home Office he left his Liberalism behind him.

§ Mr. Churchill

The right hon. Gentleman might have had the decency to restore his property to him.

§ Mr. Ede

It is available for him if he requires it, but I am afraid he would find it rather an embarrassment at the present time. He spoke on the Parliament Bill. Those who spoke on behalf of the Conservative Party, he said, speaking in his constituency of Walthamstow in 1911, were saying that if they had an opportunity they would repeal the Parliament Bill. He promised that they in that constituency would not forget that promise. He would take every opportunity to rub it in. He thought that that statement ought to keep the Conservatives in the desert for the next two generations. They would carry the Parliament Bill, but not for its own sake. They were doing it because when they had made this rearrangement they were going to use it in order to carry reforms which they thought wise, moderate, sensible, and overdue. The House of Lords rejected their Plural Voting Bill, and they were going to carry it by means of the Parliament Bill. They did not do so. It 224 is not for me to disclose legislation which will be introduced later this Session, but there again is a matter which may require the assistance of the Parliament Bill.

§ Mr. Clement Davies (Montgomery)

Is that a promise by the Home Secretary to introduce proportional representation? We shall welcome it if he does so.

§ Mr. Ede

As I have said, it is not for me at this stage to disclose what we intend to do in that Measure, but it is the kind of thing that appears to me to be highly probable.

The difficulty in this country has never been that the engine has had too much control, or that there has been any likelihood that we should legislate at too great a speed. On the other hand, there has been, at least ever since the Reform Act, 1832, a continual block in the legislative machine. If we are to be held up for the remaining years of this Parliament by having to pass over and over again Measures that have secured the support of this House, we feel that it will not be possible, in the term of our office, adequately to discharge the duties that fall upon us. We, therefore, ask that we shall be given the powers in this Measure in order that we may be able to ensure that the legislation which we submit to the House during the next two years shall find its place on the Statute Book before the end of this Parliament. In his speech on the First Reading of the Parliament Bill of 1911, Mr. F. E. Smith said that what it secured was, for the Liberal Party, three years' supremacy in Parliament; after that the House of Lords would be supreme, and could stop the Liberal Party from carrying its legislation. He asked the Liberal Party whether they thought it worth while to stir up the strife which they were stirring up merely to secure three years supremacy.

Holding the constitutional doctrine which I enunciated at the beginning of my remarks, we believe that the proper course is for this Bill, restricting the suspensory veto of the Lords, to be given its appropriate place in the statute law of the country.

§ Mr. Beverley Baxter (Wood Green)

Would the right hon. Gentleman be good enough to tell us whether there is anything in his mind or in the mind of the Government as to why there should be 225 even one year's suspensory veto, because every argument he has offered so far against two years is an argument against one year as well?

§ Mr. Ede

By no means. One year is, I admit, a process of delay, but it appears to me to give the minimum of time that ought to be given to reconsideration, and the maximum that ought to be allowed to the Lords. A Bill, leaving this House and going to the Lords, and not meeting ultimately with the acceptance of their Lordships, ought to be reconsidered by this House. Let me point out to the House that the House of Lords need not reject a Bill. In fact, they did hot, I think, reject the Home Rule Bill or the Welsh Disestablishment Bill. What they did was to postpone consideration. Prorogation came, and the Bill was dead, not because the Lords had defeated it but because their House had adjourned without reaching a decision upon it.

Whether the House of Lords rejects a Bill, drastically amends a Bill so that it is unacceptable to this House, or merely postpones consideration of it, we feel that while there is a Second Chamber such as the present one there should be a guarantee to them that before such a Bill is passed over their heads, this House will consider either their reasons for rejection, their reasons for drastic amendment, or the causes, if we can discover them, which led to their dilatory action, by requiring the two Sessions and the 12 months after the first Second Reading of the Bill in this House. We do not deny that the House of Lords, even as at present constituted, has certain duties and rights as a revising Chamber. We think that these are best discharged by the machinery I have just described. We think that their power of a suspensory veto is adequately met if they have 12 months instead of 24 before the Bill can be passed over their heads. I hope I have shown to the hon. Gentleman that although admittedly the delay is not as great in 12 months as it is in 24, nevertheless it is a guarantee to another place that their objections to a Measure will have to be considered on the Floor of this House, and undoubtedly those Members who share the views of the House of Lords, either in whole or in part, will have opportunities of seeing that the views of the Lords are considered before the Bill goes up to them a Second time.

226 It is quite impossible for anyone to suggest that this is a revolutionary Measure. I can well understand the disappointment of some of my hon. Friends that this Measure is not more drastic. I feel myself that if we were to propose that the House of Lords should either be abolished or drastically reformed in its composition, that as an issue would have to be submitted to the electorate before any Government could feel they had a right to bring it forward.

§ Mr. Churchill

Why should it be?

§ Mr. Ede

Because that is a fundamental change in the Constitution. No one can say that reducing the period from 24 months to 12 months is a fundamental change.

§ Mr. Churchill

That is the right hon. Gentleman's personal opinion.

§ Mr. Ede

Surely, the right hon. Gentleman was expressing his personal opinion. In this free assembly, even in the presence of the right hon. Gentleman—

§ Mr. Churchill

Everyone expresses his personal opinion, but the right hon. Gentleman, speaking for the Government, is attempting to outline their views on constitutional law, which have no foundation other than the fact that he has decided to utter them.

§ Mr. Ede

The right hon. Gentleman has no ground for saying that. I am making a statement on behalf of His Majesty's Government, and, as far as I know, not one of my colleagues in the Government would dissent from the views I have uttered.

I do want to point out that we have our noble Friends in another place, who have, to my mind, during this Parliament discharged the duties that fell upon them of presenting and arguing for our Measures with the greatest skill, clarity and independence, and we are at least entitled to point out that we cannot expect noble Lords who are of our party to sit up there without feeling that the views for which they argue, which are supported by the majority of this House, shall be made to prevail if this House decides to continue its support for the Government. Therefore, the Government have placed this Measure before the House. We believe that it will enable a constitutional crisis not to be created but to be averted. I know of no reason 227 why one should assume that the House of Lords will take two and a half years to pass this Measure. It seems to me to be a natural development of the Parliament Act, 1911, and I would hope that before this Session ends, this Measure will be added to the legislative achievements of the Government.

§ Lord Willoughby de Eresby (Rutland and Stamford)

At first I hesitated to take part in this Debate. I suppose that I cannot claim to be an entirely disinterested party on the question of the continuance and future powers of the House of Lords, though I must say that I have always tried to keep an open mind on such questions as the automatic rights of hereditary peers to a seat in the House of Lords, and also upon any suggestion or plan for a comprehensive reform. But I have no feeling of embarrassment when speaking in this Debate, because a cursory glance at this Bill shows that it is not concerned with the present composition of the House of Lords, neither does it make the least attempt to bring in any general measures of reform of the composition or powers of the other place. All that this Bill seeks to do is to render quite ineffective the delaying power granted—possibly it would be more accurate to say "left"—to the House of Lords by the Parliament Act, 1911, and then to abolish the one safeguard which every democratic and constitutional Parliament in the world; with a few exceptions already mentioned, has seen fit to put in its constitutions.

When the intentions of the Government were first made known in the Gracious Speech, I and probably many people, felt at a loss to understand the reasons for this sudden, vicious and, I think, quite unprovoked attack upon the House of Lords at this moment. I describe it as a sudden attack because there was no mention that anything like this was to be done in the now notorious election manifesto of the hon. Gentlemen opposite. As far as one knew, there was no reason to assume that the House of Lords had in any way incurred the displeasure of His Majesty's Ministers or even of the Leader of the House. It appears now that he is affronted because they chose to come back during the summer Recess—whilst hon. Members of this House were away on holidays with pay, at an increased salary—to discuss 228 the serious economic position of the country.

It is quite true that the Minister of Health has issued certain warnings about the House of Lords, but one rather naturally understood his disinclination to mention, shall we say, more plebeian houses at this moment. I think that any fair-minded person would say that during the past two years the Members of the other place have not abused their power through having a large Tory majority. They have not in any way defied the will of the people. In fact, I think most people will agree that they have been helpful rather than destructive in their criticisms of and Amendments to Bills which have come before them. At first, I thought that the Government had decided on this course with an eye to an early Election and in an effort to shift public attention from economic and financial issues—where we all know their record is none too gaudy and their failure already complete—to a constitutional issue. One can only sympathise with some of them on the fact that no longer are there the bankers and coalowners to act as convenient scapegoats for a Socialist failure. There is no question but that "reactionary Tory peers" possibly formed a very good substitute on the platforms of this country.

May I confirm what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill) said? I think that it is extremely unsportsmanlike—or some people might even say "caddish"—to leave Tory Peers there for abuse when it suits hon. Members opposite, but then to render the House of Lords quite ineffective in regard to any part which they play under the Constitution. We should either alter their composition and leave them some power or—and I personally think it would be far better if hon. Gentlemen opposite think as they do—abolish them altogether. Those of us who thought that possibly the Government were doing this with a view to an early Election have realised, since hearing the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Arthur Greenwood), on the Address, that we were not wholly right in our conjectures and reasoning.

It now appears that the Government have to introduce this Measure in order to unite a Cabinet and a party sadly split and divided amongst itself over the 229 nationalisation of the iron and steel industry. I can only agree with the right hon. Member for Wakefield that such a party manoeuvre is a very doubtful political expedient. What right have any Government to tinker with the British Constitution which, when all is said and done, is something far more important than the future of the Socialist Party? It is something with a far longer history, and what right has the party opposite to interfere with it solely in order to maintain loyalty and unity within the party itself? I can see no reason to suppose that the House of Lords would have rejected or turned down a Bill for which the Government had the authority from the electors at the last Election. I am certain that the hon. Lady the Member for Epping (Mrs. Manning) will agree with me when I say that it is always bad policy to punish someone before they do anything wrong. I can only agree with the right hon. Member for Wakefield when he says that if we are to nationalise the iron and steel industry—which, apparently, the Prime Minister assures us is to be done during this Parliament—how much better and more statesmanlike it would have been to bring it forward and have the battle this Session, instead of introducing this Bill.

I feel that if an authoritative commission had been set up to make recommendations about the reform of the House of Lords, it might have been possible to introduce an agreed Measure. There is far more agreement than some hon. Gentlemen realise between both parties in this House on the subject, and even amongst Members of the House of Lords themselves. If we cannot reach agreement amongst ourselves, then this is one of those questions which should be put to the electorate. The will of the people should be allowed to decide the issue. Certainly, the reform of the House of Lords is not a matter to be treated in the summary and piecemeal manner in which it is being treated today. It certainly is not a fit subject for political bargaining or appeasement within one particular party. I hope that no one will be taken in by the inoffensive or innocuous appearance of this Bill, the brevity of which is really no indication of the importance of the changes which it seeks to bring about.

This Bill revokes the last effective power of the House of Lords over legislation 230 passed in this House. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for West Derby (Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe) showed yesterday, the period can be whittled down now to six months. I myself do not wish to argue this afternoon whether it should be two years, one and a half years or a year, because in my mind the real power of the House of Lords has always rested on the moral support in the country, rather than on any actual physical power which it may possess. I think that my right hon. Friend the Member for Woodford made that point perfectly clear—that the power of the Lords is really only a power when the great weight of public opinion in the country would be behind them if they had to stand up to the Government. To my mind, what is so thoroughly offensive and objectionable about this Bill is not whether it makes the period one year or a year and a half, but the character of the Bill and its origin.

Possibly, it is too much to expect any great love for the House of Lords, as it is at present constituted, among hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite, though I feel that many of them who are fair-minded on these matters would agree that, in the past two years, they have carried out their duties in a responsible and conscientious manner. I hope that hon. Gentlemen opposite, even if they feel no great love, as many of us do, for the House of Lords as at present constituted, at least feel some contempt for their own Government for having issued a Bill on what is a constitutional question in such a summary and piecemeal manner, with at least some shame for the extremely questionable antecedents and origin of this particular Measure. If they do feel such contempt and shame, which I think is very deserved by the Government, I hope they will support our Amendment.

§ Mr. Donovan (Leicester, East)

The actual proposal before the House is to reduce the suspensory veto from two years to one, and I am invited to vote against that proposal on the grounds set out in the Amendment, which grounds have been further elaborated in Debate. I want to examine those grounds as fairly and impartially as I can, because I agree with the noble Lord who has just spoken that this is a specially important Measure. 231 The grounds which are suggested are these. First, it is said we have no mandate to do this thing. I think that is debatable, but, whether it is right or not, assuming we have no mandate to do this special thing that would not of itself persuade me that I ought not to consider the proposal on its merits, because Governments cannot be elected merely to do those things set out in their election programme and do no more. Governments are elected to govern, and I know of no general principle which will absolve me of the duty which I owe to my constituents to examine on its merits any proposal that the Government brings forward.

The second reason that is suggested is that this will merely serve to distract the attention of the electorate from the economic perils which beset us. I notice no such distracting influence among my constituents. From the moment when this proposal was first mooted until now, the contents of my postbag have remained very much the same—complaints about the abolition of the basic petrol ration, fears about the adequacy of the coal ration during the coming winter, appeals to the Chancellor of the Exchequer through me, which I now pass on to the Financial Secretary who is sitting on the Front Bench, that he will not increase the tobacco tax tomorrow, and various other things like that, but not a word about the suspensory veto.

The third reason is that we should not do this at this time. This is a time when there is no actual constitutional conflict with the House of Lords over the rejection of some particular Measure. It is, therefore, a time when feelings are not, or should not be, running high through such happenings; nor is it a time when judgments will be impaired by such high feelings. I feel that it is a far better time to consider proposals of this kind than would be a time when passions were inflamed by some actual conflict with the other House. Then, it is said—and this is a point which was developed with much force and eloquence by the hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Hogg)—that we ought not to embark on reform piecemeal, but that, if we are going to do anything at all, we should reform the House of Lords root and branch; in other words, we should go the whole hog. [Laughter.] I did not mean that as a pun. I disagree with that 232 argument. If a particular Measure of reform is of value on its merits, why should we defer it until we can carry out some wider and more general reforms? To argue in that way seems to me to be like arguing that, because one cannot pull down one's house and erect a new one, one should not repair or improve it when one has the chance, and that argument does not convince me.

Finally, it is said, "Look at the powers which we leave to the House of Lords. We leave them one year's suspensory veto, which means that, in the last year of the life of this Parliament, the Government will be at the mercy of the other place." I agree that we are doing that, but that seems to me to be the most effective answer to the allegations of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition this afternoon to the effect that we want a single-Chamber Government. If we were doing that, the proposal would be to abolish the veto altogether. The hon. Member for Oxford also said that we should remember the Statutory Rules and Orders, where an absolute veto is given to another place, and yet we were leaving that alone. I agree that that is an illogicality, but the remedy is not to drop this proposal, but to make the veto applicable to Statutory Rules and Orders as well.

Therefore, I do not feel constrained on these general grounds to refrain even from considering this proposal on its merits, and when I proceed to do so I find that the real issue is this. What particular virtue is there in a two years' delay which is absent from one year's delay? The only speaker on the Opposition Benches whom I have heard trying to grapple with that problem was the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for West Derby (Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe), and he gave an example to the House yesterday which I will adapt, supplementing it with actual dates. The right hon. and learned Gentleman said that a Bill introduced for its Second Reading in this House, let us say, in November, 1946, would have gone to the House of Lords about June, 1947. The House of Lords throws it out in July, 1947. It is introduced in the Commons again in the next Session in November, 1947, and then the Government says, "Well, we considered this before, and there is no need to go over it again," so that the Bill goes through with tearing 233 speed and its Third Reading is in December, 1947.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman says that the only delay is between July, 1947, when the House of Lords threw it out, and December, 1947, when it is read again for the First time in the House of Commons, and obviously that period is certainly less than six months. Obviously, that delay is certainly less than six months, but the delay which is contemplated by the Parliament Act is that between the first Second Reading of the Bill and the third Third Reading. If we are to compare like with like, what we have got to compare here is the period between the first Second Reading and the second Third Reading, that is to say, the period between November, 1946, on the hon. and learned Gentleman's example, and December, 1947, which is one year and one month. That is the period which the Parliament Act contemplates, and for the very good reason that the whole basis of the delay is to give the electorate sufficient time to decide whether they want the Measure, and, if they do not, to make their disapproval very clear to the Government of the day.

I think we ought to test this quarrel between one year and two by taking an actual example, which I do not think any one has yet done. Supposing that a Government, without any particular mandate for the purpose, suddenly said, "We are sick and tired of all this slaughter on the roads; no Measure, so far, has stopped it. We are going to take our courage in both hands and abolish road transport in this country altogether, and we will rely once again on the horse and cart and the bicycle for getting about." Such a Measure would evoke a great deal of support because some of us think that 6,000 lives a year is a hideous blot on our way of life. Other people would oppose such a Measure on the ground that it is the price we have to pay for the convenience which motor transport affords. The country would certainly be divided into two over such a proposal, and a proposal of that kind would cut right across party lines.

Let us assume that the House of Lords threw out such a Bill. Does anyone suggest that a year, between the Second Reading of the Bill and its final Third Reading in this House would be an insufficient time for the electorate to make 234 up its mind on the proposal? There are many ways in which electorates can make their views felt by the Government of the day, however great its majority may be. There are by-elections, public meetings, the Press, petitions, the reception that Members of Parliament get when they attend meetings in their own constituencies, and, if the House likes, I will throw in local municipal elections. Therefore, I do not see why it should be necessary to give the electorate two years instead of one in order to make it quite clear to the Government of the day what the wishes of the electorate are.

I am fortified in that view by what happened in this House in 1907 when, by a large majority and after a three days' Debate, it passed a Resolution in the following terms: That in order to give effect to the will of the people as expressed by their elected representatives, it is necessary that the power of the other House to alter or reject Bills passed by this House should be so restricted by law as to secure that within the limits of a single Parliament the final decision of the Commons should prevail. We are not going nearly so far as that Resolution, one of the chief speakers in support of which was the present Leader of the Opposition. The title of the book in which that Resolution is set out, is Taswell Langmead's "Constitutional History, Tenth Edition," published in 1946. The writer goes on to say: No legislation was proposed at the moment, but Campbell Bannerman put forward the outlines of a scheme whereby a Bill passed by the Commons and rejected by the Lords should become law if three successive private conferences between the two Houses failed to secure agreement, the Bill having been passed by the Commons afresh as a preliminary to the second and third conferences. The scheme did not touch the composition of the House of Lords, did not contemplate a general election intervening and involved a delay which need not be much more than 12 months. That was the proposal supported by the Leader of the Opposition in 1907, and, accordingly, this Measure is not some outrageous Socialist Bill. We are merely following in the footsteps of the Liberals of 1907. For those reasons, I retrain completely unconvinced, having given this matter as impartial a consideration as I can, that two years are really necessary. I see no special virtue in two years over one, and I therefore propose to vote in support of the Second Reading.