CONSTITUTION OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS

THE EARL OF GLASGOW

My Lords, again I must ask for your indulgence, as I have been ordered not to speak here unless I read what I have to say. I hope your Lordships will credit me with sincerity when I say how much I dislike finding myself in opposition to Her Majesty's Government, to whom I have on many occasions given my loyal support but opposition is often a good thing, especially if it has a clarifying effect on the issues concerned. It requires strong conviction to hold to one's opinion and not to follow the line of least resistance, especially when doing so implies disloyalty to plans conceived by one's own Party.

I heard with interest the speech made yesterday by the noble Earl the Leader of the House. As I listened to his persuasive words, I thought of the effect that they would have on those who were unaware of the fatal pitfalls there are in the plans of Her Majesty's Government, every one of which I believe to be basically unsound so far as the future welfare of this House is concerned. The noble Earl and his advisers seem obsessed with two things which are interrelated: the admission of Life Peers and the longterm aim of equalisation of the Parties. In my view these changes will, if agreed to, lower the efficiency and undermine the independence of your Lordships' House. as well as abolishing its centuries-old traditions and people in this country who have looked to debates in this House under its present composition for expert knowledge and guidance will find set up in this ancient Chamber a replica of another place, but without its powers, which will inspire little confidence and probably require a Lord Chairman to keep it in order.

The noble Earl, in his speech, discarded all alternatives and has put forward reasons which in my opinion do not 684 justify the all-embracing changes that he proposes should be made. Who is it Her Majesty's Government are trying to appease? It cannot be Conservative public opinion, for time and time again that has shown its appreciation of the efficiency with which your Lordships carry on the business of this House. Nor can it be the Left-Wing Socialists, who are unappeasable and on whom no supposedly popular changes in the composition of this House will have the slightest effect. There are in existence Conservative groups the members of which are mortally afraid of being called "reactionaries." They are continually looking over their shoulders in case anything they say may appear to their friends to be non-progressive. It may be that Ministers of the Crown come into this category after listening to the persuasive, almost mesmeric arguments for reform put forward by the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury.

Whatever may be the deep-seated reason for these proposed changes, I felt that the time had come—perhaps it is now too late—to make a stand against the Left-Wing Conservatives and their Liberal supporters who, at the moment, appear to dominate your Lordships' House. I therefore put down a Motion which we should now have been discussing but which had to be withdrawn because no support for it was forthcoming: I could not even get a Teller. My Motion was as follows: That in order to strengthen the Opposition, this House considers that the creation of a small number of hereditary Peers is preferable to the creation of life peerages, which would entail the abandonment of the hereditary principle which for centuries has been the foundation of membership of this House, and, further, that the equalisation of the Parties is against the interests and the future welfare of this House. If this Motion had been agreed to it would have provided an alternative to the proposals of Her Majesty's Government, and would have had the double effect of strengthening the Opposition and retaining the status quo.

A great deal has been said about the precedent of the admission of Law Lords, but under the Act passed in 1876, four Lords of Appeal in Ordinary were created Life Peers, and since then the number has been raised to nine. This did create a precedent and was a small infringement of the hereditary principle. The noble 685 Earl the Leader of the House may therefore feel himself to be on firm ground in asking your Lordships to consent to the admission into this House of a number of individuals, including women, on a non-hereditary basis, thus abandoning the hereditary principle on which for centuries membership of your Lordships' House has been based. But the two matters—the position of the Law Lords and Life Peerages—are not comparable. The creation of Lords of Appeal in Ordinary as Life Peers was an absolute necessity, because at that time no-one in your Lordships' House, except the Lord Chancellor, had any knowledge of the processes of the law. But what the noble Earl is asking your Lordships to agree to is unnecessary, as the alternative put forward in the Motion I have read would have removed the main difficulty in the running of this House.

As your Lordships know, the chief trouble which has beset this House, and a trouble which must be met, has been the diminishing Opposition and the difficulty of getting suitable persons of Left Vying views to accept hereditary peerages and so relieve the strain on noble Lords opposite. One of the reasons for this was the obvious one; that they would not be able to afford it. Now that your Lordships are paid for attendance, a solution has been found. There has been another difficulty besides that of payment, and that is that many persons of Left Wing views are averse to hereditary titles. Some certainly may be, but now that the main obstacle has been overcome it will be possible to find eight or ten persons who would be prepared to enter this House as hereditary Peers, and give their support to the noble Lords opposite; and it might even be feasible to find suitable persons who, unfortunately for themselves, are childless, and who would thus become not only hereditary but also Life Peers.

I have gone into this point very thoroughly, and in spite of the misgivings of certain noble Lords I have been assured from the most reliable resources that now that your Lordships are paid for attendance there will be no difficulty whatever in getting persons of Left Wing views to accept hereditary peerages. My sources are very good indeed, and very reliable. I recognise that the creation of such peerages for political reasons is 686 unpalatable to some of your Lordships, but I, and I believe most of your Lordships, would like to see more eminent men of Left Wing views brought into this House. Their admission here, besides being an asset, would ensure the retention of the status quo, and maintain the traditions of this House.

I had hoped that the noble Earl the Leader of the House, would have taken the line suggested in my Motion, instead of asking your Lordships to agree to the admission of individuals on a non-hereditary basis. It is a dangerous thing to tamper with the hereditary principle in a country ruled like ours, which has no written Constitution. The ruling of this country is a lonely task, and if your Lordships, of your own act, in this place cast away the hereditary principle, that task will become still more lonely.

It is evident that the proposed admission of Life Peers is related to Clause 2 of the 1948 Conference, which suggests that the revised composition of your Lordships' House should be such as to secure, so far as practicable, equality between the political Parties, and I hope your Lordships will not be misled by the comparatively mild suggestions of the Government's present schemes. The long-term aim is the same, and there should be no compromise. I noticed that the noble Earl said very little about this long-term aim. The tactics of the Government are good. They remind me of the old Chinese proverb Softly, softly, catchee monkey". However, with regard to this equalisation of the Parties, your Lordships will remember that the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, in the debate in 1955, used the words We can all accept proposition 2. … Her Majesty's Government certainly do. This is very definite, and I find it impossible, for several reasons, to follow the noble Earl the Leader of the House along those lines.

In the first place, under the House's present composition. I can, like any other Member, give my views on any subject which comes up, whether I am in agreement or not with the Government in office. Clause 2, if agreed to, would threaten one of the greatest assets of your Lordships' House, the independence of its Members in the expression of their 687 opinions. The equalisation, or even the partial parity, of the Parties would introduce into this House the turmoil and strife of Party warfare, making it as like another place as possible. Noble Lords, nominated or otherwise, would have to vote and speak as they were told. Your Lordships have an example before your eyes. Noble Lords opposite have to obey orders. There are occasions when they are gagged and hamstrung by Party discipline, and that would be the fate of noble Lords on this side if Clause 2 were agreed to. As I have said, it threatens that independence of thought and expression which has made this House the greatest debating Chamber in the world and gained for it the respect and confidence of the country.

I may be told that I am exaggerating, and that the new House will be little different from the old and will have the same opportunities for the free expression of opinions. I ask your Lordships to visualise the situation as it certainly will be. The time will come when the two Parties will be nearly equal; there will. at times, be bitter recriminations and Party strife. Noble Lords who criticise their own Party's policies will be looked upon with disfavour, and gone will be the present atmosphere which is so necessary for unbiased and clear thinking. There will be less time and fewer opportunities for independent views and for the leisurely and careful consideration of Bills and policies, something which is so well carried out by your Lordships under the House's present composition.

I hope that the Conservative majority here will continue. It does no harm to anyone, least of all to the Socialist Party. On that point, let me remind your Lordships that the number of Government Bills that came before this House during the administration of the late Socialist Government was 409, all of which, including nationalisation Bills were passed after amendment—with one exception, which concerned your Lordships' House. This House is now a revising Chamber, doing useful work, and a deadlock between the two Chambers is extremely unlikely. I may be told that an increase of from eight to ten Peers does not go far enough, but it would, I suggest, be enough to start with. It certainly would not be sufficient to equalise the Parties, but I 688 believe that only a minority of your Lordships wish to turn this House into a bear garden. A number of noble Lords who may want it that way have come to this House after serving for years in another place, and have enriched our debates by their knowledge and political experience. They come with the light of battle in their eyes, but the debates which take place here seem to them dull and dreary, and some of them may be prepared to support any change in the composition of your Lordships' House which will give them the chance of taking part in the cut and thrust of Party warfare. They are mostly first-creation Peers and men of eminence and distinction. And the fact that we have so many of these noble Lords, who, take an active part in debates and who are in frequent attendance, demolishes the argument that this House as a whole requires to be further strengthened.

Then there are some noble Lords who may look upon the nomination of Life Peers as a good compromise, and who are probably relieved that, although old traditions may be sacrificed, they themselves may still have the hereditary right to sit. Again, there are others, especially on the Liberal Benches, who think that your Lordships' House must, in the well-worn phrase, "march with the times"; but if your Lordships go too far and too fast along that road you will stultify yourselves. This House is an anachronism. and therein lies its strength. Take away its unique political independence, remove even a part of its hereditary character, and you will be doing away with an atmosphere, something which is indefinable and intangible but which has a strength of its own, because it is part of the tradition of a great nation. I am sorry if I repeat myself, but it cannot be emphasised too often that these debates which take place in your Lordships' House, under its present composition, are necessary to the country because they are free and largely independent of votes and Party, and are carried through, by men who know what they are talking about. Consequently, there is no need for a large number of new Members, however eminent, to add to the talents your Lordships already possess in good measure.

There have been other attempts to introduce Life Peers into this House. In 1853, during the debate on the Northcote-Trevelyan Report, it was mentioned that 689 it was the hereditary quality of your Lordships' House which gave weight and steadiness to its decisions, and that if the hereditary character of this House is taken away, its independence is gone. Lord Campbell followed this up by pointing out that the House of Lords had been abolished in the 17th century and a Chamber of Life Peers might do it again. If the liquidation of this House is to be our ultimate fate, I hope we shall go down with the flag flying, as we are. In past debates, the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, has mentioned the difficulty he had of getting young men to come forward and help in the running of this House, but it may well be that the payment of your Lordships for attendance, small though it is, will prove an incentive to ambitious young Peers to take up a political career rather than go into business—I know it is small, but still it is possible. Also, if the noble Marquess was hard pressed, surely it would have been possible to find eldest sons of Peers with ability and a desire to serve the country who would accept peerages.

May I remind your Lordships that in the past this House was run by the few and not by the many. In 1774, the average attendance was thirty-five, a number which is about the percentage of the then smaller peerage as 100 is to-day, and it remained much the same throughout the reign of King George III. Taking the average attendance to-day as from 90 to 100, one finds that the comparable average then was much the same. The usual attendance in those old days seems to have been from ten to twenty, so it would appear that although trade and commerce did not take up the time of young Peers as they do to-day, leisure and the demands of a society life did. Therefore, from the point of view of getting young Peers to help, the position then cannot have been very much different from what it is now, and yet they managed. I believe that this is a small difficulty which, if the will is there, can be overcome. It may be thought that I have been laying too much emphasis on tradition, but this country has been built up on tradition in its system of government, in the law, in civil life and in the Armed Forces; and it is true to say that it is the respect of our people for tradition which has helped us as a nation to present a stable front in the world of 690 chaos which has existed for so many years.

Now let me turn to the question of women. On at least three occasions—maybe two; I am not quite sure—this House has turned down the admission of women, and nothing has happened since the last time to make your Lordships change your minds. I hope that your Lordships will not weaken now. Women do excellent work throughout the country, especially in welfare, but, excepting for a few, they are not—I should have said, in my opinion—suited to politics, for the following reasons. They are often moved by their hearts more than they are by their heads, and the emotional urge which exists in a woman's make-up does not help towards good judgment. It is said that to allow women in another place and not here is not logical; but logic is not always infallible. The main point is that many of us do not want women in this House. We do not want to sit beside them on these Benches, nor do we want to meet them in the Library. This is a House of men, a House of Lords. We do not wish it to become a House of Lords and Ladies.

There is another aspect of the general situation. If the Government decide that this House is to be modernised, such action may be considered in some quarters as the setting up of a rival Chamber to another place, and would not he tolerated. Although we know that this would not be true, it may well be considered so. Therefore, if your Lordships encourage the plans of the Government, I am of the opinion that it will be the greatest mistake that has ever been made in this House in its existence.

Finally, there is one point I should like to emphasise. It is this: if this House were to be given more powers, there might be some excuse for the acceptance of at least some of these reforms, but as there is no chance of that I cannot see what possible advantage will accrue to your Lordships' House, or to the nation at large, by changing the composition of a legislative body which, as is everywhere admitted, does its work extremely well. My Lords, we continue to see changes all around us. We see things which we had always thought sacrosanct altered beyond all recognition. But there are other things which stand like rocks in this ageless State. May your Lordships' House be one of them!

EARL ATTLEE

My Lords, as rather a newcomer to your Lordships' House, I have a certain diffidence in addressing your Lordships on this subject, more especially after hearing so many interesting speeches yesterday and to-day, not the least interesting being that of the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow. Yesterday we had a remarkable speech from the noble Viscount. Lord Samuel. If all Members of your Lordships' House kept as young in the eighties as he does, there would be no question about the introducing of more youth into this House. I was much impressed, if I may say so, by the speech of the noble Viscount, Lord Ingleby, so long a colleague in another place, who I thought made a delightful contribution.

Although I was not a Member of either Legislative Chamber, and only a rank-and-file Member of a Party then, the events of 1910 are still vivid to me. When I heard of the idea that in coming up to your Lordships' House one came into a cool atmosphere, I could not help recollecting that there was nothing cool about the atmosphere of 1910. The events of 1910 were regarded as the final service of the Liberal Party to this country in the field of political emancipation, but in our Party we always had a certain apprehension that once again the Commons might be challenged by your Lordships' House. For many years I occupied a room in the other place dedicated to the Leader of the Opposition, and over the mantelpiece was the text "Fear the Lord alway." I thought that was "Fear the Lords always." We had a certain apprehension, but, generally speaking, it was a matter of letting sleeping dogs lie—not that I would use the term "dog" abusively to this House, a very fine, ancient, pedigreed animal. We always thought that it might bite again, but actually when Labour came into power in 1945 there was no trouble. I think that was very largely due to the high statesmanship of the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, and I think the country will always be indebted to him for it.

It is true that there was one matter in which we had to proceed, and that was the amendment of the Parliament Act. There was some question at a late hour yesterday about why we did that. It was suggested that it was an unprovoked assault, or words to that effect. As a matter of fact, it was what one might 692 call "intelligent anticipation." On a battlefield one occupies a particular feature of the landscape because one may apprehend attack in that place, and our intelligence was proved to be right by the event. But, broadly speaking, we accepted things as they were, because we were dealing largely with economic matters and we did not think that there was a case for going out for all-out change.

On the other hand. other Parties invited us to discuss these matters, and the Conference which was held went into full consultation and arrived at certain conclusions which we were prepared to put before our Party. We had no mandate; nor had the leaders of other Parties. Whether or not they would have been accepted by the Labour Party at the time, I do not know. I gather that there were similar doubts on the other side. But there was an opportunity which. in my view, was let slip over a quarrel on some six or eight months' delaying power of your Lordships' House. A good deal of water has passed under the bridge since then, and I do not think that at the present time it would be fruitful to renew an inter-Party conflict.

So we come to the present time. Frankly, my attitude was at one time in favour of single-Chamber Government. In the old days of 1910 we always said, "Away with the Lords!" Since then, as the result of experience, I have come to believe in a Second Chamber. One must not confuse the idea of a Second Chamber exactly with a House of Lords. I have been against anything which would in any way thwart the will of the elected representatives of the people. On the other hand, I recognise that, owing to stress of business in another place, one does need a revising Chamber. Ministers would hardly ever be able to "get away with it" if they could not from time to time say, "Well, I will see whether something can be done about it in another place." That is very different from giving power to a non-elected and non-representative Assembly to act against the will of the electors.

It is true that this House is an anomaly, It is part of our history, come down to us from the time when it was even the predominant part of the Legislature. But to-day it is, I think, mainly complementary to another place. What we are considering to-day really is how far it fulfils 693 the need of the present time. I agree that, on the whole, against all probability, it works extremely well, as things do in this country. We are very wise not to be logical. The French are a very logical nation, and they have several Governments every year. It is also true that this House has very distinguished persons in it: it can draw on all kinds of experience. What I think it comes down to is the difficulty that faces us in these days of getting what I call the hard core of full-timers. The same applies to another place. There may be people who can give a certain amount of time, while mainly occupied by other things, but there must always be a hard core of people who can devote their whole time. In the old days one could find such people, because there were people of great possessions. Nowadays the problem is more difficult, and it is particularly difficult for an Opposition Party such as the Labour Party.

I have never maintained that we wanted to have a mathematical equality between Parties in this House. All I claimed was that there should be a possibility, at some time or other, of not having the House solely the preserve of one Party with an overwhelming majority. Some of my friends defend it or the grounds that, just because its composition is so anomalous, no one will ever seek to give it more power; and that if it were made more logical, it night be a case of trying to give it more power as against another place. The noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, has expressly disclaimed any desire to increase the power of this House. That is very sad. But the noble Marquess may not last for ever. I do not know what would happen if the noble Lord, Lord Hailsham, succeeded. We have seen what he can do with a bell, and what he can do with a House of Lords I do not quite know. But assuming that there is no desire there to increase the power of the House, there is still a need to get a workable team on both sides.

Frankly, my Lords, I do not think that the present proposals really get over the difficulty. It is all very well for the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow, to say that three guineas a day, three times a week, will tempt the rising generation front trade and industry. I beg leave to doubt it. I agree, on the other hand, with those who have said that it is in- 694 sufficient for people who are going to do a full-time job. Therefore, one has to look at the matter from the point of view of giving adequate remuneration to those who attend. I do not like the idea of "clocking in," so to speak: I do not think it is very dignified. On the other hand, the idea of a salary is almost impossible, so long as there are some 600 people or so outside who may attend—I think the noble Marquess is perfectly right in that. That is why I do not think the proposal to create a certain number of Life Peers is the real answer, though it would be of some advantage. It is often difficult for people to accept Peerages, particularly when they have a family. I have sometimes had the job of seeking to reinforce your Lordships' House. In the Labour Party, not being sterile, most people had children, and it was not always the fact that those without children were the best people to be sent up here. So I do not think you will get over that. I agree that the admission of women is right. I think it is desirable. I believe that it would be of great assistance, and might be of extreme value in our discussions. Furthermore, with the comparatively short sittings that we have in this House, it might be possible for women members to attend quite regularly, despite their other avocations.

But that does not get over the difficulty that was pointed out, if a number of Lila Peers is to be added to our present numbers, our numbers will go on increasing and increasing. Therefore, I do think, if this matter is going to be dealt with seriously, it is necessary to consider somehow the cutting down of numbers. I do not think the device of giving leave of absence is very satisfactory. After all, it does not remove something which on our side we regard as a potential menace. I am bound to say that perhaps our members tend to think of the 400 or 500 who do not attend. They feel that most of these Members hold views somewhat similar to those of the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow—or more extreme. I expect we are quite wrong, but there is that potential menace. Therefore, I think if we are going in for reform here we have got to deal with the hereditary principle.

It has been suggested that we might make a distinction between Peers of Parliament and other Peers; that by issuing Writs for each Parliament to a limited 695 number of Peers it might result in a smaller House. I do not quite know who is going to advise on that—presumably the Party Leaders. Here we come to the deep-laid suspicion that many noble Lords have of Party Leaders and Parties, and the great pride in independence. With regard to independents, I agree with the great Conservative, the Earl of Beaconsfield. who said: Independents are people you cannot depend on.

THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM)

I believe it was the fourteenth Earl of Derby who said that.

EARL ATTLEE

Far be it from me to take the credit from anybody else, but it is the case with almost all good sayings on the Conservative side that they are put down either to the Earl of Beaconsfield or to Sir Winston Churchill. But whoever said it, there is a lot of truth in it. The fact is that you have to realise that the working of our Constitution does depend on the Party system. If you want to see how you cannot work democracy without a proper Party system, you have only to look across the Channel. It may be difficult, but it is the one way out.

I feel that the Government, while they were about it, might have dealt with some other anomalies. There is that brought up in regard to the Scottish Peers by the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun. Then there is the question which I should have thought would have been in the forefront—namely, the right to refuse to come to this House. That was put admirably and temperately by Mr. Anthony Wedgwood Benn quite recently, and it was put somewhat violently by the noble and learned Viscount Lord Hailsham. The greatest "slating" I ever had was in a letter to The Times from Lord Hailsham on account of my refusal to summon Parliament to meet in the middle of September to deal with his particular case. It showed the importance of the subject to the noble and learned Viscount. I am surprised that, with his position of eminence in his Party, these proposals should come forward without that essential. Undoubtedly it is hard, and, of course, it is one of the things that prevent some people from coming to your Lordships' House: they have a hopeful boy who might do great things in the Commons and the hopeful 696 boy tells his father that he does not want to come here. Unless they are fortunate in having a very long-lived father, such as we all hope the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate will be—be is only a young man of eighty or so now—they are in danger of having a promising career nipped in the bud. If proposals were to be put forward, I should have thought that was one which would have been included.

I have one last point to make. The right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Chichester put forward a proposal for adding representatives of the other Churches to your Lordships' House. Frankly, I am against that idea. I think that, historically, the Bishops came here not through their spirituality but through their temporality, because they were Barons and fighting men. I think it was Stalin who asked how many divisions the Pope could put into the field. In old times it was often asked how many men-at-arms the noble Bishops could provide. I do not think representatives of other religious bodies would add to the efficiency of this House, because in this House we get quite a number of laymen who are fully qualified to speak to the House on these matters. In any event, I think the presence of the Bishops here is taking them away from their proper work. What will be the fate of these proposals, I do not know. I have watched this question for forty-seven years, and all that time it has been one that did not brook delay. Well the brook may go on—I do not know.

LORD REA

My Lords, at this stage in the debate, twenty-four hours after the noble Lord. Lord Teynham, put his inspired Question, and almost half a century after the matter first became urgent. I have no intention of pursuing academical arguments, or indeed of making the speech which I had intended to make, because I have had the great gratification of hearing that speech from every quarter of the House during the last twenty-four hours. But I think perhaps it is suitable that I should put before your Lordships the attitude of the Party for which I speak, if indeed it is necessary to say more than that we have not deviated, as a Party, from the conclusions to which we came forty-six years ago; that some improvement in the composition or the powers, or both, was necessary 697 in regard to your Lordships' House. In this respect I follow the line taken by the noble Lord, Lord Pethick-Lawrence: that this matter has ceased to be a Party issue and is one of individual political conscience. Just as he and the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, deviated from the rigid neutrality of their Leader, so I think I must claim some indulgence for any noble Lords on these Benches who may not unreservedly accept our Party line of welcoming these present proposals, with the reservation that we look upon them as an earnest of something better and rather wider in the way of reform yet to come.

Without going into detail, it would seem quite obvious that the whole principle of some reconstitution of the Second Chamber, which I think obviously now has the support of the majority of your Lordships, stems perfectly plainly from the fact that the hereditary system, whatever may be said for it or against it, has in some way got a little out of focus in relation to the function of a Second Chamber in our democratic State. It does, I think, call for some rearrangement and some tidying up: partly, perhaps, by the creation of Life Peers; partly, perhaps, by the inclusion of women, and partly, perhaps, by some other measure that we have not yet found. But basically the unbalance of this House, upon which I think we almost all agree, is connected (and at this stage I would not go further than saying "connected") with the development of the hereditary system in this House. Yet that is the basic one thing which the Government have side-stepped and are not proposing to tackle at the moment. That I regret.

Will the creation of ten Life Peers a year, of which we approve, have any appreciable effect on a House of some 870 Members? Is the inclusion of women anything more than a side issue, undertaken as a belated gesture of consistency and justice? These two issues taken in isolation from any attempt to solve the real, main difficulty of the present composition of the House seem to me to present a lopsided attempt at a solution, in which I suggest the Government have been, so to speak, artistically most inept. Speaking artistically, the artist, of course, is always at a disadvantage vis-à-vis the Almighty, since he is striving all the time to reproduce in two dimensions what the 698 Almighty does so much better in three. That, I suggest, is what is happening in the present situation.

At this stage I do not propose to make any new suggestions, but, while paying tribute to the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury for his advocacy of these reforms, I may add that t am rather unimpressed by his argument that the hereditary Peers cannot follow the example of the Scottish elected Peers because they do not know each other well enough. In an ordinary Parliamentary election to the other House the electorate numbers about 70,000, of whom I suspect that at least 50,000 or 60,000 have never dined with, do not know and have not even seen or heard the candidate for whom they propose to vote. If 600 or 700 so-called "backwoods Peers" of the reasonably high capacity which the noble Marquess quite justifiably attributed to them are unable to select 200 or 300 of their own number, then things do look rather grim. In my opinion, it is such a selection of hereditary Peers among themselves which would most easily, at least for the present, ensure that continuance of that youthful element in your Lordships' House, whose existence seems to me of absolutely vital importance.

From the Government's proposals I turn to the Opposition's lack of proposals. For two generations, if not three, the Labour Party have denounced the House of Lords. The proletariat has been taught to denounce the House of Lords, and I have no doubt that that part of the proletariat which still supports the Labour Party expects its leaders either to abolish or to reform the House of Lords. But are they being misled'? Of course, to-day there is a different part of the proletariat who join with many of the non-proletariat in wishing to goodness that we could get rid of this Tory Government, while hoping to goodness at the same time that we shall not get a Labour one. But that is a point I shall not pursue at the moment.

How comes it that the feet of the Socialist Party continue to be so cold, time after time, that in this matter they neither advance nor retire? What do they want to do? It may be that they realise that the electorate is not so much in love with one-Chamber government as it used to be. Or perhaps they are hoping that time may do their work for them, and 699 if they hang back from their previously declared convictions and let the matter go, this House may die of inanition. If that is their line, I think it is politically unworthy. I have in mind a much stronger word than "unworthy", but I will let it go at that.

VISCOUNT STANSGATE

My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord a question? The Liberal Party declared forty years ago that this matter "brooked no delay". What proposals have the Liberal Party put forward for the reform of the House of Lords?

LORD REA

The Liberal Party, so far as I know, is the only one of the three Parties who have consistently supported some measure towards the reform of the House of Lords.

VISCOUNT STANSGATE

But what measure?

LORD REA

If the noble Viscount will refer to the All-Leaders Conference in 1948, at which a large measure of agreement was achieved, and also to the Parliamentary records, he will find that the Liberal Party supported the Liberal leader, who took that line.

VISCOUNT STANSGATE

The Labour proposals.

LORD REA

From the Front Labour Bench in recent times my Party, the Liberal Party, has been accused of becoming more and more reactionary.

LORD REA

I am very glad to hear those cheers, for it shows that I have not misquoted anybody. Perhaps it means that our constant effort, particularly through the noble Viscount. Lord Samuel, to modify the non-representational part of the British Parliament—despite every lack of co-operation from the Labour Party—is retrogressive or feudal. I do not think that that can be maintained. Does it mean, perhaps, that on occasions when we join the Labour Party in the Division Lobby in one of their more liberal moods, against what we consider to be a reactionary Government measure, we are then considered to be progressive? That frequently happens. But when we support the present Government on a point where we consider that the Labour view in this 700 House is old-fashioned, partisan, doctrinaire, conservative, damaging to the majority of the workers and inimical to the welfare of a progressive State, as in the present instance, then they call us reactionary.

There is one more point which has, I think, been touched upon only by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, and that is the position of those who are destined to be Members of your Lordships' House and who would like to be free to pursue a Parliamentary political career in another place. We are all looking forward to hearing the Lord President intervene in this debate, and if his personal modesty should prevent him from touching upon this particular subject perhaps we might look to the Lord Chancellor to enlighten us as far as possible. The noble Viscount. Lord Hailsham, as the pillar, if not the pediment, of the Conservative Party, last week-end—and admittedly in a different context—used these rather remarkable words: I will not have things different than they are.

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

It should be "would."

LORD REA

I do not expect the noble Viscount to take that line in this debate, but should be do so I must warn him that I, for one, shall differ "than" him. I submit that the great changeover in the opinion of Members of this Chamber regarding the necessity for putting our House in order is a welcome and encouraging sign. I am content to go slowly—but not too slowly—and we here on these Benches, representing, as I say, the only Party that has consistently supported measures of this sort, congratulate the Government on bringing them forward.

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

My Lords. I was originally drafted into this position by my colleagues at a time when the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow, was still looking for his Teller and before it was known that one could not be found. I had had some doubts, I confess, as to whether it was appropriate at all for a third member of the Government Front Bench to intervene, because I think there has been a very wide measure of agreement in what has been an agreeable debate.

Like my noble friend the Marquess of Salisbury, I personally have lived with 701 this problem for a considerable time: ever since, thirty years ago, my father rather coyly confided to me that he had been invited to occupy the Woolsack, and that an inevitable consequence of this was that he would have to accept an hereditary peerage. Although he, with characteristic generosity, consulted his potential heir in the matter, I regret to say that he did not follow his advice. Since that time, over a period of more than ten years I have taken part in almost every debate on the subject of the Second Chamber in either House of Parliament, and I have a number of convictions which are recorded against me. They are sincerely held convictions; and I certainly would not, in anything I say to-day, desire to depart from the substance of anything that I have said at any time about them.

I certainly remember my exchange with the noble Earl opposite. If I may offer him a gentle reproach, it would be that lie is quite mistaken, and if he will look up the record he will find that he is mistaken in thinking that I was demanding either the special return of Parliament or the individual and separate treatment of my own affairs. What I was asking for was the kind of general reform of the law which he was this afternoon regretting that the Government had not introduced. If I did subject him to some criticism, I should hardly have thought that it was to be dignified by the term "slating." It was because I thought then, as I think now, that there was a slight uneasiness of conscience on his part which led him to misrepresent the real nature of my request.

But it is clearly my duty this afternoon, quite humbly and dispassionately as the servant of this House, to offer what objective advice I can as to the attitude the House should take about the proposals which fell from my noble friend yesterday. Viewing the matter as dispassionately as I can—and your Lord- ships know I never have the brand of emotion to enter into what the noble Lord referred to as his "make-up"—I am in absolutely no doubt as to what that advice should be. It is that we are right to act; that we act late rather than too soon; and that the measures which have been proposed by my noble friend are intrinsically desirable measures which ought to be adopted, although, as anyone would expect from a person like myself who has expressed strong convic- 702 tions on this subject in the past, I do not pretend that these measures are adequate or a final reform. Nor would I seek to do so: it would be wholly inconsistent with everything I have said in the past, and everything I believe now. But it would be none the less my unequivocal advice that, at the juncture at which we now are, an attempt to load into the Government programme much more than is already there would cause these proposals in their turn to founder, as previous proposals have foundered in the past, for multiplicity of counsel and divergent opinions.

I sincerely think, notwithstanding the fact that I should like to see a great deal more in them—and here I speak as one who has interested himself in this matter for nearly thirty years—that if we put more into the proposals now, we should lose them for want of sufficient basis of agreement to carry them through both Houses of Parliament. I thought myself, with the greatest respect in the world, that my noble friend Lord Salisbury was a little less than generous to the Leader of the House when he described the proposals as "half a loaf being better than no bread." My own conviction is that we should be unable to secure, except perhaps with a disproportionate expenditure of Parliamentary time, effort and emotion, agreement for a wider measure than they represent, which leads me to ask the House to be content, in substance at any rate, with the proposals which we have put forward.

Now I address myself to the three questions which we really have to ask ourselves. Ought we to act? There has, I think, been a wide measure of agreement in all quarters of the House that we ought to act. There has been a surprisingly wide agreement about the nature of the problem about which we ought to act. We are all agreed in principle that a problem exists with regard to those who have a right to come here and perhaps ought not to possess that right. If one looked in the Lobby to-day one would see a whole sheaf of Writs which have not been claimed, at any rate this Session. That in itself constitutes a problem. But, none the less. the primary problem, the thing which makes it imperative to treat this matter as a fairly urgent necessity, is not so much the right to attend of those from whom 703 it might legitimately be withheld, as the necessity of procuring, as the noble Earl opposite has said, the day-to-day attendance of suitable Members when it is difficult to obtain a quorum. Here I would warn those of us who quite rightly, for reasons wholly laudable, do not find it possible to attend regularly, not to be misled by the appearance of the House this afternoon. In the latter stages of the Committee stage of the Shops Bill it did not look quite like this.

THE EARL OF SWINTON

It was not such a good measure.

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

If my noble friend will forgive my saying so, the attendance should not bear a direct proportion to the goodness or badness of the measure. Indeed, if noble Lords opposite were to be listened to, one would suppose that attendance would go in inverse proportion to the goodness of the measure. That is part of their complaint.

My conviction is that we must act in order to recruit adequate numbers to do the ordinary work of the House. I think it has been established beyond doubt that there are people who, for very good reasons, would be glad to accept a Life Barony or a Life Peerage but who would find difficulty, for various reasons which are perfectly honourable to themselves, in accepting an hereditary Peerage. We heard yesterday the noble Lord, Lord Mathers, whose speech we enjoyed, confess that it would have been difficult for him, if he had had an heir, to accept an hereditary Peerage. If he had had an heir, we should therefore have been deprived of his valuable counsel. The late Mr. Leopold Amery told me that similar considerations in a life-long Conservative afflicted him. One has heard many other names and knows many other instances and considerations which might affect them.

Now my noble friend Lord Glasgow asks, whom are we trying to appease? The answer is that we are not trying to appease anybody: we are trying to do what we sincerely regard as our duty. In order to comfort my noble friend Lord Glasgow a little in his grief that we should be undermining the hereditary principle to which he attaches so much importance, I would remind him of what Walter Bagehot said nearly a hundred years ago, in 1867, about Life 704 Peerages. Your Lordships will forgive me if I refer at some length to Walter Bagehot, and forgive me also if I say that of all the writers there have ever been upon the British Constitution I still think he shows the most insight. This is what he said, and I quote it at some length because it is exactly on the point we are discussing to-day. This is what he wrote nearly a hundred years ago, referring to difficulties in our composition: These grave defects would have been at once lessened, and in the course of years nearly effaced, if the House of Lords had not resisted the proposal of Lord Palmerston's first Government to create Peers for life. The expedient was almost perfect. This is what causes the noble Earl so much discomfort to-day. The difficulty of reforming an old institution like the House of Lords is necessarily great; its possibility rests on continuous caste and ancient deference. And if you begin to agitate about it, to bawl at meetings about it. that deference is gone, its peculiar charm lost, its reserved sanctity gone. But, by an odd fatality, there was in the recesses of the Constitution an old prerogative which would have rendered agitation needless—which would have effected, without agitation, all that agitation could have effected. Lord Palmerston was—now that he is dead, and his memory can be calmly viewed—as firm a friend to an aristocracy, as thorough an aristocrat, as any in England; yet he proposed to use that power. I gather that the noble Earl regards me as a Left Wing Conservative with a Liberal supporter. But now hark to this would the noble Earl not regard the late Duke of Wellington as a Conservative? If the House of Lords had still been under the rule of the Duke of Wellington, perhaps they would have acquiesced. The Duke would not indeed have reflected on all the considerations which a philosophic statesman would have set out before him; but he would have been brought right by one of his peculiarities. He disliked, above all things, to oppose the Crown. Then there is a reference to this: He never was comfortable in opposing a conspicuous act of the Crown. It is very likely that, if the Duke had still been the President of the House of Lords, they would have permitted the Crown to prevail in its well chosen scheme. But the Duke was dead, and his authority—or some of it—had fallen to a very different person. Lord Lyndhurst had many great qualities: he had a splendid intellect—as great a faculty of finding truth as any one in his generation; but he had no love of truth. With this great faculty of finding truth, he was a believer in error—in what his own Party now admit to be error—all his life through. He could have found the truth as a stateman just as he found it when a Judge; but he never did find it. He never looked for it. He was a great partisan, and 705 he applied a capacity of argument, and a faculty of intellectual argument rarely equalled, to support the tenets of his party. The proposal to create Life Peers was proposed by the antagonistic Party—was at the moment likely to injure his own Party. To him this was a great opportunity. The speech he delivered on that occasion lives in the memory of those who heard it. His eyes did not at that time let him read, so he repeated by memory, and quite accurately, all the black-letter authorities bearing on the question. So great an intellectual effort has rarely been seen in an English assembly, But the result was deplorable…. The House of Lords rejected the inestimable, the unprecedented opportunity of being tacitly reformed. Such a chance does not come twice. The Life-Peers who would have been introduced would have been among the first men in the country. Lord Macaulay was to have been among the first. Lord Wensleydale—the most learned and the least logical of our lawyers—to be the very first. Thirty or forty such men, added judiciously and sparingly as years went on, would have given to the House of Lords the very element which, as a criticising Chamber, it needs so much. It would have given it critics. The most accomplished men in each department might then, without irrelevant considerations of family and fortune, have been added to the Chamber of Review. The very element which was wanted to the House of Lords was, as it were, by a constitutional providence, offered to the House of Lords, and they refused it. By what species of effort that error can be repaired I cannot tell; but, unless it is repaired, the intellectual capacity can never be what it would have been, will never be what it ought to be, will never be sufficient for its work. My Lords, if, in face of this opinion, written by the acknowledged expert on the British Constitution nearly one hundred years ago, the noble Earl still thinks that this is the project of a Left-Wing Conservative with a Liberal supporter, all I can say is that he needs a great deal of convincing. The truth is that we have paid a melancholy price for Lord Lyndhurst's Indian Summer, and as Lord Ridley reminded us yesterday, owing to his great-grandfather's unfortunate attack of gout.

Assuming, therefore, that we have to act, and that life peerages are desirable, can we, on any rational basis, exclude women? Again, the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow, says that we should—women are so emotional in their make-up. The noble Earl, of course, with his calm and dispassionate temperament which he displayed so clearly to us this afternoon, was s moved by only one logical and totally intellectual consideration: he did not wish to sit beside women or to meet them in the Library. I can understand the intellectual character of his argu- 706 ment. I fully concede that it has nothing whatever to do with his emotional prejudices. None the less, there are some of us who think that there could be no justification whatever for excluding women once the principle of life peerages is accepted. I have been asked in the course of the debate "what about Peeresses in their own right?" I do not suppose that on either side of the House many of us would go to the stake for the inclusion of Peeresses in their own right on our Benches.

VISCOUNT STANSGATE

The Conservative Party divided the House on the issue a few years ago.

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

I hardly think that is the same as going to the stake. I daresay that if your Lordships displayed a strong predeliction in one direction or the other the Government would not resist either course. If I may express, in a sentence, a personal opinion, it is that I am not in favour at the present time of an extension of the hereditary principle. The actual method of descent by which a peerage descends to a Peeress in her own right is so difficult, so complicated and so anomalous that I doubt whether many of your Lordships could accurately describe them; and certainly not one in a million of the public knows that they exist. The law of co-parceny and abeyance seems to me to be so anomalous that to extend the hereditary principle by including it in your Lordships' composition in 1957 would be a doubtful proposition. And, as I said before, I personally do not attach great importance either to the acceptance or rejection of this proposal.

LORD SALTOUN

May I ask the noble Viscount, if that is his sole objection, whether he would consider the case of Scotland, where the method of descent is perfectly simple and clear?

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

My Lords. certainly I will consider anything to do with Scotland; but I am not sure that I know enough about the subject, upon which my noble friend is an acknowledged master, to give him an answer which has not had some degree of deliberation.

The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, suggested that we should have dealt with the anomaly and injustice of the heir who does not wish to succeed to his father's 707 peerage. I must say that it ill becomes him to rebuke me for not dealing with it; of all the people in the world, I should have thought that he was the least entitled to make that reproach to me. I would simply say this: that I do not regard the question of the acceptance of a peerage by an heir as one which can easily be isolated from more general questions affecting the Peerage.

If the noble Earl had been good enough to inquire what I had in mind in 1950 I should have let him into the secret that I had a draft Bill on the subject. That draft Bill, which still reposes, forgotten and unloved, in the files of the Lord Chancellor's Department, and which, like my noble friend Lord Salisbury, I will not now develop further, did in fact make general proposals affecting the character of the House of Lords. I do not believe it is easy—I do not say that it is impossible, only that it is not easy—to isolate this issue; and although I myself do not attempt to disguise my belief that it results in injustice, and even in inconvenience, I do not believe that we should be wise to include it in the modest measure which we have in mind for immediate legislation.

EARL ATTLEE

May I ask the noble Viscount whether this Bill of his was put into the Lord Chancellor's Office by him in the time of his father?

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

My Lords, I shall be very happy to tell the noble Earl one day, but I think that I should follow the noble Marquess's example and not lead the House into the pleasant meadows of individual schemes which are unlikely to go through. But I shall, should be ever again have influence in the governing Party of this state, and should that Party attempt to legislate it, put all my facilities at its disposal.

That brings me to the question of the hereditary principle, with which it is very much allied. A great number of noble Lords have said, in one tone of voice or another, that the Government should not have let this opportunity slip without dealing with this thorny subject. I have already indicated what, to my mind, the answer to this question is. For forty-seven years each successive proposal has foundered for diversity of counsel in the matter. I do not believe that if we were to introduce a measure to deal with this 708 there would be a greater measure of agreement now than there has been in the past. I think that noble Lords who have criticised us have, on the whole, been less than generous to a Government which, for the first time, has shown a clear determination to legislate on a definite part of the matter. I would ask them to support us in pressing this modest reform through, in the sure knowledge that of course this does not deal with a highly contended and contentious matter, but in the certain belief that if we attempted so to deal we should probably lose the modest measure which we propose.

My Lords, there are those who do not believe in an hereditary principle at all. There are those who would like to see a Scottish system of selection. There are those who, like the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, have an alternative principle of selected numbers. I would respectfully agree with my noble friend that those who would alter the hereditary principle without abolishing it would have to justify first some principle of selection which was satisfactory not merely to your Lordships but to another place. What we have to deal with, to my mind, is the much more fundamental and difficult question of the limitation of the overall numbers of this House, with which it is very closely allied. I would agree with the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition that the latter is very dangerous ground indeed if one wished to acquire any degree of general agreement among the Parties on this subject.

That, my Lords, really concludes my argument in this matter. I can only say, with a clear conscience. that every word which fell from the noble Lord, Lord Pethick-Lawrence, yesterday I could have repeated to-day, because he was really saying—and if I may humbly say so, saying far better and more succinctly—exactly what I have been trying to put before your Lordships to-day. This I must say: I do not personally regard this as a Party matter. Certainly the noble Lord. Lord Pethick-Lawrence, did not treat it as a Party matter; and, except for a certain amount of spirited and reasonable defence of his own Party, I do not think the noble Lord, Lord Rea, treated it as a Party matter, either.

I would make this plea to the Party opposite. We have debated this matter 709 for a long time and it has frequently been asked why no further progress has been made. There was a fine opportunity to deal with this matter in a comprehensive way in 1948. The chance of agreement between the Parties was lost, and I am not going to assign any blame for that; but I cannot altogether omit to state that there has been, at any rate on the part of some members of the Party opposite, an attitude towards this problem in which I would associate myself with the epithet used by the noble Lord. Lord Rea. That attitude is best summed up in the words of Mr. Herbert Morrison, quoted yesterday by my noble friend Lord Gage: The Labour Government was not anxious for the rational reform or democratisation of the Second Chamber for this would have strengthened its position as against the House of Commons. The very irrationality of the composition of the Lords and its quaintness are safeguards for our modern British democracy. I believe that is fundamentally a disreputable attitude to take. I believe, on the contrary, that one should endeavour to reform abuse wherever one finds it: and if the result of reforming it is not to produce a House to which greater legal powers are added (for as the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, said yesterday that is not at all in question at the present time) but to produce a House with a higher degree of moral standing—nothing more—then one should not shrink from the higher status which such a House would enjoy. I would implore noble Lords opposite, when they come to take counsel with one another and with those of their membership who perhaps may not share this view, to beg them to approach this matter on its merits and not from the point of view of Party advantage.

If it were the case that a further invitation was extended, an invitation of the kind which the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, declined in 1953, much to my regret, I should hope that they would induce their colleagues to accept it. Then we could look forward to a more comprehensive reform of Parliament; and I can assure them that I should seek to take no unfair advantage of them if they entered into those discussions in good faith.

VISCOUNT STANSGATE

My Lords, my only claim to speak is that I have seen this issue debated from the very beginning. I belong to the small class of octogenarians who have seen every phase of the argument, and if I found any satisfaction in to-day's debate it would be the satisfaction of an extremist, because what has been decided by the Government is in my opinion putting an end to the powers of this House. There have been three phases. There was, first of all, the phase of 1910, referred to by the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel. Then, Mr. Asquith issued the terrible threat "Wait and see", which was executed; and the Parliament Act left this House bereft of all its major powers. That was one result of neglecting the warning given by the Liberal Party. The second phase was when Lord Salisbury, the father of the noble Marquess, and other noble Lords devoted themselves to the question of whether something might be reconstructed from what was left. There were many proposals for modifications of one kind and another, every one of them involving modification of the hereditary system.

That is the key of the whole issue. Are we going to abolish or modify the hereditary basis of this House?—because it is the hereditary basis of this House which is the main source of its weakness. Yesterday we went right back, behind what the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, had been suggesting, to the same kind of attitude on the part of Her Majesty's Government and their supporters as we had to face in 1910 when the first Parliament Bill was proposed. Then the argument was "Stop!" I suppose that no phrase will do more harm to this House or to the Conservative Party in the country than the reference by the noble Lord, Lord Teynham, to the racing stable. If he wishes to substitute for Debrett's Peerage, Ruffs Guide to the Turf that will do nothing to assist the authority of the House of Lords.

The speech of the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow, in which he said that the great purpose of his policy was to keep out of the House of Lords what he called Left-Wingers, especially Left-Wing Conservatives, illustrates the same point. It is a great advantage for those who thoroughly disbelieve in the hereditary principle—as I do myself—that the case 711 should be clearly put. So, just as when there was the first real battle, when Mr. Asquith vanquished the House of Lords, and the second time, when eminent people like the father of the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, and others were trying to reconstruct something which would be acceptable to the Conservative Party. now we have the third phase, where we have gone right back in history and have had produced the same arguments as were produced in 1909 and 1910 when we campaigned on this issue; which means that there is now only one thing left for this House. I suppose nobody will do anything.

The noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, spent a lot of time explaining about life peerages, and read various extracts and said a few words about women being admitted but does anyone really suppose that the admission of ten Life Peers will make any difference? People want to limit their number. That is the most astounding thing. We are not going to be overweighted by people who are elected on merit. There is to be a limit to their number. In his Bill the noble and learned Viscount. Lord Simon, proposed ten, Does anyone suppose that the election of ten Life Peers to this House is going to make the faintest difference? That may at times improve the quality of debate and the knowledge available, but is it going to change the structure of the House?

As regards women, I now belong to the octogenarian class, and I remember, as does the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, many things of a long time ago. I have noticed that the question of women is being debated in this House in exactly the same way as it used to be treated in the House of Commons in the old days. Every reference has been a facetious reference, whereas the real advantage of the admission of women to the House of Lords is that that is itself an admission by the oldest House of Parliament of the equality of the sexes. That is the real point involved.

VISCOUNT SAMUEL

If the noble Viscount will allow me, may I say that I think it is unfair to the House to say that every reference made to the question of the admission of women Members has been facetious. That is not the case at all. The matter has been taken quite 712 seriously by the House, and there has been an extraordinary unanimity of agreement in favour of the proposal.

VISCOUNT STANSGATE

That is a matter of opinion. I have listened to the debate, and no doubt the noble Viscount himself treated this subject with the dignity which it deserves. Speaking from my own long recollection. I say that a facetious note has repeatedly been introduced into discussions on this issue, and there has been the same sort of Stone Age attitude as marked the reference to the reconstruction of the House itself. Neither of these things is particularly important, however. What is important is this. We have now reached a stage when the idea of the alteration of the hereditary basis of this House is rejected. What will happen now will be nothing until this House should, if it is unwise enough, get into conflict with a Socialist House of Commons—and a Socialist House of Commons cannot be long delayed. In that case nothing can happen except the "high jump." It will be the last stage of the power of this House. There will be no more talk of reform. Therefore, the four phases have been progressively diminishing the power of this House. That, to my mind, is clear. I only want to say that in a general way because I have seen the debates from the beginning.

I was a humble member of the Government in which the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, was in the Cabinet, when this matter was first proposed in 1911. If the Members of the Front Bench opposite have so much fear of their Back-Benchers that they dare not tamper with the hereditary principle, let us see, as The Times said in a recent article, what can be done in a minor way. I was frankly disappointed with what the noble Viscount said about running repairs—repairs to holes in the roof and the like. Two matters I particularly mention. One is that brought up by Lord Saltoun yesterday—the question of the disenfranchisement, the de-citizenising, of the Scottish Peers. They can sit neither in this House nor in the other. I have sat twice for Scottish seats in the other place. I do not know very much about the practical side, but I know enough to know that the matter of which Lord Saltoun spoke is frankly an injustice. Is it impossible that an issue of that kind, which does not deal with any 713 general point, does not in the least affect the standstill policy of the Government, should be dealt with in some way in the Bill?

The second point relates to a matter in which I must declare a passionate and paternal interest. It is the case of certain people, of whom the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, is one. I must admit that as we are to secure such a rich prize in this pursuit of the Sabine women, it seems rather graceless to criticise. But can any one justify what happens? You have 200 or 300 Peers who will not come here, and you will not take away from them their right to come. On the other hand, you have able young men, like the noble Viscount himself, and like certain Members of the Opposition, who take every possible step while still Commoners to rid themselves of this incubus. And you refuse to deal with the case. The noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, said some time ago that the fact that the injustice is an injustice only to a few does not make it any less an injustice and an evil in the State.

I would say that in some way it must be possible to deal with this matter at this particular moment. When it was brought forward, I remember among other cases those of Lord Selborne and Lord Astor; and later on, of course. as I have said, there was that of Lord Hailsham. They all left it rather late. Lord Hailsham left it rather late. He had become eligible to receive the Writ of Summons, and therefore the Prime Minister, by some Rule—do not know whether it is a sound Rule or not—excluded him from the House of Commons. Of the other Peers, I recollect that Lord Selborne, in particular, insisted on sitting in the House of Commons. Someone "spied strangers," and in that way the matter was brought to issue. In this particular case with which I am personally concerned—and I apologise for troubling your Lordships with it—everything had been thought out. The young man who was a Commoner came to this House and said: "Please divest me of this prospective burden. I have been elected a Member of Parliament for a constituency. I am serving that constituency. The Writ of Summons says I am to go and serve in the Lords. I have been elected to serve in the House of Commons. My borough wants me. Twice they have elected me and they have petitioned Parliament that 714 I may still remain." As I say, I was very disappointed in what the noble Viscount. Lord Hailsham, said.

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

The noble Viscount must be fair. With the general argument which he has just put forward, I agree. Indeed, it was the argument which I put to the noble Earl who is now sitting on the Front Benches opposite in the seat next to that of the noble Viscount. It was expressly rejected by the noble Earl when the Labour Party were in power.

EARL ATTLEE

There was no question of rejection. The noble Viscount left the matter very late. He could have taken the matter up with his own Government. Suddenly, he asked me to recall Parliament in the middle of September, which of course I was not prepared to do.

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

I never asked the noble Earl to recall Parliament at all, whether in September or at any other time. As I was saying just now, the general argument put forward by the noble Viscount. Lord Stansgate, I accept, because it is an argument which I put to his noble friend. But the particular argument that an individual Peer, an individual heir, could ask for special legislation for himself is not one that I myself have ever accepted.

VISCOUNT STANSGATE

It is useless to bring in the question of the interchange of letters between the noble Viscount and the noble Earl. That is irrelevant. The relevance here is this. Here is a man, not of noble blood, who has taken every precaution, before disaster happens, to clear himself of this incubus. He has come to this House under Standing Orders and has put his case. He has been told that it is a just case, and he has been sympathetically heard. It is said that this matter could go into a General Bill. Here is a General Bill. But now, apparently, the noble Viscount refuses to put in it a clause to the effect which is sought.

Therefore, in these two cases, the Scottish case and the particular personal case which I have mentioned—I apologise for it—it was only the accident of war that brought this unhappy young man into this servitude. I would ask the noble Viscount, when he drafts the Bill, will he make the Long Title comprehensive enough to permit Amendments to be 715 moved dealing both with the Scottish case and with the case of forced succession and take the opinion of the House and accept it on the general issues. I think I need say no more. There are two specific matters which can be dealt with.

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

I think the noble Viscount is quite right in asking these questions. But I would ask him to leave the matter to the noble and learned Viscount who sits on the Woolsack to deal with when he replies. I know that he will take note of these matters.

THE EARL OF SWINTON

My Lords, the speech which the noble Viscount has just delivered was rather characteristic. It was a medley of practical suggestions and a good deal of academic matter. He suggested in the main part of his speech that the only thing that really mattered was to get rid of the hereditary principle. I should have thought the thing that really matters to-day on the issue we are discussing is whether or not by what is proposed we are going to get a more useful, a more practical and a better working Chamber. There are many things on which we disagree in these matters, but I should have thought that there was one thing which we could agree about—that is that the proposal put forward by the Government is indeed a modest proposal. I do not think that it is necessarily the worse for that. In constitutional reform it is very desirable to get agreement between Parties, if we can. I regret that we did not come to an agreement when we had our Conference, and I regret equally that the invitation to the Conference which we proposed in 1953 was not accepted. But if we cannot get agreement between Parties, we had certainly better have agreement within our own Party so far as we can, if we are going to bring forward legislation.

The introduction of Life Peerages, which is the main proposal brought before us, has figured in every proposal for reform that has ever been made to this House. Indeed, if the Wensleydale case had been decided the other way, or if the ancestor of my noble friend Lord Ridley had suffered less from the gout, probably we should have had Life Peers in this House for the last 100 years. It is interesting to note that although a great 716 many legal arguments were used in the Wensleydale case, that case was decided net by the lawyers sitting as a Select Committee, but by the Whole House, and I am certain that what carried weight with this House in those days, the bulk of whose Members would not have understood the legal arguments, from Blackstone and before, which were produced, any more than I should to-day, was the rotund attack which Lord Lyndhurst made on the introduction of Life Peers as a terrible danger to the Constitution and his picture of the awful degradation that would attend us in this House if they were introduced. I could not help feeling that the speech of the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow, sounded rather like an echo of those debates of a hundred years ago.

I should have thought that Life Peers were something which, with very few exceptions—perhaps only one exception—the whole House would be prepared to accept. But is that enough? The real test to me is not some academic question, but whether the introduction of Life Peers will give what both sides want in this matter. I should have thought that by itself it would not do so. I am sure that it is right to introduce Life Peers. I am sure that, provided we could induce them to come, there are a number of people who could be brought here. I do not mean by that the distinguished elderly people who will go on getting older, and I hope that when the Bill comes before us there may be the possibility that if people are appointed Life Peers they will be allowed to retire if they so desire, particularly if the number is to be limited, and not sit here or somewhere else until they are ninety years old or more.

Are we really going to get, by this method alone, the number of day-to-day working people required? Frankly I think that we have to face up to the question of payment. I was greatly interested in what my noble friend Lord Ingleby said yesterday about another place. I think that if people are to do the job here, then at any rate they have not to be hopelessly out of pocket. We have to offer them for their day-to-day work something that is not derisorily inferior to what they could get in any other walk of life. I should like to know what is in the Government's mind about that. Frankly I am left in doubt.

717 When the noble Earl the Leader of the House spoke in the debate, he said, if I understood him aright, that that was one of the three things that had to be taken into consideration. I imagine that it has been taken into consideration, and although it may not have to figure in the Bill, because I imagine that what is paid is a matter for a Vote in another place, still I think that we should be greatly assisted if the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor, when he comes to reply to-night, could tell us a little more about what is in the Government's mind. Obviously we cannot give a salary to everybody, whether he comes here or not, but I do not see why the practice which the House has already adopted and another place has voted, of paying so much a day for attendance, should not be continued and a larger sum given that would avoid all difficulty. To pay salaries to people who do not come here is something about which I should have thought—again pace the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow—there was hardly any question.

I should have thought it impossible to introduce life peerages and then say that they were not going to be given to women. I therefore welcome the inclusion of women. If so, what about the hereditary Peeresses? I did not quite like the way in which the noble Viscount. Lord Hail-sham, slid away from it in what was a little too refined a legal argument for me. However, their succession may come, they are hereditary Peeresses as much as noble Lords are hereditary Peers. As a matter of fact, the history of the Rhondda case is not a very creditable one. Like the Wensleydale case, it was decided largely on political grounds—I do not know whether I shall be rebuked for saying this. Of course, there was a great legal facade, but what in fact happened was that a Select Committee sat to decide whether Lady Rhondda was entitled to her Writ of Summons and that Committee reported that she was. The Government changed—a Government of a complexion more favourable to the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow, less favourable to the ladies, came in. The question was sent back to another Committee and that Committee most obligingly reported—I am sure that there were arguments every way—that Lady Rhondda was not entitled to sit. The House readily accepted the Report of the 718 second Committee and decided that Lady Rhondda was not entitled to sit.

It seems to me a little illogical that if we are going to have women as Life Peeresses, we cannot have hereditary Peeresses in your Lordships' House. Suppose we do not put it in the Bill—and I agree that since the Rhondda case it is no good sending it back to a Committee for Privileges; if we are going to have this changed, we must change it by legislation. And suppose the Prime Minister of the day says that he thinks that it would be a good thing to appoint two or three Ladies who are Peeresses in their own right as Life Peeresses: is he enitled to do this, or are they barred? If they are barred, that means that the poor ladies are in a most unfortunate position; they are the only females out-side a lunatic asylum who are not to be entitled to sit in this House. I really do not think that we ought to leave them like that.

Of course, the main question which arises is whether the proposals go far enough. The Government at this stage leave the hereditary right and hereditary representation entirely unchanged. There have been proposals, nor before the House but certainly debated a great deal outside it, regarding election or selection, and the Government reject them all. I do not necessarily dissent from that at this stage, provided it is a stage. I should like to know, really, what the Government's view is on this matter. My noble friend Lord Salisbury has never concealed his views. What is their view about it? I mean, is it a stage? I think there is practical force in Lord Hailsham's argument that if too much is put into this Bill and there is a large legislative programme you might not get it through. Of course, that depends—noble Lords will forgive my saying so—on the priority attached to the particular measure. If it is put last on the list, a sort of "also-ran," then no doubt you will not get it through. But is this a stage or is this the last word? I most sincerely hope that the Government can go so far as to say that they feel that it is only a stage.

That brings me to this point. In the debate yesterday a great many kindly references were made to the Report of the Select Committee. The Select Committee reported that every hereditary Peer had a right to a Writ of Summons 719 and can be deprived of that right only by legislation. But, my Lords, the Committee also reported that the right to be summoned carries with it the duty to attend unless the Peer is excused attendance, and I think that that is important. The Committee concluded—and your Lordships will find this in paragraph 31—that a Peer who is unable to discharge his duty of attendance can reasonably be said to have a duty to apply to the House for leave of absence under the existing Standing Orders.

As Lord Teynham, in a model speech introducing his Motion yesterday. reminded us, the Committee reported on how the House could adapt those Standing Orders on leave of absence to meet the present situation wherein many Peers are unwilling or unable to attend. My noble friend Lord Salisbury emphasised that the Committee, which included Peers of all Parties—it included Lord Hailsham, incidentally, and powerful legal representation he fulfilled both functions, the legal and political—were unanimous in their Report, and when that Report was debated it was very favourably received in the House, as indeed it was yesterday in our debate.

I do not want to go into the details of that Report again to-day, but I should like just to remind the House of three of the Committee's findings: first of all, that if the House wished to amend its Standing Orders in the manner outlined in the Report it would be entirely competent for the House to do so by its own Resolutions and it would be a matter for this House alone; secondly, that the suggested amendment of the Standing Orders would in no way infringe the right of every Peer to receive a Writ of Summons and, thirdly—-and I think this escaped the notice of some of your Lordships. but the Committee attached a great deal of importance to it—the suggestions of the Committee took full account of the fact that some Peers can attend here only occasionally. I feel sure we all feel that a number of those who cannot attend regularly make most valuable contributions to our debates when they do come, and that this House would be much the poorer if they were not able to attend. If the suggestions of the Committee were followed, the Standing Orders would take that fully into 720 account and would enable a Peer who could attend only occasionally to satisfy the duty by saying. "I shall come when I can." and, of course, he would have genuinely to carry that out.

Bearing all this in mind, I hope that the House will accept the Report of this Select Committee as a counterpart of the Government's proposals. I gather from what has passed in the earlier debate and yesterday that that would be acceptable in almost all quarters of the House, and, as the Leader of the House said, it is entirely a matter for the House. I should be very willing, if it would be convenient to the House, as I was selected to preside over that Committee, to table a Motion early in the next Session inviting the Lord Chairman of Committees to prepare and to present to the House for their consideration the necessary Amendments to Standing Orders. In that way, by our own motion, we should be carrying it a stage further, and the House could not only consider the principle, which I think is very generally accepted, but would have an opportunity of seeing the draft of the proposed Standing Orders and could adopt them in whatever form it thought was most convenient.

As to adopting these proposals, I do not think we ought to leave the matter without at least doing that. I agree with my noble friend Lord Salisbury: I do not think them a complete alternative to dealing with the absentee Peers. But we are a very practical, if not a very logical, body, and I feel sure that if we did adopt Standing Orders in that form, the great majority of Peers would comply with them and we should find, in fact, that we had the kind of House which, I think, nearly all your Lordships wish to have, and we should preserve in this House every element that most of us value, while making the House a stronger and a more effective one.

LORD ST. OSWALD

My Lords, I rise to speak very briefly, as befits one who joined your Lordships' House extremely recently. If the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, found himself speaking with diffidence, I feel that I should be practically on my knees in addressing your Lordships in this debate. But, although the noble Lords, Lord Melchett and Lord Milne, addressed the House yesterday, I 721 believe I am right in saying that nobody else under fifty years of age has so far addressed it to-day, in this debate which will affect the life of the House for many decades to come. In that capacity I feel that I must register my respectful disappointment at the limited nature of the proposals offered by the Government at this moment. I have been a Member of your Lordships' House for only six months, but my interest in the House and the problem of reform goes back considerably further than that. As a result, I approached this debate full of hope that we should hear proposals to concentrate and strengthen the House, not to inflate and weaken it, as I feel these proposals tend to do. I had hoped that we should be invited to resolve ourselves as a House into a Corps of Regulars, if I may borrow a military term.

I feel, and I hope that it is accepted as axiomatic, that, basically, ultimately the usefulness of this House, and even its survival, must rest upon the country's confidence in its judgment and in its composition. And that confidence is bound to be linked with visible parity between the Parties. If that parity is to be achieved without reduction, and entirely through expansion, I think the whole procedure is bound to get out of hand. I have never been any good at sums, but in simple arithmetic, to provide noble Lords opposite with a voting strength to match the potential voting strength of this side is talking in very big figures indeed. After all the speeches I have heard, I remain convinced that, for effective reform, present membership must be pared down. I am in disagreement with noble Lords who think that this country has no use and no respect for the hereditary system. I claim that my ear is as close to the ground as most, and I do not believe that a purely elected House of Lords would be acceptable either to the country or to Parliament as a whole. I am certain that both its prestige and its usefulness would be enhanced by achieving approximate parity between the Parties, but to-day it seems to me that the whole process of achieving this has been presented back to front. I would favour strongly a drastic reduction in the number of sitting Members, and, consequently, a less drastic and less wholesale creation of Peerages to man the Benches opposite.

LORD STRABOLGI

May I ask whether the noble Lord has in mind the wholesale creation of hereditary peerages or life peerages?

LORD ST. OSWALD

I favour, as I have said, not a wholesale creation, but that necessary creation of peerages, which I personally should prefer to remain hereditary peerages. However, such cogent arguments have been put forward in favour of life peerages that I do not feel strongly enough to take a firm stand on that point. But I think the other point I make remains virtually unaffected. I must say that in this connection I have always felt prepared to find myself dispensed with. And I have to appreciate that, in the allegory of my noble friend Lord Teynham, as a racehorse I should have been shot several years ago. The selection of such a working nucleus does not present any insuperable problems. I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Mathers, approached the problem most encouragingly and practically last night. In the corridor of this building two days ago I spoke to a noble Lord from the Benches opposite, with whom I seldom find myself in agreement, and I learned of the idea of a type of electoral college, to be found from within the membership of your Lordships' House. I must say that I should not find such a system in any way invidious.

Despite the trenchant arguments of my noble friend Lord Hailsham, who came nearer than I thought possible to convincing me, my feeling is still that we have not taken hold of this opportunity of reform as it deserves. I believe the impression that these proposals will give is that we in this House are not really serious about reform; that we have put up a meaningless compromise. I know that that is, in fact, utterly untrue as an intention, but I believe it is how the country will see it.

Moreover, I cannot help feeling that it is quite unrealistic to suppose that we in this House can set the pace or the, extent of this project once it is launched. We have started a process of reform; we have disturbed the status quo, as I heard it put yesterday, and in doing so we have automatically invited the country at large, and Members of another place, in particular, to give their views on reform. They will do so, and they will go on doing so until they are satisfied that real reform 723 has been achieved. They will undoubtedly raise the question of exclusion, as well as that of expansion. Some noble Lords have implied—I have not myself gauged the measure of support—that they would favour such a measure in the indefinite future. That decision and its date may well be taken out of our hands, once this whole question is publicly broached. If we are in favour of further measures, let us say that we want them, and that we want them now. That will win us more understanding and appreciation in the country and greater respect in another place.

I cannot support the objection of my noble friend Lord Glasgow, great as is my personal affection for him, because it seems to me a clean pace backwards. Nor can I admire the proposals of the Government as they stand, because they seem to be an attempt to take a pace to the side while still remaining in the same spot. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, for allowing me to delay for several minutes his far more significant words. But I must identify myself with the hope that, if these proposals go forward as they are, they will have incorporated in them a definite undertaking to carry them further forward still in time, so enabling your Lordships' House to continue as a benefit to this country, as relevant to the unseen future as it has been to the sometimes forgotten past.

LORD PAKENHAM

My Lords. I am pleased to follow the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald. His vigorous speech reminds me that I am no longer able to count myself one of the younger Members of your Lordships' House. However, I think I can still claim to belong to the middle-aged group, and if I may, I will say a word or two from that angle, in pursuit of the interesting remarks that fell from the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, on the subject of pay. I do not think what I call the middle-aged group, those who have not yet reached retirement, are the only people by any means, and probably not the most important, to be considered in this connection. But they are a group who certainly come very much to mind when we consider the question of the "hard core" referred to by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee.

724 We are all apt to be egotistical in this kind of thing, but that is the only way in which we can pool our collective experience. I think the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, would have had the same experience as myself. Take, as an example, someone in his middle forties, a man who is a Minister at the time a Government comes to an end, and who has a number of children to educate. Is such a person to try to play his part as a Member of the "hard core" in your Lordships' House, or is he to earn his living? I speak as one who has been faced with that situation, as has the noble Lord. Lord Ogmore, and other noble Lords. I am afraid that in a situation like that no kind of expense allowance will help. I know that there are older people to whom the expense allowance may make a difference between coming to this House and not coming, but, so far as the middle aged are concerned, it cannot affect the issue.

I therefore venture to think that some kind of salary, of the sort which Members of Parliament receive, should be considered in relation to a certain group in this House. The real trouble begins, of course (and some of my later proposals will bear on this) when it comes to considering who should receive this salary—because it cannot be given to everybody. But that is the centre of the problem, as I see it. I speak only for myself, although others probably feel the same way in saying that if, when I ceased to be First Lord of the Admiralty I had been offered the salary of a Member of the other place. I think I should have devoted my time to the work of this House for the last six years, whether that would have been a good thing or bad. This applies to a good many Ministers who fall from office and if we are talking of the hard core, we must consider that group as an important element in the problem.

I apologise for not having been present yesterday owing, to a family bereavement. If I speak to-day, it is in a strictly personal sense, after consultation, of course, with my noble Leader. He made it plain yesterday that so far as our Party is concerned, all these matters are still under consideration. Therefore, what I say is, of course, subject to subsequent decisions. But I do feel it a duty in this fluid situation, both in a Party sense and in a national sense, to throw into the common 725 pool of ideas a certain plan which has not hitherto. I think, been advocated to your Lordships, although some of what was said by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, may have started some minds moving in that direction. I must not attempt to commit the noble Earl to this particular plan.

I would suggest that when the matter is discussed, either in this House or in the country, we might divide the participants in the argument into five categories. There is, first, what I would call the status quo, brigade, of whom the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow, is a champion. Secondly, there are the tinkerers—I do not use the word in any derogatory sense. Then there are the conservative reformers, among whom the noble Marquess. Lord Salisbury, is pre-eminent; and I think the noble Earl, Lord Swinton. would belong to that group also. Fourthly, there are what I would call the radical reformers, who include most of the Labour Party, perhaps; and, finally, the single-Chamber men, of whom we have not heard very much on this occasion, and with whom I will not deal now.

I make one other preliminary comment, and this, I think, would win acceptance: that it is desirable in principle that there should be as much agreement as possible about all the basic political institutions of this country. We have agreement about the Crown, the Lower House, the Judiciary, and the principles of the Civil Service, but we certainly have not got any kind of agreement about the type of Second Chamber we require. Is there any chance of reaching an agreement, to start with at any rate, as to what is wrong with the existing Second Chamber. One defect admitted by everybody it seems to me—though in my opinion it is not the most fundamental defect—is the difficulty of providing enough Opposition of Labour Peers who can attend regularly. I am not referring to quality. Noble Lords opposite will be surprised to know that we do not suffer any inferiority complex, although we recognise the enormous abilities opposite. We do not shrink away from them. But when it comes to numbers in the vote, the result is ludicrous. However well we argue, it can make very little difference when the Whips are properly laid on, and that situation has been familiar to us for many years.

Various proposals have been suggested and; speaking for myself, I welcome par- 726 ticularly the inclusion of women. But generally, I think that, so far as tinkering changes can be, these proposals are a step in the right direction—always assuming that they do not prevent still better things coming about. Again there is the proposal that the eldest son of a Peer should not be compelled to take his seat here. I strongly endorse that proposal. We should have suffered the loss of the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, and that would have been a serious failure from our point of view; but, by and large, I think it is unfair, and I believe that most people think so. I hope that the sons of Peers will be released from this particular obligation.

But I do not think that, when one has made these tinkering little changes, it will solve the problem. Although life peerages will do something, they will not do much. I have a number of friends, of all Parties, who I am sure would be pleased to accept peerages, whether they were hereditary or life peerages. But I have no one within my own personal acquaintance (though I know that such people exist) who would accept a life peerage yet would not accept an hereditary peerage. Mr. Amery was mentioned, and that may well be a sad case, because he was so great a man. Of all the people I know personally, however. I do not know anyone who would accept a life peerage but would not accept a hereditary one. However, the idea of life peerages seems to me helpful, so far as it goes.

The real question—and it has come up again and again—is whether we wish to continue a Second Chamber at all in which there is a hereditary element—in which the hereditary Peers ensure a permanent and overwhelming majority for the Conservative Party. No country in the world. I am assured, contains to-day an hereditary element in its Second Chamber. I made inquiries from a supreme expert, and for a time he thought that Nigeria might provide an example of this in their Council of Chiefs. But now I learn that the Council of Chiefs is not hereditary, so even Nigeria does not provide a parallel, and there are no parallels anywhere in the world. Certainly no one who belongs to any Left Wing Party is likely to advocate the retention of the hereditary element in this Chamber. On the other hand, the retention of an hereditary element—I put it as generally as possible—is, I think (though I have 727 no means of judging) supported by most Conservatives.

It is supported. I think, on one of three grounds. First of all, there is the purely Party point of view. In saying that, I do not impute some special cynicism to politicians. Those who believe in their Party are entitled to consider that it is likely to do more good to the country than its opponents. I do not think one throws away a Party advantage unless one is forced to do so by fresh conviction or by overwhelming circumstances. Secondly, most Conservatives, it seems to me, feel that, quite apart from purely Party questions, the Second Chamber will be a more cautious Chamber—more conservative with a small "c"—and it is felt that this function of the brake is one of the functions which a Second Chamber, quite academically speaking, is expected to perform. Thirdly, there are those—and I think the noble Lord. Lord Balfour of Burleigh, is among them—who, as they would say, believe in the hereditary principle; who would say that, apart from any calculation of Party or anything of that kind, blood is blood; and that, on the whole, those who come from families who have performed most distinguished services in the past are somewhat more likely than the average man to render signal service in the future. I hope I am not distorting it: I am putting it in the way that has appealed to many illustrious minds. There is this belief that there is some value in the hereditary principle, not in relation to some Party calculation, but in relation to the merit of the service which those who inherited these great traditions would be likely to perform.

I do not want to stop this afternoon to argue against any of these considerations, except to say that, in the form I have presented them, or, indeed, in any other form, they could not be accepted by anybody who belonged to the Labour Party. I do not think—it is a matter of opinion—they would be accepted by the majority of our people anywhere, irrespective of Party. I would say, in passing, that if one r