HOUSE OF LORDS.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 767, 16 March 1910, Page 7

HOUSE OF LORDS.

ROSEBERY'S MOTION.

REFORM AND RECONSTRUCTION,

SPEECH BY LORD MORLEY. By Tcleeraph—Press Association—CopyrJclit. (Ecc. March 15, 10 p.m.) London, March 15. The House of Lords was crowded, the Prince and Princess of Wales being present, when Lord Rosebery moved that the House go into Committee on the following resolution, of which, ho had given notice of motion:— (1) .Thatj a strong and efficient Sccond Chamber, an integral part of the Constitution, is necessary for the well-being of the State and the balance of Parliament. (2) That such a Chamber can best be obtained by the reform and reconstruction of the House of Lords. (3) That a necessary preliminary to such reconstruction is the acceptance of the principle that the possession of a. Peerage no longer of itself gives the right to sit and vote in the House of Lords. Lord 1 Rosebery said it was hopeless to imagine that tho Government veto resolutions, if passed in 1010, would he followed by reform, for- in 1911 the Liberals would say to Mr. Asquith:.. "Wo' recognise your good intention, but we do not mean to have anything to do with that. Ton have deprived the House of. Lords of its privilege and power in a single session of Parliament, and what more do we want?"

Mr. Asquith's proposal. resembled hamstringing a valuable horse and then entering it for the Derby.

Lord Rosebery concluded : a closelyreasoned; and earnest speech against what ho termed the Government's proposal for complete domination by the House of Commons by setting up a sham arid impotent Second Chamber, by mentioning the lessons of the French Devolution and the danger of withholding concessions until it was too late. ; He said he was convinced the House woiild rise to the height of the great occasion and earn the gratitude of the unborn generations.-

: Lord Morley urged the House to wait and hear the Government's proposals. Lord Eosebery failed to touch the emergency confronting them.. What' was needed was an effective means of settling differences between the two Houses. '

Lord Northcote approved of the resolutions, but said the details required careful examination.' ' ■ The debate was then adjourned.

PREVIOUS PROPOSALS. EEPOET OF LORD 'ROSEBERY'S COMMITTEE. ' : As the position of tho House of Lords has become the dominant issue in the political situation, it is of importance to recall the attitude of both parties in the immediate past to reform of tho Upper House (says the "Daily Mail" Overseas "Edition of February 5). Sir Henry' : Campbell-Bannerman's . Government, on June 28, 1907, introduced in the House of Commons ■ the following resolu tiori:— ..... ' That in order ,to give effect to the will of the people, e„s expressed by their elected representatives, it is . nooessary that the power, of the other Hoase to alter or reject Bills should be so restrained by law as to se- , oure that within the limits of a single Parliament the final decision of the Commons shall prevail. It was pointed out at the time that this' was to deprive the House of Lords of ,the .power of preventing rash legislation by a ohanco majority. The resolu-. tion, which", was merely- an abstract one, and which bound no. one, was carried. The plan of the Ministry was understood to 'be as follows,'thorigh it-was never embodied in a Bill:

• If a measure was sent up from the Commons to tlie Lords and was rejected by the Lords,. then a. conference would follow between members appointed in equal number by the two, Houses. If the conference did , not result in agreement, the Bill .might again be' reintroduced in the Commons after six months. It would then be sent up again. If it were once more rejected there would be a conference as before. If the second attempt failed the Bill was, after" th© lapse of, six _ months, to be reintroduced, .a third time in tho'Commons, passed, and sent up again. Once more, if 'the Lords and Commons differed there was to be a conference, and, .if this failed, the Bill was to become law without the Lords' assent. . • . . •

It; should be borne in memory that the Lords, most of whom admit that the constitution of the Upper House is .not ideal,- have made efforts to reform it. Lord Newton, in 1907,, introduced a. Bill with that purpose, which led to the appointment of. a Committee; with Lord Rosebery as.chairman. It included Lord Lansdowne, - the Lord Chancellor, Lord Halsbury, the Duke of Norfolk, Lord Curzon, Lord Cawdor, and Lord St. Aldwyn.

The report of that Committee, published last year, but never carried further by the Government, made recommendations whioh would have produoed a Second Chamber of about 388 (instead! of 6ome .620), as follow:—

Peers of the blood royal 3 Peers elected by hereditary Peers ... 200 Peers qualified by service to the nation 130 "i Archbishops and 8 elected Bishops .. to Lords of Appeal (judges) 5 Life Peers, 4 created a year, and never more than 40 at any one time 40

No recommendation was formulated to give representation to the other great Churches. It was stated that the party in power in the Commons should be able "to count upon a substantial following in the Lords." . VIEWS OF LORD COURTNEY. . . THE NATION'S WELL. ' Lord Courtney of Penwith contributes an interesting article on "The Political Prospect" to the February "Contemporary Review," in which he deals with the proposals for reforming the Houso of Lords. He states:

. "A measure i'or assuring the predominance of the Commons may more easily become law if we allow the Lords to be reformed also. Liberal leaders have ignored Lord Rosebery's Committee, and Liberal followers have treated its Report with contumely; and, indeed, this document could not be seriously entertained as a final draft.

"The sanction of the authority of the House of Commons lies in the principle that it expresses ■ the national will; but if the power of tho Lords has increased in recent years, as we must confess it has, tho increase has been largely due to a general suspicion , that the House of Commons cannot always be accepted on trust as the exponent of the national will. The House of Lords cannot dare to claim this authority for itself, but it is bold enough to challenge the authority of the Commons, and if we could certainly invwt tho House of Commons with an abiding representative authority the question of tho House of Lords would almost settle" itself. Under the educational pressure to which I have referred I look for increased attention to this thought. "

If tho inherent authority Of the House of Commons is increased by making it the assured embodiment of tho national will, the inherent authority of the Lords may simultaneously be improved, without taking away from tho predominance that must be allowed to the representative House. The statutory mode of enforcing this predominance might follow the lines of the Resolution of Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman, or might take some other shape. I should myself be prepared to accept Sir Henry's scheme, but I confess to an opinion I have already intimated, that, with an improvement of the character in each House, especially in tho elected Chamber, the practical difficulty of co-ordinat-ing their powers would largoly disap. pear."