three years. It therefore fell far short of the quinquennial term, upon which the right hon. Gentleman relies for this perpetual coordination between the views of the House of Commons and the views of the people. And yet the people stated as decisively as they could that the House of Lords had properly exercised in the greatest of all cases the functions entrusted to it by the Constitution. Had the right hon. Gentleman's so-called reform been in existence in 1893, Home Rule, I presume, would now be lawperhaps to the benefit of the community, but certainly against the will of the people. Is it possible, with that instance fresh in our memories, to say that this change, whatever its other merits may be, is intended, in the words of the Resolution, to "give effect to the will of the people?" If those who framed this Resolution had in their minds recent history in which they themselves were personally engaged, this Resolution is hypocritical on the face of it. It is intended not to carry out the will of the people, but the will of the House of Commons of the moment. Am I not, then, justified in repeating the words with which I began my speech, that the right hon. Gentleman when he talks about the people is thinking rather of the House of Commons, and that it is our business to think rather of the people than the House of Commons?

But this does not exhaust my criticism of the right hon. Gentleman's motives. He has no claim, or even the pretence of a claim, to be carrying out the will of the people by this Resolution. It is his own will that he wants to carry out. I think the facts go further than that. The right hon. Gentleman belongs to the school of Radicalism, which holds as inveterate superstition and prejudice that the one object you should always be driving at is not to bring in good legislation, but to alter the legislative machinery. Social legislation appears in their speeches, but it never appears anywhere else. . . . They have not desired to bring in Bills which were so good that nobody could quarrel with them, but Bills so bad that no Assembly left to free discussion could reconcile itself to passing them unamended. That makes legislation extremely easy; and

it makes quarrelling with the House of Lords still more easy. But easy as that policy seems, much as it saves any undue waste of brain tissue on the part of the Ministers, I see no signs that it is carrying great favour in the country. I think the people see through this transparency. Many of them, I dare say, voted for right hon. Gentlemen opposite in the mistaken view that it was in the power of this Government or, indeed, of any Government, to carry certain schemes, or at all events to attain to certain objects which they had much at heart. Right hon. Gentlemen opposite gave them to understand that they had panaceas for all those evils if they came to office; but when they had to turn those panaceas from perorations into Bills they found it extremely difficult, if not in some cases impossible. Under these circumstances, it was far easier for the Government to try to quarrel with the House of Lords, to say to the people, "Oh, if you only knew what wonderful schemes we have in our heads, what admirable measures we have in our pigeon-holes! But there is the House of Lords, which will certainly reject them if we send them up." Great is their disappointment, almost unaffected, when the House of Lords passes a measure not, indeed, the result of the brains of the Government, but the result of the Labour representatives - when the House of Lords, instead of doing what they were intended to do, does the opposite, then the right hon. Gentleman cannot control himself. Their flagitious, unscrupulous opportunism moves his wrath and arouses his indignation, and for the simple reason that the right hon. Gentleman's Bills, as I have said, were never brought in to pass, but to be rejected. ["Oh, oh."] And I think they were so drafted that there was great difficulty in some cases in not rejecting the Bills. I venture to suggest to the House that that is not the way to prepare a road for a great constitutional change. You ought not, if you find yourself impotent in constructive legislation, to turn round and try to curry favour with what you call the democracy by pulling down a portion of the Constitution. . . . Sir, the whole thing is insincere from beginning to end.

The right hon. Gentleman is treating the Constitution of which he ought to be the guardian as a plaything of the moment, as a mere political expedient, as a means for electrifying and revivifying, if he can, the waning popularity of himself and his colleagues. It will serve no useful end; and even that relatively contemptible object which the right hon. Gentleman has in view will not, in my judgment, be fulfilled, as time will show when next he goes to that people in whose name he affects to speak in this Resolution, and whose confidence, if not already lost, he is losing every day.

Extract 73

THE UNDEMOCRATIC CHARACTER OF THE HOUSE OF

LORDS

(Mr. D. Shackleton, Commons, June 24, 1907)

MR. SHACKLETON 1:

We have been told that we are wasting our time to-day. Some of us on these Benches have thought that for a long time. We feel that so far as the country is concerned the sooner it does devote a little time to attempting to remove this terrible obstacle to all improvement in the condition of the people the better. It may have the effect of putting off other legislation for the time being, but it may make legislation quicker in the future. We are not now considering the question of a Single Chamber as against two Chambers, but whether we are to go on forever with an hereditary Chamber.

Even the Leader of the Opposition has not attempted to defend the hereditary principle. I listened most carefully to all his references to the House of Lords, and he did not utter one single sentence in favour of that principle. The question is whether an hereditary and non-representative House shall be perpetual in this country. That is the situation we have got to face. I take no other 1 Parliamentary Debates, Fourth Series, vol. 176, col. 941 sqq.

text for my remarks than the words of the Leader of the Opposition, who said on November 28, "I do not for one moment believe that the Lords, in the exercise of the high functions entrusted to them by the Constitution, will waver in their duty. Their duty is not to thwart the will of the nation, but to see that its will is really and truly carried out." The House of Lords has no right to decide what is the will of the people. Can it be said that a nonrepresentative body, composed entirely of gentlemen drawn from one class, is a proper body to decide what is the will of the people of this country? What are we here for? If we do not represent the will of the people, it is time we came to some understanding as to what we do represent. But a mere assertion of that kind is not sufficient. That argument has gone forever, and a determined House and a determined people will refuse to allow a non-representative body drawn entirely from one class to decide what is the will of the people.

In the early days there were struggles between this House and the other; I read the other day that in 1648 a debate took place as to whether Black Rod should be the supreme person. Black Rod had ordered certain people to be arrested, and in the end King Charles dissolved Parliament and took away from the House of Commons the right to have anybody put into prison. And what did the House of Commons decide? That "The House of Peers is useless and dangerous, and ought to be abolished." That is the view to-day of the hon. Members who are sitting beside me, and they believe that the Government would have done better if they had proceeded on those lines.

During the last hundred years the pages of our history are full of their actions against the people. In 1807 they started by throwing out a Bill appointing a Committee of Council for Education. During the last century Bills for the benefit of the people were stopped and delayed. Question after question, such as Parliamentary Reform, land reform, the Roman Catholic position, religious equality, municipal and educational reform, and legal, social, and

industrial measures might be quoted in which the House of Lords prevented the will of the people being carried into effect. Surely it is time that those who represent the people should challenge the right of the House of Lords to force the people to the verge of a ' revolution before giving way. . .

Hasty legislation has been referred to. Is there ever any hasty legislation of a progressive character? There may be some of a retrograde character. What reform have we to-day that has not been talked about for years and generations before it has been embodied in an Act of Parliament? There is no chance in this country of hasty legislation, for all proposed reforms are subjected to long discussion in public before we hear of them in the shape of legislative measures. Illustrations could be given of cases in which the other House has delayed the changes in the law which the people desired. No better illustration could be given than that which took place between 1833 and 1857 in regard to Jewish emancipation. Majorities in this House on seven occasions were in favour of that reform, but the House of Lords refused to pass it. In the end, in 1858, the other House passed the Bill which conferred political freedom and equality on that class of our countrymen.

The hereditary principle is indefensible from every point of view of public policy. The fact that it is not defended is its best and greatest condemnation. If it is good, why not apply it to other governing bodies and the various forms of business? Why should Parliament be the only place where the hereditary principle is applied? How often have we heard business men whom we have known refer in sorrow to the inclinations of their sons? The big businesses set up by the fathers have been lost under the management of the sons. Is that not so in regard to Parliamentary affairs as well as anything else? Surely the time has come when the right to govern by birth should be abolished in this country. A caustic writer puts it in this way, "We allow babies to be earmarked in their cradles as future law-makers, utterly regardless as to whether