FOOTNOTES: 

[4] Mr Lyttelton.

[5] Prime Minister of the Australian Commonwealth.

THE HOUSE OF LORDS

HOUSE OF COMMONS, June 29, 1907

    On June 24, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman had moved: 

“That, in order to give effect to the will of the people as expressed by their elected representatives, it is necessary that the power of the other House to alter or reject Bills passed by this House should be so restricted by law as to secure that within the limits of a single Parliament the final decision of the Commons shall prevail.”

    This was carried after three days’ debate by 315 to 100.

I will not venture at any length into an abstract constitutional discussion upon this Motion, because, after all, we have an extremely practical issue before us.  It seems to me that this great question must be looked at from three points of view.  There is the issue between the two Houses; there is the issue between the two political Parties; and then there is the national issue.  The quarrel which is now open between the House of Lords and the House of Commons arises from two events—­the general election of 1906, and the rejection of the measures of the new Liberal Government, culminating in the destruction of the Education Bill by the House of Lords at the end of that year.  Either of these events is memorable in itself, but placed in juxtaposition and considered together they have a multiplied significance.  The general election of 1906 was the most vehement expression of public opinion which this generation has known; and that expression of public will was countered in the December of the same year by the most arbitrary and uncompromising assertion of aristocratic privilege upon record.

Let the House think of it.  The process of the election of Members of Parliament is extremely elaborate.  The candidates go about the country for two or three weeks saying all they have to say for themselves in the different constituencies which they are contesting; at the end of that exhaustive discussion there is an elaborate process of voting; the returns are counted with the most scrupulous care; and as the result 670 Members, representing 6,000,000 of voters and many more who take a deep interest in public affairs but have no votes, are returned to the House of Commons in the name of the people of Great Britain and Ireland.  The new Parliament assembles.  Scarcely any question at the election had been more a test question, so far as the supporters of the Government are concerned, than the question of the amendment of the education system of the country.  A Bill dealing with education is brought forward as the principal measure of the first session of the new Parliament.  Weeks are occupied in its discussion.  It represents the fulfilment of the election pledges of every Member who supported it.  The Bill is passed by perhaps the largest majority that ever sent a Bill from this House to another place.