THE GOVERNMENT AND THE HOUSE OF LORDS. T HE debate on
the official amendment, which occupied the House of Commons on Monday and Tuesday, was as one-sided a performance as we can remember. The Solicitor-General, in his reply to Mr. F. E. Smith's brilliant and closely reasoned argument, could do no more than ride off on irrelevancies, a task which cannot have been congenial to so logical a mind. Mr. Smith proved beyond possibility of doubt that the reform of the Second. Chamber was made by the Government the essential condition of their limitation of the Veto ; the Veto, indeed, was to be liaited in order to facilitate their work of reconstruction. The condition was very necessary to reassure the country, which as a whole has no belief in Single-Chamber government. But once the assurances had had the effect, they were modestly dropped. It is no answer to say that reform of the Second Chamber was merely one among many Government proposals, and must take its chance with the others. It was held out as a condition precedent to the Goverment programme, and obviously a reform of the machinery of legislation is not in pari materia with specific legislative proposals. Nor is it any answer to say that the people at the last election contemplated the passage of a measure of Home Rule under the Parliament Act before any reform of the Second Chamber was attempted. Unionist speakers did their best to warn the country of the danger, but Government speakers replied that this was a mere bogey, a piece of hack party misrepresentation. No single Radical of any authority had the candour to admit that what Unionists feared was actually the Government policy. Sir John Simon had no serious reply to make. The most he could say was that even if the Second Chamber had been reformed the Opposi- tion would be no better off, because the Government would not restore the Veto. The broken pledge still remains. Can any one argue seriously that, if a re- formed Second Chamber rejected Home Rule—a Second Chamber reformed on the Government's own plan—it would not be a heavy blow to the Radical Party ? The rejection by the present House of Lords might be dis- counted, but they would not discount rejection by a House of their own making. Mr. Redmond very wisely took no risks. From his point of view his words wore simple common sense. " I am glad that the Prime Minister has dropped all reference to reform in his resolution. Had he proposed a scheme of reform we should not have been able to support him." The game of catching the Government out on their flawed and broken pledges is easy enough, but far more important is the question of how this muddle is to be cleared. We believe that the people of Britain are very rapidly realizing what the uncontrolled power of the House of Commons means. The Insurance Act has opened many eyes. Here was a measure, never mentioned at the last election, vitally affecting every worker in the country, carried hurriedly and confusedly behind the people's backs. No doubt the House of Lords in passing it put themselves in an illogical position, but the ordinary man is less con- cerned at their passing it than at the fact that under the Parliament Act the Government had the power of forcing it through. He is beginning to wonder how this state of affairs is to be reconciled with any kind of popular government. He looks to the Unionist Party, not so much to change the composition of the Second Chamber as to give it the power of referring a measure back to him. Sir John Simon declares confidently that the right of unlimited veto will never be restored—but it depends on what is meant by the unlimited veto. The pre-Parliament Act status will not be restored ; that is certain. Mr. Bonar Law spoke for every member of the party when he said that he would not repeal the Parliament Act without undertaking at the same time the reform of the Second Chamber. But in a true sense what the Unionist Party is pledged to and what, we believe, the great majority of the nation demands is just the restoration of the right of unlimited veto over the work of the House of Commons, provided that the veto be the veto of the people. At present, subject to a hiatus of a couple of years in carrying out their will, the Cabinet is absolute. Provided it can count upon its majority in the House of Commons it can force into law measures of which the country has never heard before and on which it has never decided. Further, under a coalition, which is a system of bargaining among groups, a Bill may be carried to which the great majority of the people are strongly opposed. The hostility of this or that faction in the coalition will be bought off for the moment by a promise of support for its own pet measure. No system more flagrantly undemocratic has ever been devised. To put a stop to it is the first duty of any democratic and constitutional party. The right of refer- ring a measure to a poll of the whole body of electors is the only remedy against government from the backstairs. We desire to see the electors of Britain the possessors of an unlimited veto ; the alternative is that the Cabinet and the party caucus should have unlimited legislative power.
The Unionist Party is right in making the constitutional question one of the chief features of their programme. But we would strongly urge upon Mr. Bonar Law the desirability of concentrating his efforts not upon a change in the constitution of the Second Chamber but upon the reform of its powers. This, to judge by their feverish protests, is what the Radical Party chiefly dread. It is the only question which interests the ordinary man in the country. He is bewildered by competing schemes for reform, and he has at the back of his head a profound distrust of all fancy franchises. But what he sees clearly is that under the Parliament Act he has uncommonly little power over the Government which he has returned to office. He wants some security that he will be given a chance of saying whether he wants a new legislative experiment or not. Ho wants a Second Chamber which will have power to refer at any time such an experiment to him for his decision. We do not say that the Referendum necessarily excludes reform of the Lords ; on the contrary, it is the first step to reform ; but we do not wish to see this clear issue complicated by elaborate schemes of reform on which no two men either in the Unionist Party or in the country are quite agreed. One simple reform is, indeed, common ground to all. Let us make membership of the House of Lords contingent upon some moderate amount of past public service—in local affairs, in the House of Commons, in the Overseas Empire, or in our naval and military forces. Such a condition would reduce the present House of Lords to a workable size, and would guarantee a reasonable standard of ability and experience. But for the present we should let more ambitious schemes severely alone. Conceivably the future may point the way to some better principle of selec- tion, but for the moment our concern is to emphasize and protect the rights of the people, not to bring to the last perfection the machinery which may call these rights into exercise. After all, there is something to be said for the old Whig view that the aristocracy may be a sound revising body provided its decision is not final. Our business is to make the people the ultimate court of appeal. Lot the Lords be the Sovereign People's Remom- brancer and insist in doubtful cases on a clear order from the master of both Houses.
The question of the Referendum has been argued so often in our pages that we have no intention of arguing it again. It has never been better stated than by Lord Robert Cecil in his speech in the House on Tuesday. It is curious how its opponents are shifting their ground, and how one by one the objections raised against it are answering themselves. It was not workable; it was un- English ; it was undemocratic, whatever that may mean ; it was too costly ; it would weaken a Government's prestige ; it would be too radical ; it would be too conservative ;—it is easy to prove them all baseless. The fact to remember is that it is the only expedient which is a simple and practical answer to the growing popular demand. If a Radical Government were in power it would ensure that now and important measures did not become law without the people's direct assent. No Opposition leader would set its machinery recklessly in motion, for from the result of the Referendum there would be no appeal. Under a Unionist Government it would be possible for the Oppo- sition on petition to demand a referendum, and so the danger of a partisan Second Chamber would be avoided. That is the constitutional reform on which, in the interests of the nation at large, it its the duty of the Unionist Party to insist.
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