PEERS' ELECTION TO COMMONS

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21707, 14 February 1936, Page 13

PEERS' ELECTION TO COMMONS

MOTION DEFEATED BY LORDS

COMMENT ON DISUSE OF ANCIENT PRIVILEGES

(Received February 13, 7,16 p.m.), LONDON, February 12. A motion by Lord Ponsonby in favour of giving peers the right to vote in elections for, and to offer themselves for election to, the House of Commons, was defeated in Jhe House of Lords by 27 votes to 16. Proposing the motion, Lord Ponsonby called attention to the falling into disuse of the the Peerage, and instanced the right of barons to two chaplains, and of marquesses to five chaplains, for the disuse of which he declined, amid laughter, to offer explanations. , , At one time the person of a peer was both sacred and inviolable, Lord Ponsonby commented. During the period he had had the honour to be one of their lordships in the House he had not been* given any demonstration of this sacredness of his person. He urged that no disability should be allowed to prevent peers from giving their services, if they wished, to the House of Commons, in which they would be in closer touch with public affairs. Lord Onslow, opposing the motion, said that if peers were allowed to become members of the House of Commons it would drain the lifeblood of the House of Lords to which it was the duty of peers to give their services. The Lord Chancellor (Viscount Hailsham), for the Government, said that it was not wise to attempt to deal piecemeal with the problem of the reform of the House of Lords. ■_ v