POWERS OF LORDS

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25340, 13 November 1947, Page 7

POWERS OF LORDS

Mr Attlee Replies To Debate FEAR OF AID TO OPPOSITION (N.Z. Press Association— Copyright) (Rec. 7 p.m.) LONDON, November 12. Mr Attlee replying to the House of Commons debate on the Parliament Bill, said that during the second half of the life of the present Parliament Mr Churchill might appeal for the Lords’ aid. “I should like to remove the temptation from his path,” said Mr Attlee. “We are entitled to take up the matter as a practical problem that faces any Government of the Left.” Mr Attlee said the House of Lords was responsible to no one, represented no one, but exercised its own sweet will at its own sweet pleasure. He had never yet heard a proposition submitted to the House of Commons for second chamber reform which suggested there could be a Labour majority in the House of Lords. The Government was ready to look at any proposals for reform of the constitution of the House of Lords, but the House of Lords must not be allowed to interpret the opinion of the nation against the House of Commons. A reformed second chamber must not be given concurrent powers with the House of Commons and must not have a permanent majority for any political party. “We know that the great mass of thfe people think it is anomalous that the Lords should have their present powers,” said Mr Attlee.

Mr R. A. Eden, winding up for the Opposition, said that an objectionable aspect of the bill was that it embodied the principle of retrospective legislation, which all parties should guard against. The Government might find itself with a second chamber far less ready to pass the Iron and Steel Bill than the present House of Lords. It was “a murky, miserable little bill, and the clumsiest blunder the present Government has ever permitted.” Mr Churchill. Attacks Bill Mr Churchill, when the second reading debate on the Parliament Bill was resumed, said that the principles and spirit of the Parliament Adt of 1911 were to secure intimate, effective and continuous influence of the people’s will upon the conduct and progress of their affairs.

Mr Churchill, resuming the second reading debate on the Parliament Bill, said that the principles and spirit of the Parliament Act of 1911 were to

secure intimate, effective and continuous influence of the people’s will upon the conduct and progress of their affairs.

“Democracy is not a caucus obtaining a fixed term of office by premises and then doing what it likes to the people,” he said. “There should be a constant relationship between the rulers and the people. Mr Morrison had a relish for a petty dictatorship idea of a group of super-men and super-planners playing the angel and making the masses do what they think is good for them. This, without any check, is a violation of democracy. “The Government is afraid of the people’s will. That is what the Bill is devised to prevent. If Ihe Socialists pressed for reform of the House of Lords the Opposition would be ready to help them. The Socialist Government maintains the hereditary principle that a one-year veto is a true blue Socialist democracy. The twoyear veto is class tyranny. The Government intends $ single-chamber Government, which is especially dangerous in a country with no written constitution and where parliaments are elected for as long as five years.” Mr .Churchill said that there was no guarantee except the House of Lords suspensory veto, against a measure never voted on at the elections.

“As a freeborn Englishman, what I hate most is the sense of being at anybody’s mercy—be it Hitler or Attlee,” he continued. “We are approaching very near a dictatorship in Britain—a dictatorship without either its criminality or efficiency. This nation, more than any other, knows how to control its rulers. There are incompetent Ministers who have brought upon us many miseries, and who say, ‘To hell with the people’s will.’ These are the men who. are bringing us to ruin.” Mr Churchill said that the Ministers on the Government bench were going tq be more hated than any Government which had held office since the franchise was extended in 1932. “No Privileges Sought”

The Home Secretary (Mr Chuter Ede), replying to Mr Churchill, said that the Labour Government sought no privileges, desired to obtain no handicap, nor sought any facility wllich-the < .Conservatives had not long ■enjoyed. Labour did not want to be mixed up in “any arid controversy about peers v. the people.” The restricted powers which the bill provided were the maximum powers that should be allowed to any second chamber, no matter how constituted. Mr Ede said that the idea that the Parliament Bill was required to nationalise iron and steel was one of the Conservatives’ delusions. There •were other bills coming forward which might equally need the opportunities afforded by the Parliament Bill if they were to receive appropriate treatment from the Legislature. , “If we propose that the House of Lords should be abolished or drastically reformed—that would be an issue which would have to be submitted to the electorate,” he said. The Eill was read a second time and the Conservative amendment was defeated by 345 votes to 194. BRITAIN’S PRESS SIR HARTLEY SHAWCROSS’S VIEWS LONDON, November IL The British Attorney-General (Sir Hartley Shawcross), in a speech to a meeting of American newspaper editors, admitted that while he had had harsh things to say about the British press, it also deserved a tribute. “It cannot be bought, and it cannot, be bullied,” he said. “Its professional journalists have very high standards of honour. We have set up a royal commission to inquire into the management and organisation of the press, but that is only so that the facts of its ownership • and organisation may be completely understood. “Nobody contemplates for a moment any curtailment of the absolute freedom of opinion or the right of the press to say exactly what it thinks. We may sometimes detest the things it Says, but we will defend to the utmost .its right to say them. That iS fundamental.” PROPOSED STATUE OF MR CHURCHILL LONDON, November 11. The Mayor of New Romney, which is one of the Cinque ports, has disclosed that the scheme to erect a 200 ft statue of Mr Churchill on the Dover cliffs has been abandoned at Mr Churchill’s own request. Mr Churchill said that he preferred that the proposal be discussed after he had left active politics or after his death. The scheme was proposed by an American engineer, who offered to launch an appeal for £25.000 for a statue showing Mr Churchill in naval uniform and smoking a cigar, the glowing end of which would be visible across the Channel. The plan caused a sharp controversy on the question of good taste.