IN WHICH HOUSE?

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 70, 24 March 1938, Page 10

IN WHICH HOUSE?

FOREIGN SECRETARY

CONSTITUTIONAL PROPRIETY

OPPOSITION ENDED

(From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, March 2.

In which House should the Foreign Secretary sit, the Lords or the Commons? It depends, it seems, upon the qualities of the man himself and not upon his social position. Following the resignation of Mr. Anthony Eden and the appointment of Lord Halifax, the Prime Minister was called upon by the Opposition to reply to criticisms of constitutional propriety.

Mr. Neville Chamberlain justified the appointment of Lord Halifax on the ground that it would not be right to deprive the country of the services of the man best qualified to fill this great office merely because', he happened to sit in the House of Lords. The Prime Minister was supported by Mr. Winston Churchill, who only the week before had attacked his policy on foreign affairs. .

t _ Mr. Churchill was in his best form, jj His quips and epigrams delighted the (._ whole House, and under his general x. mockery the Opposition's case disn solved in laughter. The only gesture 0 of his the House had not seen before f. was when with a more than usually j fierce swing of the arms he flung his r ' m spectacles away. They were returned c to him and he finished his speech without using them. s NO CONSTITUTIONAL ISSUE. h Mr. Churchill said that there was t clearly no constitutional issue raised. c Certainly the great men whom he had s I met long years ago would never have c been shocked by the knowledge of a t Foreign Secretary in the House of ; c Lords; they would have been very ; '■ much shocked at the idea of a Forf eign Secretary in the House of Com- : mons. There was the great Lord Sal- i 0 isbury, but Mr. Gladstone, who knew 1 just as much about the House of ComV mons as the Leader of the Opposition 1 —(laughter)—and was a strong advoS cate of. the rights of the House, and a s great master of constitutional law, r never was in a Cabinet, and never 3 headed a Cabinet without a Foreign 2 Secretary in the House of Lords. f They must not have anything deror gatory to the House ,of Commons, but - when they had the Prime Minister • what was the good of-worrying about

. the Foreign Secretary? (Laughter. What was the point of crying out fo ■ the moon when they, had the sun?- . (loud laughter)—when they had tha '. bright orb from whose effulgent beam ■ the lesser luminaries derived thei ; radiance? (Laughter.) There was no good working up ; grievance on that. He did not fee that the House of Commons could havi any complaint. He was not so sun about the sun. (Laughter.) He gath ered from the astronomers that then had been some spots on the sundaughter)—which entailed a good dea of unseasonable weather and some o: those queer Northern lights in the skj which presaged strange events. (Laugh ter.) A CABINET REVIEW Whether the Prime Minister could

over a long period of time, bear the detailed burden in. addition to leading the House and leading, the party and conducting the whole co-ordination oi our affairs—whether Mr. Chamberlain could do that was a matter for him to judge. If a man tried to do more that he possibly cbuld do the only result is that many important things got left undone. "Who else would you have chosen?" Mr. Churchill went on. "I will put myself, metaphorically speaking, for a moment in the position of the Prime Minister. Obviously the mind is first directed to the two ex-Foreign Secretaries. With respect to the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir John Simon), it would be a serious thing to interrupt his preparations of the Budget. (Loud laughter.) That disposes of that. "It is true that no such disabling preoccupation affects the Home Secretary (Sir Samuel Hoare). He has taken over a new Department, in which the principal and most urgent subject is the preparation of our air raid precautions. But there, of course, one must realise that so much of the work was done by his predecessor— (laughter)—and the arrangements are .so far advanced that he really only has to put a few finishing touches to

| them. (Renewed laughter.) Therefore he cannot say that he is not a free man in those respects and cannot be liberated. But I understand there is another obstacle in, the way of his accepting the office of Foreign Secretary—namely, that nothing in. the world would induce him to accept the office. (Loud laughter.) Once bitten twice shy! It is a case of the burnt child dreading the fire. So that disposes of those two. OTHER POSSIBILITIES. "Then there have been mentioned the Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence and the Minister of Health. I must say that, if the Prime Minister had chosen the Minister for the Coordination of Defence !-(Sir Thomas jlnskip), and if that right hon. gen-tleman-were half as good at stonewalling these foreign countries when 'they come along asking for our colonies and our cash as he is in stonewalling our questions in this House, he would have a good innings. (Laughter.) But he is absolutely fixed upon his task, having revived our defences, co-ordinated them, and brought this great matter into a thoroughly satisfactory condition with the assistance of a single secretary and a lady typist—(laughter)—and it would be inadvisable to remove him from his sphere just as the fruition of his labours is about to be achieved. "As to the Minister of Health (Sir Kingsley Wood), I must say I would very much like to see his cherubic, bland smile confronting the scowling dictators. But in his case also he is absolutely necessary where he is. In fact, you only begin to realise how good these Ministers are in their jobs when you begin to think of them for some other job. (Laughter.) "It seems to me that every man who looks on this matter fairly and with reasonable consideration of the difficulties of the Prime Minister will agree that there was no solution to be found in any of these candidatures that I have mentioned." (Hear, hear.) LORD HALIFAX THE MAN. Continuing, Mr. Churchill said that the convenience of business would at this juncture not be at all injured by the Foreign Secretary being in the House of Lords. (Cheers.) He yielded to no man in his desire to see that free Assembly reviving and maintaining its old rights and adding to them from time to time, but if the House of Commons was itself going to superintend and control foreign affairs from day to day by an unending stream of derogatory pinpricks it would really make a very great mistake and would lessen and not increase the influence of that House on foreign affairs.

There was no doubt, in the unhappy circumstances which had arisen, that Lord Halifax was the man to bear this burden. He would far rather see the noble Lord in charge of this great De-

partment than exercising a vague but very powerful benevolent, philanthropic influence inside the Cabinet but from outside the Department. It would be a great mistake to dismiss Lord Halifax as a sort of weak peace-at-any-price person. He was a man not only of integrity and high character but of force and courage which, if ultimately provoked, would be found at least as lasting and enduring as that of any man on either side of the House.

A great experiment had been launched. He thought that it was most unpromising, but he recognised that it had been launched with conviction, and that those who had launched it had paid a considerable price both in their own political interests and in our interests in Europe. Surely it was essential that it should be conducted by hands which were apt and inclined to carry it through, and by the men who really believed in the policy they had adopted and on which they had to a large extent staked their reputations. No other course could have been taken by the Prime Minister; the House was not in the least injured by what had occurred; and the highest constitutional practice was on this occasion in full conformity with the immediate practical needs. I