BILL ATTACKED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26617, 13 November 1947, Page 7

BILL ATTACKED

HOUSE OF LORDS’ VETO SINGLE CHAMBER INTENDED MR CHURCHILL'S ACCUSATION Rec. 8 p.m. LONDON, Nov. 11. Mr Churchill, resuming the second reading debate on the Parliament Bill, said 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 promises 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 has a relish for petty dictatorship. The idea of a group of supermen and superplanners playing the angel and making the masses do what they think is good for them without any check is violation of democracy. The Government is afraid of the people’s will. That is what the Bill is devised to prevent. “ If the Socialists pressed for reform of the House of Lords, the Opposition would be ready to help them,” he said. “The Socialist Government maintains that the hereditary principle and the one-year veto are trueblue Socialist democracy, and the twoyear veto is class tyranny. The Government intends a single-chamber Government, which is soecially dangerous in a country with no written Constitution, and where Parliaments are elected for as long as five years.” Mr Churchill said the Ministers on the Government Bench were going to be more hated than any Government which had held office since the franchise was extended in 1932. Privileges Not Sought The Home Secretary, Mr Chuter Ede, replying to Mr Churchill, said the Labour Government sought no privileges, desired to obtain no handicap, and sought no facility which the Conservatives had not long enjoyed. Labour did not want to be mixed up in any arid controversy about the peers versus 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 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. Mr Attlee, replying to the debate on the Bill, said that during the second half of the life of the present Parliament Mr Churchill might appeal for the Lords’ aid, “and I should like to remove the temptation from his path. We are entitled to take up the matter as a practical problem that faces any Government of the Left.” “ Responsible to No One ” The Lords was responsible to no one, it represented no one but exercised ts own sweet will at its own sweet pleasure. He had never yet heard a proposition submitted to the Commons for second chamber reform which suggested that there could be a Labour majority in the Lords. The Government was ready to look at any proposals for the reform of the Constitution of the House of Lords, continued Mr Attlee, but the Lords must not be allowed to interpret the opinion of the nation against the Commons. A reformed second chamber must not be given concurrent powers with the Commons and must not have a permanent majorty for any political party. “We know that a great mass of people think that it is anomalous that the Lords should have their present powers,” he added. • The Conservative amendment was defeated by 345 votes to 194. Hereditary Title a Handicap

Mr Quintin Hogg, who, as Lord Hailsham’s son, will one day sit in the House of Lords, appealed to the Government during the debate to abolish the hereditary principle and save him from that fate. Possession of an hereditary title, he declared, was a grave handicap to which no young man should be subjected. It was almost impossible for a young man to go into any other than the armed forces without finding such a title a “ millstone round his What was wrong with the House of Lords, he added, was its composition, not its powers. Either it should be a second chamber capable of exercising its powers or it should be swept away. There was no justification for this tawdry, shoddy, dishonest compromise, which left important powers in the hands of men who were then attacked for exercising them.