TOO MANY PEERS

Southland Times, Issue 18965, 13 June 1923, Page 11

TOO MANY PEERS

NEARLY 200 WHO DO NOT ATTEND HOUSE. “ECCLESIASTICAL BACKWOODSMEN.” A racy debate was raised in the House of Lords recently by Lord Newton calling attention —not for the first time—to the question of the membership and numbers of the House, as a preliminary to moving that the numbers should be reduced. The principle of reduction had, he said, been to the forefront in every proposal for the reform of the House, but the full situation had only been revealed by a return of attendances just issued. This showed that in 1920 there were 664 temporal peers, of whom 195 never came near the House at all, and 180 fewer than 10 times. In 1921 the numbers were 674, 240 and 220, and in 1922 they were 684, 189, and 222 respectively. The spiritual peers included a certain number of ecclesiastical backwoodsmen who were prevented by their duties from attending; then there were 30 minors, and 30 ladies who would probably enter eventually over the prostrate forms of the Marquis Curzon and Lord Birkenhead, unless the House reduced its numbers.

At present the number of spiritual and temporal peers was 726, but the potential number would be swelled by the minors and the ladies.

The House was not only larger than the House of Commons, but more than double the size of any other second chamber in the world. The number who took part in its deliberations was, however, very small; the whole of the talking was done by 50 or 60, and the regular attendance was 150 to 200. He did not blame peers for their reticence; it was commendable that so many should attend, and yet refrain from boring their He was acquainted with some noble lords who had never been in the chamber, and did not intend ever to come; one whom he knew said he was too clever for that assembly.

Many, of course, were busy public men; but there was not a busier man than Lord Curzon, and if you wrote to Ix>rd Curzon you would get a reply next day, written by himself; if you wrote to an absentee peer you would probably get no reply at all, or, if you did, it would be written by the butler.

If (heir lordships were at Ain tree that, day, they would find a proportion of the absentees there. “If it had not been for this motion, I should have been there myself,” Lord Newton confessed, amid laughter.

“I firmly believe,” continued Lord Newton, “that you could get rid of half the members of this House without their being aware of it, by a sort of political euthanasia.”

His idea would be a chamber of 250 or 300 members of high standing, with a certain number of elected peers, elected on some such procedure as that of the Scottish representative peers, but for a longer term than that of a Parliament.

Lord Newton’s free comments brought up several defenders of the status quo, some of them gladiators of past Constitutional combats.

Lord Knutsford, for instance, spoke feelingly of the peers who were heads of great commercial undertakings, and those engaged in work that v/as not remunerative, but was very absorbing of interest and of time.

“ People call us backwoodsmen,” he protested. “ Why, we are the backbone of the Constitution!”

If they all came every day it would have the opposite effect from assisting business. The present method was almost ideal; only those came who were interested in the business, and it was carried through quickly and well. “If you carry this motion,” he added, “you will deprive peers of the only privilege left to them.”

Lord Willoughby de Broke, too, stood up for the backwoodsmen. They were men immersed in county affairs, he said, and just as likely to be conversant with public opinion as members of the House of Commons, who spent most of their time in the smoking-room and voted at the behest of the party whips.

“I do not intend to surrender any of my privileges,” he frankly declared, “unless I get something in return, such as the repeal of the Parliament Act and general constitutional reforms which will restore the balance of the Constitution.”

The Marquis Curzon, like Lord Burnham and Earl Buxton, agreed that the House was unnecessarily large, and he confessed that he was disappointed that men who came from the Commons did not take a more active part in the proceedings. He asked, however, whether a better attendance could be secured by any ether arrangment. Small attendances were to be seen in the House of Commons even when distinguished persons were speaking. The future reform of the House was, however, not that of numbers alone; there was the question of composition. They could not deal with the matter in morsels. When the Government, came to deal with it they must deal with it as a whole, but that would not be yet, apparently. The Earl of Birkenhead, from the front Opposition bench, caustically commented cn this leisured proceeding. Lord Salisbury used (o accuse him and Lord Curzon, he remarked, of being dishonest Coalitionists, because they did not deal with this question, and Lord Salisbury and Lord Selborne were almost the “Dclly Sisters” in their performances in attacking the late Coalition. Now Lord Salisbury sat by Lord Curzon in “an honest Conservative Government”— and said they could do nothing for years! “ I have no feeling towards Iz>rd Curzon,” added the ex-Lcrd Chancellor, “with whom I have fought, many difficult fights. But when I see sitting beside him Lord Salisbury, who for four years pursued us with malignant criticism, impeached the morality and honesty of the Coalition, and called them ‘shifting opportunists,’ I rejoice at the vicissitudes and paradoxes of their politics.” There was a delighted cheer from some cf the peers below the gangway at this sally, which provoked Lbrd Selborne tq get up and seriously to declare that he “at any rate, intended to be consistent. Lord Birkenhead, he said, “might depend upon it that he would join in keeping up the present Government to their pledges in the same way as he had acted towards the late Government.”

The n.oticn was carried before their lordships went off to dinner.