Sources of English Constitutional History: Chapter 138

138. PROCEEDINGS IN PARLIAMENT (1909-32)

(A) Debate on the Budget (1909)^[1]

[2 December.] The prime minister (Mr. Asquith) moved that the action of the house of lords in refusing to pass into law the financial provision made by this house for the service of the year is a breach of the constitution and a usurpation of the rights of the commons.

We are met here this afternoon under circumstances which are unexampled in the history of the British parliament. Nearly ten months ago the sovereign in a paragraph in the gracious speech from the throne addressed to the house of commons, and to the house of commons alone, invited us to make provision for the heavy additional expenditure which is due to necessities of social reform and of national defence. In a session which — if not for the actual length of its duration, certainly for the strenuousness of its labours — is, I believe, almost without a rival we have addressed ourselves to that task.... When a short time ago the Finance Bill received its third reading, and as it left this house, it represented, I believe, in a greater degree than can be said of any measure of our time the matured, the well sifted, the deliberate work of an overwhelming majority of the representatives of the people upon a matter which, by the custom of generations and by the course of a practically unbroken authority, is the province of this house, and of this house alone. In the course of a week, or little more than a week, the whole of this fabric has been thrown to the ground. For the first time in English history the grant of the whole of the ways and means for the supply and service of the year — a grant made at the request of the crown to the crown by the commons — has been intercepted and nullified by a body which admittedly has not the power to increase or diminish one single tax, or to propose any substitute or alternative for any one of the taxes. The house of commons would, in the judgment of his majesty's government, be unworthy of its past and of the traditions of which it is the custodian and the trustee, if it allowed another day to pass without making it clear that it does not mean to brook the greatest indignity and, I will add, the most arrogant usurpation to which, for more than two centuries, it has been asked to submit....

I may be pardoned if, in passing, I refer at this point to two suggestions which have been made, proceeding from very opposite quarters, and both of them, I think, for obvious but very different reasons untenable. The first is that the executive should continue to demand and enforce the new taxes sanctioned by resolution, notwithstanding the prorogation of parliament. It is frankly admitted by those who put that suggestion forward that it is a revolutionary proposal. It would certainly bring any one who adopted it into rapid collision with the courts of law, and it does not commend itself to the judgment of his majesty's government. The second suggestion ... is that here and now, before the present session closes, the government should bring in a new budget and submit it for approval or rejection to the house of lords.... It would be a pretty pass indeed for the house of commons if, after having for the first time been offered by the other house the indignity of the summary rejection of the whole of the financial arrangements of the year, it were then to stoop spontaneously to the humiliation of presenting to the same house, for its criticism and sanction, an amended budget, pruned and trimmed and refurbished to suit its scruples and to meet its tastes.... No minister who ventured to make such a proposal to the house of commons would deserve, and certainly no minister would retain for five minutes, the confidence of this assembly. It would be, in fact, a recognition of the right of the house of lords, not only to reject, but also to amend the financial arrangements of the year.

I dismiss these impossible suggestions, and I come to the course — the only course — which in the circumstances it is open to the government, without either breaking the law or sacrificing constitutional principle, to pursue. That course is to advise, as we have advised the crown, to dissolve this parliament at the earliest possible moment. His majesty has been graciously pleased to accept that advice, and the result, I trust, will be that the new house of commons will assemble at such time as to make it possible for it to provide, both retrospectively and prospectively, for the needs of the current financial year. If we are fortunate enough to enjoy its confidence, its first act will be to reimpose, as from this week, all taxes and duties which were embodied in the Finance Bill and to validate all past collections and deductions....

But I go on now to say that the purpose of my motion to-day is not to complain of the financial and administrative hardship which the house of lords has so heedlessly inflicted upon us.... No; mine is a totally different purpose. It is to ask the house, in vindication of the first principles of the constitution and in assertion of its own immemorial rights, to enter a prompt and solemn protest against the whole proceeding. We live in this country, and we have lived for centuries past, under an unwritten constitution.... It is of course true that we have upon the statute book great instruments like Magna Carta itself, the Petition of Rights, and the Bill of Rights, which define and secure many of our rights and privileges; but the great bulk of our constitutional liberties — and, I would add, of our constitutional practices — do not derive their validity and sanction from any bill which has received the formal assent of king, lords, and commons. They rest upon usage, upon custom, upon convention.... And let me point out further it is an essential incident of such an unwritten constitution that there should be powers which are legal powers ... , yet which in the course of time ... first of all came to be fitfully and intermittently used, and finally ... became dormant, moribund, and for all practical purposes dead.

A familiar illustration of this, well known to everybody, is the veto of the crown. There is nothing whatever to prevent me, or any other minister, from advising his majesty to-morrow to refuse his assent to a bill which has passed through both the house of commons and the house of lords. And if his majesty were to take that advice, and so refuse his assent, that bill could not take its place on the statute book and would not have its effect in law. I think, however, the minister who gave that advice would deserve to be impeached, although in point of law the right of the crown to veto a bill is just as unquestionable to-day as it was in the time of Queen Elizabeth. But two hundred years of desuetude and contrary practice have made it a legal right not constitutionally exercised or followed now....

Tried by the test which I have been endeavouring to describe — the test of usage, the test of convention, the test of unbroken understanding — does not the recent action of the house of lords in rejecting the Finance Bill deserve the description which I have given to it in my resolution? Is it not a breach of the constitution? No one will deny that the house of lords has a technical right to reject a finance bill or any other bill.... But ever since 1628 ... , when by the advice of the greatest lawyers of that day, the mention of the lords was deliberately omitted from the granting words in the preamble of supply bills, this house has asserted with ever-growing emphasis its own exclusive right to determine the taxation and the expenditure of the country....

I am not going to discuss in reference to this unprecedented act the merits of the Finance Bill with the house of lords, but I think it is only right and fair, before I bring my case to a conclusion, that I should examine such justifications as have been put forward for the action which has been taken. In the first place, I have seen it suggested ... that this bill was not a finance bill at all, and that therefore the constitutional rule does not apply. That, of course, is one of the most absurd contentions which has ever been advanced by a bankrupt controversialist. Here is a bill of nearly one hundred clauses, which imposed ten or eleven different sets of taxes. I will undertake to say there was not a single clause which was not relevant to its primary and governing purpose — namely, the raising of revenue....

But there is another reason which is put forward by way of justification, which I think demands rather fuller scrutiny. The house of lords or their apologists tell us that they have not rejected this bill; all they have done is to refer it to the people.... This newfangled Caesarism which converts the house of lords into a kind of plebiscitory organ is one of the quaintest inventions of our time. Let us see what it is.... The theory is that the people require to be protected against their own elected representatives, especially — may I not say exclusively? — when the majority of those representatives happen to belong to the Liberal Party. By whom is the protection to be afforded? In what quarter is it to be found? Here the theory goes on that Providence, as in so many other ways, has been exceptionally kind. It has supplied us with exactly the kind of thing we want for the purpose by an unforeseen and unforeseeable evolution in our ancient house of lords....

The truth is that all this talk about the duty or the right of the house of lords to refer measures to the people is, in the light of our practical and actual experience, the hollowest outcry of political cant. We never hear of it ... when a Tory government is in power.... It is simply a thin rhetorical veneer, by which it is sought to gloss over the partisan, and in this case the unconstitutional, action of a purely partisan chamber. The sum and substance of the matter is that the house of lords rejected the Finance Bill last Tuesday, not because they love the people, but because they hate the budget. ... This motion ... is confined in terms to the new and unprecedented claim made by the house of lords to interfere with finance.... It represents a stage — a momentous and perhaps a decisive stage — in a protracted controversy which is drawing to a close. The real question which emerged from the political struggles in this country for the last thirty years is not whether you will have a single or a double chamber system of government, but whether, when the Tory Party is in power, the house of commons shall be omnipotent, and whether, when the Liberal Party is in power, the house of lords shall be omnipotent....

The house of lords have deliberately chosen their ground. They have elected to set at naught, in regard to finance, the unwritten and time-honoured conventions of our constitution. In so doing, whether they foresaw it or not, they have opened out a wider and more far-reaching issue. We have not provoked the challenge, but we welcome it. We believe that the first principles of representative government, as embodied in our slow and ordered but ever-broadening constitutional development, are at stake, and we ask the house of commons by this resolution to-day, as at the earliest possible moment we shall ask the constituencies of the country, to declare that the organ, the voice of the free people of this country, is to be found in the elective representatives of the nation.

Mr. A. J. Balfour: ... The right honourable gentleman and his party have a perfect passion for these abstract resolutions. They bring them forward at intervals. They bind nobody; they help nobody; they hurt nobody. I doubt whether they encourage anybody, and I am sure that they do not frighten anybody. Least of all, are these resolutions likely to prove formidable to enemies or encouraging to friends, when they are made by the last dying breath of the house of commons.... I greatly regret that we should go down, so to speak, to our political friends uttering so gross a misrepresentation of the constitution of this country.... The right honourable gentleman moved easily and quickly through large spaces of English history; he went back to 1628 and he came down to the paper duties. Did he give a single argument indicating that the course which the house of lords has recently pursued is a course which, in the language of the resolution, is a breach of the constitution and a usurpation of the rights of the commons? The right honourable gentleman really never touched that point. He based his observations, as I understood him, upon a distinction between that which is technically within the law and that which is substantially within the constitution. And he said that he did not deny that rejection by the house of lords was technically within the law. He did deny that it, in no substantial sense, was within the limits of the constitution. I think the right honourable gentleman is absolutely wrong — not in drawing a distinction between that part of our constitution which is written on the statute book and that part of our constitution which is not written on the statute book; of course there is that distinction. But within the constitution which is not written on the statute book there are some things which are technically possible, which substantially nobody would recommend. There are other things which are done every day. And there is a third class belonging neither to the first nor to the second class of things — things which certainly ought not to be part of our every-day practice, but which are clearly within not merely the written law of the constitution, but within its spirit interpreted in any broad and statesmanlike way.

I do not know why the right honourable gentleman should have so deliberately ignored some of the points which he must know lie on the very face of this constitutional discussion.... Take so important a point as this, that the house of commons ... as against the lords admitted in terms that the house of lords had a right to reject....^[2] If the very original resolution on which all our claims are based ... bears on the face of it that admission, gratuitously made by the house of commons, why are we to go back on that, and why are we now to alter, not the written law, but the substance of the constitution ...? The right honourable gentleman tells us that there is an unbroken tradition under which the house of lords has never rejected the financial proposals of the year.... How long has that unbroken tradition continued? It evidently could not go back before the period when all our provisions for taxation were embodied in one bill, and that is within the memory of men living.... The English constitution did not begin in 1860, but before that. It is quite true that the budget embodying the taxes of the year was never rejected, because there never was a budget bill embodying them; it is an entirely modern invention....

Has the house of lords, in declaring that the constituencies must be consulted on this measure, gone beyond the functions which we ought to leave to a second chamber, however rarely it may be proper that they should be exercised? That is the real point.... That is the point which the country will have to determine. On that point I individually have no doubts whatever.... I shall never waver in the belief that in the exercise of its power — a power which, I grant, has been rarely exercised, but which has never been abandoned — the second chamber have shown a perfectly clear and sound instinct of what it is the duty of a second chamber to do. They have done it fearlessly, and I believe they will be supported by the country....

The house divided: Ayes, 349; Noes, 134.

Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons, N.S., XIII, 546-78.

(B) Debate on Reform of the House of Lords (1910)

[29 March.] The prime minister (Mr. Asquith) moved that this house will immediately resolve itself into a committee to consider the relations between the two houses of parliament and the question of the duration of parliament....

We have had within the last six months, first, and by way of climax to a long series of acts by which the decisions of this house have been flouted and set at naught, an encroachment by the house of lords upon a domain which has come to be regarded by universal consent as entirely outside their constitutional province. Next, we have had an election in which, if our interpretation of it is correct, a large majority of the representatives of the people have come here with the direct and express authority of their constituents to bring this state of things, both as regards finance and legislation, to the earliest possible close. And, lastly, we have the acknowledgment of the lords themselves that, with all the virtues and all the wisdom which they are conscious of possessing, they are, like a certain class of heroines in fiction, "not fully understood." ...

As a necessary preliminary to the working out of our declared policy, we have as a first and urgent step to deal with things as they are, and in particular to deal with the house of lords as it is and to prevent a repetition of the unconstitutional raid of last year into the domain of finance. We have to secure, as against the house of lords, that the wish of the people, as expressed by the mature and reiterated decisions of their elected representatives, shall in all legislation be predominant. We have, as I think, at the same time to provide by adequate safeguards that the elected house shall not outstay its authority.... These are all matters which were clearly brought before the constituencies at the last election, and on which we believe this house is prepared to pass an immediate verdict. The resolutions for the consideration of which I am asking the house to go into committee, are of necessity couched in general terms. They are not to be treated as clauses in a bill. They are, on the contrary, the broad basis on which a bill is to be built up....

I am sorry to have detained the house so long in dealing with the details of these resolutions. We put them forward to deal with the emergency which confronts us, not as purporting to be a full or adequate solution of the whole problem or as exhausting the policy of the government. We put them forward as the first and indispensable step to the emancipation of the house of commons and to rescue from something like paralysis the principles of popular government. Further, we put them forward as a demand sanctioned, as we believe, by a large majority of the representatives of the people chosen at the recent general election, themselves representing a large majority of the electorate.

Fundamental changes in this country, as nothing illustrates more clearly than this controversy, are slow to bring into effect. There was a story current of the last parliament, which in this connection bears repetition. It was told of a new member of the then house of commons, that in 1906 he witnessed for the first time the ceremony of opening parliament.... He was a man of very advanced views and, as he gazed upon that unique and impressive spectacle, felt constrained to mutter to a neighbour, a man of like opinions with himself, "This will take a lot of abolishing." So it will. It was a very shrewd observation; but I am not sure he had mastered the real lesson of the occasion. So far as outward vision goes, one would seem no doubt, in the presence of such a ceremony as that, to be transplanted to the days of the Plantagenets. The framework is the same; the setting is almost the same; the very figures of the picture — kings, peers, judges, commons — are the same, at any rate, in name. But that external and superficial identity masks a series of the greatest transformations that have been recorded in the constitutional experience of mankind.

The sovereign sits there on the throne of Queen Elizabeth who, as history tells us, on one occasion at the end of a single session opposed the royal veto to no less than forty-eight out of ninety-one bills which had received the assent of both houses of parliament. That royal veto, then and for long afterwards an active and potent enemy of popular rights, is literally as dead as Queen Anne. Yes, sir — and has the monarchy suffered? ... There is not a man among us, in whatever quarter of the house he sits, who does not know the crown of this realm, with its hereditary succession, its prerogatives adjusted from generation to generation to the needs of the people and the calls of the empire, is held by our gracious sovereign by a far securer tenure than ever fell to the lot of any of his Tudor or Stuart ancestors. The liberties, again, of the commons which you, sir, only a month ago once more claimed and asserted at the same bar in time-honoured phrases ... — the liberties of the commons, slowly and patiently won, in these days newly threatened and invaded ... — are only in danger if, unlike our forefathers here, we refuse to take the necessary steps to make them safe.... The absolute veto of the lords must follow the veto of the crown before the road can be clear for the advent of full-grown and unfettered democracy.

Mr. A. J. Balfour: There were phrases in the peroration of the right honourable gentleman which suggested that he had approached the great constitutional issue, which he has raised by these resolutions, in the spirit of a constitutional minister. But I confess that, neither in the proposals themselves nor in the arguments by which in the main he has supported them, do I see any of that wise power of adapting institutions to the changing needs of the community which has been the glory of this country....

Every country, when it has got a written constitution, takes care to protect that constitution and surrounds it with safeguards. We have not got a written constitution; we have no safeguards. The changes which have taken place — the right honourable gentleman has not exaggerated them — have been great and profound. They have been going on to the present time. The greatest of them has gone on without the sort of wretched legislation which you now propose. Those changes have been gradual in their growth, and we have hitherto not been threatened by those violent processes. We are threatened by them now. Some of us desire these revolutions; some of us fear them. I say, whether we desire them or whether we fear them, we are not doing our duty by the constitution which we have inherited, if we leave it to the power of the majority of this house, without the deliberate assent of the people to these changes, to carry them into effect over the heads of another place....

It is madness for us to make a change in the constitution which may entirely remove all the safeguards which the right honourable gentleman himself thinks ought to exist as regards legislation in general; it is madness to remove them in regard to finance. I agree that their exercise ought to be rare, that they should be used with the utmost caution and circumspection; but that we should make it impossible that they should ever be used ... seems to me to be the height of folly. And let me say that the opinion I venture to express upon this point is the opinion which, as far as I know, is held by all the free self-governing communities of the world. It is held by the United States of America; it is held by France; it is held by Germany; it is held by Italy; it is held by every one of our colonies, as far as I know....

I must say I do not think the full absurdity of these resolutions can have occurred to those who framed them. What do they amount to? Parliament has now to last for five years — that is to say, five years is to be the limit of its legal existence. Presumably its existence will be about four years.... That four years is to be divided constitutionally into two periods: a one-chamber period and a two-chamber period. During the first of these periods we shall be governed by Costa Rica; we shall have a single chamber, and only a single chamber. During the second of these periods we shall revert to the traditional practice sanctioned by centuries in the British constitution and imitated in almost every civilized country in the world. Can anything be more grotesque than this double constitution under which we shall henceforth live? Like Harlequin, half will be black and half white....

It is an old failing of the party which the right honourable gentleman leads, to suppose that by upsetting something which exists you are going to reform some evil of which you disapprove.... I think from every point of view the government are ill-advised in the course which they are taking. They are ill-advised because, I think, their change of the constitution, on their own showing, is not the one they ought to have begun. They ought, on their own showing, to have begun by reforming the house of lords. It is ill-advised because the actual alterations in their functions proposed by these resolutions are in themselves absurd and grotesque.... I can only say, for my own part, that, both on the demerits of these proposals themselves and on their indirect effects upon the legislation of this country, I shall offer them at every stage the strongest opposition which it is in my power to give....

[14 April.] The chairman, pursuant to the order of the house of the 5th day of April, reported the resolutions to the house^[3] ...: —

I. That it is expedient that the house of lords be disabled by law from rejecting or amending a money bill, but that any such limitation by law shall not be taken to diminish or qualify the existing rights and privileges of the house of commons. For the purpose of this resolution a bill shall be considered a money bill if, in the opinion of the speaker, it contains only provisions dealing with all or any of the following subjects: namely, the imposition, repeal, remission, alteration, or regulation of taxation; charges on the consolidated fund or the provision of money by parliament; supply; the appropriation, control, or regulation of public money; the raising or guarantee of any loan or the repayment thereof; or matters incidental to those subjects or any of them. Question put, that this house doth agree with the committee in the said resolution. The house divided: Ayes, 340; Noes, 241....

2. That it is expedient that the powers of the house of lords as respects bills [other] than money bills be restricted by law, so that any such bill, which has passed the house of commons in three successive sessions and, having been sent up to the house of lords at least one month before the end of the session, has been rejected by that house in each of those sessions, shall become law without the consent of the house of lords on the royal assent being declared; provided that at least two years shall have elapsed between the date of the first introduction of the bill in the house of commons and the date on which it passes the house of commons for the third time. For the purposes of this resolution, a bill shall be treated as rejected by the house of lords if it has not been passed by the house of lords either without amendment or with such amendments only as may be agreed upon by both houses. Question put, that this house doth agree with the committee in the said resolution. The house divided: Ayes, 346; Noes, 243....

3. That it is expedient to limit the duration of parliament to five years. Question put, that this house doth agree with the committee in the said resolution. The house divided: Ayes, 347; Noes, 244....

Ibid., XV, 1162-98; XVI, 1531-42.

I. Reform of the house of lords, (1) That a strong and efficient second chamber is not merely an integral part of the British constitution, but is necessary to the well-being of the state and to the balance of parliament. (2) That such a chamber can best be obtained by the reform and reconstitution of the house of lords. (3) That a necessary preliminary of such reform and reconstitution is the acceptance of the principle that the possession of a peerage should no longer of itself give the right to sit and vote in the house of lords. (4) That in future the house of lords shall consist of lords of parliament, (a) chosen by the whole body of hereditary peers from among themselves and by nomination by the crown, (b) sitting by virtue of offices and of qualifications held by them, (c) chosen from outside.

II. Relations between the two houses of parliament. (1) That, in the opinion of this house, it is desirable that provision should be made for settling differences which may arise between the house of commons and this house, reconstituted and reduced in numbers in accordance with the recent resolutions of this house. (2) That, as to bills other than money bills, such provision should be upon the following lines: if a difference arises between the two houses with regard to any bill other than a money bill in two successive sessions, and with an interval of not less than one year, and such difference cannot be adjusted by any other means, it shall be settled in a joint sitting composed of members of the two houses; provided that, if the difference relates to a matter which is of great gravity and has not been adequately submitted for the judgment of the people, it shall not be referred to the joint sitting, but shall be submitted for decision to the electors by referendum. (3) That, as to money bills, such provision should be upon the following lines: the lords are prepared to forgo their constitutional right to reject or amend money bills which are purely financial in character; provided that effectual provision is made against tacking, and provided that, if any question arises as to whether a bill or any provisions thereof are purely financial in character, that question be referred to a joint committee of both houses, with the speaker of the house of commons as chairman, who shall have a casting vote only. If the committee hold that the bill or provisions in question are not purely financial in character, they shall be dealt with forthwith in a joint sitting of the two houses.

Ibid., XX, 457 f.

(D) Debate in the Commons on Cabinet Responsibility (1932)

[8 February.] Mr. Lansbury: I beg to move that this house can have no confidence in a government which confesses its inability to decide upon a united policy and proposes to violate the long-established constitutional principle of cabinet responsibility by embarking upon tariff measures of far-reaching effect which several of his majesty's ministers declare will be disastrous to the trade and industry of the country....

In regard to the general question, we shall be told, I have no doubt, that this is quite an exception. I will come to that in a minute. I want now to say that we are not opposing this procedure because we think that such procedure should not take place on occasion, or because we are opposed to the members of the government having freedom of action. I do not understand that the lord president is going to say to-day that the government propose permanently to alter the procedure that has been followed for the last hundred years with regard to cabinet responsibility. If, because of the conditions prevailing in the country, the cabinet had come to the conclusion that we ought to have a change in this matter, I think he would have found us quite ready not only to discuss but to support very drastic changes both in the methods of procedure in this house and certainly in the relationship which should exist between the cabinet and the government. No one, I think, has ever argued that a cabinet of twenty men, or even a dozen or three men, would always say aye or no on any particular question under discussion, or at all times. We are not arguing that to-day, or that a government should not, in some circumstances, make an exception, as is proposed now.

The point that we want to make in that connection is that, so far, we know that the government have no intention of asking parliament to change the present position. There is no proposal to abolish the constitutional practice which, in spite of the present cabinet decision, still remains the custom and unwritten law of the land. At the risk of being charged with not being a constitutional lawyer, I will, in the presence of the attorney general, state what the ordinary person like myself thinks the position is. Members of the cabinet are members of the privy council. They are sworn in before they take office. They are appointed by the prime minister, who is appointed by the crown, and not by this house. The prime minister, in turn, submits the names of his colleagues to his majesty. Of course, in the acceptance of a cabinet, his majesty has to take account of opinion in this house and relies on the advice of such of his advisers as he thinks necessary to call in to advise him. Therefore, the cabinet is not something which is appointed by this house, but the constitutional practice is that the cabinet is approved by the king but appointed and chosen by the prime minister....

The further point I want to make is that the cabinet does not of itself resign. It is the prime minister who resigns and, by doing so, the cabinet comes to an end. It is necessary that that should be understood, because in this matter we have not heard the prime minister. I regret the cause of his absence and hope that he will soon be recovered. We do not know at present on which side of the question the prime minister stands, and if it should be that he is on the side of the dissentients, then we have the extraordinary position of a cabinet being divided, and the head being on one side and, I suppose, the body on the other. I want also to say that the cabinet is looked upon as a unit; that the one person who represents the cabinet is the prime minister; and that the prime minister is the one person who represents to the crown the decision of the cabinet.

About that there is not any question: "The cabinet is a unit — a unit as regards the sovereign and a unit as regards the legislature." It is not maintained by the authorities that you can have two voices in regard to the cabinet in this house: "Its views are laid before the sovereign and before parliament as if they were the views of one man. It gives its advice as a single whole, both in the royal closet and in the hereditary or the representative house." That is the statement, not of a theorist, but of a man well versed in practical affairs, and recognized as an authority on these matters.

I should have thought the minister of education would have considered that the late Lord Morley was a respectable authority on such a matter. But Todd's Parliamentary Government also says on this question: "It is not therefore allowable for a cabinet minister to oppose the measures of government, to shrink from an unqualified responsibility in respect to the same," — this is a point which the home secretary might take to heart — "to refrain from assisting his colleagues in the advocacy of their particular measures in parliament,. or to omit the performance of any administrative act which may be necessary to carry out a decision of the government, even though he may not have been a consenting party thereto. A minister who infringes any one of these rules is bound to tender his immediate resignation of office." ...

The government on Thursday put up three of their spokesmen. The first was the chancellor, who made a very able and lucid speech and argued that only the policy of protection could save the nation. He was followed by the home secretary, equally lucid and equally convincing, who informed the nation that, if the policy set forth by the chancellor was carried, not prosperity but ruin would descend upon us. As I listened to him I thought that, from the point of view of capitalist business, there was no answer to it. Later we had a speech from the financial secretary of the treasury who in turn made mincemeat of the home secretary. Now we are told that in the sacred name of national unity these men must always play the game of "Let us pretend," and that on all other questions they are united — we do not know that at all — and that, because they may or may not be united on some other questions, they must remain the rulers of the country and break the constitutional position that they believe in....

Mr. Baldwin: To-day, whatever the right honourable gentleman may say, we have a national government. In other words, it is not the government of one party. It is a government consisting of representatives of the three parties. (Honourable members: "No!") Secondly, if we look for a moment at the enormous majority which supports the government, it is perfectly true to say of many of them that we should not have had the pleasure of their company here if they had not stood as supporting a national government. Therefore, the great principle for which the fight for a century and more went on is not at stake here. The fate of no party is at stake in making a fresh precedent for a national government. Had the precedent been made for a party government, it would have been quite new, and it would have been absolutely dangerous for that party. Domestically, the tariff issue is one of great importance. Internationally, for the government the world problems are infinitely more difficult, and, whatever the right honourable gentleman may say, we believe that it would have been a grave matter for the world at large if, within a few months of the inauguration of this government, there had been a secession of any section of its members. It is very interesting that all the dissentient voices in this matter come from those who would like to see the government split. You ask, "Is what we are doing constitutional?" I remember very well — and it shows how at times questions are asked and at other times silence is maintained — after the general election of 1929, having a discussion with many of my friends as to whether we should resign at once or meet parliament. Some of my friends, perhaps with greater knowledge of the constitution than I, took the view that the constitutional position was to meet parliament and accept our dismissal by parliament. I took the view that, whatever had been the constitutional position, under universal suffrage the situation had altered; that the people of this country had shown plainly that, whether they wanted honourable members opposite or not, they certainly did not want me, and I was going to get out as soon as I could. My colleagues agreed with me, but I do not remember right honourable gentlemen opposite asking me whether I behaved constitutionally. They were getting into our places before we had time to move. Is our action constitutional? Who can say what is constitutional in the conduct of a national government? It is a precedent, an experiment, a new practice, to meet a new emergency, a new condition of things....

Sir Donald Maclean: My colleagues and I joined the government on the specific definite basis of the manifesto which we laid before the country and of the manifesto of the prime minister. Those of us who accepted the invitation of the prime minister to join his cabinet can, I think, claim that we were not lacking in loyal co-operation in any of the proposals which were laid before the cabinet and subsequently before the house. Some of these were matters which were extremely distasteful to us, and we accepted them because they constituted part of the policy of dealing with an abnormal situation by emergency measures. I am no authority on cabinets, notwithstanding the long experience I have had in this house on the back benches and on both front benches, and the very happy times I have had in the chair assisting former speakers; but I think I can say that it was a very remarkable achievement to keep cabinet unity on so vast a range of subjects. That unity did not develop out of ease and compromise, but out of real difficulties, out of great dangers, and not out of safety.

Why is this debate taking place to-day? It is for the simple reason that the present proposals before the house and the country, in the view of myself and my colleagues, constitute an acceptance of a permanent protectionist policy; also that it carries with it, at any rate for the time being, a complete reversal of the practice of free trade. Some day, I hope and believe, somebody will stand at this box and propose the wiping away of these duties. You never know. That reversal will come in one of two ways: either by a party that sets itself out definitely to make the reversal, or — what I am sure my conservative friends would much prefer — by a world recognition of the harm and the disastrous damage wrought by hostile tariffs. There was no alternative for us but that of resignation, and it is no secret to say, as my right honourable friend the home secretary has said, that we did tender our resignations to the prime minister.

It is a very proper question to ask what I am doing at this box. Nobody suggests that we could not be very easily replaced. It is not a suggestion of any of my right honourable friends, certainly not of my own, that there is any special virtue in us individually which could not be more than amply made up for by those who could take our places. We only say that we are of the average capacity of dullness which usually follows the assumption of office — varied, as a wit once said, by occasional flashes of mediocrity. I have had no experience of cabinets, but I very much doubt whether any one in the government was ever present at more remarkable gatherings than those of the cabinet, dominated as they are, not with an atmosphere of self-seeking on the part of anybody, but of a very earnest desire to seek the public good. We made our response to that — all of us with some knowledge and some with considerable knowledge indeed of parliamentary life — knowing the difficulties which it has brought and will bring. In those difficulties we shall, quite naturally, bear the greater share of the burden....

Earl Winterton: The doctrine of cabinet responsibility is not a mere abstract constitutional theory. It has been found to be a practical necessity in order that administrative action and legislation may have a fair chance of success. If a minority of members of the cabinet are at liberty to criticize the action of the majority of their colleagues on a matter of prime importance, the policy dealing with it is subjected from the start to an unfair handicap....

Mr. Boothby: The national government was formed, and received a mandate from the country and the electorate at the last election, to put into operation a national economic policy. Of that there can be no doubt. Every national candidate of whom I heard pledged himself at the election to approach the whole economic question with an open mind, to accept the decision of the government once it was reached, and loyally to support the government subsequently. I think the right honourable gentleman, the secretary of state for the home department, is guilty of some breach of the pledges that he and his party gave at the election. The government came to a decision, by a majority of the cabinet, I agree; but at the election we knew nothing about this new doctrine of cabinet irresponsibility....

Mr. de Rothschild: At the general election the fiscal policy was not part of the policy put forward either by the prime minister or the lord president of the council. It was not regarded as a paramount issue. The paramount issue was: Shall we or shall we not have a national government to tackle these great problems which face the country to-day — war debts, reparations, currency, disarmament? ... The national government was elected in order that more than one point of view should be put forward at cabinet meetings and thus each member of the government owes it to the country to voice his own conception. If members of the government believe that the fiscal policy has an important bearing on questions of world peace, disarmament, war debts, and reparations, or if they believe that the new fiscal system will prevent the countries of the world arriving at a settlement, then it becomes their duty to put forward their views in regard to any fiscal changes proposed by the government. It is the will of the nation that all these views should be expressed....

Sir Thomas Inskip: ... The practice of so-called cabinet unanimity is certainly no older than the fiscal system which we have been discussing in the last few days in this house. Some parliamentary institutions have grown up with the nation, but this particular tradition of government unanimity or government solidarity, has certainly been the growth of no more than a hundred years, as my right honourable friend, the lord president of the council, pointed out. The fact is, as everybody knows, that it is a custom that has only developed since governments began to take their shape on hard and fast party lines. It was a practice formulated and adopted, not so much in the national interest, as in the party interest. Now, as we all know, the events of the last six months, or rather of the late summer of last year, were events which made everybody, every thinking person, appreciate that it was not a time when the best results could be obtained from the party system. The decision to form a national government was, I think, applauded in every party in the state, and I believe that everybody realized that, if we were to come through the troubles that then suddenly confronted us, there must be a drawing together of men of good will in all parties. I think a great many people in the Labour Party regretted that there was such a manifestation of the most acid and bitter party spirit in the discussions that took place immediately following the formation of that government. But when that decision to form a national government was taken, it is not surprising that the nation's necessities compelled us to consider whether the old constitutional precedents need to be followed with the same rigidity and exactness as had been customary....

Speaking for the government, as I do this evening, I say the government have deliberately come to the decision that in the very special circumstances of this kind it is better that they should openly and honestly disagree upon this one topic than that there should be any pretence of agreement while all the time there is a festering sore of disagreement in the ranks of the cabinet.... There is no intention of any substantial breach or any other breaches of what is, of course, a rule of common sense — that men who are going to act together shall be substantially agreed upon the policy which they have to carry through. Let us consider the nature of this question upon which there has been a measure of division. The tariff question has been with us for some twenty-five or thirty years. It is a question that has a peculiar flavour. It excites passionate feelings. It recalls "far off things and battles long ago." It is charged with emotion. It is a question upon which people do not readily surrender their convictions. Some of my right honourable friends here have anchored their views to free trade, just as some of us have anchored ours to protection.

Is it to be said that in this crisis of the nation's history it was quite impossible for anybody who had formed a definite opinion upon this great controversy to get together with others who disagree with him on that question and to unite with them in preparing measures which will bring the nation through its crisis? Of course it may be said that it is impossible; but we believe, contrary to what the honourable gentleman has said, that it is not impossible. By adopting a method of which the country has approved with an amazing measure of unanimity — the proposal that there shall be disagreement and an opportunity of expressing it on the part of four or five members of the government — we can have an agreement upon the whole policy of the government except upon this one topic; and upon this topic effect is to be given to what is the view of the majority of the cabinet and also, I believe, of the party....

Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons, Fifth Series, CCLXI, 515-624.

^[1] On 4 November the commons, by a vote of 379 to 149, had passed the budget introduced by Lloyd George, chancellor of the exchequer. Principally because the bill included a new tax on the unearned increment of land, it had been re~ jected by the house of lords on 30 November.

^[2] Balfour does not cite the resolution, but it is no. 116E.

^[3] Cf. no. 137A.

^[4] These resolutions were finally adopted by the lords after protracted debate on certain motions of Lord Rosebery, and were sent to the commons in November, 1910. That house, however, had already adopted entirely different resolutions of its own (see the preceding document). The latter programme was carried through in the following year after the government had retained its majority in another general election, and after Prime Minister Asquith had announced that the king would, if necessary, create enough peers to force the Parliament Bill (no. 137A) through the upper house.