TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE CONFERENCE.
MR. ASQITITH'S statement in regard to the Con- ference has not yet been made as we write. It seems, however, to be admitted that he does not intend to go into any details as to what has taken place, and that at most he will say that there appears to be a hope that the Conference may even yet discover a solution of the Constitutional problem. On the assumption that this is what Mr. Asquith is going to tell the House of Commons, we desire to say a few words on the subject as a whole. The announcement, though at first sight it may seem unimportant, is really a matter of great moment. The fact that the Conference has met so often without breaking up is, in the first place, strong proof that there is a real desire on the part of its members to come to an understanding. If, as has been sometimes asserted, the Conference merely took place because pressure was exerted in an exalted quarter, or, again, because it was " expected" by public opinion, we should very soon have had an announcement that it was unfor- tunately impossible to find any common ground. On either side the determination to admit no compromise must have broken up the Conference. But the fact that the Conference has continued during the present Session, and is to be taken up again after the holidays, shows more than mere goodwill. It shows that the prospect of compromise has not yet been abandoned, and that the Conference has still before it proposals which may turn out fruitful.
Though we have no means of knowing what procedure has been adopted, it is not difficult to make a guess which is fairly likely to be true, since the field of conjecture is necessarily very narrow. Clearly the first business before the Conference was to lay down the points at issue. When that had been done, and when the eight men had discovered what they were really differing about, the next business must have been to examine in detail the various forms of solution that have been proposed already, or could be proposed. After these had been discussed, and their several advan- tages and disadvantages noted, would come the question of choosing between them, or of making a combination from them which might be acceptable. Finally, when the best possible plan had been sifted out, it would remain to consider whether even the best plan could be accepted by both sides as a solution. To show that the finest way of cooking eels is to curry them does not prove that either eels or curry are wholesome.
We desire here to follow very shortly in outline the pro- cedure we have thus described.. The points at issue are as follows. The Liberals insist that the Constitution must be so amended as to make it clear that the Lords shall in the future have no power either to amend or to reject Money Bills. Further, they insist that the Lords' right to reject general legislation must be so limited that the will of the House of Commons shall prevail, or at any rate shall be made prevailable, in three Sessions of any Parliament. To put the matter in another way, they insist that as regards legislation introduced in three successive Sessions of a Parliament, the powers of the House of Lords shall only extend to delaying that legislation by rejecting it twice,—by delaying it at the very most for some period under three years. That, briefly, is the case of the Liberals. The Unionists, on the other band, declare that though they make no claim that the House of Lords has co-ordinate powers in the case of Money Bills, and though they admit that the House of Lords can never impose any burden on the taxpayer, they hold. it to be essential to the -welfare of the nation that the House of Lords shall have the right to reject Money Bills which are only Money Bills in name,—Bills which under the guise of Money Bills alter the law of the land and produce vast legislative changes. They insist that the will of the House of Commons is not to prevail merely because a Bill is labelled " Money Bill,' or because there is intermingled with ordinary legislative proposals certain financial machinery. In fact, they protest against revolution through finance, and also against the systematising and legalising of " tacking." So much for the financial side of the question. As regards general legislation, they argue that the problem is not to alter the Constitution so that the will of the House of Commons shall prevail, but to secure that the will of the people shall prevail. In order to attain this they urge that in some form or other the people shall be consulted on legislation about which there is a funda- mental dispute between the two Houses. They are willing to pass whatever they. may be directed by the people to pass, as in the case of last year's Budget, but they are not willing to assume that the will of the people and the will of the House of Commons are necessarily the same. Translated into practice, this means that Unionists are quite ready to admit that the House of Lords shall have no right to reject a Bill which is sent up to it in the same form after a Dissolution, or after the will of the people has been ascertained in some other way,—for example, by a Referendum or poll of the people. Let us now consider the possible schemes for reconciling these opposing views. Take first the financial question. It is obvious that if some means could be found for clearly defining an annual Money Bill—that is, a Bill which is a Money Bill and nothing else—the problem would be solved. Unfortunately, however, there is a great deal of difficulty in drawing up such a definition, and when it is drawn up, like every other legal definition, it is sure to be capable of different interpretations. Difference of interpretation necessarily demands some machinery for deciding which interpretation is the true one. Therefore if the House of Lords yields up its power of rejecting annual Money Bills, not only must a definition of an annual Money Bill be found which will avoid the dangers of revolution through finance, and also the dangers of " tacking," but some tribunal must be created. which will be capable of deciding whether a Bill is within or without the definition. Hitherto the Liberals have declared that they will have no lawyers set up over the House of Commons, and that the only person competent to decide what is a Money Bill and what is not is the Speaker of the House of Commons. Unionists, on the other hand, say that they cannot consent to the House of Commons being judge in its own cause, and that therefore the proposal to let the Speaker decide the matter is entirely unacceptable. The issue is here narrowed, down to the composition of the tribunal. If a tribunal acceptable to both sides can be found, the prOblem will be solved, for the diffi- culties of a definition, though great, are not insuperable. For ourselves, we have always held that the proper tribunal to decide what is and what is not a Money Bill— a Bill which the House of Lords cannot alter or even reject—should consist of the Speaker of the House of Commons, the Chairman of Committees in the Lords— he is an officer chosen by the Lords, and not imposed. on them like the Lord Chancellor—and as third. man or umpire some highly trained lawyer who is not a Member of the House of Lords. Such a lawyer can be found in the senior Lord Justice of Appeal, or possibly, for prefer- ence, a Lord Justice chosen by lot from among the Lord Justices who are not Peers.
We come next to the question of general legislation. Here, as we have shown, the point at issue is : Can the Lords after three years' delay be compelled to pass legisla- tion to which they object because it has twice previously received the assent of a majority of the House of Commons, or shall such compulsion be effectual only after the people have been consulted ? Is there no solution which can be found for a deadlock caused by the Lords refusing to pass a Bill and the Commons insisting that it shall be passed? In the case imagined the Commons will not consent to a Dissolution, and the Peers declare that it would be a breach of trust for them to pass a Bill which they regard as bad and dangerous in itself unless they are directly ordered to do so by the people. The obvious solution is the one which has been again and again urged in the Spectator,—the use of the Referendum. We do not advocate that the Referendum should be constantly employed, for that would obviously be injurious. Personally we might like to see the Referendum automatically applied in the case of legislation which involves alterations in certain scheduled measures,— measures which affect the fabric of the Constitu- tion, as, for example, Bills altering the qualification of the suffrage. For present purposes, however, we do not propose anything on so great a scale. We merely desire that in cases where no agreement can be arrived at betweeiiithe two Houses, the Bill in the shape in which it finally left the House of Commons shall be submitted to a vote of the people,—" Aye " or " No."
We would carry out this reference to the people in a form which would in fact acknowledge the claim of the House of Commons to a certain superiority in the matter of legislation. We suggest that the Act should be submitted to the people by the House of Lords adding to it, in the form finally insisted on by the House of Commons, a Referendum clause. This clause should merely state that " this Act shall not come into operation until a poll of the people, `Aye ' or `No,' has been taken thereon in the form pre- scribed in the schedule annexed, and a majority of the electors voting have given their assent thereunto." We are aware that so far a good many Liberals have expressed dislike of this most democratic of all democratic institu- tions, the poll of the people, and we therefore admit that the difficulties are very great. But after all there are difficulties in any course of procedure. Remember, also, that the plan we have proposed is Only tentative. If after trial the House of Commons became convinced that the Referendum solution is an unsound one, it need not continue the practice, but may fall back upon some other solution. [All that it would be necessary to do to try the Referendum as a solution of deadlocks would be to settle the terms of the schedule under which the Referendum should be held. Writs would be issued to the returning officer in every constituency, and the poll would be held under the Ballot Act and Corrupt Practices Act exactly as in Parliamentary elections.] When the House of Lords added a Referendum clause, the House of Commons would always have the power, if it chose, to reject that clause and let the Bill fall as it falls now when the Lords add a clause to which the House of Commons will not assent.
For ourselves, we believe that after a few trials, not merely the country at large, but the House of Commons and the party politicians, would become reconciled to its operation. It would soon be recognised that there would be no need for the Ministry to resign even if their Bill were rejected by the voters. They would simply bow to the will of the people just as now they so often have to bow to the will of the House of Commons. The Government introduce a Bill—for example the Declara- tion Bill—in a certain form. They find, however, that it is unacceptable to the House of Commons, and then they alter it fundamentally, and accept what is in fact the rejection of their original measure. But they do this without any thought of resigning. That the House of Lords would add a Referendum clause to every Liberal measure which it disliked we do not believe for a moment. The majority of the Lords, being opposed to a Liberal Government, would not like to run the risk of strengthening that Government by popular majorities. Successful polls of the people would make it difficult for the Opposition to do what they always desire to do,—declare that the Government have quite lost the confidence of the nation.
We come, then, to this. If the Conference can arrive at • an agreement in regard to the definition of a Money Bill, and as to the tribunal which is to decide the interpretation of that definition, a settlement on the financial side of the struggle can be obtained. Again, the difficulty of dead- locks in ordinary legislation may be got over by the experimental adoption of the democratic expedient of a poll of the people.
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