NO COMPROMISE
EXT week the House of Lords will debate on second read- 1V1 The second argument that is without validity is one based on the small number of MPs voting on both sides during the final stage of the Bill. These figures have no significance, as large numbers of MPs were paired—a fact confirmed by the con- sistent size of the majorities in the divisions. desirability of certainty in the law and the other points which Lord Goddard made in 1948 are equally applicable today.
Unless therefore the House is to go against both the Commons and the Law Lords, the alternatives open to it are acceptance or rejection. The Lords have been urged by the Beaverbrook press and others to throw out the Bill on the ground that public opinion is against it. The polls have varied remarkably in their results, but it does seem certain that a majority of the country is opposed to abolition. The modern theory of the House of Lords is that it may legitimately delay the passing of a measure which it believes to be contrary to the wishes of the electorate until the electorate has had an opportunity to pronounce upon it. But the abolition of the death penalty is not a matter upon which the electorate ever has had or ever will have the opportunity to pronounce, since it is not a party matter and is not a suitable issue for a general election. So if the Lords throw out the Bill they will not be giving the electorate a chance to state its view; they will merely be setting themselves up as the final arbiters of our penal law.
The retentionists in the Lords will therefore be hard put to it to find good constitutional grounds for throwing out the Bill. By defeating the proposal in 1948 the 'House of Lords has already delayed abolition by eight years, and its proper course now is to acquiesce in the decision of the Commons, however much it may dislike it. Not only would such a graceful accep- tance be constitutionally correct, it would also do something to improve the hitherto lamentable record of the Lords on this subject.
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