A Christian Parliamentarian speaks on Tax Bills, Foreign policy, Peace, and Power of House of Lords.

 

 

Part 2

 

 

[John Bright]  I think I could observe in those speeches the triumph of men who had found an advocate in the Prime Minister, whom they expected to meet as an opponent, and who were delighted that, acting with their confederates in the other House, they were likely to obtain a signal party advantage.

 

Is there anybody who has denied in point blank term, except the right hon. Gentleman, that the House of Lords, in the course it has taken, has violated-I will not say the privileges of this House, for privilege is a word not easily defined- but has broken in upon the usages of many centuries old –usages which our predecessors in this House have acknowledged to be the utmost importance to our powers and to the liberties of those whom we represent?

 

If there was nothing wrong, then why was there a Committee?  The right hon. Gentleman the member for Bucks neglected to answer that question.  He made no opposition at the time; but three weeks afterwards he thinks that it would have been better if the committee had not been appointed.  I will, however, undertake to affirm that, when the noble Viscount proposed the committee, every Member of the House thought the proposition a reasonable one.

 

Why did we ransack the journals unless something had happened which jarred upon every man’s sense of the rights and privileges of the House and the usages of the House of Lords?

 

And why, having this committee, and instituting these researches, have we these Resolutions moved, not by a young, inexperienced, and unknown Member- if any such there be in the House of Commons-but by one of the oldest Members of this House, one of the ablest statesmen of the day, and at a moment the chief [Prime Minister-Lord Palmerston-Coalition] Minister of the Crown?

 

Surely everyone will admit that the circumstances were such as to justify the course that was taken in appointing the committee.

 

Then I have another reason to give to hon. Gentlemen opposite, notwithstanding their spasmodic cheering –I do not intend the word offensively-why we should have these very Resolutions which you are about to agree to, which the right hon. Gentleman the member for Bucks, as far as I could understand, entirely approves, and which you all feel delighted should be proposed by the noble Viscount [Palmerston], because they relieve you of a considerable difficulty.

 

I say that these Resolutions are a proof that the course which has been taken by the other House has been unusual, if not wrong; because the Resolutions by implication condemn what the Lords have done, and although they do not revoke the Act, or pledge this House to any particular course, yet, when these Resolutions come to be considered, it will never be denied that the House of Commons does by them express a unanimous opinion that the course which has been taken by the other House is contrary to usage, and is calculated to excite the jealousy and alarm of the Members of this House.

 

I have been a member of that committee and the right hon. Gentleman the member for the University of Cambridge knows my opinion of the committee and its labours.  I think that committee fell wonderfully below its duties- that the course which it pursued was poor and spiritless; and at a future time when the course it has taken is contrasted with the course taken by the House of Commons on previous occasions, it will be justly said that there has been a real and melancholy declension in the spirit of this House. [Can this not be said for many occasions in our House of Commons over the last forty years-but particularly since the arrival of ‘The Servant of the People’ in 1997 –an epoch in our history of distrust and dishonour among those at the heart of government.]

 

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