Orders of the Day — Secret Party Funds.

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at on 28 May 1919.

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Photo of Sir Richard Cooper Sir Richard Cooper , Walsall

One of those cases was that of Sir George Kekewich, who was offered a knighthood by the party whips on condition that he stopped his opposition to the Government Licensing Bill and contributed £ 5,000 to the Liberal party funds. If that is not a fair and straight forward case in support of the principle with which we are dealing I do not know what can satisfy the hon. Member.

But the Leader of the House said if the principles enunciated in this Motion were true it was a state of things discreditable alike to the Government and to this House, and later on when speaking explicitly on the disease with which we are dealing he said that if the Whips offered honours for money it was an evil that ought to be put a stop to immediately. I avow that, at any rate up to recent days—I cannot say they are doing it at present—honours have been sold by party Whips, and I am prepared to bring forward a man who has acted as agent for a party Whip in days gone by and had to approach people and bargain for the sale of knighthoods and baronetcies. I can bring definite cases, I am sure no hon. Member wishes me or anyone else to pillory individuals when we are dealing with the system as a whole. It is idle for my right hon. Friend to pretend that there is not generally a good foundation for the principles which my hon. and gallant Friend has brought before the House. There is a foundation. I would remind him of something ho must have forgotten. On 29th August last a letter was sent to the "Times," signed by twenty-five of the-best known and most respected public men in this country. Sixteen of them were members of the Upper house, and the other nine were well-known public men who were thoroughly respected in every section of this House. In that letter there are one or two references of which I must remind my right hon. Friend, as being as good a support of the principles enunciated in this Motion as I am sure he him self could desire. In the first place, it says: When the discussion came on, the scandal was neither denied nor defended." and later on that The root of the evil remained." while the third paragraph says:Unless the bestowal of honours and titles is protected from the danger of a peculiarly mean kind of pecuniary corruption, and reserved for real merit, honours may come to be regarded as place honours, leaving no way out except their complete abolition." In the next paragraph these twenty-five-responsible men refer to the disgraceful traffic in honours, and at the end is the suggestion which the Noble Lord the Member for Oxford University made to the House to-night, that the one practical way—and I advocate it here again—to remove the evil, which the Government itself admits ought to be removed if it exists, is that the Prime Minister should have the assistance and advice of a Committee of the Privy Council, who should go over all names recommended before the Prime Minister assumes the great responsibility of laying them before His Majesty. Let me say to my right hon. Friend that we recognize—I am speaking for my hon. and gallant Friend and myself, and those who are associated with us—we recognise that there have to be party funds. No hon. Member of this House has ever heard either of us say anything different from that, and let me impress upon those who seem to find some amusement in this view of public life that I am trying to take, that we are actually practising what we preach. We have funds. They are, unfortunately, very small, but the name of every person who has contributed to those funds is published, and it is open to any hon. Member of this House to know the name of every one of them. There is nothing hidden: all is absolutely above-aboard. All we arc asking is that what we have done ourselves, and what, I admit, has created enormous difficulty in the task we have undertaken, shall be done generally. That is the right standard of public and political life for all parties in this country. I want to see all parties compelled by law to publish the names of the large subscribers to their funds. It is significant that in no other direction that I know of in this country does anybody subscribe £ 5,000, £ 10,000, or £ 50,000, "unless his name appears in almost every London paper, and in most provincial papers as having given that money. It is only when it is connected with our political system that this matter becomes one of the most pressing secrecy. If there is nothing dishonourable, if there is nothing in the insinuations which we do not hesitate to embody in this Motion, what is the objection of the Government and of all other parties in this House to accepting the principles which we are asking the House to give effect to? The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the responsibility of the Prime Minister in making recommendations for honours. We do not suggest, and never have suggested, that any Prime Minister has knowingly made a recommendation which it was not fit for him I to make. What we complain of is that Prime Ministers and the leaders of all parties are deliberately and avowedly kept in ignorance of these facts. I suggest that the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Unionist party does not know anything whatever of the funds of the Unionist party. I say that he is not allowed to know. I say he docs not desire to know, and if he should be Prime Minister in the days to come, ho will go to His Majesty with a perfectly clear conscience in making such recommendations as he may feel bound to make. It is not right that the leaders of a party should be deliberately kept in ignorance of where the funds which support it come from. The very fact that it is deliberately done—nobody can deny it, and it has never been denied—surely suggests that there is something dishonourable if such a peculiar state of affairs is necessary.

The right hon. Gentleman said that if he took steps to bring about a publication of the party funds it would be evaded. I admit frankly that he is practically right—there would be evasion. I admit that we are asking for something which in practice could never be absolutely assured, but if a principle is right, why refuse to adopt it on that ground I Make it a penal offence to evade it, and that fact would prevent many people from practising something which they ought not to practice. The right hon. Gentleman referred to the United States I can make some claim to know a little about affairs in that country. Everyone who knows any thing about that country knows that a quarter of a century ago in that country there was in municipal and public life a, great deal of corruption. The United States Government from time to time took steps, such as passing a law for the publication of funds, which no doubt were not entirely effective, but nevertheless, during the last quarter of a century public life in the United States has proceeded from a bad condition gradually to a better and better condition, and political life in the. United States to-day is vastly more pure than it was a quarter of a century ago. In this House the very opposite has taken place. There was a great sense of honour among most of the old nobility referred to by an hon. Member on these benches, but since then the other Chamber in particular has been flooded by a number of peers who, as we know, in this House never did any- thing of outstanding merit by way of ser vice to their country—many a one, as we know, was sent there because he was an awkward customer, and the Government had to get rid of him. A principle like that if accepted and supported not only by the Government, but by other Members of the House can only have the effect of leading this country down in the mire of corruption of which I do not hesitate to say during the War we have not a small amount of evidence.

We cannot accept the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman. Let him, as Leader of the House, take some steps on his own account to satisfy himself whether there is any truth in the principle which we enunciate, and which we ask him to inquire into. Will he make that inquiry, and if he finds that we show a primâ facie case, will he take steps similar to those laid down in this Motion or others to the same effect which the wisdom of his advisers may suggest? We do not care one into for the particular letter of this Motion. What we do care about is the general principle underlying it which is perfectly well known to the Government and to every Member of the House. We have made every sacrifice that men can make to accomplish this excessively difficult task, but in pro portion as Members ascertain the facts and realise that there is justice and honour in what we are trying to attain they will support us, until the House takes steps to remove one of the greatest blots on the public life and political system of this country.