Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at on 31 July 1923.
Mr. MacDONALD:
I was perfectly certain that was the right hon. Gentleman's attitude, that the offence was against the Chair and the House, and to that extent it is on all fours exactly with the case of Mr. Moore. If hon. Members would look at the Moore case they would find that the words used by him were most offensive. They were a direct attack upon the Chair—a far more direct attack than took place five weeks ago. Mr. Moore made it perfectly clear that he accused the Chair and the Secretary to the Treasury of "a piece of disgraceful trickery." and then proceeded to accuse the Chair of partiality in the conduct of the affairs of the House. I hope hon. Members will think twice before they come to a hasty decision as to how they are going to vote this after-
noon. Mr. Moore's offence was committed under great provocation, the right hon. Gentleman says. I was present. The provocation was one which an old Member of the House, a Member learned in the law, a Member accustomed surely, to control himself, might have been expected to disregard. Not only that, but the point about the' Moore case was that a Division was taken after he had used the offensive language—a Division on another point altogether—and then when the House came back, after the advantage of a 20 minutes interval, Mr. Moore, in cold blood, in a calm frame of mind, deliberately got up and repeated the statement he had originally made. It was a deliberate insult offered to the Chair. His suspension followed. Many hon. Members opposite, who were then Members of the House sitting on this side, voted against the suspension in spite of that—some of them important Members, some of them sitting on the front bench now. Three weeks elapsed. Then the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith) moved that the suspension be now terminated. He used these words:
It is a very serious thing to deprive a Constituency of its representation in this House for a longer time than is absolutely necessary in order to vindicate our traditions and our Rules of Order.
He also said:
Three weeks is at least as long a term as has ever been considered necessary by the House for a purpose of this sort.
That is not all. The late Prime Minister, himself a Member for Glasgow, then Leader of the Opposition, got up and said that the course taken by the Government, was in his opinion, the course which ought to be taken whoever the Member was who committed the offence, and the precedent set that day would, he was sure, be applied in future. That is the opinion of their own late Leader, the ex-Prime Minister.
Another point emerges—the conduct of the four hon. Members who are now suspended. It is on exactly all fours with the conduct of Mr. Moore. Mr. Moore went to his constituency, Mr. Moore gloried in what he had done, Mr. Moore in public boasted that on no account would he apologise. Mr. Moore took his punishment and, the punishment having been meted out, this House decided to terminate the period of suspension. The right hon. Gentleman referred to what took place yesterday. The Prime Minister to-day is not acting as Prime Minister exactly but as Leader of the House, as I am acting at the moment not as Leader of the Labour Parity but as Leader of the Opposition. Both he and I are careful to do our best to preserve the best traditions and the finest spirit of the House in asking that the suspension should be removed. He and I for the last fortnight have been working away at this matter. The events of yesterday and the publication of that letter, I can assure hon. Members opposite and hon. Members on this side, have had no more to do with the putting down of this Resolution than the box in front of which I am speaking. So far as the Members were concerned, they never intended that it should be anything but a technical claim of the right of individual Members to be received here. They gave the Moore precedent, and said, "Why are we to be treated differently?" They have been quoting the words of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Paisley. They have been quoting the words of the late Prime Minister. They have taken the words of the latter in particular as a definite statement, accepted by both sides of the House, that any future suspension should terminate at the end of three weeks, and a fortnight after that having elapsed they rightly or wrongly—I think if I might say so following a very bad judgment—decided to send you, Sir, that letter and to make an appearance at the House of Commons yesterday, a technical appearance as everyone who saw it knows perfectly, and turned away when the policeman told them the suspension still ran, and they could not approach the precincts.
I have no intention of saying a word more. I hope the House is going to behave in what I am sure most of the old Parliamentary hands will say is a proper way. Suspension is a punishment. Make no mistake about that. If a Member is suspended and apologises, this House is always generous. The suspension is at once terminated when Mr. Speaker signifies to the Leader of the House that he is satisfied with the apology. That is one way, but there is another way. It may be the best way, but it is not the only way. The other precedents are perfectly clear that the period of suspen- sion may run, and if the Member does not apologise, this House, recognising its responsibility to the constituency and declining absolutely, as the House ought, to recognise anything that happens outside, short always of a breach of privilege, removes the sentence when the punishment is complete. For us Members of Parliament, not individually, but as parts of this great historic assembly, to go and scan every word and every sentence said by Members outside about us or about themselves, is really too much beneath our dignity, and beneath the dignity of the House of Commons to take into account when it is asked to vote for or against such a Resolution as this. Therefore, I appeal to hon. Members opposite, as well as to hon. Members on this side, to pass this Resolution and to take up the proper attitude that suspension is a sentence. When the sentence is finished, then the Members of the House are brought back without apology, and that was undoubtedly the sense of the Members of the House in 1902 when the Standing Orders were under consideration. I hope, therefore, the Resolution which has been moved by the Leader of the House will be carried by the House.
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In a general election, each Constituency chooses an MP to represent them. MPs have a responsibility to represnt the views of the Constituency in the House of Commons. There are 650 Constituencies, and thus 650 MPs. A citizen of a Constituency is known as a Constituent
