Orders of the Day — REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE (No. 2) BILL.

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at on 2 February 1931.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mr Ralph Morley Mr Ralph Morley , Southampton

I hope the hon. and gallant Member will not think that I am discourteous if I do not follow him into his particular line of argument. I should like to make some references to the speech made by the hon. Member for the Scottish Universities (Mr. Buchan). The hon. Member made an eloquent defence of university representation and in the course of that defence he said that one reason for university representation was that it enabled men of distinction to enter this House. He is a proof of that fact. Earlier in the speech he supplied the answer to his own argument, for he said that the House would not assume that if university representation were abolished he would be unable to find a place here. It is true that men of distinction can be selected and elected by popular constituencies. Democracy is not averse to distinction and democracy is not averse to ability. There is hardly any man or woman of distinction who has represented a university in this House who could not easily have represented a popular constituency. Distinction is by no means the only thing that the university voters have under consideration when they are selecting their representatives. No matter how distinguished a man or woman may be, if he or she was a Socialist he or she would stand no chance whatever of being returned for a university constituency. Hon. Members opposite will agree with me that there is no more distinguished pair of men in this country than Mr. H. G. Wells and Mr. Bertrand Russell, and yet both these distinguished men have failed on more than one occasion to be returned by university constituencies even in opposition to men much less distinguished than themselves.

The hon. Member for the Scottish Universities also declared that university representation enabled the professions to be represented in this House to an adequate extent. I have not observed that there is any lack of representation of the professions in this House in the representation from popular constituencies. We have many doctors and many teachers and, heaven knows, we have many lawyers. It is easier for a professional man to be selected and even elected for a popular constituency than for a man who does not belong to any of the learned professions. The learned professions still have prestige, perhaps above all their merits, in the eyes of the general public. Because a man happens to belong to a learned profession he is considered, very often, to be far more able and far more erudite than he really is and, consequently, he has little difficulty, other things being equal, of being selected as a candidate for a popular constituency. I have not heard any relevant argument why this anomaly in our electoral system should be still further perpetuated.

It is not advisable that in this Debate we should discuss, as the right hon. Member for Chelsea (Sir S. Hoare) discussed, whether this Bill is or is not the result of a bargain. Obviously, it is the result of a bargain. Some bargains are very good bargains. There is no need to be opposed to the Bill because it is the result of a bargain. It may be quite true, as the right hon. Gentleman said, that this legislative child has had a somewhat lengthy period of gestation, but it ought to be the more healthy and robust on that account. At all events it cannot be argued that this child is illegitimate. I should like to address myself to the point of view of what difference this Bill will make in our Parliamentary institutions if and when it becomes law. It is largely represented that this Bill is a Bill for the rejuvenation of the Liberal party. It is thought to be a kind of Voronoff gland applied to that senescent organisation. There are people in my city who have urged me to vote against the Bill on the ground that if the present electoral system remains it will mean that after the next election the Liberal benches in this House will be untenanted, with the exception of the seat occupied by the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George). The right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs is not a party figure but a national figure, and whatever political cataclysm occurred he would survive the vicissitudes of electoral change. Judging by the usual vigour of his manner he will probably represent Carnarvon Boroughs for at least another quarter of a century.

It is argued that I should oppose this Bill on the ground that if we continue our present electoral system it will lead to a return to the two party system and the elimination of the Liberal party. I do not share that view. It is highly probable that the Liberal party will be somewhat decimated if we do not change the electoral system, and we may have to dispense with the seignorial eloquence of the right hon. Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel) and other right hon. and hon. Members opposite, but I do not think that a party which polled 5,000,000 votes at the last election is going to be entirely obliterated at the next election, whatever our electoral system may be. If this Bill does not become law we shall in all probability still have the three party system with us. My point is that under the operations of this Bill we are likely to have more than three parties in this House. In essence, there are three parties in this House to-day and there are far more than three parties in posse.

The hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) and his friends and associates have been practically a fourth party during this Parliament. They have spoken against the Government and voted against the Government. They have their own secretary and their own whip in the person of the hon. Member for Peck-ham (Mr. Beckett), whose deep religions convictions forced him to record a vote against the Government on the question of the Catholic schools. The Labour party would hesitate not to endorse the candidature of a Member of the group of the hon. Member for Bridgeton for fear of losing a Labour seat, but if this Bill becomes law they need not hesitate to refuse that endorsement, because in Labour constituencies the voter would be able to give his first vote to the official Labour candidate and his second vote to the unofficial Labour candidate, or vice versa, with the result that the representative of one section of the Labour party would be returned. Therefore, it seems to me that this Bill will encourage the emergency of that fourth party into actual reality in this House. It is not our party alone that shows distinct tendencies to divisions. The Conservative party is not a party of homogeneity at the present time. There is the United Empire party. Then there is the right hon. Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill). He has once more girt up his loins and fared forth into the wilderness, and from what we know of the right hon. Gentleman he will find manna and sustenance in the wilderness and will return once more to regale us with eloquent speeches in the manner of Pitt, Fox and Canning. He will appear here not as the uneasy bedfellow of reluctant companions but as the titular leader of a new party in this House.

It is possible that under this Bill we shall have at least five or six parties in this House. In other words, we shall have the group system, somewhat similar to the system which is in vogue in most legislatures upon the Continent. There are arguments to be adduced in favour of the group system. The two-party system in this country is very largely an historical accident, due to the fact that in times past there was a division in the population of the country between the followers of the Established Church and the followers of the Noncomformist Church. That historical circumstance has no longer any compelling validity, but it is true that our affairs are becoming extremely complicated. It was easy to say a plain "yes" or a plain "no" to the simple issue with which the electors were faced 40 or 50 years ago. It was easy to say "yes" or "no" to the question whether you would have disestablishment of the church or home rule for Ireland. To-day, we are faced with extremely complicated issues, upon which people of the same party may have difference of opinion. It may well be that the group system would enable these differences of opinion to be better and more adequately represented than under our present three-party system, but if we are to have the group system, as I think we shall have as the result of this Measure, then this Bill ought to be accompanied by some concomitant measure of Parliamentary reform, otherwise we shall have, as a result of this Bill, a series of minority Governments—pale phenomena, staggering falteringly from crisis to crisis, the members of which will have place without prestige, office without power and initiative without the force to be able to drive their conclusions to the final approval of this House. That system of affairs will throw disrepute upon the whole of our Parliamentary Government.

Therefore, I urge that along with this Bill there should be the promise of another Bill which would give a fixed term of years to the life of Parliament, three, four or five years, which would also replace the present system of Cabinet responsibility by the Committee system, so that all Members of this House could participate in the work of Government, which should not be relegated as at the present time practically to the members of the Ministry. Under that system of Parliamentary reform I think the system of the alternative vote could be made effectively to work, but without that reform I feel extremely dubious as to what may be the result of the alternative vote upon the future of our Parliamentary institutions. As a loyal Member of my party I shall go into the Lobby to vote for the Second Reading of the Bill, but I shall do so with a certain amount of dubiety, feeling that unless something is done in the way of Parliamentary reform this Measure by itself is likely to bring some degree of delay, confusion and debility into our affairs.