My Lords, I think perhaps the most convenient course would be, as these Amendments are rather numerous and the Commons reasons are not printed, that each Amendment should be read in turn by the Clerk at the Table with the Commons reasons for disagreement.

The Commons disagree to the Amendments made by the Lords in page 1, lines 5 and 10, viz.—

"In page 1, line 5, after (1) to insert the words 'until the thirty-first day of December one thousand nine hundred and fifteen.' "

"In page 1, line 10, after the word 'pension,' to insert the words 'the person who is in receipt of a pension on the thirty-first day of December one thousand nine hundred and fifteen shall not be deprived of that pension by reason of the expiry of this Act.' "

They disagree for the following reason: Because the effect of these Amendments would be to limit the duration of old-age pensions as proposed by the Commons. The Commons consider it unnecessary to offer any further reason, hoping the above reason may be deemed sufficient.

My Lords, as I was the mover of the Amendment which has now come back from the other House, your Lordships may expect me to make a few observations on the subject. After the remarks which fell from noble Lords opposite a few days ago, I never in the least expected that this Amendment would be accepted by the other House. I persisted, however, in moving it because, in common with the majority of your Lordships, I thought that it was our duty to do whatever lay in our power to remedy some of the defects of this very defective measure. It has now been rejected by the other House on the ground that it is an infringement of their privileges. On this point, as I said in moving the Amendment, I cannot express an opinion of any value. I wish, however, to say that I think the proposal on its own merits was worthy of a greater amount of consideration than it appears to have received, if only for the reason that it represented the views of some who have given a lifelong study to this important question, and who can speak on it with far greater authority than myself. The noble Viscount in charge of this Bill, though he dwelt at some little length upon the question of privilege, dismissed the Amendment on its own merits in a very few sentences. If I rightly understood his argument, it was two-fold. In the first place, he said that without any such provision as I proposed to include in the Bill Parliament could always alter the law which they are now passing. Of this, of course, I am fully aware, but I thought at the time, and I still think, that it would be far more difficult for Parliament to modify in any way engagements which will now be taken if a distinct promise is given for all time to the numerous classes who will be affected by this Bill than if a time-limit were imposed on the promise. I wished, therefore, to limit the operation of the Bill so that it might eventually be modified without any apparent breach of faith. I do not mean to say there may not have been some objections to the adopttion of this course, but I still think that the point was well worthy of consideration. The second objection taken by the noble Viscount was that it was not generally desirable to have time limits for the operation of an Act of Parliament. The noble Viscount naturally speaks on a point of this sort with a greater amount of authority than I can command, but I venture to point out that the analogy which he endeavoured to make with the Ballot Bill hardly holds good. In that case, I conceive that those who were in favour of the allot wished the measure to form part of the permanent law of the country—as it has, in fact, become. In this case, however, the authors of the Bill itself recognise that it is a temporary and provisional measure, and it must undergo alteration. My object was to fix a time before which it would be incumbent on Parliament to make those alterations. Having said this much, I wish to add that it is clearly not desirable to raise an important constitutional question on an issue of this nature. I have little doubt, therefore, that the majority of your Lordships will consider that it will not be desirable to insist upon the Amendment. My Lords, I have only to add that I do not in any degree regret the discussions that have taken place in this House on the Bill which is now about to become law. Neither do I regret the attempts which have been made to improve a measure which, although it aims at objects with which all of us must sympathise, is, in my opinion, one of the most ill-considered which has ever been brought before Parliament. I think those of your Lordships who have listened to the debates which have recently taken place in this House will agree with me in holding that the very cogent arguments which were advanced in this House against the Bill, more especially the financial arguments, did not receive any adequate answers. I will not, however, dwell on this point any more. Time can alone show who has been right in this controversy, and I am much mistaken if the future does not prove that we in this House, who have, at all events, endeavoured to look the real facts of the case in the face, have been wiser in our generation than those who, in order to gain a fleeting popularity, have, as it appears to me, deliberately sacrificed the future for the present.

My Lords, I should like to make one observation in order to remove from the noble Earl's mind any idea that there has been disrespect shown to him in this matter by an absence of discussion. I may say, for his and for your Lordships' information, that the moment this Amendment was read in the House of Commons Mr. Speaker interposed and told the House that, in his opinion, it would be a violation of the privileges of that House. Therefore, no debate took place; the House resolved to follow the Speaker's advice, and declined to assent to the Amendment.

My Lords, it may be convenient that I should offer in connection with the Amendment of my noble friend the few observations which I desire to make as to the position in which this House is placed. We now know that virtually the whole of our Amendments have been rejected in another place, with the exception of some of a quite insignificant character, and we know that that rejection has been entirely on what I would call the technical ground that they are an infringement of the House of Commons' privilege. We have a great admiration for the manner in which the noble Earl opposite leads this House. I hope he will forgive me for saying that my admiration would be greater still if I felt that in regard to this question of privilege the House of Lords had in him a rather more courageous champion. The Government of which the noble Earl is a Member have been induced to accept what I venture to call the most extreme interpretation of the doctrine of privilege. Amendments have been rejected, not upon their merits—they have been rejected in spite of the fact that their merits are in some cases incontestable, and that they helped to carry out the objects of the framers of the Bill—but merely on this one alleged ground that the Bill before us is a money Bill, and that, therefore, this House has not the right to touch a line or a letter of it. I venture to maintain that in the strict sense of the word this Bill is not a money Bill. It has not the form, it has not the substance of what in strict parlance can be described as a money Bill. It is a Bill which introduces new principles for the relief of necessitous persons, and that is a subject in which this House has always taken an interest, and with which it has been free to deal on many previous occasions. We conceived that it was our duty to discuss as thoroughly as we could in the short limits of time allowed us the details of the measure, and to make suggestions for its improvement wherever we considered that such suggestions could be usefully made, and for that reason we disregarded the advice given to us by a very distinguished Member of this House, Lord Rosebery, who recommended us to absolve ourselves of all responsibility for the Bill, and not to attempt to approach the task of amending it. I think I am not wrong in saying that our feeling that it was our duty not to follow that advice was in a considerable measure due to the fact that we knew from the language of His Majesty's Government that it was their intention to stifle discussion of details by an attempt to shelter themselves behind the privilege of the House of Commons. Privilege has never been asserted in so aggressive a form as it has been in connection with this Bill. I will tell your Lordships why. Whenever the question of privilege arises there are two entirely distinct points. In the first place, is the House of Lords' Amendment or is it not an infringement of privilege? and, secondly, if it is an infringement, is it the desire of the House of Commons to insist upon its privilege to the utmost extremity? The first point is, I believe, usually determined by the authority of the Speaker. The other point is one that on the advice of the Government of the day has very often been decided on the side of this House. There is this great difficulty, that nowhere is there anything like a clear and authoritative description of what is and what is not the privilege of the House of Commons. There is no statute dealing with it. There is no written constitution to which we can appeal. There is no compact even between the two Houses. It is an attempt on the part of one House to limit the opportunities of the other. That claim has been made sometimes in a moderate and sometimes in a very extreme form, but I take it that the most extreme form in which that doctrine can be put is that which is to be found in the famous Resolutions of 1671 and 1678, to which the noble Lord in charge of the Bill appealed the other evening, when he was good enough to reply to me. He regarded these Resolutions as a weapon absolutely sufficient for the purpose of demolishing the argument which I had submitted to the House. I should like to say, in passing, that the noble Earl, when he dealt with some remarks which I had made, rather gently ridiculed my argument upon the ground that I was basing myself upon somewhat antiquated precedents, because I had quoted the authority of two Speakers of the House of Commons and of Lord John Russell in the years 1837 and, I think, 1848. Well, the privilege Resolution is very much more antiquated than either of those deliverances, and if one was able to argue a case of that kind upon scientific grounds, I should be very much inclined to maintain that it did not by any means follow that, because certain rules were suitable for regulating the relations of the two Houses in the seventeenth century, the same rules were equally applicable in the twentieth century, but I am not going to enter into a dissertation of that kind this evening. But I am going to take, as the noble Viscount in charge of the Bill took, the seventeenth -century Resolutions as the bed-rock, as to speak, of this controversy, and I want the House to consider what is said in them. This is what the Resolution of 1671 says—

"The House resolves that in all aids given to the King by the Commons, the rate or tax ought not to be altered by the Lords."

And then in 1678 they resolved—

"That all aids and supplies and aids to His Majesty in Parliament are the sole gift of the Commons, and all Bills for the granting of any such aids and supplies ought to begin with the Commons; and that it is the undoubted and sole right of the Commons to direct, limit, and appoint in such Bills"—

that is, Bills granting aids and supplies—

"The ends, purposes, considerations, conditions, limitations, and qualifications of such grants, which ought not to be changed or altered by the House of Lords."

That is the authority on which the noble Viscount relies. Even if we accept that Resolution as a conclusive authority, I venture to suggest to the House that this Bill is not a Bill granting aids and supplies to His Majesty. It is not a fiscal Bill in the strict sense of the word at all. It is not a Bill imposing taxation. I rather wish it was. If we were told something in this Bill about the taxation which it involves we should be wiser men than we are at present. All that this Bill does is to affirm that persons of a certain age are henceforth to have a right to a certain pension and to lay down the conditions under which that pension is to be receivable. Again I am going to appeal to the noble Lord in charge of the Bill. The noble Lord in charge of the Bill himself moved Amendments doing what we are told we had no right to do—that is, varying the charges which may henceforth arise in consequence of this Bill becoming law. Does the noble Viscount remember that in the second clause he moved an Amendment altering the conditions as to residence? Well, obviously, that was an alteration which could not help making a difference in the charge which would result from the passing of this Bill. He moved the Amendment, but it is quite true that later in the discussion he gracefully gave way upon the point and allowed somebody else's Amendment to be passed. I cannot help thinking that I detected a moment when the noble Viscount saw that he was skating on very thin ice, and he gracefully abdicated the duty he had undertaken for that reason. But he had another Amendment—an Amendment varying the term of the imprisonment which might in certain cases be a disqualification for the receipt of a pension. Was not that to vary the charge? Unless I am very much mistaken the Amendment which we afterwards inserted to deal with that point has been rejected in the House of Commons on the very ground that it is inconsistent with the privilege of the House. Then throughout the discussion the noble Viscount accepted two or three Amendments from us even suggesting alternative words to improve their language. He gave us no idea that those minor Amendments, at any rate, were an infringement of the privilege of the House of Commons. But whatever might have been the feeling of the noble Viscount upon that point, other counsels have apparently prevailed elsewhere, and what I wish respectfully to point out to the House is this, that if this new doctrine, for it really is a new and extended interpretation of the doctrine of privilege, is to prevail, this House had no right to discuss and amend the Territorial Forces Act of last year. It will have no right to discuss Bills dealing with education, Bills dealing with the Civil Service, or any of those numerous Bills which come to us in these days dealing with what we speak of as social questions, all of which involve charges on the Exchequer. I come now to the Amendment of my noble friend. My noble friend's Amendment, if it had any effect, would certainly have had the effect of diminishing and not increasing the charge upon the country, but I pass that by. My noble friend certainly did not desire to interfere with the grants of aids or supplies to the Sovereign. What my noble friend desired to do was simply this. His Majesty's Government had proclaimed that their Bill was, in a sense, a transitional Bill. They told us that they were quite aware that a Royal Commission was dealing with the whole question of the Poor Law, and they reserved to themselves the right of amending their Act when that Commission should have reported. They actually put into the Bill themselves words under which the disqualification, owing to receipt of poor relief, was to come to an end in the year 1910, because they said it was their intention to review the whole system of this pension on the one hand and poor relief on the other before that date. My noble friend really only desired to do rather more thoroughly what His Majesty's Government themselves desired to do. There was no spirit of hostility in his Amendment, no attempt to wreck the Bill, and, I venture to think, it was a most helpful and reasonable proposal, coming to us as it did with a Very considerable backing from those most important bodies whom we have not sufficiently taken into account—I mean the great friendly societies. And let us not forget that my noble friend's Amendment was careful to save the rights of all existing pensioners, so that it would be nonsense to say that, if that Amendment had found a place in the Bill any single human being would have been robbed of the pension which had accrued to him. I supported my noble friend, taking the Government at its word, and desiring by voting for this Amendment to record my protest against the precipitation with which this important subject has been dealt with. But you have learnt from my noble friend that he does not desire to press this matter to the bitter end, and that he proposes not to insist on the Amendment. Therefore, so far as that particular question is concerned, I consider that the controversy is at an end. But I wish to add this. I do not think it is possible for your Lordships to accept without demur the line which has been taken by His Majesty's Government in regard to the application of the doctrine of House of Commons' privilege. I think your Lordships will recollect that, upon another occasion of this kind, the late Lord Salisbury proposed to the House and carried a Resolution accepting certain Amendments made by the House of Commons, but making it clear that, if the House did not insist upon its Amendments it did not on the other hand accept the view taken by the House of Commons. And I propose at the close of this discussion to ask your Lordships to accept a Resolution in which we shall place the view which we hold to-day upon record. It is very short, and I venture to read it to the House. I propose that the House resolve—

"That this House, although not insisting upon its Amendments to the Old-Age Pensions Bill, does not accept the Reasons offered by the House of Commons or consent that the said Reasons should hereafter be drawn into a precedent. The Bill is, in the opinion of this House, not one for the grant of aids and supplies to His Majesty in Parliament, and involves questions of policy affecting the treatment of necessitous persons, in which both Houses are concerned, and with which this House has in the past been accustomed to deal."

I propose at the proper moment, with your Lordships' permission to offer that Resolution to the House.

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Marquess for the kindly terms in which he referred to myself, but, on the other hand, I am not quite clear as to the actual nature of the complaint which he makes against me as the Leader of the House. What has happened to the Amendments of this House is this. They have gone down to another place and some have been accepted by the House of Commons and others have been refused. Of those that have been refused, only four have been refused on the ground of privilege. The remainder have been refused for other reasons, which will be read as the Amendments come before us. As to this question of privilege, I am not quite clear what the noble Marquess thinks we ought to have done. When an Amendment goes down to the House of Commons and appears to Mr. Speaker to be a breach of privilege, he rises and states his opinion to that effect. Does the noble Marquess mean that in that case the Prime Minister should rise and say that in his opinion it is not a breach of privilege, or does he merely mean that in consideration of the substance of the Amendment the House should be asked to waive its privilege?

I mean the latter. This has been done again and again. The Speaker has ruled that such an Amendment does raise the question of privilege, and, thereupon, the Minister has said that in his view the Amendment was within the scope and intention of the Bill and was a reasonable one, and has moved that the House do not insist on its privilege.

Exactly, my Lords. That may be done, but it is not likely to be done by those who are in a position to prevent its being done on the merits of the case; and, if that is done, it by no means alters your Lordship's grievance, if grievance there be. The grievance of the noble Marquess is not against us, but against the authorities of the House of Commons, who put a certain interpretation upon this question of privilege. It is not reasonable to place that particular responsibility on us on this bench or on my right hon. friends who sit on the Government bench in another place. When you come to the question whether privilege ought or ought not to be waived in a particular instance, then you come to the merits of the special Amendment and the views of the Government of the day. It may be desirable under certain circumstances in order to carry out a compromise between the two parties, or from a general desire to live at peace with all the world, to waive privilege on certain Amendments; but that deals purely with the substance of the Amendments and their political effect, and has no bearing whatever on the question of privilege. The noble Marquess says that this is not a case in which privilege ought to be brought into play at all, because no money is voted. Is that seriously maintained by noble Lords opposite? That position has never yet been taken up in this House. If that were so, all the provisions dealing with money in any Bill except the Finance Bill and the Appropriation Bill might be dealt with in any way by your Lordships, and that is a claim that, so far as I know has never been taken up in this House The mere fact that it is stated in a Bill of this kind that certain charges will be paid out of the monies provided by Parliament surely does not prevent the rule, if rule it be, or the claim of the House of Commons from operating in cases of this kind? If it were so, it would be open to your Lordships to deal in any way with the finance, not merely of this Bill, but of any other Bill that deals with money, and that is a pretension which, so far as I am aware, no one has ever attempted to make on behalf of this House. It is perfectly possible that the House of Commons may in some cases put a somewhat strained interpretation on its privilege. I remember a case which occurred in 1906 on the Irish Labourers Act, when an Amendment was sent down by your Lord ships which it certainly never occurred to any of us in this House was a breach of privilege. Mr. Speaker said on that occasion that in his opinion the Amendment was an infringement of the privileges of the House of Commons, as it would enable an arbitrator to add an additional sum for compulsory purchase of land which would involve an increase of the rates, and that this was not within the competence of the House of Lords. That was, no doubt, carrying the doctrine of privilege very far, infinitely further than it is carried by the action of the other House with regard to any of the Amendments on this Bill, and in that case the noble Marquess did make a protest to the effect that this House—

"Though not insisting on the Amendment to which the Commons have disagreed maintains its right to legislate with regard to the principles of valuation upon which property may be taken for public purposes."

That was a comparatively harmless pretension. But when we come to the Resolution which the noble Marquess has announced his intention of moving at the close of the discussion on this Bill, I am bound to tell him at once that we cannot possibly concur with it, because it involves the proposition to which I have just called attention as being an impossible one for this House to sustain—namely, that this House has a right to alter in any way the charges contained in any Bill that comes before your Lordships' House, provided that money is not actually voted in that Bill. That is a proposition to which we cannot possibly assent.

My Lords, the noble Earl has made a distinction between a money Bill properly so-called, and such a Bill as that under consideration, because that distinction appears on the face of the Resolution of the seventeenth century upon which the Government rely as justifying the privilege of the House of Commons. No one who reads that Resolution carefully can doubt that the House of Commons who were responsible for passing the Resolution had what we know as the Finance Bill and the Appropriation Bill specifically in their mind. These Bills are preceded by a formal preamble which differentiates them from any other kind of Bill passed through Parliament. In that preamble the Commons definitely assert that it is on their initiative and their action that the aids and supplies are given to the Crown. You find the same phrases used in the Resolution of the seventeenth century, and it is quite obvious that what the Commons of that day intended was that the right of taxation and the right of supply rested with the Commons, and that those Bills could not be amended by the Lords. The distinction is a very rational one, because whatever Amendment your Lordships had introduced into such a Bill as we are now considering would not have affected the taxation of the country or the supplies granted to the King. Those matters depend upon other Acts of Parliament, which have to be passed in their turn. When those Bills came to be proposed, it would then be fully justifiable for the House of Commons to rely upon its privileges and to those privileges we should, of course, pay——

I am sorry to interrupt the noble Marquess, but I am extremely anxious to understand how far his argument goes. Would he hold that it was in the competence of this House to say that a pension, instead of being 5s. a week, should be £1 a week?

The noble Earl asks me to define at this moment exactly how far the privileges of the House of Commons go. I should not presume to do such a thing. But the Commons have to-day rejected Amendments on the score of privilege which goes far beyond anything that your Lordships could have contemplated. For instance, one Amendment has been rejected which merely changes the authority to administer the Act from the County Council of London to the borough councils, and that is held to be a breach of the privilege of the other House. A doctrine of that kind, if it were admitted, would prevent your Lordships from dealing with any Bill involving machinery under which Imperial grants are made.

I am extremely sorry again to interrupt the noble Marquess. But is the argument of the noble Marquess that this House can amend in any way it pleases any Bill in which money is not actually voted?

I do not see why I should be compelled to say that we can amend any Bill in any way we like, but I do say that we can amend one in the way we have amended the present Bill. That was a perfectly legitimate proceeding on the part of this House. The noble Earl, in the earlier part of his speech, said our quarrel ought to be with the authorities of the other House and not with His Majesty's Government.

I said that the Government did not move that the House of Commons should, on the merits, waive its privilege.

No, they certainly did not. They relied on privilege, and nothing but privilege. Whenever Mr. Speaker said that a particular Amendment was a breach of privilege, the Government offered no reason on the merits, but moved at once that the Lords' Amendment should be disagreed with. Does the noble Earl think that Mr. Speaker thought they ought to have taken that course, because, if so, he is under a complete misapprehension, for in one instance it occurred to a Member of the House of Commons to ask whether it was not known that the House did waive its privilege, and Mr. Speaker thereupon said—

"Yes, constantly every session."

After that observation the Government did offer some reasons, and very bad reasons they were, for disagreeing with the Amendments of your Lordships. What appears to be the fact is that it was not the authorities of the House, who merely deal with dry technicalities, but the responsible Leaders of the House of Commons, who relied upon privilege to reject Amendments which they themselves did not dare to say were not reasonable. In one case, rather than do justice to the people, they relied on the privilege of the House of Commons.

The Motion is that the House do not insist on the said Amendments to which the Commons have disagreed.

The Commons disagree to the Amendment made by the Lords in page 1, line 21, viz.—

"At end to insert the words 'as verified wherever practicable by certificates of birth or baptism or in the absence of such certificates by Census Returns or other official documents, or where no such certificates or documents are attainable in such other manner as may seem sufficient to the pension authorities.' "

They disagree for the following reason: Because so far as the matter is not capable of being dealt with by regulations the Commons consider the Lords' Amendment puts technical difficulties in the way of obtaining pensions which the Commons consider are unnecessary.

My Lords, as I had the honour of moving this Amendment, which was accepted by your Lordships without a division, I would respectfully ask that we might be told from the Front Bench opposite what were the grounds, beyond the mere dry technical statement, on which the Government rejected this Amendment. The sole object we had in view was that there should be some means of verifying the age of the applicants for these pensions. In the absence of such a provision the system will be open to fraud, and frequent losses must occur. The reason sent up by the House of Commons for disagreeing to this Amendment is that they consider that our Amendment puts technical difficulties in the way of obtaining pensions which they consider are unnecessary. The intention of the Amendment was to make it incumbent upon the applicant to prove his right to a pension by means of some document, and I feel that the refusal of this Amendment, resting in no degree upon the question of privilege, proves most unmistakedly that in this matter the Leaders of the Government in the House of Commons have been more anxious to inflict a rebuff upon your Lordships' House than to safeguard the public purse against fraud.

My Lords, I must express my strong dissent from the last statement of the noble Viscount, which has no foundation whatever. As he has properly said, no question of privilege was raised on this Amendment. The Amendment was fully discussed upon its merits in the other House, where the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in a forceful and intelligent speech, stated to the House what were the objections to the noble Viscount's Amendment and showed how onerous the requirement would be in many cases, and how hard it would be to put poor people well known to be seventy years of age to the expense of providing themselves with birth certificates. There was no attempt whatever to inflict a rebuff upon your Lordships' House. The House was at first apparently in favour of defining the matter more fully in the Bill, but became convinced that it would be very unwise to do so. The House thought it would be very much better to leave the subject of this Amendment to be dealt with in the regulations. Those regulations, as the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer informed the House, are all but complete. I can assure the noble Viscount that no party feeling and no temper against the House of Lords were displayed by the other House.

The Commons disagree to the Amendment made by the Lords in page 2, line 7, the Amendment being to leave out the words—

"The thirty-first day of December, nineteen hundred and ten."

They disagree for the following reason: Because the effect of the Amendment would be to vary the period of disqualification for a pension. The Commons consider it unnecessary to offer any further reason, hoping this reason may be deemed sufficient.

As I moved this Amendment, perhaps I may say a word upon it. My object in proposing it was to ascertain what was the intent of the House of Commons in framing the Bill in the form in which it came before your Lordships. Words were inserted in the clause on Report which appeared to me to lead to the result that, purely by inadvertence, the House of Commons might impose at the date named a large additional burden on the country without having meant to do so. If I right under-stand the mutter, the question of privilege has been raised. In other words, that means that it was the intention of the House of Commons, if no legislation with regard to Poor Law reform took place before 31st December, 1910, that this additional burden should be laid on the country. If that be so, it would not be for me to contest the question of privilege, even if I could do so; and I am bound frankly to say that if I had thought that that was the intention I should not have pressed the Amendment. But it was not resisted by the noble Viscount on this ground at all. He resisted it because he said the House of Commons wished to bind the Chancellor of the Exchequer to a pledge which he had given that legislation with regard to the Poor Law should be the first thing taken up by the Government next year, so that it could pass into law before the end of the following year. I should have been quite content to have accepted the pledge of the Chancellor of the Exchequer Without making it the subject of a statutory enactment. But the House of Commons knows the Chancellor of the Exchequer better than I do, and, as they have thought otherwise, I do not wish to insist on the Amendment.

This was an Amendment which the Speaker himself ruled out on the ground that it was a privilege Amendment. I plead guilty to having given a totally different reason to the noble Viscount opposite.

The Commons disagree to the Amendment made by the Lords in page 2, lines 34 and 35, viz.—

"To leave out the words 'up to attaining,' and to insert the words 'immediately preceding his attainment of.' "

For the following reason: Because the object aimed at can be met by regulations under the Bill.

The Commons disagree to the Amendment made by the Lords in page 3, line 17—viz.

"After the word 'and,' to insert the words 'if the term of imprisonment to which he is sentenced exceeds one month he shall be disqualified' "—

for the following reason: Because the Amendment reduces the number of persons disqualified by the Bill, and may, therefore, increase the charge. The Commons consider it unnecessary to offer any further reason, hoping the above reason may be deemed sufficient.

I understand that this Amendment is regarded by the House of Commons as a breach of privilege. The noble Earl the Leader of the House put a question just now to Lord Salisbury, so perhaps he will pardon me if I put a question to him. Does the noble Earl consider this Amendment a breath of the privilege of the House of Commons?

I confess I have no opinion whatever on the subject.

If the noble Earl is in that felicitous slate of ignorance, the noble Viscount (Lord Wolverhampton) who sits next to him can hardly claim to share it, because he himself put down this very Amendment. I am sure, after all the speeches with regard to the limitation of the liberties of this House with which this matter was preceded, that the noble Viscount had fully considered anything which could be held to be a breach of privilege, and it is extremely difficult to conceive any Government, especially the present Government, infringing the privileges of the House of Commons. As the Bill stood before the Amendment adopted by your Lordships, a person who had been imprisoned for one or two days would be disqualified for ten years after his release. Your Lordships said, with the entire approval of noble Lords opposite, and I think with reason, that you thought that would be rather hard, and that such a disqualification ought not to be inflicted upon a man unless he had committed an offence by which he incurred at least a month's imprisonment. That was the extent of the breach of privilege which was committed. I think that, had it been put to Mr. Speaker in the other House, he would have described it by the remark which he made in regard to a subsequent Amendment as "privilege gone mad." I think this Amendment is a cousin four or five times removed to a breach of privilege. That is as near as you can bring it. The noble Viscount was certainly of opinion that it was not a breach of privilege, or he would not have proposed it. I venture to say there is no one in this House who will get up and assert that this is in any tangible sense a breach of privilege. If the Government insist upon disqualifying a man because he was imprisoned for a few days for a trivial offence, then there will be a large number of persons disqualified. Perhaps the Government hope in this way to find some of the money which they need for public charges. But to call the Amendment a breach of privilege is something approaching nonsense.

My Lords, I should like to call attention to some of the awkward consequences that will follow from the enforcement of this principle. I observe that several of your Lordships' Amendments which have been read by the Clerk at the Table arc objected to on two grounds—first, that they are a breach of privilege in that they affect moneys voted by the House of Commons; and, secondly, that the matter can be done by regulations. But, if that be so, the regulations must be an infringement of the privilege of the House of Commons. If your Lordships are not to be permitted to interfere in any way in these matters, it is rather hard that Treasury clerks should be permitted to do so, because that is the necessary consequence. Then there is the contention that your Lordships need have no hesitation in leaving these matters to be dealt with by regulation, because the regulations will be laid on the Table of both Houses. But the claim of privilege will be quite as applicable if your Lordships attempt to interfere with the regulations. If ever there was an instance of the privileges of the House of Commons being brought to absurdity it is afforded by the rejection of this Amendment. If it were to be held that any Amendment made by your Lordships' House which might, however indirectly and inconsequentially, lead to an increase in the public charge was a breach of the privileges of the Commons, then no Amendment could be made by your Lordships in any conceivable Bill that came to this House.

My Lords, I should like to explain my position in the matter. I agree with every word which the noble Earl opposite said in regard to this Amendment. We all have our individual opinions. This Amendment, however, was objected to by the Commons, not on the ground of privilege but on its merits. As the noble Earl appealed to me on the point, I should like to say that I have not changed my mind in the matter.

I am quite sure the noble Viscount says what ho thinks to be accurate. He is quite incapable of saying anything else; but he is labouring under a complete misapprehension. This Amendment was not rejected by the House of Commons because the Commons disagreed with it. On the contrary, the Government admitted that the Amendment inserted by your Lordships' House remedied an obvious injustice. It was rejected by the Prime Minister entirely on the ground of privilege and on the ground of privilege alone; and because of this; technicality, which was not supported by the Speaker when appealed to, for he said that the House did constantly waive its privilege in such cases, any unfortunate man who is put into prison for a few days is to be deprived of his pension for ten years. This is the kind of policy which the Government think will be approved of by the people. I am certain there is nobody in the House of Commons or in your Lordships' House or in the country who does not think that this Amendment ought to be inserted; yet it is rejected simply on the ground of privilege.

It is quite clear that, if your Lordships' Amendment is not insisted upon, the Bill passes to be interpreted exactly on its own words, which are that if a man is sentenced to the shortest period of imprisonment he will be deprived of his pension for ten years. Regulations cannot be brought in to give a different meaning to this provision.

There can be no doubt as to the reason why this Amendment was rejected. The reason given by the Commons is that the Amendment would reduce the number of persons disqualified by the Bill, an might, therefore, increase the charge. The Amendment is rejected on pure, narrow, technical grounds that have no relation whatever to its merits, which we know go entirely the other way.

The Commons disagree to the Amendment made by the Lords in page 4, line 2—viz:

"After the word 'him,' to insert the words 'as to produce the largest income that can be reasonably obtained from it' "—

for the reason that it would apply tests of means which would be more stringent than those in the Bill and very difficult to administer.

In moving this Amendment I called the attention of your Lordships to what must be admitted oven now to be a blot in the Bill. As the Bill stands, without the Amendment, it will be possible for two persons, husband aid wife, having each £1,200 invested in Consols, to obtain a pension of 1s. a week, and the object of my Amendment was to secure that a claimant of a pension who possessed property should prove that he made the most of that property before ho could establish his right to a pension. The House of Commons have rejected the Amendment on the ground that it would apply tests of means which would be more stringent than those in the Bill and very difficult to administer. If it be the intention of the House of Commons that persons having property of the amount to which I have alluded should obtain pensions from the taxpayers under this Bill, I have nothing further to say. I have done my best to prevent what I consider would be a great waste of public money, and I will take no further action in the matter.

The Commons, while agreeing to the Amendment made by the Lords to insert, after line 20, paragraph (d)—viz.:

"In line 20, at end to insert the words '(d) If any person is aggrieved by the refusal or neglect of a local pension committee to consider a claim for a pension, or to determine any question referred to them, that person may apply in the prescribed manner to the central pension authority, and that authority may, if they consider that the local pension committee have refused or neglected to consider and determine the claim or question within a reasonable time, themselves consider and determine the claim or question in the same manner as on an appeal from the decision of the local pension committee"—

disagree with the Amendment to insert paragraph (e)

"(e) the expression 'party aggrieved' shall include a member of the said committee who has taken part in the consideration of the report and has dissented from the decision."

They disagree for the following reason: Because they do not consider that a special appeal should be given in such a case.

I moved this Amendment to prevent abuses; and I have not the slightest doubt that the Government will live to learn the gross abuse which the absence of this Amendment will give opportunity for.

The Commons disagree to the Amendments made by the Lords in page 5, line 30, and after line 40—viz.:

"In line 30, at end to insert the words 'for the purposes of this subsection the expression "borough" includes a metropolitan borough and the city of London, and the expression "council of a borough" includes the council of a metropolitan borough, and as respects the City of London, the mayor, aldermen, and commons of the City of London in common council assembled.' "

"In line 40, to insert as a new subsection '(3) The Local Government Board may appoint any person or any persons not exceeding three in number to be a member or members of any local pensions committee, or of any sub-committee appointed by the latter, who shall, when appointed, have all the rights of ordinary members of such committees.' "

They disagree for the following reason: Because these Amendments alter the constitution of the body appointed by the House of Commons for carrying the Act into force. The Commons consider it unnecessary to offer any further reason, hoping the above reason may be deemed sufficient.

As the mover of these Amendments, I look upon the Commons reason as unanswerable, because the reason given for their rejection is no reason at all.

I understand that these Amendments are disagreed to on the ground of privilege. Here again is an instance of privilege run mad. Can any case be cited in which privilege has been pressed to this point? In view of the fact that it is the universal desire of your Lordships that those who are to have the advantage of this Bill should not have that advantage delayed, I presume that this is not the time at which your Lordships would wish to take up this question of privilege. But in the most serious form I enter a protest against this absolutely unrivalled case of interference with the rights and privileges and duties of the House of Lords. The interpretation of privilege set up by the Commons could be brought into every Bill which went down amended in any way by your Lordships. If, in order not to prevent this Bill being delayed until the autumn, your Lordships forbear to make any more formal protest than has been suggested, it must not be taken that we in any way abandon our rights in this matter.

The Commons disagree to the Amendment made by the Lords in page 6, line 9, viz.—

"After the word 'representation,' to insert the words 'or if any person directly or indirectly deprives himself of any income or property in order to qualify himself for the receipt of an old-age pension, or for the receipt of an old-age pension at a higher rate than that to which he would otherwise he entitled under this Act.' "

They disagree because they consider this is not a matter which should properly be made a criminal offence.

This was an Amendment which was accepted by the Government without any opposition at all; in fact, I think they were of opinion that it was an improvement. As the Bill originally stood, and as it will stand if your Lordships do not insist on your Amendment—and I do not propose, in the circumstances, to ask you to do so—a person who directly or indirectly deprives himself of any income or property in order to qualify himself for an old-age pension will not in any way be punishable, but will meet with the success which his fraudulent conduct is held by the Government to deserve.

The Commons disagree with the Amendment made by the Lords to insert a new subsection after line 11, viz.—

"(2) The pension officer may at any time, without the matter having been referred to him, call upon and require a person in receipt of an old-age pension to establish that he has not since the same was granted to him become disqualified to receive it, and the pension officer shall inquire into the matter of the pensioner's disqualification and report on the same to the pension committee, who shall receive, and, as far as applicable, act upon the said Report us if it were a Report received under the provisions of Section 7, subsection (c) of this Act."

They disagree for the following reason: Because they consider that the subject of the Amendment is a matter for regulation.

Will your Lordships allow me to say a few words upon this Resolution? It has not been infrequent for this House to enter upon record its opinion of its own rights in opposition to the privileges claimed by the House of Commons. But I think on this occasion there is implicitly involved in this Resolution a claim which, as foreshadowed in the speech of the noble Marquess the Leader of the Opposition, and in the speech of the noble Marquess Lord Salisbury, I believe to be unprecedented. Let me point this out—that the privilege of the House of Commons is admittedly somewhat indistinct at its borders. No one can read the history of this question and the various Resolutions which have been arrived at, and the various acts which have taken place, without seeing that there is a certain borderland which is indeterminate and to a certain extent indefinite. But the House of Commons has always dealt with Bills of this kind as measures involving privilege. The noble Marquess referred to the Resolution of 1678, but, in addition to that, or in illustration of that, there is a long course of dealings by the House of Commons every year in which they claim that these subject-matters—the conditions under which money shall be spent—shall be treated as matters of privilege. The noble Marquess Lord Salisbury and the noble Marquess the Leader of the Opposition in their speeches apparently claimed that nothing but Finance Bills could be matters of privilege of the Commons. That is the logical result of the contention put forward by them. It would be perfectly easy to show that all you have to do would be to introduce a clause involving a charge in a Bill of this kind in order to bring it within the rule of the noble Marquess himself. The practice, it is said, has been that Bills of this kind should be treated separately from the funds, and then that the Appropriation Bill should supply the actual grant of the funds. All I can say is that this seems to me to be a new claim, that a Bill of this kind should be free from any privilege of any sort or kind. It is a new claim to say that there is no privilege of the Commons in a Bill of this kind. Certainly that is not claimed by the noble Viscount Lord St. Aldwyn. It was, however, claimed by the noble Marquess. I observed that the noble Viscount did not support that claim. He no doubt felt, as an old House of Commons man, that it would not have been accepted for an instant by the other House. Neither side of the House, in any House of Commons in which I have had the honour to sit, would have listened for a moment to a claim of that kind. I think it would be deplorable if a claim of this kind were put forward, because there is not the faintest chance that it would be admitted and allowed. Every one knows how jealous, not only Liberal Houses of Commons, but Conservative Houses of Commons have been upon this question of money grants. I am quite sure that if this Resolution, which has been moved by the Leader of the Opposition, is to have the meaning which, in accordance with the speeches delivered, it seems to convey, it is putting forward a claim which for hundreds of years has never been advanced in this House.

My Lords, I am afraid that if the records to which the noble and learned Lord referred were examined with particular minuteness it would be difficult to say that the contentions on either side have been conducted on rules of strict logic. The misfortune is that each House claims to be, and undoubtedly is, the guardian of its own privileges. That is to say, that the majority of the House from time to time has a right to declare what its privileges are, and that nobody shall interfere with them, and occasionally I cannot help feeling that the other House has somewhat partially considered the question, and not taken up the only logical position that could be taken, that, where it is only a question of an indirect effect upon the finances of the country, nobody has ever successfully contended that this raised a question of privilege. Let us take the most ordinary case. Suppose a question of criminal law affecting such and such an offence. It is quite true that the question of greater or less punishment by imprisonment involves a greater or less charge upon the country, but that I do not think involves any question of privilege of the House of Commons. There is a broad distinction between a direct and an indirect effect upon the supplies or aid granted to the Sovereign. I do not think that the Motion which the noble Marquess has now moved puts forward any new claim on the part of this House. It is only right to maintain the claim, which has often hitherto been conceded, and if not conceded specially waived, by the House of Commons.

My Lords, I would venture to suggest that there is no precedent for the position in which we are now placed. Here is a measure raising a vast and wide question and involving enormous expense; but through the action of the Government, while one House is debarred by the guillotine from discussing it, by an exaggerated interpretation of privilege the other House is debarred from amending it.

The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack referred so pointedly to me that, although I am far from claiming to be an authority on the great constitutional question at issue, I hope your Lordships will permit me to say a few words. I was surprised at the contention of the noble Earl who leads the House and of the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack that, either in moving or supporting this Resolution, we on this side make such a claim as that which was suggested by those noble Lords.

Did the noble Viscount hear the speech of the noble Marquess who leads the Opposition?

Yes, and I do not think it justified the interpre- tation which the noble Earl put upon it. My noble friend has never claimed that the only Bills to which privilege should apply are the Appropriation Bill and the Finance Bill of the year. My noble friend has never said that privilege could not arise on a Bill such as this. What has always been said is that a question of privilege would arise if by the action of your Lordships a charge was directly imposed upon the taxpayers. But the question before us to-day is no question of that kind. It is a question of two Amendments, one of which fixes the term of imprisonment at a month instead of seven days, and the other concerns the authority by which this Act should be administered. It seems to me that an interpretation has been placed on the privileges of the House of Commons which I have never heard of before.

The noble Viscount who has just sat down has put his case very moderately; but, unless my recollection is entirely wrong, what he said is not at all the same as that which was said by the two noble Marquesses opposite. What I understood the Leader of the Opposition to say was that because no money was voted by this Bill it did not come under the term of aids and supplies mentioned in the House of Commons Resolution. From that I deduced that the noble Marquess considered that the privileges of the House of Commons were not involved in any Bill in which money was not actually voted, and from that I further deduced that it could be only a Finance Bill or an Appropriation Bill to which that would be said to apply, and that therefore a Bill such as this would not be subject to privilege at all.

The noble Earl deduced from my observations a good deal more than those observations really contained. The noble Lord in charge of the Bill told us that we were debarred from amending it owing to the terms of the Resolution of 1671. I thereupon said that I could find nothing in this Bill which brought it within the terms of that Resolution. I maintain that that is so.

That is exactly what I said.

Then I hope we are agreed. I heard with great pleasure the admission of the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack that, in regard to this question of privilege, there was no very distinct borderland, and that, I think, is one of the reasons why the difficulty of dealing with it is so great. I have no desire to encroach upon the frontier of the House of Commons; but my complaint is that the action of the House of Commons in this case has been an encroachment upon our frontier; the two Amendments which have just been referred to are conspicuous instances of that—notably the Amendment of Lord Midleton, who proposed, as the House will remember, to substitute, as part of the machinery of the Bill, borough councils instead of county councils. During the earlier

The Commons' reason for disagreeing

The alteration made by the other House transfers to another place in the section the words providing that the professor or lecturer is not eligible for membership of the General Board of Studies or of any faculty other than the faculty of theology. That is a purely grammatical point, and I move that the House agree with the Commons in that alteration. The other Amendment, on which I shall move that your Lordships do not insist, is the one upon which considerable discussion took place relating to the building of a chapel. I do not want to repeat the arguments I used on that occasion, further than to say that this particular point represents a compromise which was arrived at on the subject in another place; and as the division last night showed how very nearly your Lordships were divided on the subject, I hope you may be disposed not to insist on the Amendment to-day.

Might I ask whom this compromise was between?

It would take a pretty long time to explain that, and would involve the discussion of the entire history of the question over some years.

Well, to put it short, was it between the Nationalists and the Nonconformists?

I certainly do not desire to suggest that we should insist upon our Amendment, particularly in view of the narrowness of the division last night. The point was one about which we had ourselves no doubt, but we desired to give the House of Commons, which had already changed its mind more than once upon the subject, another opportunity of discussing the question.