The Lords v. the Commons

The House of Lords, Britain's Upper House, had daringly (and heavily) amended Labor's bill to nationalize transport (TIME, May 12), which the House of Commons had passed. Last week, the Commons debated the Lords' amendments. The session achieved a slambang abandon.

Meaning of Decency. The first major uproar occurred when Tory Henry Strauss charged that Labor had handed out jobs in the nationalized transport system before the bill had become law. Cried Communist M.P. Willie Gallacher: "Does not the honorable and learned member know the meaning of decency?" Retorted Strauss: "The Communist Party had better endeavor to behave itself."

Then Tory Walter Elliot tangled with Laborite Malcolm Macmillan. Elliot: "The honorable member . . . who has totally failed to get office under any Government, is very anxious to get it now." Macmillan: "[Elliot] has himself been kicked out of every office he has held."

Tory Edward Legge-Bourke rose and cried: "Today there are right honorable gentlemen sitting on the Government front" bench who are drunk. . . ." Shouts drowned his words. When order was restored, Legge-Bourke explained: "I was going to say, had I been given a chance to finish my sentence, that I consider the right honorable gentlemen on the other side of the House are drunk with power."

Trudgery & Tomato Juice. The debate lasted nearly 20 hours. Twenty times, the tired members trudged to the division lobbies. The Commons bar and cafeteria remained bravely open all night. At 3 a.m., pale but still smiling, Barmaid Doris staggered in with an armful of tomato juice cans, mixed the members' latest favorite cocktail--tomato juice, sherry and Worcester sauce.

By 10:15 a.m., all was over.* Labor had won. The Commons rejected the most important of the Lords' amendments, sent back the entire bill with the traditional Norman French notation: "Ceste bille est remise aux seigneurs avecque des raisons" (i.e., returned to the Lords for further debate).

Would the Lords knuckle under to the Laborite Commons, or would they try to fight? Constitutionally, if Commons insisted on passing it, the Lords could not kill the transportation bill; but--by sending it back to Commons again & again with more & more amendments--they could postpone its passage for years. Labor made it clear that it would not stand for that. Cried Health Minister Aneurin Bevan: "If the House of Lords dares to stand between the will of the people and what they desire, then it will be the end of the House of Lords."

Solemn Ceremony. But there was still time left for the Lords to perform a fateful function. In their chamber, the Royal Assent was solemnly given to the Indian Independence Bill. In the presence of five royal commissioners (in cocked hats and scarlet robes with ermine and sable-edged capes), the clerk of the Parliament pronounced: "Le Roy Le veutl" (the king wills it). With these words, Britain had abandoned the greatest single base of her power. The subcontinent which Robert Clive's military mastery and Benjamin Disraeli's diplomatic craft had made the cornerstone of empire was cut loose, and 300 million Indians moved on to independence.

The Briton who was chiefly responsible for India's new status was present. From the bar of the House of Lords, Socialist Prime Minister Clement Attlee, who had been elected to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire, watched the solemn ceremony. As the bill was formally signed, he flushed slightly and lowered his eyes.

*Before adjourning, the Commons enjoyed a brief, brisk argument on greyhound racing, during which an unidentified member barked illustratively for nearly two minutes.

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