The house of Industry : a new estate of the realm

FOREWORD

By ALFRED M. Watt (London Trades Council) and A. A. PURCELL (Manchester and Salford Trades Council)

Waat shall we do with the House of Lords? End it, say some. Mend it, say others. Transform it, says Mr. S. G. Hobson, into a House of Industry.

As trade unionists we are interested only in Mr. Hobson’s proposal. With the question of the House of Lords as a mere matter of politics we do not feel ourselves deeply concerned. If it is to be dealt with, as indications rather suggest, in the way that the Liberal Party dealt with it in the Parliament Act, we shall resent the waste of energy and time such a solution will entail. The Trade Union and Labour Movement has something better to do than to become embroiled in the dreary quarrel between the two chambers, conducted in the traditional manner as a squabble over the right of saying the last word on matters of legislation. We do not want to see a Labour Prime Minister placed in the position which Mr. Ramsay MacDonald appears to be willing to occupy of having to invoke the King’s prerogative of making new peers in order to enable the people’s will to prevail. It seems to us that this is a childish method of dealing with the problem.

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