Breathing Space

"Contents," intoned the Lord Chancellor, his full-bottomed wig flapping spaniel-eared against his plump, ashen cheeks, "will vote in the lobby to the right of the throne; not-contents to the left of the bar." As the slow mass-movement of Britain's lords temporal and spiritual to one or the other side of their august chamber was completed, the not-contents outnumbered their opponents by 238 to 95. By thus refusing to approve a House of Commons bill to abolish capital punishment (TIME, Feb. 27), the House of Lords last week flung the first direct challenge in the face of Britain's elected representatives since 1949--when the bill in question was one designed to shear the lords themselves of a large portion of their legislative power.

Hope of Reform. Thanks to that former bill, which was eventually passed over the lords' objections, the vote last week was legally only a delaying action. The Commons bill abolishing hanging would have to be reintroduced in a later session and could then be passed into law. whether the lords liked it or not. What many of the lords hoped was that a re-examination of capital punishment in the Commons would lead to a drastic revision of Britain's criminal code, providing at least for degrees of murder in the American style, only the most heinous of which would call for the death penalty. Approaching the same hope from a different angle, the Church of England bishops, with only one exception, voted in favor of abolition, even though the Archbishop of Canterbury had said: "The death penalty is a witness to the sacredness of human life and social order."

The ornate galleries of the Lords Chamber, usually deserted while bores speak to empty seats, were tight-packed with peeresses, dazzling in their fashionable plumage. "Backwoodsmen," who had not taken their seats for an age, limped and hobbled up from the counties to plug in hearing aids and listen to the arguments. Around the steps of the throne, there was a tight gaggle of elder sons who share with members of the Privy Council the right to squat there during sessions.

Will of the People. At the end of the debate, Lord Salisbury, the Tory leader, unwound his lean length to sum up for the government. Emphasizing the point that hanging is a matter of individual conscience, Salisbury, like Canterbury, declared himself against abolition, but also against the status quo. He was not worried that in defying the House of Commons, the lords might be fashioning a legislative noose around their own necks should another Labor government come to power. Salisbury has given much thought to the limits that the lords must set on themselves. When Labor came to power in 1945, determined to create the welfare state, "I came to the conclusion that . . . we must act on the assumption that anything that had been included in the program of a party which had been successful at the previous general election had been approved by the electorate.'' The lords, in that case, must try to improve, but should not reject bills they disliked.

Where issues had not been tested in an election, Salisbury went on, the lords should try "not to oppose the will of the people, the electorate, or even to interpret the will of the people, but very definitely, where we could, to give a breathing space to enable public opinion to crystallize on issues on which they had not been consulted and on which their views were not known." Since capital punishment had not been included on any party's platform, the public's views were not plainly known and a breathing space was in order. On this narrowed definition of its usefulness, the House of Lords reared its aged, stooped head and defied the House of Commons.

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