Part of the debate – in the House of Commons am ar 27 Gorffennaf 1923.
On the contrary it will merely mean reprinting the Bill, and that is an important difference. We are to have an adjourned Session, there is plenty of time, and no evil will result from voting for this Amendment. The Government will merely be reminded that if they are going to touch the right of a litigant to a jury, they must put it in clear language and explain to the House why they think it right to do so. If the House does not vote by a majority for the Amendment the Bill will go upstairs. But we have no pledge that the Committee will be allowed a free hand in the matter or that the Government will accept its decision if it chooses to leave out the proviso to this Clause. Neither the Attorney-General nor the Solicitor-General have given any such pledge, and that means that the Bill will come back to the House to be dealt with on Report and it may strike a blow—it may be a very serious one—at the right of the litigant to trial by jury. I hope the House will decide now that, if there is going to be any encroachment upon the right of litigants to trial by jury, it shall be stated in clear terms, limited to particular cases, and made not dependent on the decision of a Judge, but decided by this House in the proper constitutional manner. Consequently, I hope that we shall go to a Division on this Amendment, and I certainly shall ask everyone I can to vote for it, in order that we may at any rate stand up for the full restoration of the right of trial by jury, and those who vote against the Amendment will go down as voting against that full restoration.