I beg to move, That, in the opinion of this House, political parties, and all other organisations having political action as one of their aims, should publish annually full and adequate statements of their accounts. It seems rather extraordinary that there should be any hesitation in any part of the House about endorsing what is, after all, one of the first principles of democracy. What my hon. Friends and I are asking is that this House should confirm what is a universally accepted democratic principle, that all political parties and all organisations which are likely to take part in the coming Election should make known to the electorate from where they get their funds and upon what they have spent them. Before they vote, the people of this country are entitled to know what particular interests have paid for propagandising the particular views which are put before them.

The Labour Party, the Communist Party and the Liberal Party publish their accounts. The Conservative Party do not. It may be that the Conservative Party believe that it is to their advantage to hide where they get their money and that they feel they will secure some electoral advantage by concealing who their paymasters are. Indeed, one gets that impression by reading the excuses offered in the "Parliamentary Review" of last autumn by their general director as to why they do not see fit to publish their accounts. But even supposing that excuse is valid, surely this House ought to determine this question on a broader basis of democracy than what is or is not to the advantage of any one particular party.

Hon. Members will notice that on the Order Paper there is a Conservative Amendment to this Motion making it a condition that before this House suggests that all parties should publish their accounts, Parliament should first enact legislation to compel them to do so. Is that not rather a peculiar point to make on the last day of the Session—to suggest that this is the time that we should propose legislation—and is it not rather a curious suggestion to come from the one party who have always consistently refused to enact this legislation when they had time to do it? If yesterday's "Daily Telegraph" is to be believed, the Conservative Party consider that in any event such legislation would be entirely impracticable. If that is the case—and no doubt the right hon. and learned Member for West Derby (Sir D.Maxwell Fyfe) will give us his view on that—the practical effect of carrying the proposed Amendment would be that the Tory Party would never be under any obligation to publish their accounts. Perhaps that is the real reason why the Amendment was set down.

Therefore, my hon. Friends and I are going to ask the House to accept this Motion as it stands without amendment or qualification. If it is honestly believed by the party opposite that under-cover political organisations, such as, for example, the Aims of Industry or indeed their own Central Office,.cannot be compelled to produce their accounts by the moral pressure of a majority vote in this House, supposing we carry the Motion, but will only do it if they are threatened with legal penalties, then by all means let us have legislation-.

I will make hon. Members opposite an offer. If they will agree to withdraw their Amendment in order to give their own Central Office time in which to make up the accounts, and if the House passes this Motion and at the beginning of next Session they have still refused to produce them, then I will willingly join with them, if the subject is not mentioned in the Gracious Speech, in setting down an Amendment, in the very words of their present Amendment, to the Address on the Gracious Speech. We shall then have an opportunity of discussing it. I should like to know whether that course commends itself to hon. Members opposite.

In any event, I cannot see how the Conservative Party can quibble at the Motion as we have drafted it. It is based upon the proposals which were urged upon the Conservative Party at their Birmingham Conference in 1883 by Lord Randolph Churchill. Hon. Members will remember that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill) concluded his recent speech at Wolverhampton by quoting the speech made at Blackpool in January, 1884, by Lord Randolph Churchill. On that occasion Lord Randolph had said: This Tory Party of today exists by the favour of no caucus, nor for the selfish interest of any class. Its motto is ' Of the people, For the people,. By the people.' It is a pity that, no doubt, limits of time prevented the right hon. Gentleman from telling his audience why it was at that time his father thought this about the Tory Party. It was, of course, because some two months before, Lord Randolph thought, quite wrongly as it turned out, that he had in fact democratised the Tory Party. He thought this because he had, so he thought, persuaded them to adopt a democratic constitution to do away with the control of an irresponsible committee and to publish their accounts. At the Birmingham conference which took place a month or so before the speech referred to by the right hon. Gentleman, this is what Lord Randolph said: I wish to see the control and guidance ot the organisation of the Tory Party transferred from a self-elected body to an annually elected body. I wish to see the management of the financial resources of our party transferred from an irresponsible body to a responsible body… There is no instance in history, of power, placed in the hands of a self-constituted and irresponsible body, being used otherwise than unwisely at first and corruptly at last …The corrupt practices at the last General Election on our own side, when the organisation was directed by a secret and irresponsible committee, were so grave and flagrant that our party in Parliament were absolutely prevented from exposing the graver and more flagrant corrupt practices of the Liberal Party…. I should like all the finances of the Tory Party to be open for inspection for anyone who may wish to look at them, be he friend or foe. Where you allow secret expenditure you will certainly have corrupt expenditure; and where you have corrupt expenditure you will have vitiated elections, disfranchised boroughs, party disgrace and public scandal. … Lord Randolph thought he had got his reform through and that is why he made the speech which the right hon. Member for Woodford quoted. But he had not. The Tory Party still do not publish their accounts and from an irresponsible committee they have advanced only as far as having a leader responsible to none.

This is the centenary of Lord Randolph's birth and, whatever political divisions divide us, we can all at least admire his courage. Almost his only legislative act when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer was to put through a Bill prohibiting the Tory Chief Whip using the Secret Service Funds for financing the Tory Party. It is only fair to say they had been so used by Mr. Gladstone previously. As a birthday present to the right hon. Member for Woodford, could not we all join together at last in putting through the reform which was dearest to his father's heart?

But, of course, there are many hon. Members of the party sitting opposite who are most unhappy about this undemocratic concealment of their accounts. For example, I think the right hon. and learned Member for West Derby is one. I am sure he learned at the Nuremburg Trials the dreadful and corroding effect on any party of secret subventions from great industrialists whose contributions to party funds were, in Germany, inevitably followed by degrading demands upon those who had incautiously accepted their secret help. He will remember that among the evidence tendered at Nuremburg to support a ' charge of criminal conspiracy, was that immediately prior to the Election of March, 1933, 25 leading German industrialists gathered in Goering's house to agree to raise for Nazi funds, secretly, 3 million marks, a sum of about £200,000. It seems small beer compared to some funds now. Krupps, I.G. Farben, United Steel, all the great German firms were there.

With that experience behind him, does not the right hon. and learned Gentleman consider it horribly frightening that exactly the same type of firms which subscribed in 1933 in Germany to Nazi funds are, in England 16 years later, subscribing in secret similarly large sums to the Woolton Fund? I am quite certain that the right hon. and learned Gentleman is worried about it. Perhaps that is why over a year ago, when chairman of the Conservative Party Committee on Party Administration, he recommended that the Tories should publish their accounts. Perhaps he has that report with him. If he has he might turn to page 14 where he will note that in paragraph 28 there is one of those fair and honest admissions which one would always expect from any committee presided over by the right hon. and learned Gentleman. It says: In the past no information about the expenditure or income or the requirements at the Centre has been available to responsible constituency officers, Members of Parliament, candidates or ordinary members of the Party. [An HON. MEMBER: "Otherwise it was all right."] Then, in the next para- graph, there is a recommendation that the accounts should be published. I understand that this recommendation was endorsed by the Conservative Executive Committee at their meeting on 2nd September, 1948. Why, then, have not accounts been published? Who overrode the decision of the right hon. and learned Gentleman's Committee? Will he tell us that when he comes to reply?