If I can make myself audible, I want to conclude.

British people have always been consistent in placing a high premium on the rule of law. Nobody has been allowed to defy the law or to set himself above it however powerful or whatever the strength of the forces behind him. It was not allowed to the king himself, or to the great feudal barons, such as the Warwicks and the Norfolks ; and what was not yielded to them, cannot now be yielded to the latter-day barons of the trade unions. I am sad that it should be necessary to have to remind any element in this House of this elementary but fundamental proposition. I am sadder still to think that there should be any division regarding it.

If nearly 30 years of experience of this House did not convince me of the futility of such exhortation, I would even now, at this eleventh hour, invite the right hon. Gentleman to withdraw the motion and to make a unanimous reaffirmation of the great principles of the rule of law for which this House has traditionally stood. However, if the motion is to be proceeded with, certainly the House should reject it for the thing that it is—a discredited device of a divided and dispirited Opposition.