Single-Chamber Government in this country. The hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) says that there is no justification, by any democratic 290 principle, for a Second Chamber. I hope I am quoting him correctly, lie-cause it was rather difficult, in the mirth which his outburst excited, to take down his exact words. I do not believe that the functions of a Second Chamber in this country have anywhere been better defined than they were in the letter which Lord Bryce sent to the Prime Minister of the day, in 1918, embodying what was, in effect, the report of the Conference on the reform of the Second Chamber. I hope the hon. Member for West Fife will allow me to remind him, quite briefly, of the four salient features which were advanced in favour of a Second Chamber, and not necessarily a hereditary Second Chamber. First of all, the Second Chamber is of value in the examination and revision of Bills brought from the House of Commons. The Lord President quoted a passage on this point from Walter Bagehot, and I would like to quote another: The greatest defect of the House of Commons is that it has no leisure -- a life of distracting routine. ... The whole scene is so encumbered with changing business that it is hard to keep your head in it. Many of us who have been the toads under the harrow of the Lord President's confusion of thought -- that the worth of a