Of course there was a storm. From the deliberate earnest-
ness of the speaker, and the fact that the Home Secretary and Mr. Bright had also attacked, the Lords, it was at first thought that the words indicated. a resolution of the Cabinet. Sir Stafford Northcote jumped up and protested against the
"alarming sentences " of the Secretary for Ireland, to which he had listened " with considerable amazement, and still more considerable regret ;" the Tory Press denounced Mr. Fors- ter's revolutionary sentiments ; and Lord Granville thought it necessary, on Monday, to explain to the Peers that Mr. Forster had only intimated that many men would say a reform was necessary, that he had spoken only for himself, and that for him (Lord Granville), he would not hold his position if any such principle as that the Commons should dictate to the Peers should be adopted by the Government of the country. It is necessary, of course, for the leader of the House of Peers to show that he sympathises with his own House ; but at the same time, a " change in the constitution of the House of Lords " is not its extinction. If even Liberal Secretaries, because they are Peers, consider any proposal of reform in the Lords revolutionary, it will be necessary for Liberals to consider whether the statutes which give so large a proportion of the great offices to Peers are not inconsistent with free government, and with the obligation of the Sovereign to select the best available Ministers.
