I11.W VALUE OF THE PEERAGE.
WE have dealt in the preceding article with the crisis as a whole; we desire to say a word here to those extremists who are not bluffers, but who honestly believe that no harm will be done by a creation of three hundred or four hundred peers. Though we are profoundly im- pressed by their unwisdom we can, as we have already said, respect them, for they are no doubt absolutely sincere. To begin with, they tell us that only a comparatively small number of peers, perhaps not more than one hundred and fifty or two hundred, would have to be created, their assumption being that if their policy were accepted no great effort would be made to whip up the Unionist peers on the final vote for maintaining the amendments, and that therefore a majority of not more than, say, one hundred and fifty would have to be met by the Government. If that happens, say the advocates of forcing a creation of peers, the worst evil—that of giving the Liberals a majority in the Lords for the next four or five years—will be avoided. "When a Home Rule Bill is brought in we shall be able to bring up our reserves of peers and swamp the new creation." Do the advocates of forcing the creation really believe that the Government are bereft of all worldly wisdom, indeed, of all natural prudence and commonsense, and that they do not perfectly well understand the nature of their opponents' strategy ? We say without fear of contradiction that if the Government get to the point of advising a creation of peers they will advise a creation on a scale which will defeat the innocent manceuvres of their opponents in this respect.
The notion that the authority of the King can be invoked to help the Unionist Party here is one upon which it would be most dangerous to rely. Those who are counting upon it seem to forget the cardinal fact of the situation, which is that the King's government must be carried on. In the last resort this means that the King must either accept or reject the advice of his Ministers. But he can only reject that advice if there is an alternative set of Ministers ready to take office. The Unionists, however, can- not take office without dissolving, and every sane man knows that a dissolution involves risks far too great to be run. If, then, the peers are made it is not the Utionist Party who will be able to dictate the exact numbers of the creation. It is next argued, "Even if three hundred or four hundred peers are made no real harm will be done. These three hundred or four hundred men, though they might be pledged in honour to vote for the Parliament Bill, could not be relied upon to pass Home Rule or any other revolutionary measure." Those who argue thus must have singular notions about human nature. We are quite prepared to admit that many of thenew peers would dislike passing a Home Rule Bill, or a Plural Voting Bill, or any other extreme measure. Yet undoubtedly they would feel bound in honour to do so, even though, as no doubt would be the case, no pledge had been exacted from them. As long as the present Ministry remain in office—and it is not necessary to look beyond this—we may be perfectly certain that the new peers would support those to whom they owed their peerages. The new peers would be hopelessly discredited, and would deserve the names of traitor and renegade if they did anything else. If they take the Liberal shilling they will be true to their enlistment till the fall of the Ministry frees them. Imagine for a moment the position of a politician to whom his friends could point as the man who took a peerage from the Liberals and then at once went over to the enemy !
We come now to the last and, perhaps, most remarkable delusion, that the peerage would in the end be strengthened by a creation of 300 or 400 peers. Those who think that are living in a fool's paradise. The peerage would be absolutely destroyed by the wholesale creation which we are discussing. It is impossible that it should survive s ich a revolutionary act. Well, and what if it were destroyed ? say in the last resort the zealots. Here is the naked issue at last. It is not fashionable or popular just now to say anything in favour of the peerage, and we shall no doubt be regarded in many quarters as hopelessly out of date, if not actually sycophantic, when we say, as we do say, that the peerage is a great national asset and well worth preserving. In our opinion to throw away this national asset in a fit of pique or heady political partisanship would ho the most monstrous crime against the Constitution. It would be nothing less than a disaster. Quite apart from the question of the House of Lords and the Second Chamber, we believe the peerage to be of great use to the country. We are democrats and frankly accept the sovereignty of the democracy in its simplest, most potent, and most direct form, as witness our advocacy of the Referendum. But we believe that it is essential, if we are to have a sound and wholesome Government, to maintain in our public life the influence of the leisured classes. We hold that the nation gains immensely by harness- ing for service to the State that part of the com- munity which is endowed, not only with wealth— wealth will always have its say—but with political traditions and what we may term political culture. Happily in this country up till now we have been able, as we have said, to harness for public service this portion of the community. And a great deal of our success in doing so has come from the existence of the peerage and from the part which the peerage plays in our life. But it is as certain as that the sun will rise to-morrow that if the three hundred or four hundred peers are created the peerage and all that it means will come to an end, and with it will ultimately go the participation of the leisured and cultivated classes in our public life. That is the situa- tion with which we are faced. That is the crop which will be reaped if we take the advice of the persons who, misled by political sophistry, now declare that the creation of peers is not to be regarded with any dread or disfavour.
To conclude, we regard the peerage, as we have said, as a great national asset, and we are not going to be deterred by any parrot cries about hoisting the white flag and so forth from doing our best to prevent its destruction. If the Unionist Party will only conduct its affairs with patience, sobriety, and commonsense, it will ultimately re-establish itself in the confidence of the nation. We have only to keep our heads cool and our powder dry to see a great revulsion of feeling. When that revulsion has taken place can it be doubted that we shall be able to make far better and wiser use of our opportunities if the peerage, as we know it now, is still in existence ? Not only will the reaction b3 much longer in coming if we have been parties to the destruction of the peerage and have not merely acquiesced in but actually encouraged a revolutionary act, but we shall have thrown away one of our most potent instruments for maintaining true Conservative principles in the national life. In a word are we to approach the situation in the spirit of the gambler who says, "Now or never; unless I can instantly win a large sum of money all is up, and I may as well blow my brains out and have done with it," or are we to approach it in the spirit of the man who says, "I am in a bad way no doubt, but ultimately things will come round. Until they do come round I am resolved to bear the inconveniences and perplexities of poverty and embarrassment rather than throw away such assets as I still possess—assets which when the better time comes will enable me to regain my old position and reacquire the confidence and respect of my fellows " ? No doubt those who refuse to take sporting chances and to gamble are always denounced by the unthinking as poor. spirited and cowardly creatures, but in spite of such vituperation it is the prudent men and not the gamblers who win in the game of life and of politics
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