Mr. Goldwin Smith wrote to last Saturday's Times from Toronto,
that the first use of victory should be to reorganise the House of Lords on an effective,—which he explains as meaning an elective,—basis. We cannot agree with him. In the first place, the House of Commons will never consent to the deliberate election of a rival to itself in the power and right to interpret the will of the people. And in the next place, one elective Assembly has no rational justification for pretending to correct the interpretation given by another elective Assembly to the indications of popular belief. The only effective appeal from a true representative Assembly, is to the people who themselves returned them ; and in our opinion a dignified and impartial Upper House that is not elective, should be endowed with no further power than that of clearing up doubts as to the will of the people, by referring those doubts directly to the people's decision. We earnestly hope that the opportunity may be seized to recast the present House of Lords in such a fashion as to render it a proper authority for setting in motion this con- sultative process. But the obvious difficulty is that just after a very remarkable endorsement of the House of Lords, as it is, by the people, there will be no little difficulty in persuading either statesmen or the public that it ought to be " the first use of victory" to supersede the House of Lords as it is by the House of Lords as some one imagines that it ought to be.
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