It is now certain that Mr. Lowe has been offered,
and has accepted, a peerage, and it is rumoured that he will sit in the House of Lords as Viscount Sherbrook. We regret to see that an able Liberal evening contemporary denounces this offer as one unworthy of the Government, and its acceptance as un- worthy of Mr. Lowe,—as if, indeed, the peerage were a mere "salve to wounded feelings," a compensation for not being in- cluded in the new Cabinet. There seems to us no justification tor this view. It has always been held that any statesman of high intellectual ability who is not wanted in the House of Commons should be asked to add to the deliberative efficiency of the House of Lords, where deliberative power is exceedingly deficient,— and all the more so, perhaps, if one of the reasons why he is not wanted in the House of Commons be that, though a strong Liberal, he is not in love with democratic institutions. Such Liberals are much more likely to gain the ear of the Howie of Lords than those even of a more thorough- going character, and no one can deuy that the House of Lords win be the better for containing Mr. Lowe. So far as we can see, the conferring of such a peerage is of the nature of a strictly constitutional improvement in one of our least advanced political institutions. Neither Mr. Lowe nor the Government. need be ashamed of the transaction.
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