LOOKING AT last Tuesday's Times I was suitably awed by
seeing one of those dignified statements of principle for which Printing House Square is noted. 'What it [the House of Lords] lacks,' said the leader, 'is not so much legal authority . . . as the moral authority it possessed when it was accepted as the repository of the mature judg- ment of the nation as a whole.' The sheer majesty of this is pretty impressive, but when I came to think it over, for the life of me I could not imagine which period of British history the writer had in mind. The mental picture I have of the House of Lords is a composite one : the fat peer being counted ten times in the vote on the Habeas Corpus- Act; the Duke of Wellington giving the order, 'My lords, about turn!'; Bagehot wonder- ing if such a person as Lord Eldon ever existed; Lord Milner damning the consequences; Chester- ton's 'Clear the way, my lords and lackeys.' But 'moral authority,' repository of mature judg- ment'? Unless, of course, 'repository' was used 111 the sense with which we are all familiar : a ware- house where things are stored and forgotten.
pHAROS
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