Lord Salisbury, in his reply, maintained that the only kind
of Assembly which could safely co-operate with the House of Commons without exciting its jealousy is one consisting, not like every representative Assembly of persons who have avowed, and received the popular sanction for, their political convictions, but of persons marked out by their birth alone, a principle which makes those who are qualified by it for legislators take up a tolerant, easy-going attitude, that renders them indif- ferent to slight humiliations, instead of identifying their political position with their own personal self-love, and tempt- ing them to regard every defeat as a sort of political affront. Lord Salisbury maintained that it has only been Mr. Gladstone's policy which has identified the House of Peers with the Tory Party, and that in Lord Palmerston's and Lord Russell's time it was often Liberal. Lord Salisbury objected to a Committee, and thought that Lord Rosebery should have presented his proposed reform in the shape of a Bill.
Previous page
