LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
REFORM OF THE LORDS.
[To THE EDTTOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—The Lords have insisted on bringing to issue the question, —Shall they, or the Commons, govern the country ? The answer is not doubtful. But it involves the farther question,— What shall we do with the House of Lords ? and that, again, can only be answered by deciding what we want a House of Lords for. There are many worthy politicians for whom the phrase "Second Chamber" has all the charm which that blessed word " Mesopotamia " had for the orthodox old lady. And if the sceptic inquires what is the actual function of the Lords as a
"Second Chamber," they say that it revises, with superior statesmanship, the too hasty and ill-considered legislation of the Commons at all times, and in emergencies stays the current of temporary emotions and impulses of popular opinion which the country is only too glad to have had checked when it recovers its sober mind. But what are the facts ? Take the instance of the Franchise Bill. For four months, • of which some twenty days and nights were occupied in the work, the House of Commons employed itself—with clatter and din, indeed, but also with skilful guidance and at last elaborate completeness—in framing this Bill. The House of Lords, in fewer hours than the Commons had taken days for their part of the work, delivered a set of dignified and other- wise excellent academical discourses on the Bill, and then laid it aside in the way we know of. And when Lord Wemyss and Lord Shaftesbury prayed them to reconsider their decision they refused, with shouts of "divide," to- hear even their own side any more when dinner-time had come, and so voted,— " — No leisure bated,
No, not to stay the grinding of the axe."
Was this statesmanlike revision of the crude and hasty pro- ceeding of the Commons ? And this is but an instance of the invariable practice of the House of Lords on such occasions.
Nor is it truer that the House of Lords resists gusts of popular excitement. On the contrary, it is to these gnats which the House of Lords always yields, though never to mere reason. It was the burning of Bristol, not the overwhelming reasons which had decided the country, which convinced the Lords that the first Reform Bill must be passed. So the Lords rejected the Compensation for Disturbance Bill when it had only the small still voice of reason in its favour ; but they carried the more comprehensive Land Bill, after a winter of anarchy and. murder, from which the passing of the earlier Bill would pro- bably have saved us. So, too, they passed the Ground Game and Agricultural Holdings' Acts, not because their reason approved them, but because there was a strong popular breeze in their favour. And when Lord Salisbury, who on this occa- sion must be allowed to be the spokesman of the House of Lords, told us some time since that if there were no great and violent pressure the Franchise Bill would be postponed, he admitted what the effect of such pressure would be. Such is the actual working of our " Second Chamber."
But while you, Sir, will probably agree with me so far, I think you consider that a House of Lords reformed by some such plan as you have suggested, would have the uses and do the work of the ideal" Second Chamber." I venture respectfully to doubt this. The more we advance, as we must advance, in get- ting a complete representation of the people in the House of Commons, the more complete and undivided must be the authority of that House in the government of the country. We have no real use for a "Second Chamber." Its place is in Utopia, not in England. In England there is neither room nor need for it. The House of Lords, as a legislative body, is passing away, as the Crown has already passed; and I believe that any attempt to infuse new life into it will be as futile as the struggles of George III., the more dignified purposes of the Prince Consort, and the Imperialist fancies of Lord Beaconsfield, all proved in the cause of the restoration of real power to our kings. But we need no new thing in its place. Judging from all our past history, the English people will never desire nor permanently endure the control of the House of Commons by any other authority. But when their present righteous indignation has been appeased by the surrender, voluntary or enforced, of such independent legislative power by the House of Lords, their old weakness for a lord—Maurice, while humorously quoting a distinguished judge upon the subject, thought it more than a weakness—will no doubt revive. Intolerable as are the actual pretensions of the Peers, there are few of us who have
not a liking for lords, and who would not be glad to have them go on, like our kings, as an innocent, ornamental, and even,
within certain limits, useful survival. They might still deliver their stately academical discourses on great occasions. States- men no longer equal to the rough work of the Commons, but still able to do some service to their country, might find appro- priate places there ; and the existence of such a House would preserve, just as our Monarchy preserves, that historical con- tinuity, that progress without revolutionary cataclysms, which Englishmen prize so much, and which is, indeed, so worthy to be prized. This I conceive to be the meaning—full of political wisdom—of Mr. Bright's recent words. It is still possible, as it is desirable, that the Lords should voluntarily give up their power ; but if they do not, it must be taken from them, though as gently and gradually as may be. But reformed into a "Second Chamber" they can never be.—I am, Sir, (47c., EDWARD STRACHEY.
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