TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE REFORM BILL IN PARLIAMENT. THE newspapers and the speakers in the House of Com- mons have been complaining of the lassitude and lack of interest shown by members in the debates on the Reform Bill. We are bound to say that we do not feel able to support these strictures. On the contrary, we think the so-called Jack of interest, or rather lack of virulent party debate, for that is largely what is meant by lack of interest, is a most excellent sign. Members do not troop into the House to make speeches or to applaud some party gladiator who is going to "make it hot" for this or that particular clause of the Bill, or this or that Cabinet Minister. The Bill, every one feels, ifs a " consent " Bill or nothing. Not only is there not time, but it would not be decent, to enter into a great party stage combat at such a moment as this. That, of course, is not a reason for the House of Commons swallowing anything and everything which is put before it. But that is not what has happened here. A Conference was appointed, presided over by the Speaker, which may quite fairly be called a microcosm of the House of Commons, or, as we should prefer to say, the House of Commons distilled into a Constitutional elixir. This body represented all political parties and all political creeds, moderates, extremists, reactionaries, who thrashed out a measure and actually came to an agreement. They did not make a perfect measure, but they did make a reasonably workable one. That being so, it is perfectly good sense to -Pass it; and, what is more, it is perfectly good sense to pass it as a whole—as a piece of delicate construction in which the parts are all interdependent, and which is to be accepted virtually as it stands or not at all. Though, if the times had been different, members might have been inclined to -Challenge certain at the principles adopted at the Conference, they could not usefully do so now. They might, however, think that the Conference should have given better expression to these principles, and that this better expression could be secured without interfering with the essentials of the structure. In that case discussion could do, not harm, but good. But even here it would be wise to alter as little as possible. Prac- tical experience teaches us that a suggested alteration may seem even to the people who made the original plan very attractive, and yet it may produce ruin in the building. Mr. Long, who remains one of the best types of enlightened, moderate, and yet democratic Englishmen—it is the vulgarest of vulgar errors to hold that AI .country geotleman cannot truly accept a democratic basis for government—showed, as he has so often showed -before, that sterling good sense which is the foundation of all true statesmanship. "Ho warmly repudiated the charge that the Bill was in any sense • a party measure. It was a very different thing—the result of -consultation between all parties." He went on to point out how the party managers of tall side's, the lords of the caucus, were against the Bill, not so much because they thought it a bad. Bill as because they thought it struck a blow at that party warfare which they found so attractive, but which some persons had found: extremely expensive. Instead of the Government being dissatisfied with the result of the Conference, they thought it worthy of the greatest possible gratitude and admiration, and they believed it was an example which might well be followed. And then Mr. Long made an announcement of the very greatest importance. "So much impressed were the Government with the advan- tages of this Conference that they had decided to set up, as soon as they could, a Conference to discuss and report on the Second Chamber." We are delighted to hear it, but we most sincerely hope -that the reference to the Conference will not be drawn in too narrow a way, and especially that the solution of the Referendum will not be excluded from the discussion. The reason why a large, influential, and grow- ing body of people in this country ask for a Second Chamber is because, like the soldiers of Cromwell's Army, they are determined not to remain under the oppression, or potential oppression, of a single unchecked Chamber. The House of Commons may not be, and probably is -not, as unpopular as some Radical and Tory extremists suggest, but it is no good to hide from oneself the fact that the country does- not want to entrust it with absolutely unlimited power. The British people want what every Dominion and every free European and American political community has set up—some check upon what Walt Whitman called " the insolence of elected persons."
In our opinion, it would be an enormous pity if that most democratic of cheeks, the Referendum or Poll of the People, were not considered at the new Conference. It was such a Poll of the People, or veto on Single Chamber legislation, that the men of Cromwell's Army demanded, though they did, not obtain it. It was such a check that many of the individual States of America set up as soon as the veto of the Royal Governor auto- matically disappeared. If we chose, we could by a very simple measure give the House of Lords power to act as the Remem- brancer of the People. In cases where it thought that a Bill had been passed by a log-rolling arrangement, or did not for some other reason represent the will of the people, it should be allowed to add a clause declaring that" this Bill before it comes into operation shall be referred to a Poll of the People in the manner prescribed by statute." At the same time the House of Lords might very properly be reformed as regards its personnel by something in the nature of a purge. No man should be allowed to sit in the House of Lords merely 'because he was the son of his father. His writ of summons to the Peers' House would only be granted to him if he had served for so many years on a County Council or Town Council, or attained such-and-such a rank or status in the Civil Service, tlis Universities, the Army or Navy, OP the Diplomatic SeAce. The fact that members of the House of Lards were in Parliament, net because they had curried favour with a caucus, but because they had reached a certain standard of public service, would in our opinion be a distinct advantage. Remember, they could never dictate to the democracy. The most they-could do would be -to say to the sovereign- people : "Do you really want this partioular Bill to pass ? If you .do, of course-there is an end of it. If you do not, here is your opportunity to say ' No.' " No doubt such a measure would be detested- by a large sec- tion of the House of Commons -as infringing their powers and as neutralizing to some small extent the tremendous privileges, equal to those of a Venetian oligarchy, which they possess under the Parliament Act. And yet we are by no means sure that a wise and really far-seeing Member of Parliament would not say : In reality the Spectator's proposal would save not ruin us. As Dizzy ' sags in Coningsby, every British institution, the Crown, the Church, the aristocracy, the middle class, has in turn been the repository of power and has in turn been hated. Now the House of Commons stands naked before • the country as 'the all-powerful,' and hatred is accumulating on its head. If the House of Commons is wise, it will evade the democratic lightning-stroke which may some -time fall upon it by creating machinery which, will leave the supreme power and -responsibility in the hands -of the voters. The people cannot hate themselves, and therefore are the proper repositories of supreme.authority in the §tote."
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