• Mr. Balfour replied to Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman in a
critical speech of great power. He found no difficulty in showing that what the Liberal Party meant by the will of the people was the will of a Government which commanded a majority in the House of Commons, a majority which history had shown again and again, even if it represented the popular feeling when it was elected, soon lost the right to regard its opinion as identical with that of the democracy. Very weighty was the passage in his speech in which he pointed out that if the Rouse of Lords were abolished in fact, if not hi name, the country would soon insist on finding a substitute, and that that substitute, if it had a popular basis, as it would be hound to have, would soon show itself much leas compliant to the House of Commons than the present *econd Chamber. The great qualification of the Ammo of Lord; was that it was not only a subordinate Assembly, but was willing to submit to that subordination, and that it had no temptation and no desire to contest the primacy of the House of Commons. Its claim to partici- pate in legislation was a narrow one. It made no attempt to make or unmake Governments, or to interfere with adminis- tration, and it exercised no power over finance, A Second Chamber which could cloim "to derive from the people would eontend with us for some control over the constitution of the Ministry and over the uses to which the Ministry put its powers."
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