Not a word has been dropped on the subject of
any Bill to legalize the creation of Life Peers, few or many, nor does the House of Lords appear to have had its health drunk less often or less cordially at convivial meetings than it had last year. It hardly looks as if the Reform of the House of Lords were to be taken up at present. Though the Birmingham Liberal Associa- tion has issued a circular demanding that " the hereditary principle in legislation should be abolished," there seems to be as yet but a faint response. The abolition of the " hereditary princi- ple," as the Lords would certainly not pass it, could only be carried by a vast creation of hereditary peers made for the purpose, or by revolution. But the British public is in no revolutionary mood. Even the Daily News asks for a further reform of the Commons before the Lords are touched, on the principle that " the popular representation " should be " firmly seated in its .saddle before it attempts to tilt with the hereditary horseman,"—a sug- gestion which may be considerate for the apparently very indif- ferent rider to whom it is offered, but is certainly an indefinite reprieve for " the hereditary horseman."
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