3 SEPTEMBER 1881, Page 15

THE ESTATES OF THE REALM.

[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]

SIE,—When will the periodically recurring question of the Estates of the Realm be set at rest ? The Three Estates are properly, the Estate of the Nobles, the Estate of the Clergy, and the Estate of the Commons, each being, in fact, a separate Estate or condition of men, each possessing of old the right of self-taxation through its House of Lords, of Convocation, or of Commons. When Convocation became a shadow, the practice sprang up of calling the Lords Spiritual a separate Estate ; bat neither they, nor the Lords Temporal, nor the House of 'Commons, are in themselves an Estate, but simply the repre- :sentatives of the Estate of men to which they belong.—I am, Sir, &c.,