THE TRADE DISPUTES ACT—THE LORDS' FAILURE.
[TO TOR EDITOR Or TUB "SPECTATOR."] Sis,—I am glad that you pursue the Trade Disputes Act—or.- at any rate, the total immunity of funds clause—even to its • fastness in the statute-book. May I indicate one political effect of the culpable negligence of the Honse of Lords herein ? Hitherto some of no have systematically defended the House of Lords against the—now almost—traditional attacks of wings or members of our own, the Liberal (Glad- stonian) Party. The arguments on both sides are veteran commonplaces, and I need not repeat them. For myself, I may say that I have idealised the House of Lords as the incarnation of virtue in public life, the appointed home (in the Constitution) of independence, immaterialism, and, above all, of disinterestedness. We endow privilege richly in order that duty may have a fair atmosphere. As I once heard a Member of that House say, "we have got the pay first now we must do our work." But when I find the institution which ought to represent in our polity conscience untempered by a constituency deliberately sanctioning a measure which it openly disapproves—as, indeed, do some of its ablest promoters --and in support of which, from first to last, inside of Parlia- ment and out, not one single syllable has been said on its merits—how could an honest man defend the principle that, do what wrong a Union may, it shall not pay damages P—then I ask myself: "Is it worth while quarrelling with my party, with which on almost every other question I am in agreement, for this?" I answer " No," and, as far as I am concerned, my friends may invent any brand-new Second Chamber they please. We have made our sacrifices in vain :—
"nos munera templis Quippe tuis ferimus, famamque fovemns inanem."
Previous page
