6 AUGUST 1881, Page 3

At the Clothworkers' Company, on Wednesday, Lord Brabourne went in,

with the enthusiasm of a novice, for the highly " representative " character of the House of Lords, which, he said, " was as representative a body as the House of Commons, and presumably even more so, because it was free from those sudden fluctuations which so materially, and yet so unexpectedly, affected the constitution of the House of Com- mons." If the House of Lords is as representative a body as the House of Commons, of what is it representative P We know the constituencies represented by the House of Commons, but we have never heard what constituencies they are which are represented by the House of Lords. And then, again, if there be any such, how does it prove the representation to be more efficient, that the House of Lords as a representative body does not fluctuate P That depends, surely, on the state of mind of the constituency represented ; if that does not fluctuate, non. fluctuation satisfies at least one condition that the House of Lords shall be a good representative of it; but if it does, then non• fluctuation in the image shows that the image is unlike the original. You can hardly say that the deep sea, whose waters do not fluc- tuate, represents the surface, which does. Till Lord Brabonrne tells ns what it is that the House of Lords represents, except itself, —and an institution which represents only itself is not a repre- sentative institution,—we are quite in the dark as to the exact drift of his young enthusiasm.