While we are dealing with the problem of the House
a Lords we desire to mention one point which seems, curiously enough, to have attracted very little attention, though we have discussed it several times in these columns. The Veto Bill contains no provision which will allow Members of the House of Lords to resign their membership of that body should the Bill pass. Surely this is exceedingly unjust. Why should a man full of political activity, merely because he has had what will then be the misfortune of inheriting a peerage, be imprisoned against his will in a Chamber to which the only power left will be that of delaying the registration of the supreme decrees of the Lower House ? Clearly a Peer ought, if the Bill passes, to be eligible for election to the House of Commons. For ourselves, we have always held that if a constituency wishes to elect a Peer to represent it, that wish should override all other considera- tions, and that the constituency should not be barred from accomplishing its desire. The case becomes immensely stronger if the House of Lords has been reduced to the position to which it will be reduced by the Veto Bill.
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