Of the other speeches, Lord Hartington's, on the too hasty
depreciation to which our Army organisation is subjected, was interesting, as he showed that the deficiency in our Recruiting system had already been got over, and that 5,000 more men had been enlisted up to the present time than had been enlisted last year up to the same period. Lord Kimberley made some rather dubious remarks on the value of the House of Lords as a Revising Chamber, declaring that he did not think there was any second Chamber which discharged the functions of a second Chamber better than the House of Lords. We should be inclined to think that in many respects the American Senate, the French Senate, and even the German Council of Princes discharge the functions of a second Chamber better than the House of Lords,—and cer- tainly that the first two cause a great deal less embarrassment by their fixed prepossessions. But no one can deny that the House of Lords is still very popular in England, and that its historical hold on our imagination is great. Moreover. England certainly is not a soil in which brand-new institutions flourish. Nevertheless, of no revising Chamber in the world is it more difficult to anticipate the action than to anticipate the action of the House of Lords ; nor is there any whose independent action, when it thwarts that of the popular Assembly, is so dangerous, and so likely to excite a conflict between class and class.
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