On Wednesday Lord Lansdowne, who has never spoken with greater
cogency or weight, was the first speaker for the Opposition. If the Lords persisted in their amendments they would be voted down by a body of newly created peers. In these circumstances, the Lords being no longer in a position to offer effectual resistance to the policy of the Government, he was convinced that further insistence on their amendments would be, not only unprofitable, but detrimental to the public interest. This view laid itself open to abundant criticism, but he was not afraid of it. Lord Lansdowne scouted the sug- gestion that the introduction of the new peers should be resisted by force as absurd, unparliamentary, and ineffectual. The creation of peers was odious to the Government and the Sovereign, and though the Opposition could force it upon the King and his Ministers it would be unpatriotic and con- temptible to do so merely from feelings of petulance or vindictiveness. He concluded by pointing out that it was not the end but the beginning of the struggle; and though they might be worsted in this encounter they were not going to be annihilated. When their turn came it would be their business to rebuild on the ruins of the Con- stitution which the Government had wrecked a new Consti- tution more appropriate to the age in which they lived.
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