Thursday's debate was opened by Lord Midlcton in a speech
of great good sense. He supported Lord Newton's view that it was not the Government which would be swamped by ridicule if the peers were created. " The Government would get the peers and the Opposition the ridicule." Lord Newton and Lord Midleton might have quoted Dryden's im- mortal verse on Rochester :—" He bad his joke, but they had his estate." Certainly the Liberals would have had the political estate of the House of Lords had the creation been forced. Lord Morley followed Lord Midleton with a state- ment, which he read from a paper, to the effect that if the Bill should be defeated " his Majesty would assent to a creation of peers sufficient in number to guard against any possible com- bination of the different parties in Opposition by which the Parliament Bill might again be exposed a second time to defeat." Lord Morley's statement, which he read twice, had a great effect on the debate.
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