Mr. Charles F. Adams, great-grandson of Washington's contemporary, colleague, and
successor in the Presidency, grandson of the second Adams President, son of a dis- tinguished diplomatist, and himself a writer of well-proved ability, sends a striking letter to the Economist on the reform of the House of Lords. It is very refreshing to hear this veteran American publicist dispassionately and calmly pronouncing that there is merit in the hereditary principle, and declaring that the present English bicameral system could, with comparatively few changes, be made the most perfeetworking Constitution now in use. His scheme of re- form, while substantially on the same lines as Lord Lansdowne's, is not so radical, as he does not insist that the representative peers, chosen out of the whole body, should have special qualifica- tions. As regards the veto, Mr. Adams—who holds that the diffi- culty to-day in all Governments is " in the tendency to excessive and ill-considered law-making "—recognises that the Asquith proposals necessarily reduce the Second Chamber to a negli- gible Constitutional factor. He proposes, therefore, that the veto of the Lords should be overruled, as that of the Execu- tive in the United States, not at an interval of two years, but immediately by a certain preponderating vote of the Commons, whether by a majority of the entire body, a two-thirds or a three-fourths vote. The Economist, we note, describes Mr. Adams as a " patrician," but none the less treats his views with respect. After all, an American " patrician " may be a sounder guide than an English demagogue.
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