THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR.
LTO THE ED/TOR OF THE "SPECTATOR:1
SIR,—The Parliamentary Vacation brings a truce to party war, and surely if ever there was a question on which patriotism and statesmanship ought to prevail over party, it is this question of the House of Lords, which affects not England alone, but the whole Empire. Suppose, discarding the hereditary system, now manifestly outworn, you had an Upper House half of the members of which should be nominated by the Crown, with a qualification of public service or professional eminence, and the other half elected by the House of Commons. Would it not be possible that conservative Liberals and liberal Conservatives should combine on something of that kind ? The hereditary titles need not be touched or deprived of their social rank. It is to be hoped that the Conservatives will not be prevented from acting with patriotic wisdom on a question big with the gravest consequences to the whole nation by the attempt of the Canadian Leader of Opposition to reanimate in his recent manifesto the question of the Chamberlain tariff policy. If that policy ever showed life in Canada, it has ceased to show any since the issue of the Tariff Inquiry Commission and the front presented by the farmers on that occasion. Of this, impartial investigation here would leave no doubt.—I am,
Previous page
