LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
THE POLITICAL CRISIS.
[To rem EDITOE OF THE "SPECTATOE."1 SIR,—As one who cannot share your satisfaction at Ike prospect of an agreement by which the Parliament Bill may become law, I would suggest reasons -why to some it may appear that the forcing of a creation of peers would be the lesser evil. You observe that "you cannot if they are once made repeal 300 peers." Surely this depends on how the Upper House is reconstituted, as all assume that. in 96)326 form, it will be. And there can be none whose political privilege will be less entitled to be preserved if the Unionists for a time recover a majority than those created by such straining of the prerogative by a revolutionary Cabinet.
Besides this I think it desirable that the abnormal character of this legislation should be emphasized and that it should not in any way wear the mask of ordinary and regular legislation. The Spectator appears to hope for the repeal of the measure. Surely the case for its repeal will be strengthened if it is obviously the !product of a quasi-comp d'etat. I cannot see what is the greater evil which the rejection of the Bill would occasion. The powers which it is proposed to leave to the Upper House—too small to have much value, yet large enough to be repreaented, as vexatious —might very probably excite a cry for their further restriction if it were attempted to make serious use el them. Whether an -Upper House with no traditional prestige and resting on the disputable ground of its special merits would be a real political force is a somewhat doubtful spemala- tion. I can hardly admit the analogy with the situation.in 1831-2. The Government to-day as then may insist on the Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill. But they have not behind them as then a people seething with political frenzy. Pew now living can remember that period. But many of us can remember the Reform agitations of IS60-7, and even as compared with that time the idea of any real political excitement at this moment seems absurd. It is rather surely the indifference than the enthusiasm of the bulk of the nation which gives its apparent strength to the policy of the Government ; and if the institutions of England are funda- mentally changed, it may be attributed to the weakness of the defence rather than the real force behind the attack.—I am,
[We have dealt with the crisis in our leading columns.—Exes Spectator.]
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