THE HOUSE OF LORDS AND THE HOME RULE BILL.
[To THE EDITOR or THE t'Sraerarox.1 SIR,—Thousands of your readers will, I am sure, warmly endorse your admirable suggestion that, in case of need, the Unionist Party in the House of Lords should let the Home Rule Bill pass its second reading—of course, under protest against the principle—in order to annex the Exclusion of Ulster and return it so to the House of Commons. There could be no finer object-lesson for the nation, the Empire, and, indeed, the whole world (which is watching us now as perhaps it has never watched us before) as to (1) the inherent die- loyalty of the present House of Commons to the very spirit and substance of democracy, and (2) the willingness of our Second Chamber to stand up for the people against an oli- garchy—as it did effectively in the case also of the last Home Rule Bill of 1893. You, Sir, have cited precedents to show that the Lords may pass a Bill while disclaiming any sympathy with its principle. Permit me to add one even more recent and, I venture to think, more remarkable—the notorious case of the Trade Disputes Bill, which legalized "peaceful picketing." In that case the majority in the Lords frankly expressed their detestation of the whole measure, but declined to reject it, because they thought—rightly or wrongly is immaterial— that the masses of their countrymen wanted the Bill. In the case of the Home Rule Bill they might say, with equal pro- priety " We dislike the Bill. We believe the country also dislikes it; but whereas formerly we were able to secure for
the people an opportunity to express its will on the matter, we can no longer do that. But what we can do we shall. We can put the Bill in a shape which will avoid civil war, and return it to its anthers so amended, leaving to them the responsibility of patently and publicly reinserting in it (if they so decide) the poison which we have extracted from it— the poison of bloodguiltiness."—I am, Sir, &c.,
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