THE QUESTION BEHIND THE CRISIS.
WE entirely respect Mr. Fawcett's motive in making the admirable appeal to the country which was contained in his speech to his constituents on Tuesday night, to separate as far as may be the temper requisite for the discussion of Redistribution from the temper requisite for carrying a revolu- tion. We hold, however, that, appeal as we may, there will be no possibility of separating the question of Redistribution from the question of reforming the House of Lords. The simple truth is, that there is something almost childish in reforming the House of Commons so as to make its judgment more absolutely identical with the judgment of the country, and yet leaving the House of Lords as it is, to do all in its power to thwart that judgment. The more we rectify the representative character of the Lower House, the more urgently we need a rectifi- cation of the obstructive character of the Upper House. In some respects, it will be even worse to have the undisputed mind of the country always thwarted by a handful of Peers, than to have what is denied by many to be the mind of the country, so thwarted. We are as anxious as Mr. Fawcett to have the problem of Redistribution settled in a judicial spirit by the people's representatives. We are as anxious as Mr. Fawcett to see that problem discussed with that scientific calmness and that impartial desire to arrive at a true picture of the people's convictions, which is inconsistent with the white-heat of popular rage. But we see no special reason for popular rage in the effort to carry a Reform of the House of Lords any more than in the effort to carry a Reform of the House of Commons. It is a manifest and absurd anomaly that whenever the people return a representative House of one shade of political conviction, the House of Lords cries ditto to it,—even though, as in the case of the Reform Bill of 1867, it had to swallow the camel of a most startling revolu- tion in so doing,—but that whenever the people return a re- presentative House of the opposite opinion, the House of Lords strains at all the gnats with a fastidiousness that sug- gests a stomach revolted by the draught. There seems to us no reason at all why this monstrous anomaly should not be discussed in a temper as cool and statesmanlike as that requisite for a safe Redistribution scheme itself. Indeed, the solution of the question involves very much fewer difficulties than the solu- tion of the problem of Redistribution, provided, that is, that it be approached in a spirit of moderation, and without the cry of delenda est Carthago in the mouths of the agitators. Now, Mr. Bright, whom none can call an admirer of the Peers, has set the example of proposing a most moderate solution,—
indeed one the fault of which is, in our eyes, not its extrava- gance, but its inefficiency. We do not believe that any solution which leaves the present House of Lords unreformed, and only insists on limiting its legislative veto, will answer our purpose. We want not merely to have a limit put to the mischief the Lords can do, but to get a much better legislative instrument than we have at present ; and it does not even tend to make the present House a better legislative instrument, to put even the strictest limit possible on the mischief it can do.
An able correspondent suggests in another column a plan which, like the scheme we suggested last week, retains the Peerage as a qualification for membership of the Upper Howie, proposing, as we proposed, to select the actual House from the Peerage. Only, instead of suggesting, as we suggested, that the Ministry of the day, possessed of the confidence of the House of Commons, shall issue the writs summoning such Peers as they shall think fit to advise her Majesty to call to her councils, he proposes that the House of Commons itself shall select the Peers to be summoned, and shall select them by the instrumentality of some scheme of proportionate representation ; so that the party which happens to be in the minority shall have a minority in the House of Lords relatively as considerable as it has in the House of Commons. And he holds that such a plan might accustom the country to the use of the principle of proportionate repre- sentation in elections,under circumstances which would be much less likely to cause it to be misunderstood than the circum- stances of any popular election. Well, we heartily welcome
this and all other contributions to the discussion of a ques- tion which the Peers have forced upon us, and which they are not at all likely to give us any excuse for ceasing to attend to. We do not believe that the time has come for abolishing the aristocracy altogether, any more than it has come for a Republic ; and so long as we are to have an aris- tocracy, it is wise to connect it in some special way with the Upper House of Legislature, though very unwise to make the accidental prevalence of special prejudices and prepossessions amongst the Peers a permanent cause of collision between them and the House of Commons. But we do not ourselves believe that any particular scheme for such a selection of the Peers as will bring the Upper House into a reasonable accord of aims and principles with the Lower House, can become the subject of very serious popular discussion, till some such scheme has been taken up by a statesman of the first class, and can be associated with his name and influence. What the country has now to do is rather to persuade our statesmen that they must consider this question, than to attempt to offer anything like final solutions of it for ourselves. One reason why we suggested that the Ministry commanding the confidence of the House of Commons should, on their re- sponsibility to the Crown and to the Commons, determine what Peers should be summoned to the Upper House of Legislature, was that we wanted to put prominently before the country that it is the highest order of statesmen who must lead us in this matter, whether, in the end, they assume, or shrink from, the responsibility of selecting the Upper House for them- selves. Amateur constitutions are hardly ever considered by the English people. It is part of their wisdom that they wait to declare themselves on every great question till they know what their leaders propose, and that schemes of reform, how- ever ingenious, have no chance at all, unless they are seriously taken up by the leaders of some great party in the State. For ourselves, we believe that the Ministry of the day, whether they are Liberal or whether they are Conservative, would summon a very much more impartial House of Lords, than would the House of Commons, even though voting under a refined scheme for proportional representation. Ministers know so well the qualities of their opponents, and have such a wise fear of not hearing in the best form all that their opponents have to say, that they would, in our belief, much prefer a really able House of Lords, with a very small working majority on their own side, to a House giving them a much larger majority, but composed of less solid stuff. Of course, every Administra- tion would look, and rightly look, for a majority in the Upper
as well as in the Lower House. That is of the very essence of the plan. But assuming the majority, we believe that the responsible leaders of the party which had a majority in the Lower House, would be more likely to strengthen the House of Peers by calling up a considerable number of sensible Peers of the opposite party, than would any other machinery you could invent.
But the main thing to impress on the country is this,—that it is in the House of Commons, and in the House of Com- mons alone, that the question of the will of they country should be fought out ; that the House of Lords, not represent- ing the will of the people, not having any special means of knowing it, and certainly having but little sympathy with it, has absolutely no claim, and ought to have no power, to force on a dissolution at its own discretion ; that this monstrous claim, which the Upper House has now for the first time formulated, to appeal, from a House of Commons which tells its own mind in the distinctest possible manner, to a country which told its own mind in the same forcible way by electing that very House, must be refused in the most final and authoritative way ; and that there is no mode of putting a final extinguisher on it except by extracting from the Peerage such a House of Lords as will be in general accord with the majority of the House of Commons. If we can but impress this well on the people of the United Kingdom, we shall soon have some statesmanlike scheme for securing this reform, to which almost all sound Liberals will be able to give in a cheerful adhesion.
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