TOPICS OF THE DAY.
PEERS AND THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.
WE trust that Lord De Manley and the Peers who think with him as to the wisdom of shutting up some of our ablest statesmen in a gilded cage, and of refusing them the right to serve the nation as legislators except in a feeble and half-hearted way, will not be put down by the inferential snub which they received on Tuesday. They must not mind either Lord Salisbury's speech, or the apparent disfavour displayed to their idea by the majority of the -Upper House. The "master of flouts and jeers" no doubt found the excellent chance of showing off his sarcasm at the expense of Lord De Manley quite irre- sistible. The Prime Minister gravely insisted upon the noble Peer's right to be beard in support of his motion, "That a Peer, giving notice of his intention to offer his services to a constituency to represent them in the House of Commons, shall be excused attendance in the House of Lords during the existence of that Parliament ; " and when he had been heard, opined that " if the noble Lord is himself inclined to offer his services to any constituency, there is no danger of this House inflicting upon him any penalty for absenting himself from the deliberations of this House." "Therefore," continued Lord Salisbury, "a motion of this kind is unnecessary to enable the noble Lord to offer his services to a constituency. I do not ven- ture to express any opinion as to what the result of such an offer might be ; but under these circumstances, I think we had better assent to the motion of my noble friend who has moved the previous question." Lord Salisbury's delight in thus scoring off one of his noble colleagues was evidently intense, but it must not be supposed that there- fore he objected to the proposal of freeing the more active Peers from their red-cushioned prison. As many a parent is now beginning to find out, boys home for the holidays delight in "scoring off" their most beloved friends and relatives ; but this habit shows no sort of ill-will. To set a booby-trap for a brother is a positive mark of endearment. In the same way, when Lord Salisbury sets an intellectual booby-trap, and gloats with delight when it "comes off," he by no means intends active opposition. It is only pretty Fanny's way. The opposition of the majority of the Lords was hardly more serious. It was due to timidity more than any genuine determination. Ever since the great Reform Bill, the House of Lords has been very easily scared, and now the mere idea of anything which might possibly give offence, throws the Peers into a fluster. They were no doubt afraid that, somehow or other, Lord De Mauley's proposal would be used against them, and accordingly they were determined "not to touch it with the tongs." They have, in fact, been secluded so long, that they are frightened at the notion of admitting even a ray of daylight.
With the arguments used by Lord De Manley as to the advisability of allowing Peers to sit in the House of Com- mons if they can get elected, and if they have given up sitting in the House of Lords, we are in the heartiest sym- pathy. From the point of view of the nation, it is absurd to clip the wings of some of the best and most capable of our statesmen, and to allow them only to do half the good work they might perform if they were given fair play. We keep men like Lord Rosebery, Lord Salisbury, Lord Ripon, the Duke of Argyll, mewed up in the House of Lords, though if they could be elected to the House of Commons, they might render real assistance in the work of legis- lation. Lord Rosebery knows more about certain aspects of Colonial feeling than any man now in the Commons, and if he were to sit in the Lower House, he would constantly be able to offer criticisms and. make suggestions in regard to the hundreds of points connected with the Empire which come up in Supply or in ordinary debate. As it is, however, his powers are practically useless, for the august assembly in which he sits has, naturally enough, not the heart to turn itself into a miscellaneous debating society. In the same way, the Duke of Argyll would be a power in the House of Commons. His gifts of eloquence, almost equal to those of Mr. Bright, would, not be wasted in unreal debates, or allowed to become frigid and unpractical. Restore the Peers the full use of their abilities, and the nation would be immensely the gainer. Again, from a personal point of view, it is grossly unfair to condemn men through no fault of their own to sudden political extinc- tion. A Peer's eldest son gets into Parliament, and is beginning to make his way. He takes his chance with the rest, but has hopes after a few years of making himself a position. Suddenly, however, his father dies,. and, then the unfortunate young man is removed to the House of Lords. Here he has little or no chance of gaining distinction. He may, perhaps, get a small office, or have the offer of a Colonial Governorship ; but unless he happens to be among one of the ten or twenty magnates of the realm, all chance of making himself a position in politics is over. The Member for the Pedlingtorr Division of Loamshire was some one. -Young Lord: Blackacre, whose grandfather was made a Peer because he "did something," is an absolute nonentity. Unless' some rare piece of luck comes in his way, he may feel' certain that his day is past. Again, it is absolutely con- trary to true democratic principles that the people should be restricted in their choice of representatives. No one desires to force them to choose Peers, but if any particular constituency desires so to do, it should surely not be inter- fered with. The voters should be enabled to elect Peers if they want to do so, for the same reasons for which they are permitted to elect Jews, Roman Catholics, and secularists.
But, granted this, how is the change to be made ? It is pretty evident that the House of Commons, as at present constituted, will not easily allow the alteration. No men care for fresh competitors, least of all those who want to. find seats. Consciously or unconsciously, Members of the House of Commons on both sides argue in some such way as follows :—' Here are some five hundred men almost all of the kind who like to get into the House, rich men and men of leisure, now struck off the list of competitors with us,—we should be fools to let them into our preserves.' It is only human nature that this should be so. Mr. Jones, a rich Tory, sits for the Greendown Division of Wessex, in which Lord Greendown is the principal landowner, and in which the said Peer is very popular. Mr. Jones knows, in fact, that he only sits in the House of Commons because Peers are ineligible. But, this being the case, can we expect much enthusiasm from Mr. Jones in regard to a change in our electoral customs ? No- doubt there are plenty of Members, the vast majority, indeed, who are not in Mr. Jones's position. Still, there are enough Joneses to make their influence a very appreciable quantity. If, then, the House of Commons is not likely to take up the question in earnest, how is the change to be' brought about ? We believe it could be accomplished in something like the way in which Mr. Bradlangh won secularists a right to a seat in the House of Commons. The modim operandi which we should advise for testing the right of the House of Commons to exclude Peers duly elected, is the following. There is no statute and to decision of the Courts to prevent a Lord sitting in the House of Commons, or to prevent him from being elected. It is, however, possible that, if the case were tried, the Courts might declare that it was established by immemorial usage,. and so had become part of the common law, that no Peer who had received a summons to sit in Parliament could sit except in the House of Lords. Let us for the purpose of argu- ment grant this, and still there is no reason why Members of Parliament who succeed to peerages should vacate their seats, or why Peers who have not received their customary summons to sit in Parliament should not be elected. The statutes governing the subject, as well as the usage of Parliament, are entirely in favour of this contention. The sole enactment of importance, that of 24 George III., c. 26, does not, as is some- times supposed, forbid Peers to sit in the House of Commons. It merely sets forth the manner in which a. vacancy shall be filled up on a Member of the House of Commons receiving a writ of summons. The Act deals with vacancies arising in a recess owing to a Member dying or becoming a Peer, and enacts that under suck circumstances the Speaker shall issue a writ "as soon as he shall receive notice by certificate under the hands of two Members of the House of Commons of the death of such Member in the first case, and in the second case that a. writ of summons hath been issued under the Great Seal to summon such Peer to Parliament." This enactment has been carried out literally. Lord Eddisbury sat until May 15th, 1848, although his creation had appeared in the Gazette on May 9th (see 103 Corn. j., 513). It is clear that it is the receipt of the writ of summons alone which vacates the seat, and not the accession to the peer- age by the death of the ancestor, or even by gazetting. But this being the case, what is to prevent a Peer's eldest son who is a Member of the House of Commons continuing to sit after his father dies ? The reception of the writ of summons by the heir does not follow naturally on the death of a Peer. It must be applied for in the following manner. "A Peer," says Sir Thomas May (" Parliamentary Practice," 698), "applies to the Lord Chancellor for his writ of summons, to whom he produces his father's marriage certificate, proofs that he is the eldest son, and such further evidence as may be required." But if the Member we are imagining does not do this, he will get no writ of sum- mons, and therefore his seat will not be vacated. We trust that the next Member of Parliament who becomes a Peer by inheritance will bear this fact in mind, and will continue to sit. If he does, we cannot see how he can possibly be disturbed. Again, we should advise any Peer now a minor who wishes to gain a reputation for himself, not to apply for the writ of summons, and to stand for the House of Commons. If he got in, he would doubtless be petitioned against, but we do not believe that he could be unseated. Possibly, however, the Sheriff would not accept his nomination. In that case, an action against the Sheriff declaring that he had. refused the nomination of a person duly qualified, would raise the point well enough. Most certainly the matter should be brought to the test, and we trust that some Peer not already inconvenienced by the receipt of the writ of summons, will have the public spirit to fight the matter out.
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