A word must now be said in defence of the.
hereditary status of a Peer being made one of the main conditions of a seat in the Second Chamber. The object of this condition, it need hardly be said, is not the glorification. of birthright, but to prevent the danger found in so many State Constitutions of is conflict arising between two Houses both entitled to regard them- selves as popularly elected bodies. In the opinion of the present writer, it is essential that the Second. House should have a source of political energy and power entirely different from, and also inferior to, that of the -House of Commons. The Second House should never be In a position to say to the Lower House : " We are as good as you are. We have been elected by the People just as you have. You have no more right to dictate to us than we have to dictate to yen." But if the object is to choose a House which shall not derive its power from election, which shall not share with the Com- mons the. rights of representation and delegation, how is it to be chosen? How are we to constitute its members I A nominated House is.unthinkable. A House indirectly elected, i.e., by County Councils or Municipalities would not be likely to give satisfaction. At least that seems to be the lesson to be drawn from the recent history of the American Senate* and other bodies chosen by indirect election. No one, again, is likely to propose that the House should be composed of office-holders, or that it should be elected by lot from a body with a particular status. There remains- what we fear may be described as- " the hap- hazard of birth." We venture, however, to raise the plea that this haphazard is not objectionable but rather useful, if it is tempered by the qualification of. Public Service. It has certain positive benefits of no little importance. Under the scheme here suggested the historical continuity of the Constitution would not be broken. The House of Lords would maintain its old traditions, and the Peerage would remain as before, not merely a titular body, but a body com- posed of the holders of a Public Office or Trust. As is well known to all students of Constitutional history, there is no such thing as " nobility of-blood," in the Continental sense, in the United Kingdom, but only an hereditary right to receive a Writ to be a member of the- great Council of the Nation. Another of the positive benefits ia. to be found in the fact that the Members of the House of Lords- who would in future act as the remembrancers to the Democracy, or as the Democracy's trustees in respect of the veto power, would. very largely stand outside the Party System. They would feel that they did not owe their position to-the fact that they had been put on a list by a Pasty caucus, and that they therefore had duties of gratitude to the persons who got them elected. In the case of the House of Commons—indeed of any Assembly based.on popular election under a strict Pasty System—be a man as independent as he will in character, • • libe Senate Y. at roam, al, great- moan red. great prentige, baa.see 484 successful smaller against Dallied election In na case.
he always feels when he changes his mind on some Party issue that he is in the unpleasant position of appearing to desert his Tarty. He is doing something which will be bitterly resented by the members of the Party who got him his nomination and his seat, and who very likely made many personal sacrifices to bring him in. Such considerations cannot but influence his mna, and often influence it very strongly, when he is deciding upon a course of action. The advantage of the hereditary system, tempered as above, is that the majority of the House of Lords (the remark does not perhaps apply to persons created Peers) are not beholden to any external body for the powers with which they are entrusted by the Constitution. With them it is a matter of trusteeship. They were born into a trust, and they have got to exercise it to the beat of their individual ability. No one is in a position to say to them : " You have deceived us. We always thought you were a good [Liberal; or Tory, or whatever the case may be], and now you have thrown us over. You are where you are on false pretences." The hereditary principle; even though tempered by the qualification of Public Service, would no doubt be a very bad foundation on which to base a sovereign, or even a semi-sovereign, Assembly, or a body by which the governing Executive was chosen. It is, however, in the opinion of the present writer, as good a basis as can be found for the exercise of the comparatively humble though most useful function described above, the function of saying what measures are important enough to be submitted to the veto of the sovereign Democracy. That is the fullest extent of the powers to which the House of Lords would attain under the proposals for House of Lords Reform here suggested. The House of Lords would remain, no doubt, as now, a most stimulating deliberative body, and with the assent of the House of Commons might exercise a good deal of influence as a revising Assembly. Its one and only essential power would be the power to insist that in all matters of great importance where the issue was doubtful the People should be given the right, if they so desired, to reject the acts of their servants in the House of Commons.
The arguments for the scheme set forth above may be briefly summarized. Under a plan basing the Second Chamber on the hereditary principle plus Public Service we should, with a minimum of change and in the true spirit of the British Constitution, obtain security, and security through Democratic instruments, against the admitted dangers of Single Chamber government. The more that Second Chambers based on new, arbitrary, and " fancy " conditions are examined, the more rapidly dwindle their claims for consideration. Such bodies have too often neither power nor dignity, and are predoomed to failure. We have in the House of Lords and in our so-called aristocracy—it is of course in no true sense an aristocracy—an asset of value, and one which, if we are reasonable and prudent, can be perfectly well assimilated to a Constitution that is whole-heartedly Democratic. The function of People's Bemembrancer, the function of insisting that the sovereign People shall be allowed the opportunity to veto, if they will the acts of the House of Commons, is just the function to which the Peers, purged of their feebler elements, are suited, and this fanction, if the Democracy are wise, they will insist on the Peerage performing. The Democracy should harness the Peers to their seruic,e.
But great as are these ultimate benefits, the present writer is obliged to confess that he places as high the practical and immediate advantage that the scheme here set forth does not demand a repeal of the-Parliament Act and incur the imminent dangers, including an incalculable loss of political energy, involved therein. The bitter Party controversies of the past would not be reopened. The House of Lords and the Unionist Party would make no attempt to renew the battle of 1912. But though they and the nation would accept the new conditions as irrevocable, the power of the People over their representatives would be established, and the founda- tions of the Constitution would be laid on a purely Democratic basis. The last word must always be the word of the People.
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