Sir Frederick Pollock contributed another long letter on "The Lords
and the Budget" to Tuesday's Times. Discussing the debate in the Lords, he demurs to the view that the wisdom and capacity of that House are to be gauged by the attainments of a picked minority. (It is noteworthy that of the eight he mentions by name, four voted for rejection and only two were supporters of the Budget.) The gist of his argument is that by insisting on legs as opposed to Constitutional rights the Lords are setting the Crown and the House of Commons a most dangerous example. " If it is said that a right never exercised is no right at all, the answer is that many undoubted legal rights, both public and private, are certainly such that their exercise in any circumstances now conceivable would be disastrous to the person exercising them, and is therefore most unlikely.
Once, in a fit of folly, the rulers of this nation did act on their strict rights and taxed the American Colonies. The answer was a strictly illegal proceeding called We Declaration of Independence. It was ultimately justified by success."
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