THE PRIVILEGE OF PEERAGE. T HE trial of Earl Russell gives
the Peers a great opportunity, if they like to take it, of improving their position in the public eyes. They can surrender a privilege which does them no good, as we shall shortly show, but which the community exaggerates and dislikes. That community believes that the right of a Peer when accused. of felony to be tried by his own caste places him. beyond the law. As a matter of fact, it does nothing of the kind, for the Law Lords, who on such occasions guide their brethren, do not in feeling belong to the caste; the Peers are as keen in taking evidence as any Court, and there is sure to be a strong sense that over-lenity will subject them to suspicion. The public, however, is governed by tradition; it grudges the pompous ceremonial, it looks upon the right as a "privilege," and in its inner mind it insists that as all men are equal before God so all should be equal before the Law. The cases are so infrequent that the public does not as a body even know that if a Peer commits a misdemeanour he is as liable to trial as the street- sweeper, with the same forms and before the same Courts. The one really grand privilege of a Peer, that he has a claim to share in actual legislation by right of birth alone, is, owing to facts and traditions which it would take a volume to discuss fully, so little resented that attacks on the House of Lords always fall dead, to the amazement of Radicals throughout the world; but about the separate trial there exists a jealousy which is only silent because Peers, having every motive for avoiding felonies, commit them only at intervals of generations. It would therefore be well for the popularity of the House if its members were placed, as regards crime, on precisely the same footing as other men, and we hope very speedily - to see this truth acknowledged, the more readily, perhaps, as the privilege has now so little value. It was most important once, when large sections of the Peerage, as men able to raise small armies, or as Revolutionists, or as Jacobites, were liable to be tried for their lives, and believed, truly or falsely, that in their cases juries would be packed and Judges inexorable ; but to-day the last man to think of rebellion is a Peer ; the prisoner who arouses most sympathy is one accused of treason, and rank and condition excite in juries and the public a sentiment of pity, or at all events a. desire that exact and punctilious 3ustace should be done. Dislike to the caste as a caste is very nearly dead. A Peer accused of treason would find a large body of sympathisers, and, if the charge were murder, would have all the advantages which a prisoner can derive from good counsel, cautious witnesses, a keenly interested jury, and. a Judge conscious that two continents were watching with attentive eyes his interpretation of the law. Those are all great benefits for the innocent, and it is not, we presume, for the benefit of the guilty that the Lords will defend their privilege. It is, in truth, of no practical use to them, and of this great disadvantage that, whenever attacked, it is the one charge against their position to which the feelings of men, otherwise friendly to the ornamental part of the constitution, instantly respond. We say nothing of the argument that the privilege protects the freedom of Peers to vote as they Please—though in the bad days of the Stuarts that was freely asserted—first because it does not, and secondly because if under circumstances not now imaginable it did, it would be needful, with opinion in its present condition, to-extend it to the Commons, who really rule. But many Peers will say : ',Even if we are willing to surrender the privilege, there are still two difficulties in the way. One is the position of certain members of the Royal Family, whom it is better, if they are ever tried, to try with a special and gorgeous ceremonial; and the other, that we are asked to surrender something which, if without legal value, has a high social value of its own. It marks us out from the commonalty, and. in the case of Irish and Scottish Peers who are ndt deputed to Parliament is the only privilege except their titles which they now retain.' We answer to the first plea by a concession. There will never again be a Queen Caroline trial, but if it is thought expedient, let the three persons who, besides the King, are protected by a special treason law—namely, the Queen, the Heir-Apparent, and the Princess Royal, to strike any of whom is treason—still enjoy the ancient privilege. It can do no harm, and in their case excites no special animosity ; would, indeed, but for the folly of George IV. be utterly unknown to the body of the people. To the second plea we reply first by saying that the few Scottish Peers who remain Scottish Peers only ought long since to have been made Peers of Parliament, and that the Irish Peers enjoy alone among men of their rank an invaluable privilege which they are not likely to give up ; they can be candidates for any English or Scottish constituencies, and, owing to the British admiration of rank, they have as candidates a distinct preference. That is to say, if the titled candidates have anything in them, power of speech, of administration, or of influencing society, electoral com- mittees will accept them in preference to any but the very best local men. If they want to retain exceptionally a privilege abandoned by their comrades let them abandon the exceptional one they possess for which those rivals would sacrifice half their fortunes. What would not Lord Rosebery pay to be able to stand for Edinburgh, or Mr. Brodrick .to be sure that he will never be effaced by a coronet?
The few Peers who still value the privilege should look round them, and see what they gam by their Peerages outside the political field. They were a small caste in the beginning of this century, embedded no doubt in British history, but, with about thirty exceptions, comparatively poor, subject to the popular odium which exploded during the discussion of the Reform Bill and nearly wrecked the Order, and, owing to the caste feeling which then regu- lated their "affiances," their occupations, and their mode of life, possessed of few advantages beyond their immunity as Members of Parliament from the compulsory action of the civil law. To-day, with fewer immunities, they are socially the most prominent persons in the Anglo-Saxon race, over a hundred million of persons who control a third of the world, and draw to themselves in one way or another a still larger proportion of the world's wealth. In two continents the British Peers are first favourites in the marriage market in one they are first candidates for State employment. If they have mental powers, or faculty for soldiership. or ability for governing, they are never passed over, and if they blunder they are treated by opinion as well as by their superiors with the utmost lenity. The governing men were, as the result shows, absolutely in the right in passing over Lord Methuen's original mistake in South Africa, and the country has reason to bless their "favouritism." But supposing he had been Colonel Methuen, of no descent or place in society ? We are of those who, with a certain feeling for historic pedigree, doubt if the country is benefited by its respect for mere rank, but it is useless to deny that the respect exists, and is to the Peers, who first of all enjoy it, of the highest social advantage. The " pull " they have—to take that illustration alone—in the rank they can give their brides is worth millions a year to the entire body. It may very well be that their charm will disappear as society remoulds itself—it is slightly threatened already, as the educated sons of the million- aires crowd into the arena—but for the present it exists, and is amply sufficient to protect their dignity without a. privilege that raises an invidia—we do not exactly mean envy—far stronger than they themselves are able to recog- nise. The Peers would lose nothing by surrendering their 'right, while Conservatism would gain by the 'extinction of one more indefensible privilege. There are plenty of things to be defended outside a useless privilege which has become, in the general progress of society, an ana- chronism not wholly without offence.
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