A modest proposal
Sir: As you rightly say (15 November), now that the hereditary peerage is to be stripped of all legislative status, the argument for creating life peers collapses. And in the context of Mr Wilson's personal motives your• explanation of his ignoring the logic of the situation may be correct. But there was probably an additional consideration: that the alternative would have been unpopular with and embarrassing for most of his supporters in the Government and in the House of Commons.
To give up creating life peers (and presum- ably also reduce the number of new hereditary peerages) would have two results. One would be to revive the waning social prestige of the existing hereditary peerages, since their holders would no longer wear the same label as en- nobled trade union leaders and other people conspicuously lacking in 'quality.' This would obviously offend such genuinely anti-aristocratic instincts as exist in the Labour party.
The second result would be to dash the fondest hopes and rosiest dreams of Labour members. For to describe the Labour party in general terms as egalitarian and anti-aristocratic is to oversimplify. The professing socialist is usually a. socialite at heart and the secret ambition of many a left wing politician is to wear the ermine. A mere senatorship would be a drab substitute for this splendid reincarnation. D. H. Cameron Spoutwells House, Scone, Perthshire
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