Mr. Alfred Austin, who also addressed the same meeting, went
even further. The House of Lords, he said, is at this moment "essentially a representative body. They were at this moment more truly represented by the House of Lords than by the House of Commons, for the Upper House represented reason, calmness, deliberation, moderation, wisdom, and cer- tainly justice." That is a very hard saying. Of course the House of Lords, which has a great Conservative majority,. represents Conservative opinion better than the House of Commons, which has a great Liberal majority. In precisely- the same sense the Carlton Club represents Conservative opinion a good deal better than the House of Lords, and it is probable enough that Mr. Alfred Austin may represent it even better than the Carlton Club. But when we talk of a represen- tative body, we usually mean a body selected, not for its opinion, but in order to disclose what the true proportion of different sections of opinion in the community at large really is ; and in what conceivable sense is the House of Lords a representative of that proportion ? It represents exclusively the proportion of Conservative to Liberal opinion in the petty class of titled landowners, and, we all know that proportion to be- very large. How it discloses in any way the opinion of any other class, Mr. Alfred Austin did not explain.
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