THE " GUARDIAN " TO THE RESCUE.
THE allOrdian of last week and this, has come out in a new character. It is the guardian now, not only of the Church, but of the House of Lords. It flings its wgis over Lord Salisbury and his allies, and declares that they deserve the thanks of the nation for asserting for the Peers a new pre- rogative. The courage it displays is of that kind which is ordinarily described as enabling a man to take the bull by the horns. It does not deny that the assumption by the House of Lords of the right to force an appeal to the people is destitute of historical precedent ; but it asserts that whether that right is justified by precedent or not, it is justified by the exi- gencies of the hour ; that the Peers, as Lord Carnarvon says, deserve our sincere gratitude for taking upon themselves to force such an appeal ; indeed, that if that course be without precedent as yet, the sooner such a precedent is established the better. Septennial Parliaments, says the Guardian, are much too long, unless there be some power, other than that of the Minister of the day, to shorten the period. The Minister of the day will only shorten it when he believes that, though the House of Commons is against him, the country is with him ; but there is another condition of things in which such an appeal to the people is desirable, and that is when the House of Commons is with him but the people are against him. And if the existence of this condition of things be pro- bable at all, there ought to be some power, says the Guardian, of bringing the matter to the test. If the House of Lords be not the best conceivable power, it is, at least, according to our ecclesiastical contemporary, the only one which the Con. stitution affords, and therefore it ought to be encouraged in its praiseworthy efforts to shorten Parliaments which are sus-
It is desirable, then, we are told, that there should be some much more likely to be wrong than right,—is, indeed, certain power extraneous to that of the House of Commons to provide to be oftener wrong than it would be if it were simply decided for the case of a great divergence of opinion which had sprung by tossing up—" heads, dissolution, tails, no dissolution." To up between a House of Commons elected several years pre- approve of forcing an appeal to the people whenever the Tories viously and the constituencies which would be called upon to are in Opposition, and are willing to give odds that they shall return one at the present day. Now, the first questions we have win, though none can be forced for the Liberals in the reverse to ask are these,—' Ought there not first to be some reasonable case, is one of the most singular Constitutional positions evidence that such a divergence of opinion really exists ? And ever assumed within our recollection by a grave and steady if so, why should this machinery for compelling a recourse to Constitutional authority. There is a good deal to be said the people be extraneous to the House of Commons ?' Hitherto for renovating the fiat of the popular will every three or it had always been held that if there were such a divergence four years, though there is a good deal to be said against it ; of opinion, it would soon manifest itself in the House of Corn- but to make a decent case for recurring to that fiat only when mans itself ; that Members in close contact witk their con- a body of men less likely than any other in the kingdom stituencies would become conscious of the change of popular to be affected by that popular opinion, wishes for it, is feeling, and reflect it in their own votes ; that by-elections impossible indeed. We cannot conceive why the Guardian would be impressive evidences of the same change; that the does not prefer to restore to the *Crown the prerogative of an newspapers would betray it, and would produce their effect on arbitrary dissolution. It would certainly be not more arbi- the House of Commons ; in short, that in one way or the other bury, and we believe that it would be much less so, than a the majorities of an unpopular Government would dwindle, till dissolution decreed by the House of Lords.
the Minister would be forced either to resign or to dissolve. As to the contention that the House of Lords does infinite That is obviously a process by which a divergence of opinion good by maiming Liberal Bills, because it renders Conservatives between the House of Commons and the people rights itself, better disposed to live under the resulting Acts without repining, We do not say that there is an infallible security for such a we must express our wonder that the Guardian shows so little rectification. But we do say that there is a reasonable security tenderness for Liberals under a Conservative Government, who for it, and that such a process, when it does take place, affords have no such Assembly to soften for them Conservative legislation an immeasurably better test of a real change in popular opinion by the maiming of Conservative Bills. In truth, however, the than any other we can suggest. But, now, what is the whole theory is thehappy invention of an imaginative brain. It Guardian's security that the Peers will reflect this divergence, is not true that as regards the most important legislative revolu- if it exists ? It has none,—no vestige of any such security. tions which have ever taken place, there was any such tempering The machinery of the Upper House is open to this very of the wind to the shorn lamb. Was there any tempering of the serious objection as a barometer of public opinion,—that it is wind of Reform in 1832 to the Conservative Party ? Yet did absolutely no gauge of popular opinion at all, that its judgment the Conservative Party prove half so restive under it as the is a guess in the dark, since the Peers would have given Conservative Party of our own day has proved under the precisely the same judgment, if they had dared to do Irish Land Act ? Was there any tempering of the wind of so, in the very first year of the Parliament as they gave Free-Trade to the shorn lambs of the Corn-Law Party? Yet the in its fifth year. Surely, the Guardian knows perfectly House of Lords meekly passed that great measure, without even well that if, in the second Session of this Parliament, it asking for an appeal to the people ; or rather, the Duke of had been possible to possess the Peers with the illusion that Wellington, understanding the Constitution more clearly than four years had passed over their heads since the election, and the Guardian, would not hear of any appeal to the people by that therefore a great change might have passed over the the Lords from the majority of the House of Commons, though convictions of the electors, they would have been even more the Parliament which passed Free-Trade was five years old. Was eager to force a new appeal to the people on the Irish Land the Ballot Act,—which we refer to because it was an Act we Bill than they were on the Reform Bill. The Guardian can, never approved,—tempered by substantial Conservative amend- we think, hardly deny that the very worst conceivable gauge ments, so as to make it more palatable to those who objected to of the opinions of the constituencies is the House of Lords. In it ? Was the Abolition of Church Rates so maimed as to make point of fact, it never changes its own attitude at all. It held Conservatives acquiescent ? Was the University Tests Act so
the same opinion of Mr. Gladstone's Government in 1880 that it whittled away as to please the Church Party The theory holds now. And it would hold the same opinion of it after an will not hold water for a moment. Indeed, the truth is that, appeal to the constituencies had been answered in favour of the just where there has been most concession to Tory opposition, Government, as it holds now. You might as well judge of the there the submission has been least thorough. Lord Salisbury prospect of the weather by a barometer with the index-hand im- and his friends still openly speak of the Irish Land pected of misrepresenting the mind of the people. In the moveably fixed at " Much Bain," as judge of the national feel- article of this week the Guardian goes further, and says that ing towards a Liberal Government by the opinions of the House the House of Lords does just as much good by maiming the of Lords. If the Guardian considers the Upper House a good Bills it passes, as it does by rejecting those it does not pass. judge of the tendency of public opinion, it would, we should The maimings effect this good,—they reconcile the enemies of think, hold the Carlton Club to be the same. It appears to the Bills maimed to living under them when they become Acts. us simply impossible to regard a class Assembly like the The position is a bold one, and would be stronger than it House of Lords as a gauge of popular opinion at all. It is, if the Guardian could show ground for believing with Lord has no relation with popular opinion which every other as- Carnarvon that the House of Peers is the most popular sembly in the country does not command at least as effec- body in the kingdom. That romantic discovery, however, the tually. It is composed of great landowners, and it gathers its Guardian has not made. Indeed, it has to admit that the opinions in London Clubs or drawing-rooms, or from the Tory House of Peers is entirely indisposed to force an appeal to the Press. It is inflamed with the prejudices of a timid and pedple during any Ministry of a Tory cast. It concedes that privileged caste. It is, indeed, a body far less likely to respond the Upper House is adapted exclusively for the purpose of naturally to popular feeling than almost any other body in the shortening the duration of a Liberal House of Commons, and is three kingdoms. We would as soon judge of the feeling of the never likely to shorten the duration of a Conservative House constituencies by consulting the Medical Council or the of Commons,—.only, it remarks, that this is less necessary : it is Benchers of the Inns of Court, as by consulting the House of far more necessary to stop positive legislation that the people Lords. Indeed, the Guardian hardly pretends to assert for the do not want, than it is to stimulate positive legislation House of Lords that it can form a competent judgment on the that they do want. On the need for shortening the duration subject at all: but rather treats the question whether it judges of a thoroughly bad policy, indefinitely more mischievous than rightly or judges wrongly as one of profound indifference. If either needless legislation or the delay of needful legislation— only it secures a dissolution, the result is good, no matter whether such a policy as Lord Beaconsfield's foreign policy in 1878—the that dissolution proves the Lords to have been right or wrong Guardian is naturally silent. It does not wish to weaken its in their judgment. And yet it deprecates a shortening of the case by pointing out that its specific for shortening the exist- regular Parliamentary term as obstructive to business, though ence of a hypothetically unpopular Liberal Government, is no the effect of its own proposal is, that in three or four years specific at all for shortening the existence of an unpopular Con- the House of Lords would always decree the dissolution of a servative Government, even though the latter may be engaged in Liberal House of Commons, unless the Tory leaders happened enterprises far more fruitful of every kind of disaster than any to be singularly destitute of hope. Surely it would be wiser legislative enterprise. But let us pass over this great blot in a great deal to insist on an appeal to the people every third or our ecclesiastical contemporary's Constitutional theory, and fourth year, than to make such an appeal to the people depend examine what it regards as the strongest side of its case. on the vote of an Assembly whose judgment in the matter is
Act as an Act justifying plunder ; and yet it was on the Irish Land Act that more concession by far was wrung out of the Liberals than had ever been wrung out of them in relation to the great Reform Bill, or to the abolition of the duties on Corn, or to the principle of the Ballot. The more the Lords have succeeded in maiming Bills, the less willingly have the Conservatives subsequently acquiesced in them. The concessions made have generally given them the notion that their opponents were not so strong in popular opinion as they thought, and the result has been that they have acquiesced, not more cordially, but much more sullenly in their beating. The Guardian appears to us to have invented a brand-new theory of the proper functions of the House of Lords, which has not only no basis in history and precedent, but no founda- tion at all, except in the ingenious fancy of a fertile brain prepossessed in favour of the Upper House, and determined to find, per fas ant nefas, arguments for upholding and justifying the Peers' least reasonable claims.
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