Mr. Labouchere on Friday week brought forward his annual proposal
for the abolition of the House of Lords, in the shape of a motion that hereditary legislation is contrary to the spirit of representative institutions. In a speech for him unusually free from mere cynicism, he maintained that the reform of the Upper House was absolutely impossible, that the Peers had never represented the nation, that the House was com- posed of territorialists, and that if other men were placed in it, they caught the aristocratic tone. Whenever the Lords had thrown out a Bill, the voters had gone against them, there having been but one exception in a hundred and fifty years,—Fox's India Bill, to which, he might have added, George III., then a real monarch, was equally opposed. The Lords belonged to a party, the Conservative Party, and were shut out from entering the Commons. He would sweep them away, and would replace them by Members elected for three years by the County Councils. These Members would have no originating power, but might throw out a Bill twice, thus delaying its passing for three years, or might send it back to the Commons with amendments. No less than one hundred and sixty Members supported this scheme, which was also defended by Mr. Bryce, who, however, with his vast knowledge of the working of Con- stitutions, argued not from the Radical, but from the Con- servative basis of thought. He wanted the check on the Commons to be effective, and effective power belonged only to representatives. The motion, after a clever speech from Mr. Curzon, who wished for a purified House, with representative Life-Peers added, and another from Mr. A. J. Balfour, who dreaded a House strong enough to impede the House of Commons, was defeated by 201 to 160.
