Mr. Ashton Dilke, M.P. for Newcastle-on-Tyne, delivered a lecture at
Birmingham last Tuesday on " The House of Lords in Account with the English Nation," in which he asserted that the House of Lords, which is supposed to have the special duty of looking after property, really receives from the country, in the form of salaries and pensions, the almost incredible sum of £600,000 a year. His remedy for the obstruction of the House of Lords was to starve it out, by giving it no life-peers, and giving Peers permission to sit in the House of Commons, which the abler men among them would much prefer. Then the Upper House would become so insignificant, that they would never dare to oppose the will of the representative assembly. That is a sufficiently drastic proposal; but how would the middle-class candidates like the competition of so many titled persons in their constituencies P The remedy might be a good one, but we doubt whether it would be a popular one with the House of Commons.
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