Let the rural Peers take note. On Friday, the Times,
the organ of the City and the propertied classes, which detests Mr. Gladstone and sniffs at Radicals, declared war on the House of Lords. "There remains in the country," it says, "a profound impatience, not merely with the present obstruction, but with the conditions which render its repetition on other occasions probable and even certain." "Men's minds have travelled beyond the immediate grievance, inquiry has been provoked into the conditions out of which it springs, and a very general conviction has been reached that modification of the House of Lords is desirable in the national interest." The Times suggests that reform might be attempted by weeding the hereditary Peers, and adding to them distinguished Life Peers ; but it will soon discover, as the people have discovered already, that such a House would be as obstructive as the present. A House of Peers selected by the Ministry at the beginning of each Parlia- ment, and used as a great Council of Revision, is, we believe, the single alternative to a one-headed Legislature; and it is for the latter that the people pronounce, though as yet the states- men do not. "Mend 'em" say the thoughtful ; but the echo from below drops the first letter, as echoes do, and answers, "End 'em."
