LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
AN EFFECTIVE UPPER HOUSE.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR:]
Sin,—The conduct of the Lords on the Pension Bill is of a piece with their general conduct. What do you expect if supreme legislative powers are attached to social caste ? To treat the Bill as a money Bill was surely a mere evasion. It was a money Bill only in the sense in which every measure involving expense is. It clearly affected the general policy and character of the nation, as Lord Rosebery's excellent speech showed. The Lords did deal with it by their amend- ments, though they then took fright and ran away. You can hardly fail now to see the need of an effective Upper House. What would be the lot of the nation and the Empire left absolutely in the power of a single House, probably with universal and female suffrage ? The peril would be less if the Members of the House of Commons could deliberate freely, and vote according to their conscience. But the shirking of divisions on questions such as that of the Unemployed Workmen Bill betrays the pressure of a power from without which may not always be intelligent, and is always irre- sponsible. There would be no need of doing away with the titles or any social rank or privilege attached to them.—I am,
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