Me Westminster Review. July. (Triibner.)—This number opens with an article,
conceived and written in a moderato spirit, dealing with the subject of the House of Lords. The writer finis the obstruc- tive element in the "Life Peers" (i.e., the bishops and representative peers), rather than in the hereditary Peers. ills proposition is to exclude the Bishops, and to include all the Scotch and Irish Peers. We are not much concerned about the Bishops, having always thought that the chief good of their seat in the House of Lords was to bring them into contact with general politics, and so render them loss ecclesiastical. At the same time, we do not see that the reviewer's argument against them is quite a fair ono. Ile chooses, for instance, seven groat divisions since the Reform Bill to prove the reactionary conduct of the Bishops. The first (the Jewish Disabilities Bill) goes as far back as 1833, and the second (Admission of Dissenters to th-o Universities) to 1834. But the Bishops must be judged by what they are now, not by what they wore half a century ago. The third is the Irish Tithes Bill in 1835, and the sixth, the Irish Church Bill, in 1868. The argument of timo applies to tho first, and to both the consideration that Bishops could not be expected to vote otherwise than they did on such ques- tions. It is much more to the purpose that in 1846 eighteen voted for the repeal of the Corn Laws, against nine on the other side ; that in 1857, eight voted for the Jewish Disabilities Bill (the other number is not given), and that flow were found ready to support the Liberal Govern- ment in a matter so far removed from their sphere of action as the Army Regulation Bill, %shill) none voted on the other side. But the real weakness of the House of Lords is the scanty attendance, and wo much doubt whether this would not be aggravated by the exclusion of the Life Peers. The most noticeable among other articles is a very interesting sketch of the career of Jakoob Bug, of Kashgar. It weighs against the regret which one cannot but feel at the overthrow of so able a prince, to be told that the triumph of the Chinese was, on the whole, welcome to his people, as a promise of the return of material prosperity. "During the Chinese rule, there was every- thing ; there is nothing, now," was the expressive comparison used in Jakoob's days to describe one aspect at least of his government. "Russia Abroad and at Home" is fiercely anti-Russian. Do not writers of this kind, holding, as we suppose they do, the general views of the Westminster, ever remember that the Russia which they hate is the gradually disappearing Russia of the past, and that the free Russia of the future claims sympathy and hope ? And can this particular writer be serious, when he speaks of the "extensive reforms" which Turkey was attempting ? The other articles are," The Mythology and Religious Worship of the Ancient Japanese," "The Saracens in Italy," " George Eliot as a Novelist," and "The Peasants of ourIndian Empire." The review of "Contemporary Literature" is, as usual, good. We must except an unworthy notice of Mr. Smiles's "Life of George Moore." Philanthropy is, it is true, a Christian virtue, but it need not therefore be treated with savage contempt.
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