Lord Salisbury boasted at Reading on Tuesday that unless you
rise to the revolutionary point, you cannot abolish the House of Lords except with its own consent; and that though fear of death has caused many strange vagaries, it is not easy to conceive fear of death resulting in suicide. He went on to make the strange and very unhistorical assertion that the strong Conservative bias of the House of Lords dates from the accession of Mr. Gladstone to power, and was not notice- able under Lord Palmerston. Of course no one would expect that the House of Lords would veto the Conservative legislation of Lord Palmerston; but every one knows that when for once he did suggest any strongly Liberal measure,—like the creation of Life Peerages,—the House of Lords rose in insurrection against him. Lord Salisbury has persuaded himself that the great Liberal majority in the House of Commons is an extremely transitory phenomenon, and he admitted that the House of Lords could not last unless it was sustained by the public opinion of this country. To that opinion he proposed to make a most confident, and did make a most vehement appeal.
