SIR THOMAS BAZLEY AND THE PEERS.
WE have often expressed our own view that the abler men amongst the Peers would add far more to the strength of the Lower House if elected, as they would certainly be elected, by popular constituencies, than they ever will to that of the Upper House, at least under its present conditions of existence. The necessity of election itself secures so close an attention to popular needs and wishes as to prevent the minds of the representatives from standing still; and responsi- bility, however lightly it sits, adds a certain tension to the tone of political thought which raises it in dignity and. en- hances its weight. But we have also frankly admitted that there is no disposition whatever in the country to reform away the House of Lords. The English are not a people who, directly they are convinced of an evil, set about removing it. If it is an evil of long standing, they assume within them- selves that, even though it be not essential to the order of nature that they should suffer from it, it is at least so far a part of that order that it will take a surgico-political operation to rid themselves of it, Nor are they possessed with any admiration of heroic remedies," except for evils which it takes a true heroism to bear. Now, it does not require true heroism,—as yet,—to bear the political annoyances and delays caused by the House of Lords. It was grievous to Dissenters to be kept for a decade or more out of the Universities by the House of Lords, after the House of Commons had resolved to let them in. It was irritating to politicians to see the House of Lords reject an Army Bill on which the House of Commons had expended so much care. It was vexatious to the people at large to see the House of Lords reject the Ballot, after the Commons had put it so nearly within their grasp. But hardly one man in England lost a night's sleep by any of these vexations. At worst, it led some people to think of the House of Lords as they think of a cantankerous relative with whom Providence has been pleased to harass them, —namely, if they are Christian-minded as of a minor cross to be borne patiently, and if they are heathen, as of a terrible nuisance, to be grumbled and growled at the more savagely that there is no notion of striking a blow at it. But no one has ever yet thought of the political delays caused by the action of the House of Lords as of a first-rate evil and bitter injustice which must positively be rooted out of the land. And though many have been induced to ques- tion seriously whether there he any counterbalancing ad- vantage in it to make up for these mischiefs, yet that is no reason in English eyes for removing it. We never touch a thoroughly historical evil till it becomes intolerable. Its deep root in history is far more than an equivalent to us for any appearance of moral anomaly or any tolerable amount of inconvenience which that anomaly may entail, We should almost as soon think of gettiug rid of the House of Lords merely because it was politically inconvenient and superfluous, as a man would think of having his ears cut off because he was stone deaf, or his leg amputated because it was paralytic and only dragged on him when he moved. Englishmen are born under the sway of spirit, soul, and sense, of touch, eight, and hearing, of Queen, Lords, and Commons, of passions, appe- tites, and affections, and other triple natural endowments, none of which would they willingly give up simply because they find a good deal of evil hound up therewith. That is, we should say, the actual condition of mind of the British nation ; and while it is so, if there is to be any use in considering the impediments to legislation presented by the House of Lords at all, it must be only for the purpose of proposing, as Sir Thomas Risley has proposed, an expedient by which these impediments would be greatly diminished, without touching the name or essence of the institution itself.
Sir Thomas Bitzley proposes, then, that the House of Lords should be a body moulded out of the material of the actual
Peerage, but not, as at present, co-extensive with it. He suggests that as the Irish and Scotch Peers elect representa- tives to sit in the House of Lords, so the British House of Lords—no doubt by some better method than that of the Irish and Scotch Peers, which uniformly brings out a list of men all of one party,—should elect a hundred of its own number, while the House of Commons should elect another hundred, and the Government of the day nominate a third hundred,—the three hundred BO chosen to constitute the legislative Upper House. In other words, if Sir Thomas Baz- ley's figures were taken, the legislative Upper House would con- tain only about two-thirds of the existing number of legislative Peers, the remaining third being eliminated, but left the pri- vilege, we suppose, like the Irish and Scotch Peers who are not now in the Upper House, of getting elected Members of the House of Commons by popular constituencies, if they can. We doubt if Sir Thomas Bazley's numbers would quite do. If we begin to select at all, a greater range of selection,—out of a body the average of which is so indolent and indifferent to political work as the present House of Lords,--would be desirable. We should ourselves prefer to halve his numbers, to admit fifty Peers elected by their Peers, fifty elected by the Commons, and fifty nominated by the Government of the day, so as to have a thoroughly select working body of really picked men,—which would be impossible with so many as three hun- dred. As it would always be possible, and usually easy, for the neglected Peers, if they were of average ability, to get into the House Of Commons, and there make a reputation which would ensure their ultimate selection for the Upper House, there would be in such a weeding of the Upper branch of the Legielature no dangerous exclusion of untried elements of political good. Those against whom the door seemed to be shut could, by far less exertion than would be needed by men of equal ability in any other class, open it for themselves. Bo that the Order would still be an order inheriting great political privileges,—inheriting the opportunity of securing for them- selves political power at much lesscost than the rest of the community ; but yet inheriting only an oppor- tunity, not the power itself, without giving at least sonic evi- dence of the capacity for using it. The political position of a Peer would, then, be something like that of the Queen's pages under the new War-Office Warrant in relation to the Army. They are to be admitted to commissions on the strength of their position, but not without passing a pass-examination. While most other classes of men must get their commissions by surpassing others, these Queen's pages can get them by at- taining a certain moderate and easy standard of intellectual merit, but not without fairly attaining it. So it would be with the hereditary Peers in relation to such a House of Lords as Sir T. Bazley has suggested. They would come into the world with a secured opportunity of earning political power, and earning it at half the cost of any other rank in society, but still they would have to earn it. They could not enter into any right to govern others without satisfying either the House of Commons, or the Government of the day, or their own Order, that they had really understanding and capacity enough to make good legislators.
But besides the advantage of thus sifting out an Order certainly full enough at present of indolent and ignorant members, the plan of Sir T. Bazley would have the advantage of securing a considerable influence for the Administrative Government in the Upper House,—if, at least, the nomi- nation of Peers were to be only for a single Parliament, and the nominees therefore knew that it would be essential for them to make good their title to be either elected or nominated again for the following Parliament. Such an influence as this for the Administration in the constitution of the Upper House is greatly needed ; for if that House is to do good work at all, it must be the work of revising and correcting rather the means chosen by the Lower House for attaining its ends, than those ends themselves,--in other words, it must be strictly practical work, and work which it takes some experience and skill to do. Now of qualities of this kind the Administrative Government is always the best judge, and they would be sure to select men who, like Lord Blachford (Sir F. Rogers), would raise the reputation Of the House of Lords for practical wisdom. And the fact of being so selected would tend to secure far more certainly for the Upper House the time and energy of the nominee, than the mere qualification of birth itself, which is hardly felt as imposing a responsibility or conferring an honour which the receiver is bound to justify.
Again, the selection of a definite number by the House of Commons would have a very obvious tendency to ensure that the Peers who care for political distinction should pass through the best of all apprenticeships for the Upper House, a seat in the Lower House, and the habit of dealing with popular constituencies. Some of the ablest members of the Upper House,—Lord Carnarvon, for instance,—have never had the advantage of this apprenticeship, because succeeding to their titles too soon for election to the House of Commons, Sir T. Bazley'e suggestion would leave it open to every young Peer to pass through the Lower into the Upper House, inas- much as he would be eligible for the Lower as long as he was not elected or nominated for the Upper. It is hardly possible to doubt that this provision would go a long way towards imbuing the Second Chamber with a genuine respect for the aims and character of the popular Chamber,—the one great desideratum in our present House of Peers. Be- fore an ordinary Peer could be so known as to com- mand either nomination or special selection by such a body as the Commoners or even by the Peers themselves, he must have made some appearance in public life, and the natural. path by which to distinguish himself would be by canvassing a popular constituency and representing it in the House of Commons. Yet for those Peers who stand at the very pinnacle of their order in rank or wealth,—Peers like the Earl of Derby or the Marquis of Westminster, or the Duke of Argyll,—there would be a tolerable certainty of election by their own order, even without previous political distinction. And it would be well that it should be so. It is always interesting to know how any political course affects those whom it must affect on a far larger scale, so to say, than it can any other individual, for the mere fact of their tone of feeling on the matter is one of the data, for deliberation.
On the whole, then, we hold Sir T. Bazley's scheme for a reform of the House of Lords to have in it more promise than any which has yet been started, inasmuch as it is a reform, and not a transformation. It retains the principle of accord- ing great privileges to an hereditary order, though it sifts out those most worthy of them. It opens the House of Commons, —the best of all schools,—to all young Peers who aspire to political honours. And it ensures a certain degree of funda- mental sympathy between the two Houses, the House which practically determines what is to be done or undone, and the House which should improve to the best of its ability the method of doing or undoing it.
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