LIBERALS AND THE HOUSE OF LORDS.
(To TOE EDITOLL OF TOR •.SPRCtler011.") Srit,......May one inquire why it is that the Spectator is con- tinually ascribing to Liberals the desire to abolish the House of Lords, instead of, as is really the case, to reform it on sane and judicious lines ? How many members of the Cabinet have declared in favour of a single Chamber P Is it too much to ask that the House of Lords shall be so reconstituted as to provide (a) a fair and judicial tribunal of political opinion ; (b) to be popularly elected, or, perhaps, selected somewhat on the lines laid down by the Spectator in its article on the subject a few weeks ago ? Personally, I have only met one Liberal who has expressed the desire for a single House; have you, Sir, met more ? Yet, even allowing that a single Chamber is within the region of practical politics—of which no evidence exists—the question arises whether the House of Lords as at present constituted is any real safeguard against • hasty and ill-considered legislation. Surely, after the astound- ing speech of Lord Lansdowne on the Trade Disputes Bill, the whole case for the Lords as a strong, impartial Chamber goes by the board. It was, in effect, a confession that `although we consider this Bill to be in some of its pro- visions contrary to the whole spirit and practice of English law ; although it establishes a principle never admitted, but expressly condemned, by the greatest of English jurists [as a fact, I believe it does]; although, if we followed our own judgment and consciences as a revising body in the Legislature, we should strike its principal clause out ; yet we will not brave the danger of making ourselves unpopular, or risk the peril of, endangering the prospects of our party.. We are content to sacrifice national interests to the political and strategical exigencies of our side.' Is this, Sir, an unfair interpretation of the actual meaning of bora Lansdowne 's speech and the action of the, House of Lords P Surely when the leader of the great majority of what is supposed to be an unprejudiced political tribunal takes up such an attitude as this, it amounts to a confession of ineptitude and weakness, which fatally undermines the foundations of public confidence and respect upon which, its first claims for existence can alone depend. But, as I have said, we Liberals only demand a Second Chamber whose good- will is not irretrievably mortgaged to one party in the State, to the consequent legislative detriment of the other. I am convinced that if the House of Lords were composed of men of the intellectual calibre and moral fibre of the Duke of Devonshire, Lord Curzon, and other men of like stability of character and broad political outlook, all moderate men of all parties would accept their decisions as at all events representing the result of conscientious opinions, and not, unhappily, as now, the necessary effects of party bias and political animosity.—I am, Sir, &c., E. H. S. B.-A.
[The Liberals propose to abolish the veto of the Lords. And what is that but in fact abolishing the Lords, and leaving us with a single unrestrained Chamber P A Second Chamber without the right of refusing assent to Bills sent up to it could no more check injurious legislation than can the King. We have seen no proposal by any responsible Liberal to reform the House of Lords, and yet to leave its powers undiminished.—En. Spectator.]
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