TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE POSITION OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS.
RADICAL politicians and Radical newspapers are very much in error in thinking that they can frighten the conservative and moderate portion of the nation by threatening them with the abolition of the House of Lords unless the Peers say ditto to the House of Commons over all the Bills that are sent up to them. If those who represent " Left-Centre " opinion in England—and that opinion is, we believe, stronger to-day than it ever was—were thoroughly satisfied with the House of Lords, and believed it to be an ideal Chamber for check and revision and for securing wise second. thoughts in regard to legislation, the threat of abolition might, no doubt, cause a certain amount of anxiety and alarm. Since, however, thoughtful men of moderate views are by no means satisfied that the country possesses a Second House which can adequately perform the great functions of revision in the national Legislature, all the " tall talk " about the House of Lords having to mend their ways if they do not desire to be blotted out of the Con- stitution leaves them cold. Experience is showing us that we could hardly have a weaker or less efficient revising body than the House of Lords, and that we might very easily have a much stronger one. It is perfectly certain that the country is not going to place the whole of the Constitution, and the whole welfare of the Empire, at the mercy-of a single House elected for seven years, or to make it possible that our most fundamental laws and liberties shall be exposed to the risks of a snap vote in the Commons. We are not to be counted among those who regard the popular Chamber with suspicion. Again, we do not believe that the country has lost its confidence in the House of Commons, or that that Assembly is, taken as a whole, worse than its predecessors. We are convinced, however, that the nation will never trust it, or any other institution, with absolutely uncontrolled and unlimited powers. It is certain that the people• will insist upon some check on the House of Commons in the shape of a revising Chamber. But this granted, it also becomes certain that the reform of the House of Lords, or its abolition and the substitution of another body in its place, must mean the creation of a stronger, not a weaker, Upper House. In other words, those who desire an effective check upon the Commons stand to win under any proposal for reforming or abolishing the House of Lords. Therefore, as we have said, moderate men contemplate the threats against the Lords not merely with equanimity, but even with a certain amount of satisfaction.
This feeling has been distinctly enhanced during the present week by Lord Lansdowne's ominous speech in regard to the Trade Disputes Bill. Lord Lansdowne made one of the strongest attacks yet made upon the Bill, and pointed out, as we have repeatedly pointed out in these columns, what a gross violation of true liberal principles is involved in a measure which in effect declares that Trade-Unions can do no wrong, and that they are to occupy a position of privilege such as the feudal nobility occupied on the Continent, but never attained in this country. He showed, in effect, that the Trade Disputes Bill involves a fundamental alteration in our Constitution. That being so, where could a better case be found for the exercise of the right of revision that belongs to a Second Chamber, and of its power to call upon the nation to reconsider its verdict in a matter of fundamental importance ? Instead, how- ever, of the .leader of the Lords telling his fellow-Peers that here was a clear case for their action, he went on to urge them not merely not to reject the Bill, but not to amend it in any essential particular. In fact, he abandoned the claim of the House of Lords to the revision of hasty or partisan legislation. After such a surrender, who can feel satisfied that the House of Lords provides that check on ill-considered legislation which the wisdom of all ages and of all countries, however democratic, has prescribed ? No sensible man, of course, desires that a Second Chamber should impose anything in the nature of a permanent veto on the popular will. What we ask is that there should. be some machinery for ensuring that fundamental changes in the law and the Constitution shall not be made with undue haste or through log-rolling bargains, and that before such changes are effected it shall be made certain that we are not mistaking a passing whim for the deliberate and authentic decision of the electorate. Whether this machinery should take the form of an efficient Second. Chamber, as in most European countries, or of that excellent and essentially conservative institution, a Referendum or poll of the whole people, as in Switzerland, is a question open for discussion ; but some check there must be on the gusts of popular passion which are liable to pass over the House of Commons.
We have pointed out one series of objections to the House of Lords as a revising Chamber. Another set is to be found in the fact that under the present system some of our best and ablest statesmen, and those well fitted by education and tradition for administrative work, are shut up in the House of Lords, and condemned by the custom of the Constitution to take only a very im- perfect share in the work of government. No one can doubt that the natural place of Lord. Salisbury was in the House of Commons, and that it would have been far better for the conduct of public affairs had he, as Prime Minister, been able to sit in the Lower House. The same may be said with even more emphasis of Lord Rosebery. His great political abilities have been wasted by the fact that, though endowed with gifts that would have made him a most successful party leader in the Commons, he has been forced to spend his political life away from the• scene of administrative power. Though we want a Second House for revision, we do not want to place in it our natural administrators or leaders of men, or to deny the House of Commons the presence of politicians who would strengthen it from every point of view. The choice open to the electors should be as wide as the nation, and if they desire to be represented. by a Peer they should be able to accomplish that desire. The grievance of being shut out from the strong and full-blooded political life of the House of Commons is felt keenly by very many of the most capable Peers, and we may feel certain that they would view with few qualms any alteration in the position of the Second House which would set them free. Thus, not only is the conservative and moderate portion of the nation by no means alarmed at the notion of the abolition of the present House of Lords, but the most active part of the Peers themselves view the proposal with no little sympathy.
This is not the occasion to suggest the best substitute for the House of Lords. We may say, however, that if it is decided to establish a new Second House, we believe that it would. be wisest to give that House a frankly democratic basis, and to leave no doubt as to its authority in the Constitution. In our opinion, the sort of House needed might be formed by taking twenty great areas throughout the United Kingdom, and asking those areas to elect ten representatives each, but to elect them under the system of minority representation secured by the single transferable vote. This week an experimental election has been conducted by the Proportional Representation Society on the plan of the single transferable vote, in order to show how perfectly easy and simple is the mechanism employed. Such a system would secure that all sections of the nation would be fairly and accurately represented in the Upper House, and that the work of revising the legislative crudities of the House of Commons would be efficiently carried out. The Second House we have described need not have • any more power over money Bills than the House of Lords, and therefore, as now, the House of Commons would choose and direct the Executive, which must depend upon those who possess the control of the purse. We shall be asked, of course, how we propose to settle a conflict of opinion between two legislative bodies, each with a democratic mandate. Our answer would. be that either House might, by a majority of two-thirds, demand a poll of the people on any particular legislative measure. But in cases where no such two-thirds majority could be obtained, the two Houses should, in case of fundamental disagreement, sit and vote together, the result of such joint vote to be final.
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