THE BARONAGE AND THE SENATE.* IT is an interesting and

significant fact that the most earnest and most comprehensive attempt to state the case for the House of Lords, and to show the exact nature of that Assembly, should be made by an Australian. Mr. Charteris Macpherson, from his Colonial standpoint, defends the House of Lords with a boldness and vehemence which is hardly to be found in its apologists at home. For this reason, his book forms a really valuable contribution to the contro- versy which Mr. Morley crystallised in the phrase, "Mend them or end them." We by no means agree with all Mr. Mac- pherson's conclusions, either practical or historic—some of the former are fantastic, and some of the latter hardly tenable—but the book as a whole is full of useful suggestions. In the first place, it brings together a mass of information as to the origin, growth, and exact present position of the Upper House, which is to be found nowhere else. Next, though we should not care to commit ourselves to approval of all the historic details, the general historical standpoint adopted is just and reasonable. Mr. Macpherson really does understand what the House of Lords is and whence it is derived, and that is a great. deal more than can be said for most of those who talk and write on the subject. In only one particular, indeed, can we quarrel with his general treatment. He occasionally uses the words "noble" and "nobility" a little too loosely.

Mr. Macpherson's opening statement—based on the late Professor Freeman's admirable essay in the Encyclopedia. Brilannica—is clear and to the point. He brings out well how curiously diverse is the composition of the House of Lords. We will ourselves tabulate the sources of membership in the following form. The House of Lords consists of—

(1.) Peers of England who have applied for and received their writs of summons, and who are not felons or undischarged bankrupts. (2.) Peels of Great Britain who have applied for and received their writs if summons, and who are not felons or undischarged bankrupts. (3.) Peers of the United Kingdom who have applied foi and. received their writs of summons, and who are not felons or un- discharged bankrupts. (4.) Representative Peers of Scotland. (5.) Representative Peers of Ireland. (O.) The Archbishops of Canterbury and York, and the Bishops. of London, Durham, and Winchester. (7.) The twenty-one senior English Bishops. (S.) The Lords of Appeal in Ordinary. (9.) Eldest sons of peers called up to the House of Lords in their fathers' baronies.

All persons coming within this list are Lords of Parliament- i.e., Members of the House of Lords—and none others. From this it will he seen that to be a Peer and to be a Member of the House of Lords is by no means the same thing. Having clearly shown what the House of Lords is—and that is, not a, baronage, but a Senate with very diversified sources of membership—Mr. Macpherson later on sets forth how many Members are contributed by each of these categories to the present House of Lords. Slightly condensing his table, the figures work out as follows :— Hereditary Legislators—i.e., Peers who.have inherited a right to sit in the House of Lards ... .. ••• 380

Eldest Sons, called up in their Fathers' Baronies ... ;•• 1 New Peers of the United Kingdom, and therefore Peers in the position of Life Pe Ts ••• • .•

Lords of Appeal and ex-L.)1,dB of Appeal ... ••• 5 Representative Peers of Scotland and Ireland Lords Spiritual ... ••• ••• ••• ••• 26 If we add the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York, the roll of the House of Lords is completed. The result is curious, for it shows that in the House of Lords, 101 Members • The Baronage and a, Senate ; or, the House of Lords in the Past, the Present, and the Future. By William Cliarteris nacpborson. London: Joltu

Murray. 1893.

out of the rill o .ve their presence to causes other than direct hereditary descent. •

Many of the remarks by-the-way, made by Mr. Macpherson, are exceedingly good and •telling. For example, he makes excellent mincemeat of an incautious remark by Mr. Bryce, which infers that the Americans rightly despise the Peers be- cause they do not now suggest antiquity, Pitt having "pro- stituted hereditary titles," and because "plutocracy has re- placed the ancient aristocracy of our country." Mr. Macpherson has, of course, no difficulty in showing that this is all nonsense, and that long before the days of Pitt the Peerage was open to those who throve. The idea at the back of Pitt's saying that every man with ten thousand a year bad sa right to a peeragtf,' Is as old as Athelstan. The Laws of Athelstan declare that the "churl who throve so that he had fully five hides of his own land," and the "merchant who throve so that

he fared thrice over the wide sea by his own means," should be " thegn worthy,"—that is, should enter the ranks of the aristocracy. Nor did this feeling die oat in later days. William Estfield, a mercer of London, became a Knight of the Bath in 1439, and again and again rich and self-made men were accepted with open arms by the Peers. Our ancestors, indeed, carried the connection between wealth and rank so far that in the fifteenth century the Duke of Bedford was by Act of Parliament deprived of his Peerage solely on the score of his poverty. That seems hardly fair; but we do not doubt that most Englishmen, if they could be induced to speak their minds, would admit that they would like to see all hopelessly poor Peers deprived of their titles. A noteworthy point is made by Mr. Macpherson in regard to Colonial opinion as to the House of Lords. We cannot, of course, vouch for its truth, but we quote it as at any rate expressing a very in. teresting point of view

"Members of the Liberal party in .Great Britain who have never been out of the British Isles, or who having been out of them have been careful to take with them and bring back with them the Insular Liberal mind, may perhaps cherish the illusion that in their disagreements with the House of Lords they carry with them the moral sympathy' of Colonial democrats, that the great heart of the People' in the Colonies is throbbing to 'loin bands with them across the sea.' Bat in this pleasing belief they are entirely mistaken. The House of Lords is no grievance to the Colonies. It is nut the House of Lords that seeks to interfere in their local affairs, but, on the contrary, the Liberal Party in the House of Commons. And as regards foreign affairs, Imperial policy, the House of Lords is in substantial agreement with the Colonial democracy. It is not the House of Lords that is peculiar or eccentric in its views of Imperial policy. Those it shares with ninety-nine Britoes out of a bundeed in every portion of the Queen's dominions save the British Isles. If any one feels inclined to question the truth of this assertion, a residence of a few months in the greater Colonies will quickly rid him of his doubts. A peace- at-any-price policy, a Russophile policy, is no policy of the demo- cracy. The Imperial policy of the Liberal party in Great Britain, Imperial as concerning the Empire but in no other sense, is due in part to the personal idiosynoracy of Mr. Gladstone; but it is also and far More a mere survival, a relic of the days when that party was a party mainly composed of merchants, manufacturers, and tradesmen, engineered by Whigs. The ideas and the policy of such persons in the sixties or the seventies, with a strong Non- conformist flavouring, differ in tote from the ideas and policy of the Colonial democrat. With the Liberal party in Great Britain matters of Imperial policy are habitually subordinated to the demolition of Established Churches. But the Colonial democrat has no Established Churches to demolish, his atmosphere is far from Nonconformist, and instead of swearing by Messieurs Cobden and Bright he is usually a bigoted Protectionist. As regards the affairs common to the whole Empire—that is, chiefly foreign policy—the House of Lords is in substantial agreement with the Colonial democracy ; and as regards the local affairs of the Colonies, it is not the House of Lords, but the House of Com- mons, that attempts to interfere."

Though by far the least interesting and valuable part of his book, we ought not to leave Mr. Macpherson's volume without some notice of his proposals for reforming the House of Lords.

Here is his own summary of his proposals

"To sum up, for an effective reform of the House of Lords it is necessary not only, or chiefly, to introduce a considerable number of Life Peers. into the House, but also to revise the tenure by which Peers of England and the 'Union, and Representative Peers of Scotland and Ireland, bold their seats. Following out a tendency already active, the whole five Peerages of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain, and Great Britain and Ireland, should be thrown into one Imperial Peerage, and from the body thus formed all the uaelesr, incompetent, undesirable, or indifferent elements should be excluded. The exclusion of the unfit can be arrived at by a selection of the fittest. First, those Peers are singled out who, owing their seats to the nomination of the Sovereign, have received the express and formal guarantee of the highest official authority of the Empire. To -these Peers by

creation must be added those Peers by inheritance whose succes- sion to the fitness, not less than the peerage. of their founders has by the same public authority been publicly and solemnly affirmed. Next come those Peers by inheritance, who possess similar qualifications to those demanded of Life Peers, though tested by less severe and rigorous conditions. Finally the bulk of the Peers by inheritance are reached, and to these is corn- Anitted the task of singling out from among themselves for their 'representatives the most eminent aud able of their fellows."

We will not attempt to discuss Mr. Macpherson's scheme. It is sufficient to say that it will not be carried out till the

English people cease to be what they are now and have been for a thousand years. Our own idea of reform is very different. First, we would allow any Peer to resign for life his member- ship of the House of Lords, and to win a seat, if he could, in the Commons. Next, we would allow the Crown to create Life Peers. Thirdly, we would forbid the House of Lords to throw out Bills absolutely, but would bestow on them the function of putting the Referendum into operation,—of adding, that is, a clause to any Bill, providing that it should not come into operation till a poll of the people, " Aye " or " No," had been taken thereon. '1 his is not the occasion to defend such a proposal, but we believe that in it lies the best solution of Le problem,—What are we to do with the House of Lords?