Not many people could state the precise membership of the
House of Lords. According to a booklet which the Conservative Central Office has just issued on the past and future of the Second Chamber the number is 85o, of whom something under a hundred, on the whole a very able and experienced hundred, habitually attend. The same booklet states, as an oblique comment on the hereditary system, that almost half the 793 hereditary peers (the difference between that and the 85o is made up of elected Scottish and Irish peers, bishops and Law Lords) are new creations of this century (which is not yet half over). Even if this means, as it presumably must, " peerages " not " peers," it is surprising that so much of the roots of the House is so recent. But there is another aspect of the Upper Chamber to which my attention has been demanded. A
reader abroad has been fired by references in the Lords' Hansard to the Lords with White Staves. " The House," he reads, " carried a motion addressed to be presented to His Majesty by the Lords with White Staves." Who are these mysterious beings ? Well, they are in fact the Lord Steward, the Duke of Hamilton and Brandon, and the Lord Chamberlain, the Earl of Clarendon. They convey addresses from the Lords to the King and bring back his reply to the House. The Staves which are their emblems of office might less reverently be described as whitewashed billiard Wes.
Previous page
