Mr. Rathbone (M.P. for Carnarvonshire) spoke in favour of a
strengthened and reformed House of Lords,—one in which the hereditary principle should have a recognition as determining the class out of which the bulk of the House was to be chosen. The selection should be made by the House of Commons, but not all at one time, and not by an ordinary vote. He would have fifty Peers elected by every successive House of Commons, till one hundred and fifty had been so elected, and would let them hold their seats for three Parliaments, or fifteen years ; these with the Law Lords, and a certain number of Peers created by the Ministry of the day, together with the Chairmen of the new County Boards, might make up the Second Chamber of the future, consisting of some three hundred members. Mr. Curzon (M.P. for the Southport Division of Lancashire), in a lively and eloquent speech, proposed his plan of reform, which is, in brief, to strengthen the present House by placing in it the notables of the great Dissenting denominations, great Colonial magnates, and the most distinguished of the civil, military, and naval services. As for the Conservatism of the House of Lords, Mr. Curzon holds that a Second Chamber must by the law of its being be Conservative ; and even of Mr. Gladstone's own Peers, at least one-half would vote steadily against him.
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