LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
THE HOUSE OF LORDS AND THE BUDGET.
[To rat Enrros or rim "13rEcriroz."]
SIR,—Not only from filial feeling, but practically, we in Canada are interested in English politics, which have now come to a crisis. The House of Lords, as an hereditary legislative body, is plainly obsolete and must go, though there is apparently no need of suppressing the hereditary titles, which will continue to exercise some influence in the country at large. This surely must have long appeared to all independent thinkers on the subject. The political course of the hereditary House of Parliament has been, as it was sure to be, one of general resistance to change. Boswell thought he might' leek to it for the preservation of negro slavery and the slaVe trade. It obstinacy in Obstructag the first Parliamentary Reform Bill came near to bringing on a revolution. The same tendency was shown when, under Lord Derby, the House refused to meet a plain necessity by the admission of a life-Member. The change from a. House which acts as a guardian of class interests to one which shall be a national Council of legislative revision surely is necessary and pressing; but it ought to be made in the spirit of a calm and forecasting states- manship, not in that of a party fray. Nothing could be less statesmanlike than the proposal of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, which was, in fact, to keep the hereditary House of Lords in existence, but to make it powerless and an object of contempt. The list of Privy Councillors seems to show that you have the right materials for the composition of a Mime of legislative prudence and revision. You have, besides, the heads and representatives of the great profession's, scientific, military, and naval, as well as the heads of great commercial organisations. Crush the House of Lords and what will be the Government of England, all the Colonies, and India, after the next election ? It will be a single House of Parliament, broken, probably, LIE what calls itself the Liberal Party is now, into a number of discordant sections, and including, not improbably, Members elected by the influence of the suffragettes.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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