THE VOTE OF THE LORDS; Tux leaders of the Conservative
party have made a false position for the House of Lords and for themselves. The falsity of the position is disguised rather than mitigated by the circumstance that they have deluded some Liberals to side with them. We do not remember any case of grand public seduction managed with more purely superficial inducements. The style of argument by which the Conservative leaders hive carried away themselves and their followers is worthy of promising boys at School, but of no- thing more. It is with a feeling of unfeigned admiration, we might aimed say of affection, that we extend that censure to Lord Lyndhurst ; for there is a sort of immortal juvenility in the qualities which led him to figure so conspicuously amongst the misleaders and the misled. The position of the Conservative recusants in the question of the paper-tax repeal appears to us to be fallacious and figmentary on every branch of the discussion— in the matter of precedent, finance, and policy.* Lord Lyndhurst advanced an imposing array of precedents ; but none of them applies with absolute strictness. And the whole argument appears to us to fall short of that which the vindicators of the Peers' privileges might claim, while far exceeding their war- rant as applied to their present course. The' special precedent of 1811—the rejection of a bill which at once diminished and increased a tax—is obviously enfeebled by the fact that the right of the Peers might be recognized to challenge a measure increasing a tax, though the diminution of a tax might pass. In other words, the precedent proves that the Peers have a right to what was admitted—the rejection of a tax; but it does not follow that they have the corresponding right to the virtual increase of a tax: Again, it has been argued that the Peers have no right to amend a money bill ; but surely this has not been 'made out by any of the speakers. The authority of Somers has been advanced, and it is an authority to which we must all bow, so far as it can be employed to obtain our attention for great constitutional maxims and rules of conduct. Somers was a lawyer whose genius it was to understand the bearing of technical and prac tical law upon the political life of his country, and vice versa ; but he was not infallible, either in action or in argument, as the correspondence and conduct of his later years showed. We make the remark without in the slightest degree abating from the truly unlimited debt of gratitude which we owe to Somers, in common with the very highest leaden in that great period of our constitutional history. According to the story, the Lords waived their right to amend a money bill, because they could not carry out their amendment, since the House of Commons can strike out the amendment of the Lords. Now, even if, on very high abstract ground, it may be argued that there is no right without a power, it is still obvious, that the Peers might claim to' hold the right of making their amendmenti at least suggestively, on the understanding that if they did not at least expect the adoption of the amendment they would not pass the bill. There is more than one process for this suggestive action of the one House upon the other, including the conferences ; and obviously it would be possible for the Lords, before the passing: f a bill, to invite a conference 'with the other gouse, for the very pur- pose of ascertaining the sentiments of the Commons. Still the Peers have an absolute right to reject every hill which is presented to them if they so please, and not the slightest advantage can be attained, either in argument, or suasion, or influence, by any denial or question of that right. While, therefore, advancing precedents which do not absolutely settle the question, Lord Lyndhurst appears to us to make= too weak a statement of the
Lords' rights and privileges. ,
The question of finance was chiefly in the hands of Lord Monteagle, and it could scarcely, be in worse hands. He, an old Chancellor of the Exchequer, drew nice special pleading, attorney- like distinctions between the passing of one portion of a budget and the rejection of another ; bandying words about the right to reject the repeal of the paper-duty though passing an augmented Income-tax. He became garrulous on " the delusive and un- justifiable character of the late budget ;" with much to say also about the budget of the future, which he assumes to be a very ruinous and unpopular measure. And the controller of the Ex- chequer, whose traditions are not so purely glorious, was indis- creet enough to go into details about Exchequer hands. Alto7 gether, Lord Monteagle's elaborate spoken article " upon the bill resembles an old budget speech turned upside down ; as if the veteran could not forget his office ; although he made his speech obtrusively out of place and out of date. It was a systematic impertinence.
• Let us say for the sake of distinctness that the question immediately at issue is one in which the Spectator has no material interest. Many of our contemporaries would unquestionably benefit by the repeal of the paper- tax. It was not our intention to reduce the price as a consequence of that repeal ; and what little advantage we might have derived from the dimi- nished expense in paper was as likely to, be counterbalanced by the compe- tition which the measure would call forth through the increase in the number of journals. Practically, therefore, we Might rather ezpeet injury, than advantage from the measure which we hirci keen eitiroddings • If Lord Lyndhurst's truly intcrestthg exercise on finance pre- cedents in the Lords, and Lord Monteagle's ex-budget speech, failed to establish the, case of the Opposition on the two branches of precedent and finance, lord Derby made a still greater fiasco in the matter of policy. We scarcely remember a more vigorous and triumphant failure than that in which the leader of a party commits himself to the maintenance of an utterly condemned tax, descends to such personalities as calling a statesman opposed to him a " gambler," and inveigles the Peers into encroaching on the province of the Conimons. We repeat that we do not for a moment deny the right of the Lords to criticise finance, to amend money bills, and to reject them ; but here, under the guidance of Lord Derby, the Peers were pushing themselves for- ward as virtually the responsible arrangers of a budget, as the champions of a particular impost which cannot possibly be main- tained much longer, and as conducting that policy in a tone of brawling defiance. We can understand the reason why. With all his courage and geniality, Lord Derby is a man who never feels quite at ease when he doubts whether he may not be in the wrong ; a little twiuge. of conscience and of judgment; made him disguise his timidity under an outward show of bullying ; but in every respect it Was a failure. If the Liberals are thwarted, it is upon a triviality. Lord Derby has the stupendous glory of de- feating Mr. Dobson Collett, the Secretary to the Association for the Repeal of Taxes on Knowledge. But, although he has be- trayed his antagonism to Lord Palmerston's Government, he has overruled no essential 'in the policy of, the Cabinet. He has al- lowed the public to see a manifest desire to injure Mr. Gladstone personally,—witbout success. He has compelled a Liberal go- vernment to keep on hand more money than it desired.; and he has so managed his tactics as to leave to those opponents the balance of reason, cash, policy, and popularity. We hear some, even Liberal politicians, maintaining that the Lords are in the right, because it was necessary to assert.their coordinate power in the action of the Legislature. Admit the demands of Mr. Bright, they say, and the Lords will be completely set aside. The Member for Birmingba,m has led the Commons in the first encroachment on the cobrdinate legislative jurisdic- tion, of the Peers, and it you tolerate this first infraction, you will see but the beginning of an attempt to establish a democratic tyranny through the Lower House. This is vaticinating on small data with-a vengteance. Mr. Bright's exaggerated assertions re- specting the limitation of authority in the House of Lords con- stitutes no substantial restraint upon the Peers.; who hold their rights, privileges, and powers entirely unimpaired, and unim- pairable, by the eloquence of John Bright. Nor do the Lords need more authority and power than they actually possess. They have greatly improved in the public estimation of late years, and justly. Without much theoretical purpose, there has been a bet- ter distribution of functions between the three great branches of our governing authority. The Crown has been allowed to enjoy, with far less wrangling than we remember years back, a more peaceful possession of executive action and military command ; and it is a remarkable fact that in the same period the actual amend- ment in the organization and conduct of the public departments has been far ahead of any exposition volunteered by the Admin- istrative Reformers. The Commons have been left, with a re- markable absence of question, to exercise their final control over finance ; and if there is still some imperfection in their constitution as a representation of the community, they have in many respects, particularly in a freer choice of Members, discounted some of the im- provements anticipated from further Reform Bills ; while they have undoubtedly prepared the way for larger measures. The Peers still possess without question their power as the Great Inquest of the Nation, the final judiciary upon state offences. While the Commons represent the community at large, the Lords have more and more, through the elevation of successful eminent men, be- come the representation of the recognized elite of the country. And most fitly, in consideration of their distinctive function, and of the many eminent lawyers whom they comprise amongst their ranks, they have vindicated the intelligence, conscience, and the influence of the aristocracy by taking the lead in law amend- ments. Viewing the facts calmly and impartially, away from the one-sidedness of party or the heats of temporary conflict., we cannot but admit that we are better than we sometimes describe ourselves to be ; and that the juster distribution of ideas which exists in the three branches of our governing system has not only mended many faults which existed formerly, but has smoothed the way for progressive improvement. The immediate difficulties of the day are annoying rather than appalling,—vexations for their pettiness rather than alarming for their "dangers. During the life of most men who are still taking part in public affairs, we have, as we have before remarked, seen question after question discussed, exhausted, and practically arranged in a succession of the grandest settlements that any nation has witnessed within the same period of time. The ques- tion of Parliamentary Reform was settled in 1832. Not that the reforms were finally completed ; but the question of reform or no reform was absolutely determined, with a great instalment. We need not recapitulate other questions,—ineluding one that has been acquiesced in more than sub silentio, with willing coopera- tion na-the part of the class subjeot to it—administrative reform. While England is thus made to pause, while looking about for an aspect of further improvement sufficiently broad to demand the unanimous consent of leading minds amongst us, we see Europe heaving and tossing with questions similar to our own of a past day, but in a far antler state ; and we, in our advanced condition, are rather disposed to stand and look on, until the state of the continept shall be brought up a little nearer to our own. 'We want it, in order to a more ample and prosperous develop- ment of our Imperial relations, as in the case of the European commercial treaties, which we have begun with France. It so happeni, too, that we have at the head of affairs a man of the world,—a statesman:" who combines a certain political optimism with a broad speculative philosophy in regard to ulterior tendencies. Thus the ruling genius of the day is animated by a 'spirit which reconciles things as they are with things as they shall be ; disarming, at ouce, both the alarms of Toryism and the impatience of ultra-Liberalism. Even the Tories have grown to be Liberal, and'they want to assert their existence in an action not discordant with public opinion ; while the Liberals considerately desire to move and yet not to shock political opponents. It is obvious that such conpli- Eons are the elements of a state of opinion which, if we wanted to censure it, we should characterize as vacillation, but which may be more accurately described as a state of repose between great measures ; the leisure itself, however, being filled up by many minor measures in the aggregate scarcely less valuable than the greatest. Meanwhile, too, even amid the business of the market-place, we must not forget the ceaseless progress which is goine-b on in other paths of human activity,—in the library, the observatory, the laboratory, the factory, the school, and even in the prison. If there is a political calm, its very amusements are of an intellectual and improving order. Larger numbers of our countrymen are learning to read the British constitution, and to recognize its great landmarks ; and the, conflicting opinion of the day is but the self-debate which precedes much broader and more settled opinions for the entire community on the great cardinal questions of representation, taxation, and commerce with the world. If we reflect, therefore, before we yield to petulant dis- content with Lord Derby, we may end in hopeful contentment for the world at large, only striving to do as well as we can the work of the day according to the opportunity of the day. Let us try to pass Lord John's Further ReforM Bill, .somewhat amended, this year ; and we will settle the Paper-duties next year, with no fear that, in the meanwhile, Lords and Commons will forget their true place in the country.
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