We beg to submit to the Times that it can
if it pleases carry out an important constitutional reform. It has only to publish day by day at the bottom of its summary the numbers present in the House of Lords, and the Peers will in three months be shamed out of their present laxity of attendance. The conduct of these gentle- men is most discreditable. There is no position in the world equal to that of an English Peer, yet of the five hundred persons who possess it not twenty have the decency even to appear to exercise the privileges which the Constitution secures to them. Do they imagine that they are invested with a share in the legislative power, covered with titles, and walled in with privileges, for their own advantage, or that of the nation? They are just as much bound to attend in their places BS the members of the House of Commons, and their persistent refusal not only to do their duty but to pretend to do it will, whenever their privileges next come into question, be bitterly remembered. But for Lord Derby, Lord Ellenborough, the Law Lords, and the Ministry, the Peers' Chamber would be a tomb.
Previous page
