TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE HOUSE OF LORDS.
SPEECHES by Government orators and leading articles in Government newspapers are full of threats and denunciations levelled against the House of Lords. But the words ring hollow. It requires very little experience in political controversy to know that the invective lacks reality, and that the attacks do not mean business,— not even the poor attempt at business foreshadowed in Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's proposals for giving a special sanctity to three knocks at the door. Whether the Liberal Party is in reality going to attempt a great cam- paign against the House of Lords in the autumn we do not know ; but we are certain that if such a campaign is attempted, it will be a failure. Rightly or wrongly, wisely or unwisely, the mind of the country is not "biting" on the question of the House of Lords. It may be that, as Professor Goldwin Smith assures us in his interesting letter published in another column, the nation ought to brace itself to a full and frank consideration of the whole question, and ought, before it is too late, to substitute, in the interests of conservatism, a really powerful non- hereditary Second House. We admit that in many respects the country would be safer with such a Second House ; but we are convinced that there is no chance of such a revolution in our Constitution being inaugurated just now, although the revolution would be one in favour of conservatism and stability. Thus, though we sympathise strongly with Professor Goldwin Smith's defence of the Lords, with his praise of that body for having saved the United Kingdom from disruption, with his exposure of the futility of the Prime Minister's policy, and generally with the tone of his letter, we cannot regard it as practical.
It is just conceivable that if the Government and the Liberal Party were to throw themselves whole-heartedly into an honest scheme for the abolition of the House of Lords, and for placing in its stead a democratic Second Chamber, they would succeed. That a scheme so partial and so futile as that to which they have pinned their faith will prove a fiasco we have, as we have said, not the slightest doubt. The country will not look at it. If the House of Lords is so worthless a body as to have no right except to " nag " at the proposals of the House of Commons, and if after three " naggings " the "guillotine" is to descend upon them, it has no right to partici- pate at all in legislation. That will be the feeling of "the man in the street" when he understands the proposi- tion to which his assent is invited. Even on their own showing, the Government have no case against the House of Lords. The House of Lords has never done the thing which the Liberal Government insist that it has no right to do,—that is, to reject three times legislation sent up to it by the Commons. The Government will not try their own prescription on the Lords. Rather than do so, they accept amendments from the Lords which they profess to think—we admit that the profession is not put forward very seriously—have irreparably injured their Bills. While with one breath they use the language of conventional political invective about the malign influence of the House of Lords, with the next they boast of their magnificent legislative achievements. It is true that the House of Lords rejected the Scotch Valuation Bill, and that we have been assured that it is to be sent up next Session exactly in the same form. We shall, however, require more trenchant arguments than we have yet seen used to persuade us that the Government mean to choose this Bill as the issue on which they will fight the Lords.
Our general conclusion is that though a certain amount of rhetorical eloquence will be expended in the autumn, nothing serious will be done, or even attempted, in regard to the Government's so-called policy for dealing with the Peers. The position of the House of Lords is too strong, and there are too many forces directed towards its support. It may be worth while to describe these briefly. In the first place, there is the historic feeling, based on an innate conservatism, of the British people. Whether Radicals or Tories, we all hate making a definite severance with the past.. Commercially minded and practical as we are, no one, when it comes to the point, really likes to pull down an old building or to see the loss of an old institution. Stronger even than this instinctive objection to a policy which, if it means anything, means the ultimate destruction of the Lords is the distrust in regard to the House of Commons felt by the people at large. In many ways the country is very proud of the House of Commons and its traditions, and would be intensely indignant if any attempt were made to impair its present powers or to lower its status and its dignity. At the same time, people dread now, as the people and the Army dreaded so intensely in the days of the Commonwealth, being at the mercy of a single omnipotent, uncontrolled Chamber. What made men look to Cromwell as a political saviour, what inspired the passionate desire for a Constitution or " Instrument of Government," was the fear of the absolutism of Parliament, and of the tremendous powers which it was arrogating to itself and to its votes and resolutions. While toleration is shown just now for many wild and fantastic schemes for Constitutional change, no one, as far as we know, has had the courage to suggest openly that the country should be loft alono with an autocratic House of Commons.
A third source of strength possessed by the House of Lords is the instinctive shrinking of the country from all the alternatives that have been suggested. There have been many excellent schemes for the creation of a new Second Chamber, but not one of them, as far as we are aware, has been received with any favour. Again, such checks on the power of the Commons as the Referendum, good though we believe them to be in themselves, have failed to rouse popular enthusiasm. There has been a general feeling that though the House of Lords may be very imperfect, it is at any rate more tolerable than these new-fangled ideas. These are what we may term the popular external objections to touching the House of Lords. Another and a very pronounced series of objections arises within the House of Commons itself. That House, like all popular Assemblies, is exceedingly jealous of power. Its whole history is one of the gradual absorption of the powers of other bodies, but we know of no instance in which it has resigned power. It is true that it voted such a resignation of power at Mr. Glad- stone's bidding in the second Home-rule Bill, but it is very doubtful whether its Members could have been induced to do so had they not known that the House of Lords was certain to free them from the consequences of their action. The House of Commons would, of course, have no objection in theory to the Prime Minister's scheme, for it involves an increase of its powers. The notion of its voluntarily establishing a new and powerful Second Chamber is, in our opinion, not to be entertained. But, as we have said, the country will never accept the abolition of the House of Lords except accompanied by the creation of some efficient check upon the powers of the Lower House.
In spite of all the rhetoric, the Commons really like the present House of Lords. It suits them admirably. They like it because of its weakness, and because they feel that they are never likely to have any body entrusted with the duty of revising and checking their action which is so essentially feeble, and so unwilling to challenge their authority on vital matters such as finance and the virtual appointment of the Executive. Yet another force that makes for the continuance of the House of Lords is the personal dread entertained by a very large number of Members that their seats would be endanpred if the Peers were let loose to contest those seats with them. Such Members know that if the House of Lords were abolished, it would be quite impos- sible to prevent Peers from standing for the House of Commons, and they know also what exceedingly formidable candidates such Peers would be. If any proof of this fact is wanted, it is to be found in the indignation expressed on both sides in the Commons at the notion that a man who succeeds to a peerage might refuse to apply for his writ of summons to the Lords, and might, therefore, be eligible for election to the Commons. A proposal so innocent, and so entirely consonant with the theory of the Constitution, when raised in a concrete case, was treated by a Committee of the House of Commons as something akin to blasphemy. Remember, again, how determined the House of Commons is to maintain its absurd Standing Order which prevents Peers taking any part in contested elections. To our list of the forces, general and particular, that go to keep the House of Lords in existence we must not forget to add the absence of any unpopularity of the Peers. We are not by nature an envious people, and there is practically no envy of the Peers and no dislike of them as such. They have no privileges which give annoyance to the plain man. For example, when a Peer was tried for bigamy by the House of Lords, and received a sentence considerably more severe than would have been inflicted on .a commoner in like circumstances, there was no outcry as to the monstrous unfairness of a Peer not being tried in an ordinary Assize Court. Again, we are not a logical people, and therefore the House of Lords incurs no enmity on grounds of pure reason. The ordinary man is left quite cold by the question : "Why should this man be allowed to sit in the House of Lords while you are not ? " He regards the question as a conundrum the answer to which may be puzzling, but which has little practical interest for him.
In our view, then, the House of Lords will go on exactly as it is going on now unless it comes in contact with some genuine outburst of popular opinion. But this it will not do. Its members are much too skilful, much too good politicians, or, if you like, much too afraid of public opinion. Here, indeed, is their weakness from the point of view of those who, like ourselves, desire a more efficient check upon the House of Commons. The Lords are too much inclined to keep their ears to the ground and to listen for what they believe to be the popular will. We do not, of course, desire that they should attempt to oppose, thwart, or prevent the carrying out of the popular will. We do desire, however, that the diagnosis of what is the popular will should be a sound one, and we do not feel confident that the Peers may not occasionally mistake the whisper of a faction for the voice of the people. Disraeli in " Coningsby " says that there is no more unedifying spectacle than that of "a patrician in a panic." For ourselves, we do not feel sure that the House of Lords may not some day get into an unnecessary panic and pass legislation under the impression that it is the popular will, when in truth it is nothing of the kind. At the same time, we are bound to admit that as a rule the Peers have shown very great skill in their diagnosis of what is the will of the nation. Certainly no complaint can be brought against them on this score in the present Session. They have acted with far greater wisdom than their opponents. In any case, it would be useless to found a policy involving a Constitutional revolu- tion on the weakness we have just noticed. The House of Lords will have to go much farther in yielding to the Commons than it has gone hitherto before we or anybody else are able to persuade the nation that it had better get rid of the Lords, and substitute a more powerful check upon the Lower House.
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