TOPICS OF THE DAY.

REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS : SERGEANT WILDE'S SPEECH AT NEWARK.

THE progress of the registration holds out no prospect of any material change being effected in the relative strength of the two great parties in the State. Hitherto, as far as results have been ascertained, the advantage seems tube on the side of the Liberals. This is certainly the case in Scotland. Supposing that a di• sc- lotion were to take place under the present Ministry, it is rea- sonable to expect that a certain number would be added to the majority of the House of Commons by the exercise of Govern- ment influence and the terror which the recent proceedings in Parliament have struck into the Tory corruptionists. But the present majority has been proved to be .a working majority, and it will assuredly be increased next session by the junction of several " 'Waiters upon Provideuce ;" while the Tories, who never fight well in hopeless opposition, will find the number of their regular troops fall off. Without a dissolution, therefore, Ministers way safely rely on a majority next session to support every Liberal measure.

As the House of Commons cannot be made an instrument of the Tories, and there is no prospect of the House of Peers becoming Liberal, it seems inevitable that the collisions of last session must be renewed in the next. But this is a state of things which cannot continue, and hence the necessity, which the Nation is beginning clearly to perceive, of effecting such a change in the constitution of the House of Peers as shall render it amenable to public opinion, and produce harmony in the working of the State machine.

The Tories admit that in one way or another the two Houses of' Parliament must be made to legislate on similar principles. But, say they, the House of Lords is to be let alone--the House of Commons must be " doctored." This is the language of the Albion, the organ of the Carlton Club. The electors, however, refuse to administer the required dose to the House of Commons, and call upon the Peers to submit to a new regimen. And, upon Tory showing, the Peers must submit to it, since the constitution of the Peoples' House is not to be tampered with. Two things then appear to be perfectly- plain. The first is, that the state of collision between the two houses must be speedily put an end to; and the second. that this must be effected by the remodelling of the House of Peers, seeing that the electors refuse to remodel the House of Commons or choose a majority of Members who would vote as the Tory Peers direct. But Mr. Sergeant 'WILDE will neither submit to the Peers, nor will he con- sent to alter the constitution of their House. He strongly dis- approves of the conduct of the Peers, but is in favour of an here- ditary Upper Chamber. The language which he held on this point, when addressing his constituents at Newark, astonishes us, as coming from a man of his powerful intellect and extensive knowledge. He considers it impossible, though an hereditary legislature be open to many objections, to form any other less objectionable; and yet he admits that if the Peers are so wedded to prejudice that they cannot legislate with an independent House of Commons, the question of changing the constitution of the Upper House must be seriously considered. It appears, then, that Sergeant WILDE only approves of an hereditary legislature when it acts in unison with an elective one. Why that is all which is required. The hereditary branch of the Legislature is objected to precisely because it will not " legislate with an inde- pendent House of Commons." The experience of the last three sessions of Parliament proves this.

" The House of Lords (says Mr. Wilde) at present is very much mixed up with the Commons ; and when you look a; the marriages of the younger sons of the nobility, you will find that the House of Commons is very much mixed up with the House of Lords. But how are the individuals forming the House of Lords educated ? I apprehend in the best possible mode, speaking generally ; for they are educated for the most part in the House of Commons. The eldest sons of Peers are generally desirous of becoming Members of Parliament. What effect has that upon their minds and habits ? Let us see. There is a noble lord, an intelligent and high-minded gentleman, who is a Member for Liverpool, his coadjutor being Mr. Ewart. What is the education Lord San- don is receiving? Can he receive a better ? It is true that but comparatively few of the House of Lords are men of business : but by whom are their discus- .s:ons regulated ? By also a comparatively few ; time few being the most active and intelligent who have passed through the House of Commons, where they have learned all they know by bring brought into connexion with the country, and then passing up to the House of Peers, thus constituting as good a second branch of the Legislature as can well be conceived."

Sergeant WILDE here gives us reasons why the Peers should -act like men of common sense and knowledge of the world ; and he has picked out a favourable sample of the Tory aristocracy by which to strengthen his argument. We will suppose that all the heirs apparent to peerages are as intelligent as Lord S -kNDON; but the question occurs, How does Lord SANDON act? Why, he supports the odious measures of the Peers. Even as a member of a popular assembly, as a commoner, be is ranked with the aristo- cracy, and aids them in those very proceedings which the Sergeant so much disapproves of. It is plain, therefore, that those circum- stances of education and position on which reliance is placed to liberalize the future members of the hereditary peerage, have produced no such effect on one of the most reasonable and well- informed members of the aristocracy.

Sergeant WILDE says, "If you only remove from the Lords all exclusive objects, you have the most useful second branch of the Legislature that can be devised." Possibly. But if you place men in a position apart from and above the rest of the community,— if you give them exclusive and profitable privileges, which you do give them when you confer the power of hereditary legislation,— it is really not very wise or statesmanlike to talk about removing from them all exclusive objects. The Peers are not by nature worse men than commoners; but their position is such, that as long as human nature remains as it is, as long as there is a ten- dency in mankind to abuse irresponsible power, they must have and pursue exclusive objects. The history of aristocracies all the world over, from the earliest times to the present, is one and the same; it uniformly exhibits the desire and the effort to oppress the People and, where there has been or is one, to bully the King.

It is not, however, merely on the mixture of the sons of Peers with the Members of the House of Commons, and their education as Representatives of the People, that Sergeant WILDE relies for the conversion of the Upper House to a sense of the error of their ways. He is of opinion that a large accession to the strength of the Liberals, and a proportionate decline in Tory force, will result from the operatioa of the Municipal Bill. The meaning of this is,

that a larger majority of Reformers will be returned to the House of Commons. But the records of legislative proceedings since

the Reform Bill was passed, demonstrate that the Peers regard not the numbers of the majority by which any measure may be sanctioned by the House of Commons. We have before us a return, made up to the end of the last session, of the bids passed by the Commons, and cushioned or rejected by the Peers, in the sessions of 1833, 1834, and 1835. Let us select a few of the more prominent ones. The Jewish Emancipation Bill passed the Commons, by a majority of 189 to 52; the Lords rejected it, by 104 to 5-1. The bill to enable Dissenters to graduate at Oxford and Cam- bridge passed the Commons, by 166 to 77 ; rejected in the Lords, by 187 to 85. The Irish Tithe Bill of 183-1 passed the Commons, by 248 to 52: rejected in the Lords, by 189 to 12'2. Without specifying any more numbers, it w:I1 be sufficient to state that the following bills were carried by large majorities i the Commons, and rejected by the Lords.

Two bills to repeal the Foreign Inlistment Act ;

The Hertford Borough Bill ; The Stafford Borough Bill; The Warwick Borough Bill; The Liverpool Freemen Bill.

The following were not carried in the House of Commons by

so large majorities, but they shamed the same fate in the House of Peers, being either rejected or postponed, or abandoned from

the hopelessness of the attempt to carry them—

Irish Church Bill of 1835; Irish Corporation Bill; Imprisonment for Debt Abolition Bill ; Prisoners Counsel Bill; Registration of Irish Voters Bill; Roman Catholic Marriages Bill ; Stafford Disfranchisement Bill; Wills Execution Bill; Bribery at Elections Bill ; Justices of the Peace Bill.

To this list must be added some of the best clauses in the Muni- cipal Bill.

The fact is, that the Peers have not troubled themselves about the majorities by which measures have been carried in the House of Commons. They have asked these questions: Is the bill be- fore us calculated to root out abuses in Church or State?—to punish bribery, or promote purity of election ?—to extend the liberty of the subject, civil or religious?—has O'Colvareee voted for it ? If any of these questions could be answered in the affirmative, the measure would be rejected, or cushioned, or mutilated, as sure as it came up to their Lordships' House. Has not this been the prin- ciple of Lordly legislation ? Now this mode of proceeding has been tolerated for a suffici- ently long period. The People of England are not disposed to endure it until the present race of Peers make way for their sons, even supposing, according to Sergeant Wieue's theory, that those sons should act with more wisdom than their foolish fathers. They see that a large majority of the Commons is treated with the same insult and contumely as a small one ; that there is an insane wantonness in the meekcry of legislation by a majority of the Peers. And the question they are now asking is, How shall we remedy this intolerable evil ? Sergeant WILDE objects to the election of a second chamber by the people, because then we should have only another House of Commons. Well, that is what the people must have, if they have two chambers ; and the public inclination seems to run that way. A legislative chamber most either be responsible to, or in- dependent of the people. The only way to make it responsible is for the people to elect its members at stated periods. Such at. assembly, call it what you will, must be in effect the same as a House of Commons. The only real advantage which two cham- bers possess over one, is the greater opportunity of discovering or rectifying errors in legislation. We are inclined to think that this advantage might be secured by certain forms of procedure fa one chamber, to which the best men would all be elected, better than by discussion in two chambers. This, however, is a point of comparative unimportance, provided both are chosen by and ate

responsible to the people. Lit is, the irresponsibilityZof the Upper

House that it is sought to get rid of. proriasm The steps to be taken in order to bring about this change have been already more than once suggested in our columns ; and as we shall often have to recur to this subject, it will be sufficient now to add, that in the first place the people should petition his Majesty to create such a number of Peers as shall enable Government to carry a bill to abolish the heredite of the peerage and provide for the election of a responsible Upper House. As soon as the business of registration is completed, let the people commence the preparation of such petitions.