attention. The spokesmen of the Labour party have shown a just appreciation of the situation. One of the ablest and most influential of them openly thanks the House of Lords for throwing out the Nonconformist Education Bill, while others, more cautious, content themselves with an expression of satisfaction that the peers recognise and respect the claims of Labour. Though they mutilated the Education Bill beyond recognition,' says one Labour M.P., and afterwards unceremoniously rejected the Plural Voting Bill, they dealt tenderly with those measures with which the Democracy are immediately concerned. The Trade Disputes Bill, Workmen's Compensation and Provision of Meals Bill afford striking testimony of their unwillingness to undertake a quarrel with the great industrial army.' Another scouts the suggestion that the Labour party should join in the proposed Liberal crusade against the House of Lords, and unkindly hints that such crusade is likely to be used by the Liberal party as a pretext for the indefinite postponement of those promised social and industrial measures which the workers demand, but which the bulk of the Liberal party is unwilling to carry out. From all of which it is clear that, unless some fresh issue is raised, some more alluring bait than Cowper-Templeism in the schools and the supremacy of the illiterate voter at the polls, the Labour party will not join in the proposed crusade. And it needs no prescience to foretell that a crusade from which the Labour party stands aloof is, in these days, foredoomed to failure.

M. MALTMAN BARRIE.

The Editor of THE NINETEENTH CENTURY cannot undertake
to return unaccepted MSS.

AGITATION for the purpose of ending or mending the House of Lords is no new thing; it has been sporadic for many generations, yet the House of Lords still exists as a branch of the Legislature, sometimes violently condemned for thwarting the will of the people as represented in the elected Chamber, and sometimes enthusiastically applauded for furthering the will of the people misrepresented in the elected Chamber. The outcry against the House of Lords is always raised when the party in office is composed of legislators in a desperate hurry, and the matter might be left with that illuminating explanation, but, for many reasons, it may be well to examine into the nature and validity of the alleged grievance, and also to point out that, owing to exceptional circumstances, it is desirable that steps should be taken to strengthen the Upper House by reasonable reform.

It may be premised that the present agitation is really directed against the double Chamber system, and cannot be appeased by mending or reforming the House of Lords; and, to still further clear the ground, it should be noted that the terms Upper and Lower House, or First Chamber and Second Chamber, are merely expressions in common use, and have no political or constitutional validity. The two branches of the one Legislature are co-equal. Their powers

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and functions are, with one exception, identical. The House of Commons can do what it pleases with all Bills coming from the House of Lords; it can accept, amend, or reject them. The House of Lords can do what it pleases with all Bills coming to it from the House of Commons, with the exception of money Bills. It can accept, amend, or reject all other Bills, and it can accept or reject money Bills, but it cannot, or, to be perhaps more strictly accurate, it does not, amend them. Therefore, except in the matter of amending Bills affecting taxation, the two Houses are in their powers and functions co-equal and coextensive, and the terms applied to them in common parlance are misleading. The expression Upper House conveys no superiority over Lower House, nor does First Chamber imply any superiority over Second Chamber.

Judging by platform speeches, the exuberant utterances of popular orators, and the more measured complaints of statesmen and politicians capable of exercising some self-control, the charge against the House of Lords resolves itself into the expression of the two following opinions. First, that it is outrageous that the will of the people as expressed in the branch of the Legislature elected by the people should be overruled by the branch of the Legislature that is composed of hereditary scions of an effete aristocracy.' Second, that, owing to the predominance of one of the great political parties in the House of Lords, legislation is easy when that party has a majority in the House of Commons, and difficult when it has not. There are three distinct counts in this indictment-namely, first that the body overruling the will of the people is an incompetent body; second, that the will of the people is overruled by any body; and third, that the political complexion of the existing body is overpoweringly Conservative. Let us examine into these points.

As to the personnel of the House of Lords and the qualifications which its members may claim to possess as legislators, the case against them has been thus stated by a Cabinet Minister with remarkable force. Speaking with all the weight and authority attaching to his exalted position, and presumably with a full sense of his consequent responsibility, the President of the Board of Trade said at Newcastle-on-Tyne on the 23rd of January last :

What was the use of Liberal enterprise if the work of Liberalism was to be frustrated by a House chosen by nobody, which was representative of nobody, and which was accountable to nobody? He hoped that, now they had begun to ask that question, they would insist upon an answer. . . . The House of Lords was the refuge and hope of all the forces that stood between the people and the harvest. Legalised greed and social selfishness in every shape and form had their bodyguard in the Peers.

It is quite unnecessary to question the accuracy or good taste of Mr. Lloyd George's opinion that 'legalised greed and social selfishness' are the actuating principles of the House of Lords; but, though

admitting, of course, that the Peers are chosen by nobody' in the sense that they are not elected by the people, I directly traverse the statement that they are representative of nobody' and are 'accountable to nobody.' Of what elements is the House of Lords composed? There are about six hundred Peers eligible to take their seats. This body contains 172 members who have held office under the State exclusive of Household appointments, 166 who have sat in the House of Commons, 140 who are, or have been, mayors or county councillors, about forty who are members of the legal profession, and about the same number of men eminent in art, science, letters, invention, manufacture, and trade; 207 have served, or are serving, in the Army or Navy. Furthermore, it must be added that, in addition to those who have acquired merit and knowledge as chairmen of railway companies, and in other positions of an analogous character, the great majority have developed business habits, and have derived valuable experience of men and matters in the management of large estates and complicated affairs.

But it may be said that an analysis of the whole body of the peerage does not give an accurate indication of the capacity of the House as a legislative body. That is to some extent true. Of the Peers some must be excluded, such as princes of the blood royal, minors, and those who through age or infirmity cannot attend the sittings of the House; and there are others who, for one reason or another, are not interested in politics, and do not take part in the business of the House. A fairer estimate of the character of the House of Lords as a legislative Chamber can perhaps be obtained by an investigation of the working members of the House-of those attending and voting on occasions deemed to be of great national importance. The record division took place on the second reading of the Home Rule Bill of 1893, but an examination into the qualifications of the Peers voting on a division that took place fourteen years ago would not afford a sound criterion as to the merits or demerits of the House as it exists to-day. It would be better, therefore, to inquire into the composition of the House during the late discussion on the Education Bill. The largest division took place on the 29th of October, when 312 Peers voted. Three days were devoted to the second reading debate at the end of July, and the House was occupied with the committee and subsequent stages of the Bill from the 25th of October till the 19th of December. Altogether twenty-six working days were devoted to the Bill. During the whole of that time the attendance was very large. Incidentally it may be mentioned that the full attendance and great interest shown afford cogent argument in favour of autumn sessions. Perfectly accurate figures cannot be arrived at, but I think in estimating the number of Peers who attended the sittings of the House during the autumn session at about 380 I shall about hit the mark; and I take that number as fairly indica

tive of the full working strength of the House for all practical purposes. Let us look into the composition of that body in its salient features. It contained the Lord Chancellor and an ex-Lord Chancellor, an ex-Lord Chancellor of Ireland, four Lords of Appeal, and twenty-seven other Peers associated with the legal profession, including a number who have held high judicial office; seven ex-Viceroys of India and Ireland; sixteen ex-Governors of the great colonies, or provinces of India; fifteen other Peers who have held high positions in the diplomatic and civil services, sixty-two ministers and exministers, thirty-seven Peers who are, or have been, intimately connected with manufacture or trade, science or invention, 123 who have sat in the House of Commons, about eighty who occupy, or have occupied, the position of mayors or members of county councils, and twenty-one archbishops and bishops concerning whom it must be remembered that, whatever may be thought of the principle of spiritual Peers, they do not represent the hereditary principle, and have all served a long apprenticeship in humble positions, from that of a curate upwards, which have brought them in close contact with all classes of the people.

With this brief review before us, it must, I think, be admitted that the House of Lords includes a very large number of members who, through long and distinguished service rendered in various walks of life, have acquired that deep knowledge of human nature, that wide experience of human affairs, and that intimate acquaintance with administrative detail which are so desirable in any legislative body. The House has no directly representative character gained at the polls, but it cannot be denied that it is, in fact, though not in theory, very fully representative of the great activities which in their various phases constitute our national life. The thesis that the House of Lords is representative of nobody cannot be maintained; nor is its position accurately described in the statement that it is accountable to nobody. The House of Lords makes no claim to enforce its views upon the people. It fully realises the limitations of its powers; it freely acknowledges that the will of the people must prevail, and that its function is to see that the real will of the people does prevail. Far from being accountable to nobody, it is accountable to everybody, and it is acutely sensible of the fact.

The second count in the indictment is that the will of the people as expressed in the elected Chamber is overruled. That opens up two questions-the desirability of a Second Chamber, and the extent to which public opinion is reflected in the Commons' House of Parliament and in the legislative proposals of the Cabinet.

On the first point, argument is perhaps superfluous. Unquestionably the whole consensus of educated opinion in the United Kingdom is in favour of a Second Chamber; the principle has been approved and adopted in our great self-governing colonies, in the