THE HOUSE OF LORDS
No constitutional principle has been so strongly criticised and so
freely abused as the one embodied in the hereditary chamber which
forms so important a branch of our legislature. Pulteney labelled the
House of Lords a "hospital for invalids"; Burke contemptuously
referred to it as "the weakest part of the Constitution"; Lord
Rosebery has compared it to "a mediæval barque stranded in the tideway
of the nineteenth century." A more democratic modern statesman, who
doubtless hopes--
"To build, not boast, a generous race;
No tenth transmitter of a foolish face,"
has declared the only legislative qualifications of peers to consist
in their being the first-born of persons possessing as little
qualifications as themselves. While another politician cynically
observes that they represent nobody but themselves, and enjoy the full
confidence of their constituents.
The House of Lords has long been the butt of the political satirist,
and parliamentary reformers have attacked it for years patiently and
persistently, hitherto without much success. "We owe the English
Peerage to three sources," said a character in "Coningsby"; "the
spoliation of the Church; the open and flagrant sale of its honours by
the elder Stuarts; and the borough-mongering of our own times." And
this bitter criticism is often quoted to prove the weakness of any
form of hereditary government.
The suggestion that heredity can confer any peculiar qualifications,
rendering a person more fit than his fellows for parliamentary power,
is no doubt illogical, but not more so perhaps than a thousand other
ideas which govern the affairs of men. The form of government by
majority, for instance,--which Pope called "the madness of the many
for the gain of a few"--is obviously open to criticism. Hereditary
legislation has, at any rate in the eyes of its supporters, the merit
of having answered well enough in practice, and, however theoretically
indefensible, is not more so than hereditary kingship. The Sovereign
does not inherit sagacity any more than the Duke of Norfolk, as Lord
John Russell justly observed, and it would be unwise as well as unsafe
to hang the Crown on the peg of an exception. It is as well, however,
to remember that the Sovereign is a constitutional monarch whose
powers nowadays are much restricted, whereas the Lords have the right
to exercise a legislative veto the use of which kings have long since
resigned.
Talent is not hereditary. No man chooses a coachman, as the first Lord
Halifax once remarked, because his father was a coachman before him.
But the descendant of a long line of coachmen is likely to know more
about the care of horses than the grandson of a pork butcher, however
eminent; and the scion of a race of legislators is at least as fully
qualified for the duties of a legislator as many a politician whose
chief reason for entering Parliament is the desire to add the letters
M.P. to his name. Nevertheless, as has been recently pointed out by
tactless statisticians, the great men of the past have but seldom
bequeathed their admirable qualities to their _eldest_ sons, and in a
list of modern statesmen will be found but few of the names once
famous in English history.
The necessity for a second chamber of some sort has always been
admitted, if only to prevent the other House from being exposed to
what John Stuart Mill calls "the corrupting influence of undivided
power," and Cromwell "the horridest arbitrariness that was ever known
in the world." Few, however, of the most ardent admirers of the
hereditary system will pretend that the problem of a perfect bicameral
system is solved by the present House of Lords, though they may
doubtless claim that the cause of its failure does not rest entirely
upon its basis of heredity. "You might as well urge as an objection to
the breakwater that stems the unruly waves of the sea, that it has its
foundations deep laid in another element, and that it does not float
on the surface of that which it is to control," said Palmerston, "as
say that the House of Lords, being hereditary, ought on that account
to be reformed."[37]
[37] In a speech delivered at a banquet in Glasgow on January 13,
1837.
If age can confer dignity and distinction upon any assembly, then must
the House of Lords be peculiarly distinguished, for it is certainly
the most venerable as well as the most antiquated of our Parliamentary
institutions.
When Christianity became firmly established in England, each king of
the Heptarchy was attended by a bishop, whose business it was to
advise his royal master upon religious questions, and who thus
acquired the power of influencing him in other matters as well. The
minor kings were gradually replaced by earls, who were summoned,
together with their attendant bishops, to the Witenagemot of the one
ruling sovereign of the country. An assembly of this nature was held
as far back as 1086, but it was more in the nature of a judicial Court
than a Parliament. It consisted of the Archbishop of Canterbury and
all other bishops, earls, and barons, and was summoned to decide
important judicial cases. This Court, or _Curia Regis_ as it was
called, met at different times and in divers places. It transacted
other business besides the judicial, and also corresponded to some
extent with the more modern _levée_. It was originally composed of the
Lords, the great officers of State, and some others whom the king
wished to consult.
The exact position which such nobles held in the great Council of the
land is not very definite. Immediately after the Conquest an earldom
appears to have been regarded as an office; but it was not necessarily
hereditary. Later on the possession of lands, either granted direct by
the Crown or inherited, became a necessary qualification for the
holder of an earldom. The transfer of titles and property in early
days was a rough and ready affair, in which might played as great a
part as right. (When Edward I. required the old Earl de Warrenne to
produce his title deeds, the latter brought out a rusty sword that had
belonged to his ancestors. "By this instrument do I hold my lands," he
said, "and by the same do I intend to defend them!") But with the
natural idea of the transference of land from father to son there
developed the principle of the natural hereditary descent of the title
dependent upon the possession of those lands.
The baronage did not come into existence until after the Conquest. In
the reign of Henry I. it was entirely composed of foreigners from
France. Barons held no regular office, but their lands were
transferred on the hereditary principle. They owed military allegiance
to the Crown, but did not necessarily sit in Parliament unless
summoned to attend by the king. Such a summons was long regarded as a
burden rather than a privilege, and even in the days of King John the
barons only desired it as a protection from the imposition of some
exceptional tax. The bishops and barons were then the natural leaders
of the people; they alone were educated and armed, and they alone
could attempt any successful resistance to the exorbitant demands of
the Crown. They paid nearly all the taxes, and provided money for the
prosecution of every war. Upon them the commonalty was dependent,
looking to them for assistance when the sovereign became too grasping
or tyrannical. It was the barons who forced King John to sign Magna
Charta, and to them, therefore, we are indebted for the laws and
constitution which we now possess. "They did not confine it to
themselves alone," as Chatham declared in the House of Lords, on
January 9, 1770, "but delivered it as a common blessing to the whole
people." But though the present House of Lords has been described as
composed of descendants of the men who wrung the Charter from King
John on the plains of Runnymede, not more than four of the existing
peerages are, as a matter of fact, as old as Magna Charta.
The feudal barons by tenure, whose right to a Parliamentary summons
gradually became hereditary as going with their lands, were gradually
joined by other prominent men who, though not landowners, were
summoned to give the Council the benefit of their experience and
advice. Thus gradually evolved the modern system of hereditary
legislators, and the House of Lords developed into an assembly such as
we now know it, though numerically far smaller.
In Richard II.'s reign the _Curia Regis_ separated from Parliament and
became a Privy Council. The Lords were then as unwilling as the
Commons to attend diligently to their Parliamentary duties, and it was
only the subsequent creation of dukes, marquesses, and viscounts that
stimulated the desire to sit and claim a writ of summons as a right.
The number of earls and barons summoned to Parliament in the reigns of
the first three Edwards varied from fifty to seventy-five. At times,
owing to the absence of the fighting men of the country who were
engaged in foreign warfare, it fell as low as sixteen. In the first
Parliament of Henry VIII. there were less than thirty temporal peers,
but in Elizabeth's time this number had doubled. Since Stuart days the
Lords have become more and more numerous. James I. granted peerages
right and left to his favourites, and, by selling baronies,
viscountcies, and earldoms for sums ranging from £10,000 to £20,000,
enriched his coffers and added some fifty members to the Upper House.
The eighty-two temporal peers who sat in his first Parliament were
gradually reinforced by his successors, until, in the time of George
III., they numbered two hundred and twenty-four, exclusive of their
ecclesiastical brethren.
The Lords spiritual have not always sat in the House of Lords. In
early days the abbots and priors largely predominated in that
assembly, but with the abolition of the monasteries they were banished
from it, though a certain number retained their seats in right of the
baronies which they possessed.[38] Bishops were excluded from the
House of Lords by Act of Parliament in 1640--Cromwell omitted to
summon them to his Upper House in 1657--and were not finally
readmitted until 1661. Within living memory several unsuccessful
attempts have been made to keep them out of Parliament. In 1836 a
member of the Commons moved that spiritual peers be released from
attendance, but his motion was defeated. Another member in the
following year suggested their exclusion on the ground that they had
plenty to occupy them elsewhere, that their contributions to debate
upon most legislative subjects were not particularly edifying, and
that they always voted with the Minister to whom they were indebted
for preferment. This motion met a fate similar to that of its
predecessor, as did another of the same kind in 1870.
[38] In the sixteenth century the Prior of the Hospital of St. John of
Jerusalem (near Clerkenwell), whom Selden calls "a kind of an otter, a
knight half-spiritual and half-temporal," had precedence of all the
lay barons in Parliament. His priory was suppressed in 1536, but his
name continued to appear spasmodically in the Journals of the House of
Lords until some time in Queen Elizabeth's reign.
To-day some twenty-six spiritual peers, including the two Archbishops
of Canterbury and York, are given seats in the House of Lords, where
they help to swell the number of that ever-increasing assembly.
Bishops usually confine themselves exclusively in the House of Lords
to the discussion of matters which concern the spiritual welfare of
the nation. Their contributions to debates are generally "edifying,"
and when they happen to cross swords with their lay brethren they are
well able to hold their own. Bishop Atterbury, of Rochester, once said
of a Bill before the House that he had often prophesied that such a
measure would be brought up, and was sorry to find himself a true
prophet. Lord Coningsby retorted that the Right Reverend Prelate had
put himself forward as a prophet, but he would only liken him to a
Balaam, who was reproved by his own ass. The Bishop at once replied
that he was well content to be compared to Balaam. "But, my Lords," he
added, "I am at a loss to make out the other part of the parallel. I
am sure that I have been reproved by nobody but his Lordship!"[39]
[39] Dr. King's "Anecdotes," p. 130. (It was a more modern politician
who, on being reproved by an opponent, said, "Consider the case of
Balaam's ass; before it spoke all men regarded it as quite an ordinary
quadruped, but after it had spoken they discovered what an
extraordinary ass it was!")
With the creation of new peerages by successive monarchs the list of
temporal peers lengthened year by year. The Union of the three
kingdoms still further added to their number. By the Acts of Union
with Scotland and Ireland it was laid down that sixteen Scottish and
twenty-eight Irish representative peers should sit in the House of
Lords. These were to be elected by their fellow-peers, the former for
each Parliament, the latter for life.[40] They may be distinguished in
other particulars as well, for though a Scottish peer can at any time
resign his seat, an Irish peer can never do so. Even though he be a
lunatic, or otherwise incapable of attending, he still retains his
place in the legislature. He is also privileged in other ways. In 1699
the Commons resolved that no peer could give his vote at the election
of a Member of Parliament, and, three years later, that he could not
interfere in elections. To-day a standing order of the House of
Commons imposes the same restraint upon all but Irish peers, who are
exempt from these restrictions.
[40] In November, 1908, the election of an Irish peer resulted in a
tie between Lords Ashtown and Farnham. Such a thing had not happened
since the Union. The difficulty was settled in a manner only perhaps
possible in an institution as venerable as the House of Lords. In
accordance with the provisions of the Act of Union, the Clerk of the
Parliaments wrote the names of the candidates on two pieces of paper
which he then put into a glass. One of these he drew out at random,
and the peer whose name was inscribed thereon was declared to be duly
elected.
In 1875 the House of Lords was strengthened judicially by the
introduction of four Lords of Appeal. The House, as is well known,
has judicial as well as legislative functions to perform. It has
always been the Supreme Court of the realm, and, ever since the reign
of Queen Elizabeth, the ultimate Appeal has lain to it in all cases
except those arising in Ecclesiastical Courts. Moreover, as the High
Court of Parliament, in conjunction with the Commons, it is empowered
to try offenders against the State whom the Commons have impeached. It
also enjoys the privilege of trying any of its own members who may be
charged with treason or felony, and of determining any disputed claims
of peerage which may arise.
There have always been a sufficient number of Lords learned in the law
to provide a court for the trial of legal cases. In the past, however,
occasions have arisen when the presence of lay peers has threatened to
replace the judicial aspect of the House by a political one which
would be fatal to its reputation as a court of appeal. It was not,
indeed, until 1845 that lords unlearned in the law began to consider
their presence during the hearing of judicial causes to be not only
unnecessary but undesirable, and discontinued their attendance. Thirty
years later the institution of four life peerages, conferred upon
eminent lawyers, added still further weight to the legal decisions of
the House. The hearing of appeals is now left entirely to what are
called the Law Lords, who consist of the Lord Chancellor, a number of
peers who have held certain high judicial offices, and the four Lords
of Appeal in Ordinary--three of whom must, by the Appellate
Jurisdiction Act of 1876, be present on all appeal cases.
The granting of life peerages, conferring rights of summons to the
House of Lords, save as above stated, has been adjudged to be beyond
the powers of the Crown. It may truly be said that in the first days
of Parliament the House of Lords consisted almost entirely of life
members. But when the Government of Queen Victoria attempted to revive
a practice that had lain in abeyance for some centuries they were not
allowed to do so.
The Supreme Court of Appeal had been violently attacked in the
Commons, where certain members declared it to be inferior to any
tribunal in the land. Palmerston in 1856 determined to remedy its
defects by the addition of two Law Lords who should be life peers.
This scheme was upheld by the Lord Chancellor, Lord Cranworth, but met
with determined opposition in the Upper House. The Law Lords were
especially opposed to it, fearing that, if such a precedent were
allowed, no lawyer in the future would ever be given an hereditary
peerage. On the Premier's recommendation the Queen proposed to confer
life peerages upon two distinguished lawyers, Parke and Pemberton
Leigh, and proceeded to issue a patent to the former, creating him
Baron Wensleydale for life. When, however, the matter was referred to
the Committee for Privileges, they decided that no life peer could
either sit or vote in the House of Lords, and the Wensleydale and
Kingsdown peerages had consequently to be made hereditary.
Persons who are raised to the peerage to-day are made peers of the
United Kingdom. No Scotch peer has been created since the Union in
1707, and the right of conferring an Irish peerage which existed under
certain restrictions in the Act of Union has ceased to be exercised
except upon one notable recent occasion.[41]
[41] Lord Curzon of Kedleston was so created in 1898.
During the last fifty years some one hundred and fifty additions have
been made to the membership of the House of Lords. The only limit to
the numerical increase of peers would seem to lie in the good sense of
the Prime Minister or the patience of the Sovereign. It is of course
the latter who confers peerages, though as the former usually brings
suitable candidates for ennoblement to the royal notice, he is
generally held responsible for the result of his recommendations.[42]
[42] When the last Liberal Government of Queen Victoria came into
office the Court officials were discussing the new Administration one
day at Windsor. "I wonder what peers they'll make," remarked one of
the ladies-in-waiting. The Queen turned upon her with uplifted
eyebrows. "_They!_" she exclaimed. An uncomfortable silence ensued.
Again, in 1909, a Cabinet Minister's allusion in a speech to certain
newspaper proprietors whom a Conservative Prime Minister had "taken
the precaution to make into barons" inspired the King's private
Secretary to write a letter to a correspondent in which he stated
that, notwithstanding the Minister's statement, "the creation of Peers
remains a Royal prerogative."
[Illustration: THE HOUSE OF LORDS IN 1742
FROM AN ENGRAVING BY JOHN FINE]
The House of Lords now includes some 616 members, divided, as we have
seen, into four classes; the Lords Spiritual, the Lords
Temporal--Princes of the Blood, Dukes, Marquesses, Earls, Viscounts,
Barons--the Representative Peers of Scotland and Ireland, and the
Lords of Appeal in Ordinary.
The writ of summons, which did not cease to be regarded as a burden
until the reign of Edward II., is now looked upon as a privilege and
right which few peers would willingly forego. And the question of
mutual precedence which was never mooted until the creation of
Viscounts in Henry VI.'s time, is now a matter of the utmost
importance to the occupants of the Gilded Chamber.
The first Parliament that is recognized as conferring the right of
peerage was that of the eleventh year of Edward I. The Lords decided,
in the recent case of Lord Stourton claiming the Barony of Mowbray,
that a writ summoning a peer to this Parliament, followed by a
sitting, gave his descendants a seat in the House.
All Peers of the Realm--a phrase which came into use in 1322--are
entitled to seats in the House of Lords once they have attained their
majority. Infancy disqualifies a peer from receiving a writ of
summons; failure to take the oath or to affirm deprives him of the
right of sitting. No alien may sit in the Lords, nor may a bankrupt or
a felon, and the House as a Court of Justice may at any time pass
sentence disqualifying a peer from sitting.
The functions of the Upper House which have been the subject of so
much recent controversy and are still engrossing the attention of
Parliament and the public, have been in former times variously defined
by friendly or adverse critics. The Lords have been described as the
brake on the parliamentary wheel or as the clog in the parliamentary
machine. Horace Walpole wrote some bitter verses on the subject of
that House whose members "sleep in monumental state, to show the spot
where their great Fathers sate;"
"Thou senseless Hall, whose injudicious space,
Like Death, confounds a various mismatched race,
Where Kings and clowns, th' ambitious and the mean,
Compose th' inactive soporific scene."[43]
[43] "Letters to Sir H. Mann," vol. i. p. 380.
Peers themselves no doubt regard the Upper Chamber as a haven where
merit may receive its ultimate reward; where the achievements and the
recompense of the deserving are suitably immortalized. As a "compact
bulwark against the temporary violence of popular passion," to use
Disraeli's phrase, and as a council for weighing the resolutions of
the Commons who may at times be led away by public clamour or a sudden
impulse, the Second Chamber is regarded by its defenders as of the
greatest constitutional value. Lord Salisbury once declared that the
chief duty of the House of Lords was to represent the permanent as
opposed to the passing feelings of the English nation; "to interpose a
salutary obstacle to rash or inconsiderate legislation; and to protect
the people from the consequences of their own imprudence." Moreover,
the Upper House thus has an opportunity of improving the details of
measures, many of which leave the House of Commons in an unworkable
shape, owing to the conditions under which they are amended and passed
through it, and, but for the alterations effected by the Lords, would
remain unworkable when they came to be embodied in the Statute-book.
It has never been the course of the Upper House to resist a continued
and deliberately expressed public opinion. The Lords, as Lord Derby
affirmed in 1846, "always have bowed and always will bow, to the
expression of such opinion."[44] But although history to a certain
extent bears out this statement, on more than one occasion the hand of
popular clamour has battered at their doors for a long time before
wringing from them a reluctant acquiescence. There can be no doubt
that if the country were to express itself definitely upon any
question at a General Election, no House of Lords would be strong
enough (or weak enough) to attempt to thwart the public will. But
there have been numerous instances in which the peers have endeavoured
without success to do so. In vain did they delay Parliamentary Reform
in 1831, when Sidney Smith likened the House of Lords to Mrs.
Partington, the old lady of Sidmouth who, during the great storm of
1824, tried to push away the Atlantic with her mop.[45] In vain did
they inveigh against the passing of the Jewish Oaths Bill or the Bill
for the abolition of the Corn Laws. They were eventually compelled to
pass the latter, not because they thought it a good Bill, but because,
as the Duke of Wellington said, it had passed the House of Commons by
a huge majority, and "the Queen's Government must be supported."
[44] On the Second Reading of the Corn Importation Bill, May 25, 1846.
[45] "Works," p. 564.
On the other side it may be said that they have occasionally
interpreted more successfully than the Lower House the views of the
electorate, and of this perhaps the rejection of the Home Rule Bill of
1893 is the most prominent example.
Even without actually rejecting Bills the Lords have frequently
opposed the will of the Commons by returning the Bills sent up to them
in so amended and altered a shape as to prove wholly unacceptable; and
an appeal to the country upon every point of difference, or even upon
every Bill wholly rejected, is of course impracticable.
In some such cases the Commons have had recourse to a method of
coercing the Lords, known by the name of "tacking," which depends for
its efficacy upon the acceptation of certain doctrines relating to
Money Bills laid down by the Commons at intervals during the last
three centuries, and in the main acquiesced in by the Lords.
The history of the matter, though of acute interest at the present
time, is too long to go into here. It will be sufficient to mention
that in 1678, as the result of a violent struggle between the two
Houses, the Commons passed Resolutions asserting (not for the first
time) that all Money Bills must have their origin in the Lower House,
and that the Hereditary Chamber is powerless to amend them. And though
the Lords at the time protested against both these conclusions, by
their action through a long course of years they must be taken to have
acquiesced in them. If, then, the Lords were unable to amend a Money
Bill, they might be compelled to accept an obnoxious measure of a
different nature if it were included in such a Bill, the whole of
which they would be loth to throw out. This was the process adopted in
several instances by the Commons, against which the Lords passed, in
1702, a Standing Order declaring the "annexing any foreign matter" to
be "unparliamentary and tending to the destruction of the
Constitution."
In 1770 the Commons brought in a Bill to annul the royal grants of
forfeited property, and, knowing that it would be objectionable to the
Upper House, cunningly tacked it on to a Money Bill. The Lords
returned it, with the foreign matter excised; but it was sent back to
them once more, and, acting on the advice of the Duke of Marlborough
who counselled concession, they eventually swallowed the whole mixture
as gracefully as they could find it in their hearts to do. In 1860,
the two Houses came into collision again on the same subject, when the
Lords threw out the Bill abolishing the duty on paper, which was a
financial question. Gladstone retorted in the following year by
tacking this Bill on to the Budget, and in this shape the Lords passed
it. But their right of rejection--which indeed is involved in the
necessity for their assent to every Bill--was never questioned, either
in 1678 or since, until the Budget Bill was thrown out in December,
1909, when the whole question of the relations between the two Houses
was brought into vital prominence and made the subject of an agitation
not easily to be assuaged.
There has always existed a spirit of antagonism between the two
Houses. Gladstone declared that the Commons were eyed by the Lords "as
Lancelot was eyed by Modred," and this mutual antipathy has
occasionally expressed itself in overt acts of rudeness. During a
debate in the Lords in 1770, on the defenceless state of the nation, a
peer moved that the House be cleared of strangers. A number of the
Commons happened to be standing at the Bar, but, notwithstanding their
protests, they were unceremoniously hustled out, being followed by a
volley of hisses and jeers as they left the Chamber. The Duke of
Richmond and many other peers were so disgusted at this exhibition of
ill-feeling that they walked out of the House. Colonel Barré has left
a graphic description of the scene. The Lords, he says, developed all
the passions and violence of a mob. "One of the heads of this mob--for
there were two--was a Scotchman. I heard him call out several times,
'Clear the Hoose! Clear the Hoose!' The face of the other was scarcely
human; for he had contrived to put on a nose of enormous size, that
disfigured him completely, and his eyes started out of his head in so
frightful a way that he seemed to be undergoing the operation of being
strangled."[46]
[46] The peer in question had not donned a false nose for the
occasion, as might be imagined, but was merely wearing the ordinary
working nose of aristocratic proportions with which Providence had
supplied him.
Two years after this scene, in 1772, Burke was kept waiting for three
hours with a Bill which he was carrying from the Commons to the Lords.
When he subsequently reported his ill-treatment to the Lower House,
their indignation knew no bounds, and they proceeded to revenge
themselves in a somewhat puerile manner. The very next Bill that the
House of Lords sent down to them was rejected unanimously, and the
Speaker threw the offensive measure on to the floor of the House,
whence it was kicked to the door by a number of indignant members.
It is not difficult to understand the cause of jealousy and anger
between the Houses, in spite of the fact that so many of the Lords
have at one time or another been members of the Commons, and so many
of the Commons hope to end their days in the Lords. (Croker, in a
letter to Lord Hatherton, recalls a visit he paid as a stranger to the
Upper House in 1857, where, of the thirty peers present, there was not
one but had sat with him in the Commons, including the Duke of
Wellington and the Lord Chancellor. "It shows," he says, "how
completely the House of Commons has been the nursery of the House of
Lords."[47]) The resentment against the Lords that undoubtedly exists
in the bosoms of the Commons, which is not confined to one side of the
House, but seems to be universal, results from the power of rejection
which the peers can at any time exercise with regard to a measure, or
of making amendments by which they can alter it out of all
recognition, thus nullifying in a single day the labours of months in
the Lower House. And when it is considered that this ruinous result is
due not only to men who owe their seats to their successful exertions
in various professions, but also in larger proportion to those who owe
them to being, as Lord Thurlow said of the Duke of Grafton, "the
accident of an accident,"[48] the situation must to many minds appear
wholly intolerable.
[47] Croker's "Letters," vol. i. p. 85.
[48] One is reminded of the reply addressed by the Emperor Alexander
to Madame de Stael who was complimenting Russia on possessing so able
a ruler. "Alas, Madame," he said, "I am nothing but a happy accident!"
One very clear cause of failure in the House of Lords to give
satisfaction lies in the fact that, although government by Party is
the very groundwork of the parliamentary constitution, as far as the
Upper House is concerned such an idea might just as well not exist at
all. Whatever the political complexion of the party in power in the
House of Commons, the Lords maintain an invariable Conservative
majority, indifferent to the swing of any popular pendulum, and as
fixed and unalterable as the sun. But at no time for the last century
has the inequality been so marked as at present, when it may be
truthfully said that the Liberal peers would scarcely fill a dozen
"hackney coaches."[49] And though the Liberal party has created a
considerable number of peers during the last few years, it has never
recovered from the secession of Liberal Unionists, and it would take
many years of Liberal supremacy and large drafts upon the Prerogative
of the Crown to restore even the comparative balance of early
Victorian days.
[49] At the time of the French Revolution, the country supported the
Government so strongly that the Opposition dwindled away to nothing.
It was even jestingly asserted that the Whigs could all have been held
in one hackney coach. "This is a calumny," said George Byng; "we
should have filled two!" Campbell's "Lives of the Chancellors," vol.
v. p. 614.
This may or may not be an advantage, for though the staunch Tory is
tempted to exclaim in the words of Disraeli: "Thank God there is a
House of Lords!" the equally staunch Radical is scarcely likely to
consider the existence of this perpetually antagonistic majority a
sufficient cause for gratitude towards the Almighty. The difficulty of
equalising the parties seems insurmountable, so long as ennoblement is
an expensive luxury and Peers continue to be drawn from the wealthy
classes.[50] There is, too, something essentially Conservative about
the atmosphere of the House of Lords, which sooner or later
impregnates the blood of its inmates; under its influence the Liberal
of one generation rapidly exhibits a tendency to develop into the
Conservative of the next. But this charge is no doubt one which may be
brought with more or less truth against any Second Chamber, however
constituted, which is composed of men of a certain age and position,
not immediately responsible to the fluctuating voices of the people.
Whether one considers such stability to be a merit or the reverse
depends upon whether one adopts Lord Palmerston's and Lord Salisbury's
views of the functions of a Senate, or regards it merely as a useful
and select body of legislators enjoying certain limited powers of
criticism and delay.
[50] It is suggested that the balance of party could be adjusted by
the Government persuading the Crown to create a number of peerages
sufficient to flood the House with peers of their particular political
persuasion. In 1712, Queen Anne was prevailed upon to create twelve
peers in a single day, in order to pass a Government measure. "If
these twelve had not been enough," said Bolingbroke, "we could have
given them another dozen!" William IV. was prepared to create a
hundred new peers to ensure the passing of the Reform Bill of 1832. It
remains to be seen whether such an idea is nowadays practicable.
So much has been written about this great modern controversy, that it
is unnecessary to increase the literature which exists upon both
sides. The issue seems to lie between reducing the Second Chamber to
comparative impotence or attempting by judicious reforms in its
composition to bring it into greater sympathy with the First Chamber.
The Resolutions recently passed by the Commons,[51] have for their
object the complete annihilation of the latter in all matters of
finance, and the retention for them of such modified powers of
influencing other legislation as would enable them to delay Bills
during the early years of a shortened Parliament, and refer them to
the country during its last two years. The question of "tacking," in
Money Bills, is to be referred to the sole arbitrament of the Speaker;
but this becomes of trifling importance when it is argued that almost
any revolutionary change could be effected within the corners of a
legitimate financial measure. The objection taken to the overriding of
the Veto in the case of a Bill thrice presented, is that it amounts to
one-Chamber legislation and would result in two classes of Acts--one
passed by the Commons alone, and the other by both Houses.
[51] "1. That it is expedient that the House of Lords be disabled by
Law from rejecting or amending a Money Bill, but that any such
limitation by Law shall not be taken to diminish or qualify the
existing rights and privileges of the House of Commons.
"For the purpose of this Resolution a Bill shall be considered a Money
Bill if, in the opinion of the Speaker, it contains only provisions
dealing with all or any of the following subjects, namely, the
imposition, repeal, remission, alteration, or regulation of taxation;
Charges on the Consolidated Funds or the provision of Money by
Parliament; Supply; the appropriation, control, or regulation of
public money; the raising or guarantee of any loan or the repayment
thereof; or matters incidental to those subjects or any of them."
"2. That it is expedient that the powers of the House of Lords, as
respects Bills other than Money Bills, be restricted by Law, so that
any such Bill which has passed the House of Commons in three
successive Sessions, and, having been sent up to the House of Lords at
least one month before the end of the Session, has been rejected by
that House in each of those sessions, shall become Law without the
consent of the House of Lords on the Royal Assent being declared;
Provided that at least two years shall have elapsed between the date
of the first introduction of the Bill in the House of Commons and the
date on which it passes the House of Commons for the third time.
"For the purposes of this Resolution a Bill shall be treated as
rejected by the House of Lords if it has not been passed by the House
of Lords either without Amendment or with such Amendments only as may
be agreed upon by both Houses."
"3. That it is expedient to limit the duration of Parliament to five
years."
The policy of Reform, on the other hand, is unacceptable to those who
desire the predominance of the First Chamber, as any successful scheme
for removing present defects in the constitution of the Lords--_e.g._
the excessive size of the House, the preponderance therein of one
party, and the presence of undesirable members--must result in its
increased strength and importance. Consequently the Commons have
neither made nor encouraged any attempts in that direction.
Such suggestions as have taken any shape have been proposed by the
Lords themselves, and the history of the last thirty years exhibits
many internal efforts to reform on the part of those dissatisfied with
the ancient constitution of the House. In 1884, Lord Rosebery's motion
for a Select Committee to consider the best means of promoting the
efficiency of the House of Lords, was negatived. Four years later he
moved for another Select Committee to inquire into the Constitution of
the House. In the same year an elaborate Bill of Lord Dunraven's for
reforming the Lords was rejected, and another, promoted by Lord
Salisbury, was withdrawn after having passed the second reading. In
1908 a committee met, under the chairmanship of Lord Rosebery, to look
into the whole question, and issued a most interesting and practical
report, full of admirable recommendations. This committee began by
pointing out the expediency of reducing the numbers of an assembly
which, within recent years has increased to such an extent as to
render itself too unwieldy for legislative purposes. It strongly urged
that the recommendations to the Crown for the creation of hereditary
peerages should be restricted within somewhat narrower limits. Many
peers, as the report explained, are obviously ill-suited to their
Parliamentary duties; others find the work irksome and distasteful; of
a few it may euphemistically be observed that their release from the
burden of legislative responsibilities would be eminently desirable.
Lord Rosebery's committee therefore came to the conclusion that the
dignity of a peer and the dignity of a Lord of Parliament should be
separate and distinct, and that, except in the case of peers of the
Blood Royal, the possession of a peerage should not necessarily be
attended with the right to sit and vote in the House of Lords. A
further suggestion was made that the hereditary peers should be
represented by two hundred of their number, elected by them to sit as
Lords of Parliament, not for life, but for each parliament, and that
the number of Spiritual Peers should be proportionately reduced to
ten. The inclusion of representatives from the Colonies, and the
granting of a writ of summons to a number of qualified persons who had
held high office in the State, figured prominently in this scheme of
reform.
Following up these recommendations, the House on the motion of Lord
Rosebery has recently adopted the following resolutions for its own
reconstitution:--
"(1) That a strong and efficient Second Chamber is not
merely an integral part of the British Constitution, but is
necessary to the well-being of the State and to the balance
of Parliament.
"(2) That such a Chamber can best be obtained by the reform
and reconstitution of the House of Lords.
"(3) That a necessary preliminary of such reform and
reconstitution is the acceptance of the principle that the
possession of a peerage should no longer of itself give the
right to sit and vote in the House of Lords."[52]
[52] The following further Resolutions stand upon the Notice Paper and
still await consideration:--
"(1) That in future the House of Lords shall consist of Lords of
Parliament: A. Chosen by the whole body of hereditary peers from among
themselves and by nomination by the Crown. B. Sitting by virtue of
offices and of qualifications held by them. C. Chosen from outside.
"(2) That the term of tenure for all Lords of Parliament shall be the
same, except in the case of those who sit ex-officio, who would sit so
long as they held the office for which they sit."
We are sometimes tempted nowadays to laugh, like "the gardener Adam
and his wife," at the claims of long descent. But the pride of birth
and blood is common to all nations, perhaps less so in England than
elsewhere. The French ducal family of Levis boasted a descent from the
princes of Judah, and would produce an old painting in which one of
their ancestors was represented as bowing, hat in hand, to the Virgin,
who was saying, "Couvrez-vous, mon cousin!" Similarly the family of
Cory possessed a picture of Noah with one foot in the ark, exclaiming,
"Sauvez les papiers de la maison de Cory!"[53] Byron is said to have
been prouder of his pedigree than of his poems, and it is to be hoped
that our aristocracy will never entirely forget that their ancestors
have handed down to them traditions which are more precious than the
titles and lands by which they are represented.
[53] Hayward's "Essays," p. 305.
One cannot altogether relish the sight of several peers, who had been
considered incompetent to manage their own affairs, hastening to
Westminster at the call of a party "Whip" to record their votes upon
Imperial concerns of the greatest importance. And though it must be
admitted that it is rare indeed for the incompetent or degenerate
members of the Upper House to take any part in its deliberations, the
fact that they have the undoubted right to do so scarcely tends to
enhance the respect in which that assembly is popularly held. In
spite, however, of the occasional presence of "undesirables," it is
generally acknowledged that if any question arises requiring a display
of more than ordinary knowledge of history, or more practical wisdom
or learning, these can nowhere be found so well as in the Upper House.
There, too, the level of oratory and of common sense is perceptibly
higher than in the popular assembly. But the Reform Bill of 1832
enabled the Commons to speak in the name of the people, which they had
never hitherto done, and which the Lords cannot do, and thus created
that wide gulf which now separates them from the House of Lords. Here,
however, as well as there, are many men who realise that, in the words
of Lord Rosebery, they have a great heritage, "their own honour, and
the honour of their ancestors, and of their posterity, to guard."[54]
[54] Hansard, vol. 289, p. 957 (1884).