Ci5 
 
^'::5->-V<5:i. 
 
 t'feMi:lai^ 
 
 John Galen Howard 
 
Sixpence Nctt 
 
 British Aristocracy 
 
 _ll and the 
 
 rHouse of Lords 
 
 Edward Carpenter 
 
 London : A, C. FIFIELD 
 
British Aristocracy and tlic 
 House of Lords 
 
British Aristocracy 
 
 ami the 
 
 House of Lords 
 
 By 
 
 Edward Carpenter 
 
 London 
 
 A. C. Fifield, 44 Fleet Street, E.C. 
 
 1908 
 
Reprinted by permission 
 from " The Albany Review y' April, 1908 
 
 WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD. 
 IKINTERS, rLVMDUTH 
 
 /). M.„ 
 
 GIFT 
 
C5 + (7 
 C35 
 
 British Aristocnicy and the 
 House of Lords 
 
 IT has often been said that our victory at 
 Waterloo was a great misfortune to Eng- 
 land ; and in general terms the truth of this 
 remark can hardly be gainsaid. Our successes 
 as against the armies of the Revolution certainly 
 kept the current of new human forces and ideas 
 associated with that movement at a distance, 
 and warded it off from our shores. The feudal 
 system, broken down and disorganised all over 
 the Continent by Napoleon, preserved its old 
 tradition in these islands. And one conse- 
 quence has been that, in the matters of our 
 Land-system and our Aristocracy, we are now 
 a hundred years behind the rest of Western 
 Europe.* 
 
 Our land-system, with its large estates breed- 
 ing a servile and poor-spirited population of 
 tenantry and farm labourers, has had the eftcct 
 
 ♦ Not to mention our Penal and Civil Codes, so anti- 
 quated and cumbrous compared with the Code Napoleon. 
 
 5 
 
 r.iS'iOS'jcj 
 
British Aristocracy 
 
 of clogging and depressing British agriculture 
 — to such a degree, indeed, that the latter has 
 become a thing despised and neglected by our- 
 selves and derided by our neighbours. And 
 our Aristocracy has developed to so monstrous 
 and importunate a form that, like some huge 
 parasite, it threatens disease and ruin to the 
 organism upon which it has fastened. It is 
 with the latter trouble that I am at this moment 
 concerned. 
 
 It is indeed curious that Britain, which has 
 for so long a time boasted herself in the fore- 
 front of human progress, should now be saddled 
 with this institution — a reactionary institution 
 of such magnitude and dead weight as no other 
 nation in the world can show. And more 
 curious still is it that, all the time, with great 
 diligence and apparent zeal, she is enlarging 
 and building up the absurd incubus which 
 weighs her to the ground. 
 
 Poor Britain ! with all her other burdens — 
 her burdens of crying poverty, of huge popula- 
 tion, of limited land, of distressing fogs both 
 in the mental and physical atmosphere — to be 
 actually fastening and riveting this extra one 
 upon her own back ! What must one think 
 of such a nation ? Has she lost her wits, and 
 does she at all divine what she is doing ? Is 
 she still lost in a sleep of centuries, and living 
 
 6 
 
Alul the Mouse of Lords 
 
 in divams of three or four hundred years 
 ago ? 
 
 There has in the past been a certain glamour 
 and romance about the Feudal Aristocracy. 
 Perhaps distance lends enchantment. We like 
 to lose ourselves in a kind of Tcnnysonian 
 dream of knights and ladies ; we know that 
 once there were bold bad barons, who certainly 
 were a terrible pest to their contemporaries, 
 but whom we rather admire in the far per- 
 spective ; we do not forget the great historical 
 families, whose largesses and whose crimes 
 were on a splendid scale, whose petty jealousies 
 and quarrels with each other were the ruin of 
 peasants and the devastation of country-sides, 
 but whose noblesse oblige had elements of 
 heroism and sacrifice in it, even on account 
 of the very fact of its meaning the maintenance 
 of their own Order as against the world. We 
 may readily concede that these people did 
 some work that had to be done, we may allow 
 that there was a certain poetry and creative 
 power in it ; but what has all that to do with 
 the modern Aristocracy ? 
 
 Of the 550 hereditary peers who to-day con- 
 stitute the bulk of the House of Lords, it is 
 very doubtful if a single one had a relative 
 present at Kunnymede and the signing of the 
 Charter. It is said that only five can even 
 
British Aristocracy 
 
 trace their families back to that century. In 
 the reign of EHzabeth the lay Lords numbered 
 no more than sixty. Even the Stuarts, who 
 lavished honours on the most dubious favour- 
 ites, only increased the list of peers by about 
 100. It was — and the moral is easily drawn — 
 in the reign of George III that the great growth 
 of the modern peerage took place. George 
 himself, anxious to strengthen his weak hand 
 in the Government, insisted on nominating a 
 large contingent — his congeners and equals in 
 point of brains and education — a crass and fat, 
 snuff - taking and port - wine - bibbing crew. 
 William Pitt — and this was part of his settled 
 policy — drowned out the old Whig families in the 
 House of Lords " by pouring into it members 
 of the middle and commercial class, who 
 formed the basis of his political power — small 
 landowners, bankers, merchants, nabobs, army- 
 contractors, lawyers, soldiers, and seamen. It 
 became the stronghold not of blood, but of 
 property, the representative of the great estates 
 and great fortunes which the vast increase of 
 English wealth was building up."* The whole 
 process was a sort of strange counterblast to 
 the French Revolution. But with Pitt's suc- 
 cessors it continued to such an extent that 
 
 * J. R. Green, Short History of the English People, 
 ch. X. 
 
 8 
 
And the House of Lords 
 
 actually the total number of peerages created 
 during George the Third's reign was 388 ! * 
 
 And from that time forward the same. 
 Britain, to accentuate her victory over Napoleon, 
 and to assure the workl of her anti-revolutionary 
 princi}-»les, steadily added and added to her 
 tale of titled heads : till now — instead of the 
 feudal chiefs and royal boon-companions and 
 buccaneers and sea-dogs of old days — we have 
 a wonderful breccia of brewers and bankers, 
 colliery owners and Stock Exchange magnates, 
 newspaper proprietors, wine dealers, general 
 manufacturers and industrial directors, among 
 whom the old landlords lie embedded like 
 fossils, t It must be confessed that whatever 
 romance a title may have once carried with it 
 has now quite gone. It is hardly possible, one 
 would think, for the most Philistine Briton or 
 world-foraging Yankee to perceive any glamour 
 in the present aristocracy. Indeed, one may 
 say that — although, of course, it includes some 
 very worthy persons — a certain vulgarity at- 
 taches to the class as a whole, and that it is 
 
 * May's Constitutional History, vol. i. The numlxr of 
 baronets created during the same reign was 4()4 ! and of 
 knights such a crowd that the order has never recovered 
 from the somewhat alderman ic and provincial flavour it 
 then acquired. 
 
 t Since 1800 the new peers created amount to 376 ! 
 
 9 
 
British Aristocracy 
 
 doubtful whether any really self-respecting 
 commoner would consent to be included in it. 
 
 But the curious fact is^ as I have said, that 
 it continues to grow and be added to. At 
 present the United Kingdom is blessed with 
 750 peers in all (not all of them in the House 
 of Lords), besides an innumerable host of lesser 
 dignities. The late Conservative Government, 
 during its ten years of office, scored fifty-seven 
 additions to the House — not a bad count ; but 
 Campbell-Bannerman beat all records by creat- 
 ing twenty in the course of his first eighteen 
 months ! If the accretions to the ranks of 
 Rank are to continue at similar rates, imagina- 
 tion gasps at the probable situation, say in 
 fifty years. 
 
 With regard to this extraordinary freak of 
 " C.-B.'s," it is difficult to find a rational 
 explanation, which — in view of the late debate 
 about the sale of honours to wealthy party 
 supporters — is not also a rather unpleasant one. 
 In the story of *' Bel and the Dragon," when 
 Daniel determined to destroy the great Idol 
 which the people worshipped, he fed into its 
 capacious maw fresh lumps of " pitch and fat 
 and hair " (of which ingredients, no doubt, the 
 monster was already composed). He seemed 
 to be nourishing and fattening it, but in reality 
 he destroyed it, by causing it to " burst in 
 
And the I louse of Lords 
 
 sunder." l>iit whrther the Liberal jxirty really 
 wishes or thinks to break ii}^ the House of Lords 
 in the same way is extremely doubtful. It is 
 certainly an odd way of doing battle. 
 
 That it can be for a moment supposed that 
 that House can be converted into a progressive 
 institution by ample creation of Liberal peers 
 is out of the question. In the first place, there 
 is the huge existing Conservative majority 
 there, to be overcome before anything like a 
 balance can be established. In the second 
 place, there is the undeniable and portentous 
 fact that for turning a man into a Tory, a day 
 in that House is better than a thousand (out- 
 side). For reasons ami in ways not very 
 difficult to see there is a steady social and 
 conventional pressure going on in those sur- 
 roundings, which gradually transforms well- 
 meaning and progressive folk into rigid ob- 
 structives. Of the ninety-two peers (and their 
 successors) created by Liberal Prime Ministers 
 in the last fifty years, only forty-six, that is 
 one half, are now Liberals. Of the twenty 
 peers lately created by Campbell-Bannerman, 
 how many will even call themselves Liberal 
 at the end of another decade ? Thirdly, it 
 must be remembered that of those who do thus 
 call themselves Liberals, and under that head 
 are created peers, their real liberality and 
 
British Aristocracy 
 
 culture and public spirit (for the most part, 
 and with a few very genuine exceptions) are 
 only skin-deep. They have worked mainly for 
 their own private ends and advancement ; they 
 have been successful men in business or in law ; 
 they have engineered society influences ; they 
 have made themselves grateful to highly placed 
 personages ; they have dumped down enormous 
 funds on occasions for election and other pur- 
 poses ; they have even obtained what they 
 wanted by forbearing to press for the payment 
 of debts ! In a variety of ways they have been 
 useful to their own side ; and sometimes they 
 have been so little useful that for that reason 
 it has been thought better to remove them to 
 ** another place." But whatever the cause of 
 their advancement, the end to which it leads 
 will in most cases be the same. It is hard to 
 believe — as Mr. Joseph Clayton says in his 
 excellent little book, The Truth about the Lords — 
 that the cause of " temperance legislation will 
 be assisted in the Upper House by Lords Burton 
 and Blyth"; or that ''the progress of labour 
 legislation, in favour of a shorter working day 
 and the abolition of child-labour, will be has- 
 tened by Lords Nunburnholme, Pirrie, Glan- 
 tawe, and Winterstoke." Having climbed the 
 Liberal ladder, the great probabihty remains 
 that they will scorn the base degrees by which 
 
And the House of Lords 
 
 they did ascend, and retire finally to swell the 
 obstructive influences in the Second Chamber. 
 
 Lastly — and most important of all — the prob- 
 ability that the House of Lords can be con- 
 verted into a progressive institution by the 
 creation of Liberal peers is practically nil, for 
 the simple reason that the Liberal party itself 
 is not essentially progressive ; and as time 
 goes on gets less and less differentiated in all 
 important respects from the Conservative party 
 — into which in the end it will probably merge. 
 
 The whole magnification and bolstering-up 
 of both the House of Lords and the "Aristoc- 
 racy " generally in this country is certainly an 
 extraordinary phenomenon, and one which 
 would hardly be possible in any other country 
 of the world in this year a.d. Pausing for a 
 moment to take a bird's-eye view of it, and 
 guarding ourselves against undue self-deprecia- 
 tions or too-sweeping comparisons of the Briton 
 with other nations, let us just make a plain 
 matter-of-fact estimate of the situation. 
 
 One might suppose that here in the general 
 Aristocracy, among the pick and pink of the 
 nation, endowed with wealth, education, and 
 far-reaching influence, would be found the 
 leaders and j)ioneers of every great movement ; 
 that art and science, sociology and politics 
 would be illuminated and inspired, organised 
 
 »3 
 
British Aristocracy 
 
 and marshalled by this class ; that abroad it 
 would stand as representative of what was best 
 and most vigorous in our people ; and that at 
 home and in the country-sides it would set the 
 tone and animate the centres of the most healthy 
 and useful life. What do we actually find ? 
 A waste of dullness, commonplaceness and re- 
 action. This Aristocracy does nothing — next 
 to nothing that can be said to be of public 
 utility,* for even the work of the ordinary 
 country gentleman on County Councils and as 
 a member of the Great Unpaid can hardly be 
 placed to its account. It produces (in the 
 present day) no artists, no men of letters of any 
 distinction, no inventors, no great men of 
 science, no serious reformers, hardly even a 
 great general or political leader. And this is 
 certainly astounding when one considers the 
 exceptional opportunities its members have 
 for success and advancement in any of these 
 directions, and the ease with which they can 
 command a hearing and a following. 
 
 It is true, of course, that occasionally a man 
 of decided note and ability — a Kelvin or a 
 Tennyson, a Beaconsfield or a Kitchener — on 
 
 * It is nowadays enormously connected among the 
 Directors of Joint Stock Companies and Banks and other 
 money-lending concerns, but whether its labours in these 
 connexions are of public utility is a question. 
 
And the House of Lords 
 
 account of real or generally admitted service to 
 the nation, and not on acconnt of his swollen 
 money-bags or his scheming self-advertisement, 
 is collated into the Aristocracy. But such 
 individuals are not numerous, and they arc not 
 the product of the Aristocracy. They arc im- 
 portations into it which, alas ! do not modify 
 its general character, but too often, like good 
 building materials thrown into a swamp, simply 
 sink into it and disappear. The amount of 
 useful genius or talent which the institution, 
 from its hereditary deeps, supplies to the world 
 is an almost negligible quantity. 
 
 Again — not to make too great a demand in 
 the way of world-wide genius or service, but to 
 keep to humbler spheres — we may point out 
 that the class in question does not rise to the 
 occasion of its most obvious duties. Despite 
 the efforts of Lord Carrington to arouse its 
 activity, it does not remodel villages on its 
 estates, or create experimental colonies on its 
 broad acres ; it does not meet the very genuine 
 demand now existing for small holdings ; it 
 does not even lend farm lands to Boards of 
 Guardians for the use of the unemployed. 
 If these things have to be tackled, they are left 
 to the generosity and {>liilanthr()pic zeal of 
 wealthy Americans, who come across the water 
 to polish uj) the old country. It does not 
 
 «5 
 
British Aristocracy 
 
 exhibit any pride in making its factories or its 
 quarries or its collieries (where its revenues 
 spring from such sources) models of excellent 
 and cleanly management, with the best condi- 
 tions possible for the workers concerned in them. 
 It organises none of the social reforms in town 
 or country which are so cryingly needed, and 
 which it ought to be so well qualified to initiate. 
 It sometimes appears (though, of course, this is 
 not really the fact) as though it could think of 
 nothing more beneficial for its rural demesnes 
 and their populations than to shoot over them, 
 or more appropriate for its town duties than to 
 employ plenty of dressmakers for Society 
 functions. 
 
 One must not certainly deny that these good 
 people move up in squadrons, and are greatly 
 in evidence as Patrons and Patronesses of 
 Bazaars, or of Hospitals, or of philanthropic 
 institutions of various kinds. Anything that 
 is colourless and non-committal, which is popu- 
 larly helpful, without being a severe tax on 
 pecuniary funds or physical energies, and in 
 which 'a name or a title carries weight, is pecu- 
 liarly favoured. As Mr. Clayton says (p. 102), 
 " For the laying of foundation-stones, opening 
 of important buildings, presiding over religious 
 and philanthropic meetings, the directing of 
 hmited liabihty companies, the * governing ' 
 
 16 
 
And the House of Lords 
 
 of self-governing colonies, and the entertaining 
 of political followers, they are in great demand." 
 And with all these duties, and the demands of 
 " Society " generally, it really would not be 
 fair to call them idle. We may even say that 
 they are enormously busy. 
 
 It would be foolish also to deny — what is 
 sufficiently obvious — that among the titled 
 people, especially the older families, there are 
 found some folk of a humane and cultured class 
 of mind, with charming and genuine good 
 manners, simple habits, and a real sense of 
 responsibility and even affection towards those 
 dependent on them ; and for the existence of 
 such people, in whatever sphere, we may be 
 grateful, especially in these days when they are 
 in danger of being drowned out by tawdry new- 
 comers. 
 
 But all this — in the way of benefits or ad- 
 vantages accruing from the Aristocratic system 
 — is very negative. On the other hand, the 
 positive evils of the system do not admit of 
 being overlooked. To the mass of meaningless 
 fashion and expensive idleness created by our 
 social arrangements generally, it accords an 
 imprimatur of distinction and desirability. The 
 ilagrant sale of high honours — worse, apparently, 
 in the last dozen years than ever before — 
 corrupts the nation with thr resultant lesson 
 
 «7 
 
British Aristocracy 
 
 that to make a fortune anyhow and to spend 
 it for personal aggrandisement is the best way 
 to gain distinction and pubhc respect. Traffic- 
 king in titles has become quite a profession, 
 and a rich man has now little difficulty, through 
 the mediation of diplomatic but impecunious 
 ladies of rank, in getting himself made a knight 
 or a baronet. A quite uncalled-for and dis- 
 proportionate power is put into the hands of 
 persons who are really not worthy of it, whose 
 aims are vulgar, whose education is poor, on 
 whose tables hardly a book of real merit is to 
 be found (often, certainly, not as good literature 
 as is seen in a better-class workman's home) ; 
 and among whom the questions most important 
 to be discussed are whether golf or motoring, 
 baccarat or bridge, shall be the order of the day. 
 Gangs of similar folk use their " influence " to 
 get important positions in Army or Navy or 
 official circles ffiled up by relatives or favourites ; 
 and the resultant scandals of incompetence or 
 maladministration, which later years inevitably 
 unfold, are hushed up by the same influences. 
 The nation is heavily injured, but the damage 
 does not recoil on the heads of those most 
 responsible. " Society " twaddle fills the news- 
 papers and impresses the uninitiated and un- 
 learned ; the aimless life and ideals silting 
 downwards infect the masses of the people with 
 
 i8 
 
And the House of Lords 
 
 a most futile and feeble conception of life ; and 
 in little matters of dress and etiquette ultimately 
 make the middle classes even worse than those 
 wiiom tiiey imitate, and from whom they sup- 
 pose the fashions to originate. 
 
 To return to the House of Lords. I have no 
 intention here of dwelling on its record of in- 
 etTiciency and obstruction. Of its political 
 history during the last century ; of its meagre 
 and scanty attendances, even over the most 
 important questions ; of its marvellous in- 
 efticiency and want of comprehension in dealing 
 with the same ; of its indifference when any 
 human or humane interest has been concerned ; 
 of its dead obstructiveness when such things 
 seemed to endanger in any degree its " rights 
 of property"; of its chnging to the death- 
 penalty (in 1810) for the stealing of values over 
 5s., and to the same (in 1820) for values over 
 £10, and to the same again (in 1839) for sheep- 
 stealing ; of its maintenance by large majori- 
 ties of vivisection (1879), and of trap pigeon- 
 shooting (1883) ; of its turning deaf ears to the 
 pleading cry of children in the coal mines 
 (1842), or of little chimney-sweep urchins in 
 the chimneys (1849), or of evicted and famine- 
 stricken peasants in Ireland (1880-2) ; of its 
 steady refusal, until fairly forced, to grant the 
 rightful and natural demands of citizens for 
 
British Aristocracy 
 
 suffrage and self-government and religious equal- 
 ity and the education of their boys and girls ; 
 or to grant the demands of women for rights 
 over their own property and persons, and of 
 men for the protection of their own labour- 
 power ; — are not all these things written in the 
 great books of the Chronicles of the last hun- 
 dred years, as well as in the pages of the Alman- 
 acks and the manifestos of Mr. Stead ? There 
 is only one opinion about them ; and what has 
 been said a thousand times it is needless to 
 repeat. 
 
 Nor can we fairly expect anything else. If 
 we indulge in the absurdity and scandal of 
 making men high legislators because they have 
 heaped together huge fortunes by selling "purge" 
 and " kill-devil " to a drink-sodden public, or 
 have made themselves wealthy and notorious by 
 circulating lying and sensation-mongering can- 
 ards among ignorant populations, we must 
 expect the absurdities and scandals and mis- 
 fortunes which are the logical result. And if it 
 only stopped there ! But to go further, and 
 to make the bodily heirs of these people our 
 future High Legislators, even to the crack of 
 doom — well, that is surely midsummer madness, 
 and a gilding of the refined gold of folly ! As a 
 precise and practical writer has remarked : 
 ** Our toleration of this costly absurdity is the 
 
Antl the House of Lords 
 wonder of the world. Its like is not to be found 
 in any other civilised nation." 
 
 The real question which remains is, What is 
 to be the cure ? Dismissing the supposition 
 that a syndicate of American millionaires will 
 buy up the House of Lords comj)lete for the 
 purposes of a world-exhibition, and, on the 
 other hand, the supposition that a violent wave 
 of socialist revolution will drown it suddenly 
 out of existence — as being, both of them, 
 though feasible, beyond the range of immediate 
 politics, we may at least, and as a practical 
 issue, discuss what considerable and radical 
 changes would really bring this institution, and 
 that of the Aristocracy generally, into the line 
 of human usefulness. There is fair reason to 
 suppose that in a few years the Labour party 
 or parties in the Lower House will have a 
 decisive influence there ; and in view of that 
 probability some suggestions for a future policy 
 with regard to the Peers may be useful — though 
 the following proposals (it must be understood) 
 are merely individual, and would not perhaps 
 be acce]:)ted in block by any of the Socialist 
 organisations. 
 
 I think we may assume that, short of a 
 violent catastrophe, the Second Chamber will 
 
British Aristocracy 
 
 be retained. Its total abolition would not be 
 in accordance with the temper and tradition 
 of the British ; and^ personally, I think that — 
 as long as our present general Constitution 
 remains — a Second Chamber is desirable ; be- 
 cause our House of Commons — though with an 
 intelligent voting public it might become intelli- 
 gent, and even get to know a little political 
 economy — must always, from the method of 
 its election, be largely composed of professional 
 politicians, and must represent mainly popular 
 ideals, views, and currents of opinion. There 
 is no harm in this, but it requires to be corrected 
 by a more searching, accurate, and experienced 
 spirit (if only, for example, in order that Bills 
 passed by the popular Assembly may be in- 
 telligible, and may not become law while still 
 containing hopelessly contradictory clauses). 
 Also a Chamber with some intelligent and public- 
 spirited initiative about it would be very 
 helpful. 
 
 A Second Chamber, then, seems to me on the 
 whole advisable, and will, I have no doubt, for 
 a long time to come be demanded by the 
 British people. It will not necessarily be the 
 House of Lords ; but here again the British 
 love of tradition and continuity will come in, 
 and will probably insist on its being called the 
 House of Lords — even long after it has come to 
 
And tlic House of Lords 
 
 consist mainly of manual workers and advanced 
 women ! 
 
 The })ractical question therefore is — how to 
 begin immediately to remodel the Upper House 
 with a view to rendering it (in time) a useful 
 Second Chamber. 
 
 The first and immediate need obviously is to 
 drop the hereditary qualification. No son of 
 an existing peer should sit in a future House 
 simply on account of being an eldest son. He 
 may succeed to his father's title (of that more 
 anon), but not therefore to his father's seat. 
 The present House will not be wiped out, but 
 in the twinkling of an eye it will be changed, 
 as far as its legislative functions are concerned, 
 to a body of life-peers. The descendants of 
 the existing peers will (possibly) carry on their 
 ornamental functions in Society, but they will 
 cease to be our hereditary Legislators. This 
 is so very indispensable a reform, and the 
 scandal and absurdity of the present arrange- 
 ment is so monstrous, that without making 
 this first step practically nothing can be done ; 
 and the public must simply choose between this 
 and eternal disgrace. Moreover, it is a reform 
 which could be carried out almost impercept- 
 ibly, and with a minimum of friction. 
 
 The present House would remain, for the 
 moment, undissolved ; but its numbers would 
 
 ■2J 
 
British Aristocracy 
 
 slowly dwindle with the decease of its members. 
 All future peers created in order to supply the 
 consequent vacancies would be life-peers. What- 
 ever other titles they might carry, or if they 
 carried no titles at all, in either case their right 
 to sit in the House would not descend to their 
 offspring. Thus in the course of not so very 
 many years we should have a Second Chamber 
 wholly consisting of life-members appointed 
 on their own merits, and neither claiming nor 
 exercising hereditary power.* 
 
 What would be the general principles of 
 appointment to such a Chamber ? It might 
 be urged that (after it was once fairly estab- 
 
 * Lord Hobhouse, in 1894, proposed such a Second 
 Chamber, Hmited to 200 or 250 Hfe-members, and having 
 also a Hmited right of veto {Contemporary Review, Dec. 
 1894). Sir Herbert Maxwell proposed that the Crown 
 should cease to grant hereditary titles, and should be 
 content with creating life-peerages ; also that the number 
 of members of the Upper House should be reduced to 268 
 {Nineteenth Century, July 1906). Mr. Frederick Harrison 
 has sketched a similar Senate, drawn widely from the 
 various professions, learned societies, and so forth {Posi- 
 tivist Review, Oct. 1906). Constitutionally, the peers are 
 summoned by the Will of the Crown, and apart from that 
 have no hereditary right to sit, and on the other hand it is 
 amply admitted now that the Crown has power to grant 
 peerages and summon peers for life only ; so we see that 
 the change proposed would involve no great technical or 
 constitutional difficulty. 
 
 24 
 
And the I louse of Lords 
 
 lished) it shoiikl he made sclt-ulcctivc — say like 
 the Chinese Academy, which for more than a 
 thousand years has exercised so tremendous a 
 sway over the destiny of China. As every one 
 knows, the Chinese Academy consists of some 
 240 members, the best scholars and savants in 
 the empire, to each of whom by immemorial 
 provision is allowed a house and a small salary. 
 Tlie duty of the body is to debate and turn its 
 critical acumen and enlightenment on any or 
 every public question that may arise. It has 
 no direct legislative or executive power ; but 
 the results of its debates and its recommenda- 
 tions are widely circulated through the empire, 
 and have an immense influence on the popular 
 mind, while at the same time the body exercises 
 a very outspoken censorship over the acts of 
 officials and even of the Emperor himself. 
 This body is self-elective. When a vacancy 
 occurs the remaining members elect the new 
 one. It is thus independent of patronage, and 
 no doubt (as the remarkable history of the 
 Chinese Academy shows), when once a good 
 tradition is started, this method of election may 
 be very effective. 
 
 With regard to the House of Lords, however, 
 there might (at present) be objections to this 
 method ! — and we may take it as probable 
 that new (life) peers will continue to be created. 
 
British Aristocracy 
 
 and writs of summons issued, on the recom- 
 mendation of the Premier at the time in office. 
 Assuming this, I think it must follow, as the 
 second absolutely necessary reform, that in all 
 cases a reason (of distinguished service) must 
 be given for each creation. Sir Wilfrid Lawson 
 on one occasion, in 1887 I believe, proposed 
 this. And it is clear that to leave the dis- 
 tribution of high honours and the position of 
 Hereditary National Legislator to the irre- 
 sponsible appointment of any Government, is 
 simply to court bribery, corruption, and mal- 
 versation. A distinct and sufficient reason 
 must be given for each creation, just as is done 
 in the case of the award of a medal or decora- 
 tion, a V.C. or a D.S.O. ; and though this in 
 itself might not always secure the best men, it 
 would certainly go a long way to keep out the 
 commonplace and really harmful types, whose 
 real recommendation to-day consists in ser- 
 vices which would not bear public scrutiny. 
 Of course this reform will be strenuously re- 
 sisted by certain classes, just for the very 
 reason that irresponsible patronage is so dear 
 and so very convenient to those who can 
 exercise it ; but the change is absolutely 
 necessary and indispensable. 
 
 It would probably have to be accompanied 
 by some indication as to the kind of distin- 
 
 26 
 
And the Mouse of Lords 
 
 giiished service which shoiikl be regarded as a 
 quahfication. Personally, I think that in this 
 Second Chamber, or House of Life-peers, as 
 far as possible, every class or section of the nation 
 should be represented, and represented of 
 course by well-known and well-tried members 
 of such class, or by those who have done good 
 service to their class or to the nation. Lord 
 Rosebcry, in 1884, in moving for a Select Com- 
 mittee on the reform of the House of Lords, 
 " sjx^cified nine classes which were entirely 
 without representation in that House. The 
 first were the Nonconformists, the last the 
 Workmen. The other seven were as follow^s — 
 medicine, science, literature, commerce, tenant- 
 farmers, arts, and colonists. He suggested 
 that life-peers should be created, and that the 
 ancient system of assistants, by which judges 
 were called into council, might be revived." * 
 Here, at any rate, as far as it went, was a 
 practical suggestion towards making the House 
 an etTicient and useful body. But the details 
 of such membership, ex officio and other, would 
 of course need careful consideration, and into 
 that question we need not go now. What is 
 clear, at present, is that the future House of 
 Peers (and here the word " peers " comes in 
 
 ♦ W. T. Stead, Peers or People : An Appeal to History, 
 p. 194. 1907. 
 
British Aristocracy 
 
 very appropriately) will consist of able men of 
 all classes and so-called ranks in society. And 
 this is in the line of a very obvious and natural 
 evolution. In early times the Lords Spiritual, 
 who often outnumbered the Lords Temporal 
 in the House, were not a little jealous of the 
 latter. Towards the close of the eighteenth 
 century the old landed families, who alone 
 beside the Church were there represented, were 
 furiously disgusted at the accession to their 
 ranks of large bodies of commercial and pro- 
 fessional gentry. Again, in 1856, there was a 
 storm in the House over the granting of a life- 
 peerage to Lord Wensleydale ; the highest 
 legal and historical authorities, however, main- 
 tained that it was the ancient right and privilege 
 of the Crown to create life-peers ; and in 1887 
 the Appellate Jurisdiction Act was passed, in 
 accordance with which certain Law-lords now 
 take their seats for life ex officio. Finally, in 
 the last twenty years, classes of men have been 
 admitted to the House whom even George HI 
 would not have dared to propose. Sir Erskine 
 May, in his Constitutional History of England^ 
 speaking of the great growth in numbers of the 
 Upper House in modern times, says : " With 
 this large increase of numbers the peerage has 
 undergone further changes no less remarkable, 
 in its character and composition. It is no 
 
 28 
 
And the Mouse of Lords 
 
 longer a council of the magnates of the Land — 
 the territorial Aristocracy, the descendants or 
 representatives of the barons of the olden time ; 
 but in eacli successive age it has assumed a 
 more popular and representative character." 
 Tluis, although the present House would, no 
 doubt, be much shocked at the idea, it does not 
 seem at all improbable that a time may come 
 whrn a Joseph Arch, for instance, as an emi- 
 nent farm-labourer and representative of farm- 
 labourers, might be called to sit on its councils. 
 
 Another reform which will probably be 
 advisable will be the limitation of the new 
 House of Life-peers to a definite number of 
 members — although, of course, such limiting 
 number might be alterable from time to time. 
 One great advantage of such a limitation is, 
 that on any occasion the number of vacancies 
 existing is known, and the question of their 
 replenishment comes naturally before the public, 
 so that, whoever the appointing authority may 
 be, he or they cannot easily act in a secret or 
 underhand way in the matter, as is indeed too 
 jiossible with the present method. 
 
 The reforms thus proposed are practically 
 three : — 
 
 I. Life-peerages (the actual title a niatter of 
 little importance). 
 
 29 
 
British Aristocracy 
 
 2. Adequate reasons of useful service to be 
 given for each creation — on democratic grounds 
 more or less scheduled and recognised. 
 
 3. Limitation of number of members. 
 
 Under such conditions as these reforms would 
 induce, the Second Chamber would probably 
 turn out satisfactorily, and there does not seem 
 any reasons why its powers should be seriously 
 curtailed. To propose to keep the House of 
 Lords as it is, is practically to ask for the cur- 
 tailment of its powers and the suspension of the 
 right of veto — for it is evident that things can- 
 not go on very long as they are ; but to remove 
 the right of veto would in effect be to reduce 
 the House to a mere revising body — whose work 
 could, of course, be better done by a committee 
 of experts. If a Second Chamber is to be re- 
 tained at all, far more sensible would it be to 
 make it a really useful and intelligent institution, 
 with power of initiative and power of veto — 
 the latter at any rate to some degree, though of 
 course guarded. Short of our securing such 
 useful and intelligent body. Abolition would be 
 the only alternative. 
 
 There remain a few words to say about the 
 Aristocracy generally, and the possibilities of 
 bringing it into line as a serviceable or even 
 
 30 
 
And the House of Lords 
 
 tolerable institution. It is fairly clear that the 
 same arguments which have been brought 
 forward in favour of a life-seat only in the 
 House of Peers, and in favour of a declaration 
 of the reasons for conferring that distinction, 
 apply equally — though not perhaps equally 
 pressingly — to the conferring of titles generally. 
 Of course, it would be possible to raise a man 
 to a baronage or an earldom, and in doing so to 
 give him a life-scat only in the Second Chamber, 
 while at the same time continuing his title to 
 his heirs ; but the question arises, Why — be- 
 cause a man has done useful service to the 
 nation (assuming, of course, that he has>, and 
 the nation to show its gratitude confers some 
 title upon him — why should the irresponsible 
 heirs of this man, and of other such men, be 
 allowed in pcrpduo to sport similar titles, and 
 so to form (as we see) a class of Society idlers 
 (or busybodies) who, to say the least, exercise 
 an enfeebling and unworthy influence on the 
 rest of the people ? * It may be replied to 
 that, that as long as you take? from such 
 folk (Hrect legislative power, the thing does 
 
 * It should also be ix)intcd out that if it is desind to 
 confer distincti<jn by titles, the latter must l)e (or life only 
 — since tlie hereditary system gives no distinction, no dis- 
 tinction between authentic genius and the commonj)lacc 
 wearer of a family coronet. 
 
 3« 
 
British Aristocracy 
 
 not matter. If any such classes like to whirl 
 round in their little coteries, and have their 
 smart dinner-parties and their scandals, their 
 punctilios of precedence and their privileges 
 of heading lists of subscriptions, why should 
 the nation interfere to deprive them of these 
 simple pleasures ? And there is so far truth 
 in this, that we must admit that as long as 
 the present commercial system continues, and 
 there remains, as to-day, a sum of some 600 
 millions sterling of unearned income, or more, 
 to be divided every year among the capitalist 
 and landlord classes, this feeble and unworthy 
 life will probably continue among such classes, 
 whether titled or not. That is so far true ; 
 but it forms no reason why the nation, by a 
 system of rank without service, should give its 
 imprimatur of distinction to such a life. 
 
 Again, there may be some people who be- 
 lieve in Blood so far as to think that the de- 
 scendants of a really great man inherit his 
 virtues to a remote posterity. And it certainly 
 seems possible that some day — when there is a 
 State department of Eugenics — whole families 
 may be granted a pedigree and diploma on 
 account of their excellent breed ; but then I 
 need hardly say that such patent of nobility 
 would be immediately cancelled for any person 
 who should breed children outside the regula- 
 
 32 
 
And the House of I^ords 
 
 tion of the State — as I fear many of our aristoc- 
 racy at present do ! And as to the Blood 
 descending with the Nii»u\ a very brief calcula- 
 tion will dis}")el that illusion, for it is easily 
 found (doubling at each generation) that ten 
 generations back one had over a thousand 
 ancestors living (say in 1600 A.D.), while ten 
 generations again before that (say in 1300) one 
 had over a million. Any one, therefore, who 
 can trace his descent from some ancestor living 
 in 1300 — and there are few indeed who can do 
 that — will have the satisfaction of knowing 
 that one-millionth * part of the blood in his 
 Niins will be due to that ancestor ! 
 
 I have referred — in speaking of the House of 
 Lords — to the Chinese Academy, which seems 
 an extraordinarily practical and sensible in- 
 stitution. We might do worse than take a 
 hint from China as to the handling of titles 
 generally. Greatly and devoutly as John China- 
 man believes in heredity, descent, and ancestor- 
 worship, he is not such a fool as to close his 
 eyes to the fact that blood very soon runs out 
 and becomes intermixed. Chester Holcombe, 
 
 • It is true that, according to the Mcndclian theory of 
 heredity, there may occasionally emerge a very near 
 ri'plica of some fairly remote ancestor; l)ut, as I say, it 
 will in all probability Ix* of an ancestor not in the line of the 
 
 X.inir. 
 
 33 
 
British Aristocracy 
 
 for some years Acting Minister of the United 
 States at Pekin, says of the Chinese in his 
 excellent book, The Real Chinaman : " There 
 is no titled nobility, with its long list of elder 
 and younger sons, sons-in-law, and cousins 
 near and remote, to be supported from the 
 public funds, and to fill all the more important 
 positions of honour and profit. The few titles 
 that are from time to time bestowed carry 
 nothing with them but the nominal honour ; 
 they are bestowed as rewards for distinguished 
 services, and have never been recognised as 
 forming the basis of any claim whatever upon 
 either offices or treasury. In a way they are 
 hereditary, but soon run out, since the rank 
 decreases one grade with each generation. Even 
 the imperial clan forms no exception to this 
 rule. The author has many a time had in his 
 employ a man who, as a relative of the Emperor, 
 was entitled to wear the imperial yellow girdle ; 
 but he was a hod-carrier, and earned six cents 
 a day." 
 
 With this suggestion — for the benefit of some 
 future Government — I will close. Let our 
 Aristocracy, as far as it is hereditary, be " let 
 down gently " by the rank descending one grade 
 with each generation. This already happens 
 with the younger children of our higher ranks, 
 
 34 
 
Ami the House of Lc^rds 
 
 who rcct'ivc courtesy titles for life. Let a 
 system of such courtesy titles be extended for 
 two or three generations, and let all children 
 in that respect count as younger children ; 
 and in a few years we should have got rid of a 
 foolish and somewhat vulgar anachronism. 
 
 THE END 
 
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