EFORM OF THE OUSE OF LORDS LORD %'^ \\ \ ^ X THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS 'Three Speeches delivered in that House on June 20, 1884; March 19, 1888; and March 14, 1 9 1 o BY LORD ROSEBERY A. L. HUMPHREYS, 187 PICCADILLY LONDON, W, 1910 r\ V "^ IN view of the allegation constantly made that the Reform of the House of Lords has only recently come under the consideration of that body, it has been thought well to reprint these three speeches. THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS JUNE 20TH, 1884 MY I^ORDS, — I rise to ask your indulgence while I lay before you the reasons which induced me to place the motion on the paper which stands in my name. That motion is — ' That a Select Committee be appointed to consider the best means of promoting the efficiency of this House.' In putting this motion on the paper, I have been desirous of bringing forward not an academical discussion, but a practical proposition. I am quite aware that the motion itself and the form of the motion are unusual, but 1 can hardly think that there is anything to be said against an unusual motion, in the days in which we live, when nothing is sure to happen but the unexpected. But I will go a little further, and say that not merely is this motion unusual, but it is unprecedented, and it is on that very ground that I will urge your Lordships to accept it to-night. The House of Lords has never, so far as I know, in the whole of its history, appointed a Committee to inquire into its own general condition. It has indeed at times appointed Com- mittees to inquire into branches of the subject. It has appointed Committees to inquire into its own judicial jurisdiction, into the state of the representative Peerage of Ireland and Scotland, into the system of 1 It TiHifi TlEFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS joint committees, and into various branches of this large subject. But I am not aware that at any time it has ever thought it necessary to appoint a Committee to inquire into its own condition as a whole. The House of Lords has existed, I think, about six centuries. I do not suppose that any institution has existed so long as that without reform. Of course it may be said that that is due to its inherent and original perfection, but I do not believe that there is any institution that can afford to remain motionless, and seal itself against the varying influences of time. Are there any institutions of that antiquity which have been able to remain without amendment or modifi- cation ? What institutions are they ? Is it the Monarchy? Is it the Church? Is it the House of Commons ? Is it the municipalities of this country ? Every one of those institutions has undergone frequent and large reconstruction in the course of the six cen- turies to which I have alluded. Is it, save in form, this House itself ? This House has undergone considerable modification. Who were the Peers who originally composed it ? They were mainly ecclesiastics, with a minority composed of the great feudal vassals of the Crown. Then came a change, when this House Idst its predominance over the other House. Then they lost their feudal power ; then they lost their mitred abbots, and ceased to be an ecclesiastical assembly, and became mainly a temporal assembly ; then their existence was suspended under Cromwell ; then they admitted Par- liamentary representatives from Scotland ; then they admitted life representatives from Ireland, as well as — if I may so call them — rotatory ecclesiastical repre- sentatives from Ireland — ecclesiastics who came in turn 2 THE REFOKM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS from that country to represent the Church in this House : and then was completed what was, in my opinion, the greatest change of all, when the House was swamped under George III. and Mr. Pitt. That great revolution is easily shown by the bare figures of the case. At the accession of George III. there were 174 Peers altogether, of whom 13 were minors and 12 Roman Catholics, leaving 149 sitting Peers. George III., in the course of his long reign, created 388 Peers, of which number Mr. Pitt was responsible for 140. These figures show how completely changed this House was by these creations ; but there is a very curious proof, beyond these figures, of the change which it has undergone. At the first reading of the first Reform Bill in this House, of the Peers who were created before 1790, 104 supported the Bill, and only 4 voted against it, and the Bill was thrown out mainly by the Peers created by Mr. Pitt. The next change was that the House of Lords, which was a great assembly of borough-owners, lost its direct representa- tion in the House of Commons on the passing of the first Reform Bill. The next change was in the method of voting, when they suspended the use of proxies in 1868. They lost their Irish ecclesiastical representa- tives in 1869 ; they suspended their banki'upt members in 1871 ; and last, and not least, they admitted three judicial hfe Peers in 1876. You may well ask, and I have no doubt some of your Lordships are thinking, that after this long recital of modifications I have no right to say this House is in need of reform. I do it on this ground, that all these modifications were indirect and consequential, and that not one of them, except the change in the method of 3 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS voting and the suspension of proxies, was carried out by the House itself, for the deliberate purpose of reforming its own constitution; in other words, while its status has been indirectly modified, that has never been recognised by the House itself. Now, not only in the great lapse of time has the House of Lords been considerably modified, but all has changed around it. Many of the institutions that were coeval with it have disappeared, and all that still exist have been reformed. There is a great change which has taken place in the enormous power of the House of Commons, and the enormous increase, under the various reductions of the franchise, of the constituencies which elect the House of Commons. There is also a vast increase in the popula- tion of these islands ; and last, but not least, there are — what did not exist at the time of the inception of the House of Lords — a newspaper press and a colonial empire. I would ask your Lordships to think of these two facts alone, without referring to any other great changes, and to consider what difference is implied in the condition of this institution by the fact that a newspaper press and a colonial empire have come into existence since its own existence began. But this House has never considered its position as a whole, if at all, since a time anterior to the existence of the news- paper press and the colonial empire. Well, these two facts, 1 thhik, would go far to support me in my motion to-night. I am not, at this hour, going into the differences between the Middle Ages and the nineteentli century, but I think it is not unfair, in an argument of this sort, to indicate the changes going on around us, simply for the purpose of strengthening my position. I think I have made out, in the remarks I have 4 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS already made, a prima facie case why an institution of such antiquity should require, if not reconstruction, if not new machinery, at least a slight readjustment and some repair, and I venture to say that my modest pro- position is little more than a request for a coat of new paint. I believe that an institution of this antiquity, however efficient and however popular it may be, cannot exist without some small occasional modification. But I have to raise the question — Is this House efficient and is it popular ? Now, my Lords, the question of effi- ciency is a very delicate one, because it affiscts us all ; but I think one may say, without risk of contradiction, that no human institution is perfect, and that it would be a very bad compliment to this House to suppose it was as efficient as it might be made. Your Lordships will admit that the institutions of the thirteenth century are not likely to have been minutely calculated for the requirements of the nineteenth century. But putting these general considerations aside, I think it is only fair to say that all admit the brilliancy of some of our members and some of our debates. I believe that those lawyers who practise before the Private Bill Commit- tees of this House think that our Committees are at least not inferior, and possibly superior, to those of the other House. What is the conclusion I draw from those two circumstances ? It is, that we possess an assembly of men of great ability, great business capacity, and great common sense. What further conclusion do I draw ? It is that neither the House nor the country derive the full benefit of all this. We can put this to a very simple test, and it is this : Do our decisions com- mand the respect and carry the weight that they de- serv^e ? I think this may be very easily tested, and very 5 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS easily ascertained. Anybody who analyses the list of the House of Lords will see that it contains a nucleus of men of the very highest distinction, and a few figures which I will lay before you, as compendiously as pos- sible, will show that I am not rash in making this assertion. We have in this House 27 Bishops, every one of whom must be considered to have won his way to his position in this House by sheer merit, and by hard work. It is perfectly impossible to say that these 27 eminent individuals are not, by reason of their past career, an ornament to any assembly. We have 24 Cabinet Ministers, or Peers who have been Cabinet Ministers ; we have 4 Ambassadors, or Peers who have been Ambassadors ; we have 6 Governors- General, or Governors-Principal ; we have 2 Peers who presided with great distinction over the assembly of the House of Commons ; we have 8 very eminent Judges, besides the 2 Chancellors who sit in the House ; we have 2 Field-Marshals, exclusive of the blood-royal, and I have therefore made up a list of 73 individuals in these categories, who may all be called men of the highest distinction in the country. Besides these, there are no less than 40 Admirals, Generals, and Ministers of rank inferior to Cabinet rank, past or present. That makes 113 men of high distinction. Then there is the Poet Laureate — whom we all are proud to welcome to this House — and no one can say that anything but distinction has been conferred on the House of Lords by the ad- mission of Lord Tennyson. There is at least one senior wrangler; and there is my noble friend on the cross benches (Lord Houghton), who has wTitten some verses that will last as long as the language. Well, in that list J have designated 116 individuals who would be gladly 6 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS included in any Second Chamber in the world. Let us compare this assembly, with these 116 persons, with the most powerful and efficient Second Chamber that exists in the world. I do not suppose anybody conversant with the two assemblies denies that in point of weight, of power, and of authority, the Senate of the United States is the greatest Second Chamber in the world. Why is it that the Senate should exercise more power than the House of Lords ? Why is it that it has more power entrusted to it ? Why is it that its decisions are decisions from which there is practically no appeal ? 1 do not think it is because of the individuals who com- pose it. 1 venture to say that the Senate of the United States does not comprise as many distinguished indi- viduals as the House I am now addressing, and I will state why that is so. In the first place, the Cabinet Ministers of the United States have no seats in Con- gress. In the second place, there is a constant drain on the pubMc men of that country to fill Governorships, and various State offices ; and in the next place, as there are only two representatives for each State, the difficulty of getting into the Senate is very great. Why is it, then, that this body in the United States exercises so much more power than your Lordships ? It is not only because they are an elective body — at least I do not believe it is, because we have had great experience of elective Second Chambers, and we know that, as a rule, elective Second Chambers are not very valuable institu- tions. I am not now going into the relative difference between the House of Lords and the Senate of the United States. I am not going to compare these two gi'cat bodies. It would lead me very much beyond the scope of my motion and my time ; but I have only in- 7 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS dicated the comparative difference between the two in order to show that the relative position of this House is not altogether satisfactory. In considering the weight of the decisions of the House of Lords, there are one or two points of prac- tical importance to which 1 wish to direct your atten- tion. The first is a point of some moment — I mean our quorum. Three Peers constitute a quorum of the House of Lords. We have some opportunity of com- paring that somewhat antiquated quorum with the quorums of other assemblies. The quorum of the House of Commons is 40 ; but it may, no doubt, be urged that the House of Commons is a much more numerous body, consisting of about 150 more members. That, however, does not really bear on the argument ; because when the House of Commons only contained as many members as the House of Lords — before the Union with Scotland — its quorum was as great as it is now. I can give some experiences of the quorum of the House of Lords ; but I would select two which throw some light on the subject. One occurred within my own recollection, and the other was somewhat legendary. 1 remember, since I have been a member of this House, a noble Lord addressing a quorum of your Lordships, consisting of the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, and the Minister who had to answer him, for four mortal hours by the clock — when this vast hall in which we are seated contained only these three individuals. Lord Ellenborough — I beg the noble Earl's pardon. Part of that time 1 was present. The Earl of Rosebery — The noble Lord's attend- ance, 1 understand, was only partial, and not for the 8 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS whole time, so I may say 3h persons were present. Striking an average, I think that will be a satisfactory figure. One cannot but feel that that was a great waste of the time of the noble and learned Lord upon the Woolsack, whoever he might have been, and that the obvious remedy would have been found in the prac- tice of the House of Commons. A more legendary instance to which I ^v^ll allude is one attributed to the period when the late Lord Lyndhurst was on the Wool- sack. A noble and learned Lord was addressing the House on a question, apparently of no great pubhe interest, and addressing it at some length. Lord Lynd- Imrst was naturally anxious to attend a dinner to which he was invited, and as the clock got nearer to eight, that learned person grew more and more impatient. He made every sign : he took out his watch ; he in- terrupted ; he may have feigned sleep for all I know : but this produced no effect on the noble and learned Lord who was addressing the House. Then the Lord Chancellor said, ' This is too bad ; can't you stop ? ' There was no stop. At last Lord Lyndhurst rose, in the full grandeur of despair at the situation, and said, ' By Jove, so-and-so, I will count you out ; ' and it was indeed well vvithin his competency, because he and the learned Lord who was addressing the House were the only Peers present. I think the Select Committee might find some matter for consideration in the quorum of your Lordships' House. I will pass now to another fact ; but I will not dwell on it, because I know the speech that my noble friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs will make about it if I allude to it at length. But I allude to that stock complaint of the barren six months, followed by 9 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS a fruitful fortnight, which comprises our ordinary ses- sion. Sir Walter Scott, in the course of some very- stirring verses, has said — * One crowded hour of glorious life Is worth an age without a name.' And if that is so, the House of Lords is in that for- tunate position, because it passes an age without a name, followed by an hour crowded with life at the end of the session. But, my Lords, I do not think this is a desirable position for your Lordships' House. I beheve that some remedy might be found for it, and I am quite sure that a Select Committee would do no harm in considering it. Well, my Lords, we know that our legislative func- tions are performed in a somewhat fruitless manner at this season of the year. We have no Bills introduced into this House except Bills of such a lofty morality that they cannot be presented point blank to the coarser palate of the House of Commons. I am sometimes reminded, when I think of these things, of an anecdote which is told of the Emperor Napoleon III. It is said that when he was a child his favourite amusement was watering his garden ; but that the nurse, to take care that he should suffer no danger, always put warm water in the pot. That story always occurs to me when I think of the artificial legislative atmosphere in which we live. Tlien there is the question of Joint Committees. I believe that a system of Joint Committees would to a large extent reUeve the congestion in one House and the inanition in the other by an amicable allocation of Bills. I do not know whether it would be so, but I venture to put it forward as a subject of 10 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS inquiry. As to private legislation, surely a great deal might be done by joint legislation on private Bills. I do not think we always consider the enormous expense and trouble of persons coming to Parliament for private legislation. I beUeve I am not misinformed when I state that one abortive project last year, which did not succeed in passing the Committee of this House, cost no less than 60,000/. It was passed this year ; but I venture to think that even if it were only with regard to the question of Joint Committees, it would be amply worth while to appoint a Committee of this House to inquire. There is another point which I only wish to allude to in passing, but it does affect the weight of the decision of this House. I mean the character of our divisions. It does, no doubt, lessen the effect of our divisions when the habitual attendants of the House on great occasions are swamped by a sudden influx of habitual absentees. Now, my Lords, I do not beUeve that the system can permanently continue without serious detriment to your Lordships' House, I do not wish to dwell upon it, because I am guarding myself to-night most scrupulously from indicating any plan or scheme of my own, but I beheve the appointment of a Com- mittee might do much towards strengthening our position with regard to this defect. I ventured to ask whether this House was efficient. I have endeavoured to lay before your Lordships the reasons, on both sides, which make one feel that its efficiency is not so great as it ought to be. Let me now say a word about the popularity of this House ; and when I say the popularity, I mean popularity in its largest and in its widest sense. My Lords, as regards the popularity 11 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS of this House, I should be inchned to say this, that it is neither so popular as its friends assert, nor so unpopular as its enemies make out. I believe that some of our members have great contact with the people at large — great touch of the population of this country ; but they have not, and they cannot have, the constant com- pulsory connection with the nation which adds so much to the strength of the House of Commons. Now, it is perfectly true that in spite of all this we might represent some vital principle more powerful than popularity, which might take the place of popularity, and I think that is a subject which is well worth considering. There is a great variety of complex interests which might be represented in this House. There are the various portions of our vast empire — our commerce, our pro- fessions, our Churches. All these might well be repre- sented in this House. Now, my Lords, how far are they represented ? Take the Churches. We have a considerable number of bishops, and I think the Episcopal Church of this country is well represented in this House. We have a considerable number of Roman Catholic Peers, which I regard as a great advantage, and as redressing the want of Roman Catholic representation from England and Scotland in the House of Commons. We have some Presby- terians here, but we have hardly any Dissenting Peers, and 1 believe that the Dissenting interest is one which is well worthy of being represented in this House. There is therefore an immense preponderance of the representation of the Church of England. I make no complaint of this ; I only notice the fact. But let us take the professions that might be represented in this House. The army is well represented ; the navy is 12 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS tolerably well represented ; the law is well represented, but the profession of medicine is, so far as I know, not represented at all. My Lords, it is very easy to say that the profession of medicine is not wanted in this House. But I remember very well a distinguished leader who has gone from us, but whose name will never be mentioned in this House without respect, who said that his policy was entirely a sanitary policy, and he summed it up in the motto, sanitas sanitafum, omnia sanitas. Now, surely it cannot be maintained that when sanitary questions are put in the forefront of the pohcy of the Conservative party, this House would be any worse for having some assistance from the great Faculty of Medicine. Well, we have some men of science. I seethe noble Lord opposite (Lord Rayleigh), who was senior wrangler, and whom we are proud to see a member of this House ; we recognise in the present Lord Crawford a distinguished astronomer; but, considering the nature of this Chamber, men of science might be better represented than they are. Literature, also, might very well be more largely repre- sented than it is, and it has been much more largely represented than it is. We have indeed some con- siderable literary men, though for obvious reasons I will not name them. But the number might be much increased, as this is a House in which men of letters might very well encounter the troubles and the storms of politics without all the hard work that has to be undergone in the other House of Parliament. Then there are the commercial and mercantile interests. We have several noble Lords connected with the banking and railway interests. I view those representatives as persons of great importance in our debates, but 1 do 13 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS not feel, I confess, that the great commercial interests of this country are so adequately represented in this House as they should be ; and when we consider how enormously they are represented in the other House, we must feel that we have a certain inferiority in this respect. As regards that branch of my subject, I think it may be summed up in a sentence, by saying that there is too much receiving of rent in this House and too little paying of rent. We represent too much one class ; we see one side of the shield too much. I see a noble Lord from Ireland shakes his head. I know what he means, but he must know that we are all in the same boat. Then there is the question of the arts. This House prides itself greatly on its knowledge of the arts. There are no questions which are so fiercely debated in this House as questions of taste, and there is no question which has caused so much genuine excitement in the House of Lords in recent years as the question of the removal of the Duke of Wellington's statue. But I cannot doubt that these debates would be greatly improved by the infusion of some artists by profession. Then as to our empire, India is perhaps fairly represented, for there are two Governors-General and two Governors-Principal who have had contact with India ; but the colonies I regard as very inadequately represented in this House, considering the many millions whose interests we have to supervise. I do not think that five representatives are enough for this, when we recollect that one of those five representatives is at his post in Canada, that another is at his post at Constantinople, that another is returning from his post, and we are thus reduced to two Peers in this House who have practical contact with the colonies. I venture 14 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS to say that that is not sufficient. Well, my Lords, there is another class which is absolutely unrepresented in this House, and I suppose it is absolutely necessary that it should be unrepresented. That is the labouring class. It may well be impossible that the labouring class should be represented in this House ; but I would ask your Lordships to think of the numbers and the power of the working classes of this country. Do you not feel that it is a great deficiency in this House that that enormous power should be absolutely unrepresented in it ? I hear a noble Lord say ' no.' I wish I could agree with him, but as compared with the other House of Parliament one element of the weakness of your Lordships' House is, that you have no representatives of the labouring classes. I only mention this as part of the case with which we have to deal. I shall sum up this part of my subject by saying that we want, if possible, new elements — an infusion of the ideas of other classes — new representatives, new sources of information. I believe that if we could obtain this without a very radical reconstruction of the House, the House would be very largely the gainer. I do not regard my authority as of the slightest value in a case of this sort, but I will read words which are of the very highest authority. These are words spoken by the noble Marquis opposite, the leader of the Con- servative party, in 1869 : — * It appears to me, however, that the deficiency which may be recognised in the constitution of the House of Lords has been imprinted on it by the lapse of time, and does not belong to its original constitution. That deficiency consists in this, that we want a larger infusion from those large classes among whom are to 15 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS be found so much of the wealth and power of the country. We belong too much to one class, and the consequence is that, with respect to a large number of questions, we are all too much of one mind. Now, that / is a fact which appears to me to be injurious to the character of the House as a political assembly in two ways : The House of Lords, though not an elective, is strictly a representative assembly, and it does, in point of fact, represent very large classes in the country. But if you wish this representation to be effective, you must take care that it is sufficiently wide ; and it is un- doubtedly true that, for one reason or another, those classes whose wealth and power depend on commerce and mercantile industry do not find their representation in this House so large and so adequate as do those whose wealth and power depend upon the agricultural interest and landed property. We have, indeed, a cer- tain number of mercantile representatives in this House. They are admirable in every way, and I con- fess that if it were possible to increase their number the House would be a large gainer by the change. And it would be a gainer also in another way : We want, if possible, more representation of diverse views and more antagonism on certain subjects. It is true we have antagonism enough on Church subjects, for instance, and on the interesting question as to who should occupy the benches opposite ; but there are a vast number of social questions deeply interesting to the people of tliis country, especially questions witii reference to the health and moral condition of the people, and on wliich many members of your 1 iOrdships' House are capable of throwing great light, and yet these subjects are not closely investigated here, but tlie 16 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS fighting power is wanting, and the debates cannot be sustained. Now, if it were possible that the machinery proposed by the noble Earl could be to any extent effective to correct tiiis evil, the advantages to the de- liberations of your Lordships' House would be very great indeed, and it was in that sense that 1 said I should like to see the proposition of the noble Earl carried further.' I regard that as a very weighty testimony. That speech was delivered in a discussion of a favourite remedy which has often been proposed to this House — the remedy of life Peers. That is too large a question to deal with at present ; but since the debate took place, by a sort of side wind three official Ufe Peers have been introduced into this House, and I venture to submit to the better judgment of your Lordships' House whether it would not be a fair question on the part of this Committee to consider whether the principle might not with advantage be extended. My Lords, I do not know if it would be possible, in regard to any of the categories 1 have mentioned, to adopt at all the principle which, in judicial matters, is called the principle of assessors, and in the Congress of the United States is called the principle of delegates — I mean consultative and temporary representatives, persons who may be summoned in the old form of writ by which the Judges were called to this House, to dehberate and advise instead of to deliberate and de- termine. What representative elements, indeed, does this House include? It is difficult to see more than three — the Church, the hereditary principle, and landed property. I am not going to touch upon these, because I am not discussing the points on which this House is 17 c THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS strongest ; I am endeavouring to point out some of its weaknesses and deficiencies ; but I should like to make a remark, as to the position of the Church, which is represented in this House by the favour of the Crown, tempered by the chances of survivorship. Since the principle adopted in the formation of the Bishopric of Manchester has been carried further, there has been a large increase of what 1 may call extra-parliamentary Bishops. There are now six or seven Bishops waiting for vacancies to take their seats in this House. 1 re- member pointing out in 1878 the great disadvantages which would accrue to this House when the four bishoprics then in contemplation were all filled up, be- cause the junior Bishop of the seven would have to wait for six vacancies on the Episcopal bench before he could enter your Lordships' House. I will give you one illustration of what the disadvantage of that may be. I think the most brilliant speech I ever heard in this House was the speech of the Bishop of Peter- borough on the Irish Church Act of 1869. If these seven bishoprics had been in existence at the time the Bishop of Peterborough was made a Bishop, he would not have been in the House even in the year 1878 ; and we should have lacked one of the principal orna- ments of this House until after that time. The creation •of bishoprics is very largely increasing, rather in defer- ence to the spiritual wants of localities — and very properly so — tlian to the increased efficiency of this House; and I venture to point out that if these bishoprics are increased to a greater extent, it will be absolutely necessary, if we don't wish Bishops to enter this House when they are too old to adapt themselves to the forms and methods of the House, and if we wish 18 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS them to enter before they are superannuated, it will be absolutely necessary to adopt the principle of delegation and representation. With regard to property, the House of Lords, re- presents a great deal of land, but there is a change with regard even to that. When the House of Lords con- sisted largely of a territorial aristocracy, the land was the main source and sign of wealth in this country. That has long ceased to be so. The great fortunes made in commerce exceed all the landed income by a very great deal, except those of your Lordships who are fortunate enough to possess urban property. Not merely has land decreased in its relative value, but in the last few years it has decreased in absolute value. That seems to me to affect largely the relations of this House, as being the mainstay and representation of property. I wall take another point worthy of consideration. When this House was the House of territorial aristo- cracies, it was composed of members who had properties which were practically unahenable, but that has long ceased to be the case. The legislation passed by the noble Earl opposite (Cairns) and the legislation for Scotland, in which I had some hand, have made it possible for any member of this House to aUenate his estates. That alienation of lands is going on at a rapid rate. The other day the Times published the largest number it had ever published, and why ? Because it had eight columns of advertisements of land for sale. No one can shut his eyes to the fact that this must make a great change in this House. It is quite true that, as men become wealthy, they are very liable to be made Peers ; but it cannot be disguised that the connection of the present peerage with property in land may be 19 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS to a very large extent affected by the causes to which I have alluded. But I will take this comfort to myself, that if this House had contained all the wealthiest men in the country, it would be so much the worse for this House. The Emperor Nero is said to have wished that all his enemies had but one neck, so that he might with a single blow of his sword put an end to them. Well, a body composed of all the great owners of property, more especially of landed property, becomes a mere target for attack, and concentrates on itself the hostility and rapacity of all other classes. And in these days when attacks on the principle of property are not unfrequent, I think there would be considerable danger to the existence and security of this House if it con- tained all the men of the largest property. To give only one instance, to show how dangerous it may be to an institution to become overloaded, I will take the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland. That Church at the time of the Reformation is said to have possessed — I am speaking from memory — at least three-fifths of the land of Scotland. What was the result ? That Church was found to be extremely powerful, yet its disestabUsh- ment took only a single day to accomplish. A measure was passed in a day, and the Church fell in a day. That was the result of having too much property. I should be glad to see this House strengthened by a greater accession of men who have wealth, other than land, but I should be sorry to see it become the most contemptible assembly in the world — an assembly of plutocrats. Having discussed the actual state of this House, and having pointed out some deficiencies in this House which, I think, are matters not unworthy of your Lord- 20 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS ships' attention, I venture to say that in this century in which we live there is especial necessity to notice this subject. If we were shrouded in as much obscurity as the Council of Ten we might continue to exist without inquiry being made, but we are living in the full blaze of the nineteenth century. Every institution is can- vassed and examined ; there is no hope that we can escape inquiry, and 1 do not beUeve we wish to escape inquiry. As it is, we do not escape inquiry. There are voices both from within and without calling for some such inquiry as that which I have advocated. The voices from without demand both revision and improve- ment. , I need hardly say I should never think of asking your Lordships to accord this Committee from any fear of abolition. Bodies that begin to reform themselves when the hand of the destroyer is on them do not live to complete the operation. It was too late for the Senate to deliberate when the Gaul was in their midst ; it was too late for the House of Commons to discuss abstract propositions when Cromwell was at the table ; it will be too late to move for any Select Committee of Inquiry when the voices that demand abohtion become loud and universal. I would not ask any high-minded body to dehberate under a menace. But what is heard now is not a demand for abohtion. It is a calm dis- cussion of the position and utiMty of this House ; inquiries as to the possibihty of propping up this ancient structure ; schemes for improvement, not plans for de- struction. What the people of England want is simply to have as efficient a Second Chamber as can be furnished. Now, my Lords, this public opinion makes itself heard in every speech that is delivered on the subject ; it makes itself heard in every magazine that is 21 >^ THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS published ; it makes itself heard in all the newspapers. If your Lordships wished to shut your ears you could not but hear, and if you wished to veil your eyes you could not but see. But it is because I believe it is your Lordships' desire both to hear and to see that I am bringing forward this proposition to-night. I am strengthened in this beUef by many circumstances, both public and private, but mainly by the fact that besides the voices from without, that call for amendment or reconstruction, there are also voices from within. My noble friend, on the cross-benches ( Lord Houghton), has written an article in which, though vindicating the general position of your Lordships' House, he called for some revision of its business arrangements. My noble friend (Lord Dunraven) has lately put forth an article, in which he makes some stringent suggestions as to the alteration of the procedure of this House ; and an hon. member who sits in the other House — the eldest son of a Peer who sits in this House — I mean Mr. Brodrick, a member of the Conservative party — has publi<>hed in a Conservative review, an article calling for some revision or some remodelling of the constitution of this House. These writers have suggested plans, but it is not my business to suggest plans ; that is for the Com- mittee. I am not in love with paper constitutions and paper second chambers. I suppose the Abbe Si^yes could have constructed a dozen second chambers in a week, and that none of them would have lasted a week. I welcome, however, any practical suggestion, more especially from those who have sat in this House, who know the work of it, and who are convinced that something may be done in the way of reform. I have given the reasons why I believe some 22 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS measure of inquiry is requisite. Let me now say briefly why I have adopted the method of a Select Committee. A Select Committee with regard to a measure of importance may be one of two things. It may either be a hatching machine, or a sepulchre ; it may either be the grave or the vivifying principle of any measure which is submitted to it. I am anxious for this Committee to be a hatching machine. I am anxious that substantial suggestions for the reform of this House should be brought before this Committee, so that, if they are substantial, they may be nursed into life ; but if, on the other hand, they are addled that they should remain so. I would have the Committee as large as you like, or as small as you Hke. In my humble opinion, the larger it might be made the better it would be ; but what I would ask is, that it should be as largely and broadly representative of the different sections and interests in this House as possible; and that it should fully and fairly, and with unprejudiced mind, inquire whether the status, the basis, and the scope of this House cannot be improved. It may be as slow and gradual as it chooses, as long as it gives an exhaustive consideration to the subject. If it finds that the procedure or position of this House can be amended, it will then be its duty to report a scheme. If it comes to the conclusion that the position of this House is absolutely perfect, it would then be its duty to give its reasons for this conclusion. But, it may be asked, why, instead of the uncertain medium of a Select Committee, do you not bring a substantial proposition before the House ? I think there is a very good reason for that. I should not care to proceed summarily in a matter of such vital 23 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS importance, even if I had the power of doing it. But, further, I do not believe that any individual in your Lordships' House — not even the noble Marquis who leads the other side, or the noble Earl who leads this side — would have the slightest chance of carrying any substantial proposition by his own unaided authority in this House. I may be wrong, but that is the strong conclusion to which I have come ; and I need hardly say, if they have no chance, my chances would be small indeed. But I am inclined to believe that your Lordships might not be unwilling to listen to any well- considered proposition proceeding from a carefuUy- chosen Committee of this House : and for that reason, mainly, I have adopted that proceeding on this occasion. I know it is urged — a sort of metaphorical argument — that this House is so ancient a structure that it is better not to touch it lest it fall about our ears ; but if I pursue that argument to its logical conclusion, I should say it is a somewhat dangerous one to urge, because if a house is too bad to repair it is too bad to inhabit, and must soon be doomed as an unsafe structure. I do not believe that the argument is used by anybody in this House. 1 believe it is used by the false friends of this House, or, if I may borrow a phrase from Sir Stafford Northcote, by the ' bonnets ' of this House; and I do not think it is one of which further notice need be taken, except to point out that, if it has any validity at all, it has a painful validity for this assembly. I believe the House and the nation will not take this view, and that it would welcome with the greatest satisfaction the spectacle of this House, without outward pressure of any kind, examining its own 24 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS structure and endeavouring to remodel itself. I believe such a proceeding would have a most salutary effect on public opinion, and, my Lords, as we have no con- stituencies, it is on public opinion that this House must rest for its true strength. I have to thank your Lordships for the patience with which you have listened to me, and have to apologise sincerely for the length of my observations. I do not think, however, that it would have been respectful to introduce so large a subject without some statement of the reasons which have induced me to do so. But before I lay my motion on the table, I would ask one favour at the hands of your Lordships. It is, that in considering this proposition you should consider it without any prepossession as to the quarter from which it comes. No one knows better than myself the insignificance of the individual who now addresses you. 1 can assure you, from the bottom of my heart, that I would gladly have waited and stepped into the back- ground if anybody of more importance had taken up the question. But we who are the friends of reform have waited long enough. Rusticus expected dum defluat amnis. Every day I feel that the postponement of this question does harm. Every day that passes over this House, and that confirms the outside public in the behef that this House is unwiUing or afraid to investigate its own position, does harm to this House. As to the party side of the question, apart from the individual aspect of my motion, I have simply to say that there is no party side, because it is a matter of general and universal interest. But I will say this, that no more Conservative motion, in the highest and best sense of the word, has ever in my time been submitted to this 25 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS House. I have no doubt that noble Lords opposite will not consider me the most suitable exponent of the Conservative creed ; but I think they will allow that Conservatism is not petrifaction, or blindness, or deafness, or a folding of the hands to sleep. The truest conservatism consists in seasonable, moderate, and timely reform. After six centuries of unchanged existence, no one can consider it a premature proposition that a Committee for the investigation of the system of this House should be proposed on this occasion. But that is all to which this proposition pledges your Lord- ships. It has no larger meaning and no larger scope than that. It may surely be called a moderate and a Conservative proposition. I have used the word Conservative in its highest and best sense ; but in its mere party sense, I venture to say that this is an advantageous proposition from a Con- servative point of view. It can be no secret to your Lordships that the more ardent spirits of the party to which I belong do not wish for the reform of the House of Lords. They wish for its abolition. They wish, with the view of destroying it, to point to it both as unreforming and as unreformed. They wish to point to it as a mediaeval barque, stranded, by some strange chance or iiony of time, across the teeming harbour of the nineteenth century, and serving only as an obstacle to more active and useful shipping. When you wish to disestablish an institution, you do not permit it to reform itself ; you shut it out from uir and life. You prevent any refreshing and beneficent influence from reaching it, and gradually you put in progress tliat decay to which it is your attention to appeal as the prognostic of approaching dissolution. I hope you will 26 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS not play the game of your enemies on this occasion, but entertain a moderate proposition for inquiry and reform. More especially do I urge it at this moment, when the House of Commons for the third time in less than sixty years is broadening and strengthening and increasing its own foundations ; and when, within the last two years, the House of Commons has devoted an entire session to the amelioration of its own procedure. I think the rejection of inquiry at such a moment as this would present not merely a bad appearance, but would indicate a real defect. If these arguments are not sufficient to induce your Lordships to grant my proposition, let me bring forward the most practical consideration within my power. It is this : It is our mysterious destiny to sit within this House. I think, under these circumstances, it is our obvious duty, as well as our obvious interest, to make this House as efficient, as powerful, and as respect- able as possible. The doors of this House only open inwards. I daresay if they opened outwards as well — if there were any chance of their being thrown open — that some of your Lordships who wish for the enlargement of the basis of this House would be willing to relapse into an attitude of expectancy. But I see no such prospect. The sole chance of political usefulness offered to your Lordships lies within the walls of this House ; the sole chance of increasing your opportunities of political usefulness lies in developing, in increasing, and in strengthening the power of this House. I venture to think that any such strengthen- ing must be preceded by inquiry, and it is for that reason that I venture to ask your endorsement of the slight, the gradual, and the moderate proposition for an 27 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS inquiry which I lay before you on this occasion. If I might sum up in one simple phrase what I believe the best friends of the House of Lords wish for, it would be this : As regards the individual, greater responsibility ; as regards the body, the broadening of its opportunities, of its scope, and of its foundation. I beheve that any measure you may adopt with that object will make this House worthy to be remembered among all the illus- trious generations of Peers which have preceded you. I would ask you in conclusion to remember the eloquent words which were addressed nearly a century ago to the House of Lords by Mr. Burke, a name ever to be honoured in either House of Parliament. He said : ' We have a great hereditary peerage here, those who have their own honour, and the honour of their ancestors, and of their posterity to guard.' I think it is im- possible to have a nobler conception of a hereditary chamber, because it presents the aspect of a triple responsibility — a responsibility that not merely governs the present, but points a finger to the future, and a finger to the past. I claim that this generation of Peers is at least not inferior to the Lords who sat in judgment upon Warren Hastings, and whom Mr. Burke apostrophised. But I firmly believe that you will best fulfil that sublime function of guarding the honour of generations, both living and dead, and yet unborn, by seizing vigilantly every opportunity of testing the structure of this House, by examining its foundations, and by adding, as far as may be done, dignity, efficiency, and power to that ancient institution of which you are the existing trustees. 28 MARCH 19TH, 1888. MY LORDS, — In rising to lay before you the motion of which I have given notice, my first duty is to render my acknow^ledgment to my noble friend opposite (Lord Dunraven), who, having given notice of a motion practically of the same character in ignorance of the notice I had given publicly last Session, kindly withdrew it on being acquainted with that fact. My Lords, it was my fate nearly four years ago to introduce a motion to your Lordships of a character very similar to this, and I think that the one which I submit to you to-day is in a measure consequential upon the former one. I should have renewed that motion before now had it not been for circumstances beyond my control. The year after I had brought it forward I descended from that eminence of freedom, the benches above, and took part as a member of the Government in the Session of 1885 ; in the Session of 1886 I was in the same position, and I think your Lordships wiU acknowledge that in the Session of 1887, when I was no longer in that position, the time was by no means favourable to the renewal of that motion. In 1886 I should have had to ask for the attention of my colleagues when they were absorbed in another and more pressing matter ; and in 1887 it would have been difficult to attract the attention of the public to this 29 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS subject. So I come to this year, which appears to me to offer an admirable opportunity for the discussion of this question. I shall endeavour to bring it before your Lordships in a manner as free as possible from all party bias, though it is impossible to absolutely avoid all party questions in a matter of this character. On the former occasion I urged that all other insti- tutions in this country had undergone renewal or reform, and that it was not premature to urge upon your Lordships' House the need of some such measure. In the second place, I cited the services and position of a number of Peers then in the House to show that it con- tained materials for perhaps the best Second Chamber in the world. Thirdly, I indicated details of our pro- cedure which seemed to me to require reconsideration and revision. Fourthly, I detailed some of the de- ficiencies of our constitution, and pointed out the various elements from which we might be strengthened and reinforced ; and, fifthly, I described generally the dangers to which our composition made us liable. To- night I shall not require to go over any part of the same ground. It is necessary to strike deeper, because the question has entered on a larger and a newer phase since then, and there is so much ground to go over that it would be difficult to accomplish such a discussion in the time. Much has occurred since that occasion. Imme- diately afterwards there was a debate on the Franchise Bill, which was rejected by your Lordships' House. That was followed by a great agitation throughout the country, an agitation which, owing to that — to my mind — unfortunate circumstance, took a direction not so much in favour of the Franchise liill as towards the 30 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS reform, the mending or the ending of your Lordships' House. I remember that two of my colleagues in the Government of 1885 expressed themselves strongly in ^ favour of ending this House ; one in the Government of 1 886 expressed himself to the same effect, and I was left almost alone on that side of the question, pleading to a somewhat listless country the advantages of a Second Chamber. That agitation died away, but it did not leave us as it found us, for it left on the minds of most thinking men the impression that something must be done, and that this House could not remain as it was, more especially after the Franchise Bill had placed it side by side with a strong, powerful, and democratic Assembly. Now I pass from that incident to another. In 1885, the year succeeding our debate upon this question, there was a great reform effected in the Upper House of Hungary, a House constructed substantially on the same principles as our own, but a mere infant in age as compared with it, dating, I think, only from the begin- ning of the seventeenth century. That showed, if the fact required demonstration, that the question of reform of Second Chambers was a practical one. The Hun- garian House consisted of some 750 members, with some 206 families hereditarily represented in it. These families are now reduced to 91 by a property qualifica- tion, but even now 21 of these families command no less than 115 votes in that Assembly, two alone having .30 representatives between them. The number of that House is about 400 ; there are 50 life Peers, in the first place elected by the Chamber itself and subsequently nominated by the Crown. That shows that the Hun- garian House were alive to the question of reform and 31 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS the unwieldiness of their numbers. But we also, since 1884, have had some experience bearing upon the latter of these two questions. Now, it is always taken for granted in works of history and in speeches on this question that Mr. Pitt was a great sinner in respect to adding to the number of this House. It was usually supposed that Pitt in his tenure of office recommended the addition of no fewer than 140 Peers, but I have gone over these figures with some care, and I think that Mr. Pitt in this case — as in some other instances — is unjustly maligned. Mr. Pitt, so far as I can make out from Beatson's Political Index, was the means of creating or further elevating some 122 Peers ; exclusive of Peers of the Blood Royal, — who are on a totally different foot- ing, — and Peeresses in their own right. But I do not think that this is a fair statement of the case with respect to Mr. Pitt, because of this number 40 were persons elevated to other ranks of the Peerage, already being Peers at the time and were therefore no addition to the House ; 36 were Scottish or Irish Peers, and I venture to think that this principle will recommend itself to your I^ordships, that Irish and Scottish Peers are not in the same position as commoners when raised to Peerages of the United Kingdom, but are rather in the nature of an amalgamation than of an extraneous addition to this House. Therefore, we are left with the clear addition to your Lordships' House of 46 Peers in seventeen years of office. 1 do not take his Second Administration, because, like the Hundred Days of Napoleon, it was very unlike his first tenure of power, and he left, then, no sub- stantial addition to the House of I^ords. But let us 32 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS compare Mr. Pitt with more modern Ministers. I take the period from April 1880 to June 1887, the historical epoch of her Majesty's Jubilee. In that time 65 Peers were recommended by the Ministers of the day. Taking from these, as I have done from Mr. Pitt's Peerages, the Scottish and Irish Peers, numbering 12, we have a total of 53, so that in seven years there have been created considerably more Peers than Mr. Pitt created in his seventeen years of office. I admit that one Peerage, that conferred on the late lamented Sir Thomas Erskine May, was extinct almost as soon as created, while three were in the nature of life Peer- ages. However, I will not confine myself to the last seven years ; I will take a period from June 26th, 1885, to June 21st, 1887, a period of two years. In that time there were 38 Peers created. Deduct 6 for the Scottish and Irish Peers on the same principle as I have done before, and you have 32 Peers created in two years, as against 46 created in seventeen years by the great sinner, Mr. Pitt. I think that Mr. Pitt was hardly dealt with in this case. But, indeed, I am not blaming any Minister. It is probably due to the irresistible tendencies of a democratic age that this House should be largely recruited by gentlemen who are willing to form part of it. And this is not merely an absolute disadvantage in the sense of swelling our numbers — it is a growing and increasing disadvantage for the future. Merit in this country is not likely to decrease, and, therefore, the number of admissions to the Peerage is likely to increase as time goes on, and will gradually swell it to un- manageable proportions. But what is worse is this — that that increase raises a great constitutional question. 33 D THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS The sole method by which the two Houses can be brought into harmony when they differ upon measures which may be repugnant to your Lordships' House, but which are desired by the majority of the electoral body, is the creation of Peerages. But your Lordships' House will soon become, or rather has become, so large with reference to the small numerical minority which sits behind the bench I occupy, that hardly a squadron or a regiment of Peers would be able to redress the balance in certain contingencies. Now, we have had, as I hav^e said, besides example, the advantage of precept with reference to this question. 1 will read a remarkable passage w^iich calls upon your Lordships to reform yourselves Avithout further delay : — ' Take another question of great national impor- tance. We put in the forefront of our political creed the maintenance of the House of Lords as an inde- pendent and co-ordinate branch of the Legislature. We praise the eloquence of its debates, the business- like character of its proceedings, the ability and know- ledge of many of its members. We look to it not merely to smooth down the rough excrescences of the legislation which is passed through the popular Assembly, but also, if the necessity should arise, to resist any attempt at grave changes in our Constitution by that popular Assembly until the will of the people is distinctly declared. But can any Conservative say that he is absolutely contented at present with the compo- sition and working of the House of Lords ? Can we not conceive it might be possible, by wise and careful change, to give that House greater popular authority and weight than it at present possesses ? Cannot we learn something from the evident reluctance of the 34 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS Radicals to reform that ancient institution, and their jeers when they remark on the increasing rarity of its debates and the small proportionate attendance of its members, and of anything in which they think they can find a proof of its declining power ? And looking at that can we, as Conservatives, say that it is quite consistent with the safety of our Constitution that Parliamentaiy reforms should be confined to one branch of the Legislature alone ? I am as anxious as any one to maintain the hereditary principle in our Legislature. I would do nothing to impair the independence of the House of Lords ; but something surely it would not be impossible for the House of Lords itself to do — some- thing to purify itself from those black sheep who can now disgrace it with impunity. And surely it is worth consideration whether the entrance to that House of able laymen of moderate means might not be made easier by the extension of the life Peerages which are now held by our bishops and lawyers, and whether the principle of selection, which has existed ever since the Union, in the Scotch and Irish Peerages, might not be extended to the Peerage of Great Britain.' Those are not the words of any rash or headlong innovator, or of a member of the party to which I belong ; they are the words of a man who once led the House of Commons for the Government, though he was not in office when he spoke them ; they are the words of Sir M. Hicks-Beach, who made the speech from which I have taken them in February, and who, I am glad to say, is able to resume his seat in the House of Commons as a member of her Majesty's Government. But it is not from Sir Michael Hicks- Beach alone that we had an expression of opinion on 35 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS the subject. We had, the week before last, the question raised in the House of Commons of the reform of this House, and there were two remarkable incidents in connection with that debate. One was, that no member of the House of Commons, on whatever side he sat, had one word to say for the existing constitution of this House. That is a remarkable circumstance, considering that the House of Commons, as at present constituted, gives an unbroken majority to her Majesty's present advisers. The second noteworthy incident to which I would refer is this. The House of Commons is now led by a man of great weight, but of few words. ISIr. W. H. Smith delivered on that occasion the longest speech, I think, which he has made since he has led that House, and I venture to call your I^ordships' attention to some of his remarks. He said : — * No Second Chamber can long remain deaf to the public opinion of the country, but must advance towards it if that public opinion is consistent with the interests of the country. The remark made by the Hon. Member for Southport, that the reform of the House of T^ords must come from the Conservative party and the House of I^ords, I accept. The assertion has great value, and I earnestly trust will meet with a full consideration.' I agree with that observation. But we have further food for reflection in what occurred since 1884. The Franchise Bill of 1884 enormously strengthened the House of Commons. What I may call its propelling power, which had been greatly increased in 1867, was immeasurably multiplied by the Act of 1884, which thus brought more glaringly into light the anomaly of 86 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS two Houses, nominally co-extensive and co-equal, but one representing the great mass of the democracy, the other representing interests important indeed, but still considered by the pubUc at large as the interests mainly of a class. I cannot help fearing, on behalf of this House, that as time goes on that disproportion will be still more largely increased, and that the new piece of democracy sewn on this old garment must only make the rent appear larger. There is another point on which I must touch, but in no party spirit. Your Lordships will remem- ber the Home Rule pohcy which was inaugurated by ]Mr. Gladstone in 1886. At the dissolution that measure received the support of some 1,100,000 or 1,200,000 electors — very nearly half the number that went to the poll. They only fell short by 86,000 of the opposing force. That minority is represented in the House of Commons by some 200 members who follow my right hon. friend, and they are assisted by 86 Irish members who follow jNlr. Parnell, but who concur in this policy. That represents a minority on a question of great and vital importance of 286, and how is that minority represented in this House ? I have had no opportunity of computing, and I do not wish now to have an opportunity of testing it by vote ; but I beheve there are some 30 members out of 556, or about 5 per cent, of the entire number, and there is not a single Irish Peer in this House that I know of who is a supporter of that pohcy. (' Hear, hear,' from the Ministerial benches.) Noble Lords may rejoice at that, but to those who endeavour to look further ahead it must afford matter for painful reflection. I say, then, that what lawyers call incompatibility of 37 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS temper between the two yoke-fellows, the House of Lords and the House of Commons, is daily increasing and is not unlikely to increase. It is quite true that at this moment the majority in both Houses belongs to the same party, but you have this disadvantage, that the minority in one House is almost absolutely unrepre- sented in the other, and if the minority in the House of Commons, by any strange or sinister chance, as you might say, were to become a majority, the fraction in this House that represents the minority in the other House would still remain a fraction. That anomaly is daily and hourly increasing, and threatens to become an insuperable gulf. One party in power enjoys a prac- tical omnipotence ; the other party is never absolutely in power. Whether in or out of office it is galled by a perpetual barrier, a constant stumbhng-block, an endless disabihty. So it is that the divisions in this House are held to represent rather the passions of a party or a class than the deliberate reasoning of a Senate. When we come to reckon up the forces of both Houses which may, at any moment, by a (General Election change sides, we are still more struck. The House of Commons rests on the votes of some 6,000,000. What we represent is not so easy to define. But if there were to be a General Election which gave the majority of the 6,000,000 of electors to the present minority in the House of Commons, the disproportion would be of some gravity. No doubt the present majority would liave a large section of the electors. But in these great con- stitutional questions, wliere the House of Lords is pitted against the House of Commons, the question very soon ceases to be the original (juestion placed before the country, and the country tiikes it up, not the question 88 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS placed before it, but the problem of the constitution of this House, and even those electors who approve the general policy of this House do not like to see the action of their representative Chamber set at naught. Is it not wise, then, at a moment of comparative calmness to sum up our strength and our weakness ? Our strength lies in illustrious members, in ancient tradition, in persons who represent in the country some what wealth, some what ancient descent, and some even what genius can give. It may be allowed to a political opponent to remark that the noble Marquis opposite appears to combine all three. But no Legislature in these days, placed as it is relatively to the other House, can rest either on tradition, descent, or even genius : what is required is the broad basis of popular interest and popular support. In those things which I have mentioned is our strength. What are our weaknesses ? They can be summed up in one comprehensive phrase. They lie, I think, in the indiscriminate and untempered application of the hereditary principle. There is no trace in the hereditary portion of this House of discrimination or selection, except in the case of the Scotch and Irish Peers. Every man in this House can sit in this House, who, to use Beaumarchais' famous phrase, has given himself the trouble to be born : and I venture to think that this indiscriminate principle, even if it worked well, would still be indefensible in the abstract. Your Lordships will remember what Franklin said about hereditary legislators. He said of them that there would be more propriety, because less hazard of mischief, in hereditary professors of mathematics. I venture to think that a House based solely or even mainly on the 39 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS hereditary principle in a House based upon the sand. Nor is it by any means essential to your Lordships' House — it is not a modern innovation, but it is by no means an ancient incident. It was not until the time of the dissolution of the monasteries that hereditary members had even a majority in this House. It was not until 1539 that the hereditary element in this House obtained a bare majority. We can well understand how this has occurred. We trace the hereditary principle to the feudal system, which required a totally different test of fitness to that of legislati\'e fitness. The feudal system required in the great vassals of the Crown only a test of military fitness ; and now, when we have abohshed the feudal system, we still maintain the hereditary principle, which was established with a totally different object, to keep up the legislative functions of this House. If the indiscriminate hereditary principle is not, as I V^^^j- think, defensible in theory, does it work well in prac- tice ? I know it is said that the House of Lords works well, and that you could not easily find a better ; but I presume to think that that does not represent the state of the case. In the first place, the hereditiiry principle as applied in this House makes legislators of men who do not wish to be legislators, and Peers of men who do not wish to be Peers. I venture to say that many of your Lordships know other Peers who have no wish to be legislators, who are unwillingly legislators, and would gladly be relieved of those functions ; and I venture to say tliat others of your Lordships know Peers who were not willing to be Peers, who were anxious to escape being Peers, and who would gladly cease to be Peers. It may be said that that is the misfortune of the 40 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS ordinary British citizen when he is called to serve upon a jury. But the ordinary British citizen when called to serve upon a jury views that as one of the rare and inevitable misfortunes of his life ; with the Peer it is a fortune or a misfortune which ceases only with death. But it does not merely make unwilling legislators, it it also makes unfit legislators. I have quoted to you what Sir Michael Hicks-Beach has said on the subject. It is not a particularly agreeable one to dwell upon, but I think we may say generally that five or six hundred not unproUfic families must always be accompanied by a proportion of black sheep. I do not think the per- centage in this House is greater than in any other five hundred or six hundred families — I should rather be inclined to say less ; but a percentage in an hereditary legislative Chamber, be it large or small, is a thing you cannot admit. What you require in an hereditary legisla- tive Chamber, by the mere fact and principle of its existence, is an unblemished succession of hereditary virtue, hereditary wisdom, and hereditary discretion. It is quite true that the other House of Parliament is also capable of accommodating black sheep, and does accommodate them. But the case of the House of Commons is very widely different. In the case of the House of Commons the responsibility does not lie upon the House. It Hes not even upon the individual him- self. The wind of the electorate bloweth where it listeth. The electors choose whom they wish ; and if they choose a knave or a fool, the responsibility is not so much on that knave or that fool, nor on the House which accepts him, but falls mainly or entirely on the people who sent him to that House. But the responsibility in our case falls on the very principle of our existence, and 41 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS places that principle of existence at the mercy of any unhappy accident. If a Peer should happen to be a knave or a fool, people outside do not greatly blame him, but at once begin to talk of the constitution of the hereditary Chamber in which he sits, and they say that — * This unworthy man is able at this moment to go down and give a vote equal to that of any noble Lord on the Ministerial bench.' The strength of your anchorage in this House is only as great as that of the weakest link in the chain, and some day a series of un- fortunate accidents may bring about a condition of things with regard to this House which not ten, or twenty, or one hundred just persons may avail to counteract. There are cases of hereditary vice and virtue, but you can predicate nothing. Lord Chatham left an illustrious son, but it was the wrong son he left to this House. It was the same with Lord Holland. All the three Earls of Harrowby have sat in the Cabinets of this country, and I think the noble Marquis opposite is the third of his family who has been Prime Minister. But these prodigies are not the rule ; and if they were, the House cannot rest upon prodigies alone. As there is no rule, you have to imagine one, and then you assume too much. When you create an hereditary Peer you are attempting far more than you can achieve. You are not merely selecting a man for his presumed fitness as a law maker, but you are defining the generations of which he may be the ancestor, and, outstepping all human faculty and human possibility, you usurp the position of Providence, and make legislators of the unborn. But there is another argument with regard to the 42 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS application of the hereditary principle which, if it had any validity at all, is one which would have a great deal of weight. They say the Crown is hereditary, and therefore when you attack the hereditary principle you attack the Crown. As to that I should venture to say that I do not attack the hereditary principle, and I do not think any man would be Avise to attack it. All our hves are conducted on the hereditary principle : it pervades every family ; it guides every fortune ; it rejoices by the cradle of the new-born babe, and cheers the chamber of death. You cannot ignore it in its strict sense, but it may be applied or mis- applied, and that which gives dignity and stability to the Throne may not give dignity and stability to the Legislature. I would further remark with regard to the Crown, that in that case it is not a case of pure and indis- criminating heredity. The Crown, as is well known, did not descend to the present family by mere hereditary descent ; it rested on a broader and a more popular basis. In the next place, the principle of heredity in the Crown is guarded and fenced by every sort of pre- caution. The Crown has no legislative responsibility, the Crown has no executive responsibility, and in respect of the former, at any rate, it differs largely from this House. Those responsibihties in the case of the Crown devolve upon others, in our case they rest with ourselves and on the hereditary principle. There is a further difference, which perhaps involves the argument which has most weight with those who seek for the reform of this House. Both the Crown and the House of Lords have what, for the purposes of this argument, I may properly call a veto. The Crown since 43 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS the accession of the House of Hanover has never exercised its veto. This House is always doing so. The last time the Crown exercised its veto was in 1707, in the reign of Queen Anne. This House long exercised its veto against Roman Catholics, against Dissenters, against Jews. If it had been able to maintain its veto the Premier Peer of England would not now have been sitting in this House. It has gone on interposing its veto in a manner which cannot but be called invidious, and which cannot but raise hostihty against it among great bodies of the people. Passing to another point, you will say that the veto of the Crown is an individual veto, and that the veto of this House is the veto of a legislative body. As regards that I may make this demur. The veto of the Crown is not an individual veto, inasmuch as it is protected by the responsibihty of the advisers of the Crown. But I will admit, for the purposes of this argument, that it is an individual veto ; but I would further say that the veto of this House is also an individual veto — the veto of this House is the veto of the noble Marquis opposite, it is the veto of tlie leader of the Conservative party. And so it has been for the last sixty years. This House, which strains at a I liberal gnat, will swallow a Conservative camel. It accepted the Catholic Emancipation Bill at the hands of the Duke of Wellington, which it had always refused to accept at any Liberal hand. It accepted the total repeal of the Corn I^aws at the hands of Sir Robert Peel, when it refused to move in that direction at all at the instance of the Liberal I'arty. But I will take a much simpler illustration of the 44 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS individual nature of that veto. There have been three great Reform Bills during the present century, in 1832, 1867, and 1884. Two of these Reform Bills were offered to this House by Liberal Governments ; one, which was infinitely the most democratic of the three, was offered to this House by a Conservative Government. It was infinitely the most democratic of the three, because it laid down for the first time the principle of household suffrage for the towns, and it thus contained within it the necessary germ of the Reform Bill of 1884. How did this House treat those Reform Bills ? It threw out the Reform Bill of 1832 and the Reform Bill of 1884, which were passed through the House of Commons by Liberal Governments ; but the Reform Bill of 1867, which was the most democratic of the three, it allowed to pass without a division. Therefore I may repeat that this House is willing, while straining at a Liberal gnat, to swallow a Conservative camel. But, my Lords, if this tremendous legislative power of life and death be entrusted to an individual, it should, at any rate, be entrusted to an individual of extraordinary discretion. The Duke of Wellington led this House for a number of years. He led it with prudence and circumspection, and we read in the pages of Greville that many of his followers were most dissatisfied with his extreme reticence and caution. I hope that the noble Marquis opposite will excuse me if I say that he is a little impetuous in the exercise of the weapon committed to his charge. He never likes to keep it in its sheath. He is always trying its temper — if he is not hacking about and dealing destruction and death with it, he is always flourishing 45 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS it and threatening with it. He is like a King of Hungary on his coronation, who rides to an eminence and brandishes his sword to the four corners of the globe. I may refer in proof of this to the speech delivered by the noble Marquis at Oxford on the 23rd of November last, which has often been quoted. The noble Marquis said : — ' 1 have no doubt that one effect of the amendment of the rules of procedure in the House of Commons will be to send from time to time, when there are bad Houses of Commons ' — every one knows what the noble Marquis means by a * bad House of Commons ' — ' a considerable immber of objectionable measures to the House of Lords' — every one also knows what he means by ' objectionable measures.' — ' I hope the House of Lords will not shrink from action upon its conscientious convictions.' (' Hear, hear,' from the Ministerial benches.) Far am I from wishing the House of Lords not to act on its conscientious convictions ; but if the House of Lords had acted on its conscientious convictions in 1832, we should have had revolution instead of reform. Further, the conversion of this House into a party instrument has to a great degree weakened its influence and power. Up to 1832 the House of Lords was hardly a party assembly. It usually supported the Government of the day. It was Whig with Walpole, Tory with Pitt, and Tory again with Lord Liverpool; and as a result of this, though partly due, no doubt, to the indirect influence which Peers possessed in tlie other House, the House of Lords exercised great power and influence. The Governments of the last century were pillared on Peers. They formed by far the majority of each Cabinet. Mr. Pitt when he formed 4G THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS his first Cabinet was the only commoner in the Cabinet. In his second Cabinet there was only one other commoner. Such was the power of the House of Lords in those days that by its own independent action, though in concert with the Sovereign, it overthrew the CoaUtion Government, which promised to be the strongest Government of the century. All that was before the Reform Bill : since then its power and influence have continually decreased. On the 7th of May, 1832, Lord Lyndhurst brought forward a motion in this House which caused the resignation of the Government of the day. That was the last occasion on which a motion passed in this House has had any such effect. It is easy to trace the gradual decline of the power which this House possessed. On the 3rd of June, 1833, the Duke of Wellington carried a vote of censure against the Government in regard to Portugal, and there was a great talk of the Government resigning, though they had a vast majority in the House of Commons, but they did not do so. Again, in 1839, Lord Roden carried by a small majority in this House a motion for a Committee of Inquiry into the administration of Ireland, and this had to be counteracted by a vote of confidence in the Govern- ment passed in the House of Commons. So again, in 1850, when a motion in regard to the Don Pacifico case was carried against the Government in this House, there was great talk of resignation, but it ended in a vote of confidence being brought forward in the House of Commons by Mr. Roebuck, and carried. Since that time all question of this House turning out the Government has departed. The control of this House over the measures of the Government 47 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS still subsists, but the control of this House over the Government of the day has ceased to exist. You can easily test that. For at least twelve of the twenty years during which I have sat in this House, this House would gladly have turned out the Ministry of the day, but it took no steps to do so, knowing that it could not do so if it tried. The fact must be admitted then, though the reasons may not be those that I have stated, that virtue has gone out from this House. On the other hand, we cannot help seeing that the other House has greatly increased in power. It has lost no opportunity of strengthening itself, while we have sat with folded hands and watched the result. You may say that the arguments that I have brought forward, if they lead to anything, lead to a single Chamber. But I do not think so. It is not necessary for me to attempt to convince this House of the necessity of a Second Chamber. There are three arguments which I have always thought of themselves conclusive as showing the necessity of a Second Chamber. When the ablest men that America ever knew, a century ago, framed their Constitution, though fettered by no rules and no traditions, and having a clean slate before them, they thought it necessary to construct the strongest Second Chamber that they could desire or that exists. Then let us call to mind the opinion of one who was certainly not an aristocrat by party or profession — Cromwell — who abolished the House of Lords. The Marquis of Salisbury. — And the House of Commons. The Earl of RosEnEUY. -Ikit lie found it necessary 48 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS to restore the House of Commons, and as a consequence he also found it necessary to restore the House of Lords. The last words he addressed to Parliament were these : ' I did tell you that I would not undertake such a Government as this unless there might be some other persons that might interpose between me and the House of Commons who had the power to prevent tumultuary and popular spirits.' Cromwell was not an aristocrat, and his Executive was not distinguished by weakness: and the fact that he found it necessary to restore a Second Chamber speaks volumes as to the necessity of a Second Chamber. The third of these reasons in favour of a Second Chamber was given by a great philosopher, whom some of us remember among us — John Stuart Mill — who sums up the argument in a single sentence. He says : * The same reasons that induced the Romans to have two Consuls, make it desirable that there should be two Chambers, so that neither of them may be exposed to the corrupting influence of undisputed power even for a single year.' The recent changes in the procedure of the House of Commons also, 1 think, immeasurably strengthen the arguments for a Second Chamber. I come now to the amendment of my noble friend on the cross-benches (Lord Wemyss), which contains two propositions, with one of which 1 cordially agree. I agree entirely with the noble Earl that the proper way in which to introduce a measure for the reform of this House is by a measure introduced by her Majesty's responsible advisers, but I entirely disagree with the noble Earl when he says that it is not consistent with the dignity of this House to place the question of its constitution in the power of a Committee of your 49 E THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS Lordships. There are only two Committees to which this House can with dignity entrust the question of its own constitution, the one being the Committee of this House which I propose, and the other being that Com- mittee of the Privy Council which is commonly known as the Cabinet. I should prefer greatly the latter of these two Committees, but no choice being given to me, I am obliged to propose the former. If you cannot have the Cabinet as a Committee, to whom can you so suitably entrust the subject of the constitution of this House as to a Committe selected from your Lordships ? Who can know the interior economy of this House as well as the Peers themselves ? Who can so well discuss the nature of the changes that experience has found to be necessary? I am rather an advanced reformer of this House, but I do not share the distrust of your Lordships expressed by the noble Earl on the cross- benches. But I turn from this proposal, and I come to the proposal of the noble Lord behind me (Lord Stratheden). The noble Lord, who is generally independent of parties in this House, has of late been working, in view of this motion, with singular zeal at the question of the reform of this House, but, if I may say so, with a somewhat limited scope. I hope my noble friend will not think me disrespectful if I say that his recent efforts have reminded me of a distressed mariner bailing out a water- logged ship with a thimble or a spoon. But if my noble friend on the cross-benches rejects altogether the idea of a Committee as an inadequate and revolutionary pro- posal, what does he say to my noble friend behind who recommends a Royal Commission ? I do not know why my noble friend behind me disUkes a Committee 50 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS and prefers a Royal Commission — whether it is that he fears that a Committee would not consist of the mystical number of three, or that it might perhaps attain to the obnoxious number of five. But the noble Earl, who looks with distrust on a Committee of your Lordships, must view with actual horror the idea of a Royal Commission, not composed entirely or even mainly of Peers, but composed of all sorts and con- ditions of men, unaccustomed to the refined and rare- fied atmosphere of this House, unversed in our exquisite traditions, who with rude and irreverent hands might probe all the tender and delicate places in the body politic of this House. But I must leave the two noble Lords to settle their differences between themselves. I do not share in the distrust and suspicion of your Lordships' House in which they unite, and that is why I propose a Committee on this occasion. I have proposed a Com- mittee as a sort of compromise between what I wish and what I do not wish. What I wish is that the Government should take up the matter, but what I deprecate, faiUng that, is that an individual should undertake the task, because I firmly beUeve that there is no individual in this House, out of an official position, of sufficient weight and authority to carry the matter to any satisfactory conclusion. We must also remember another circumstance. We have constantly to remind members of the House of Commons when they express wishes for the reform of this House, that any project of reform which does not partake of the character of a revolution must be cast in the form of a Bill passed through both Chambers. Now I venture to think no Bill brought in by an indi\4dual would go down 51 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS to the other House with the weight and authority required to ensure its success, but that a Bill based on the report of a Committee of your I^ordships — by which, by the way, you would not be bound — that a measure founded upon such a report could not fail to have value, both in the eyes of this House and in the eyes of the House of Commons, and must, in any case, have valuable results. The Committee would further have before it all the plans for reform now or about to be brought before the country : two or three of which I may mention. There would be the plan of my noble friend opposite (I-.ord Dunraven), which we fancied at one moment had been communicated to a news agency, but which he has disclaimed almost with passion. Then there is the project laid before the other House by a highly respected member, Mr. Rathbone. There is much to be said for his project, but it is open to some almost fatal criticism. He recommends that 114 chairmen of county boards should be admitted to sit in this House. Now I do not object to the principle, but I say that the chairmen of county boards would be much better employed in tlie chairs of their boards than here. The county boards — which, by the way, are not yet in existence, but of which, I believe, her Majesty's Government is at this moment in course of parturition elsewhere — the county boards would choose their chairmen on one of two principles. They would either choose them for their local knowledge and adminis- trative capacity — in which case tliey would wish to have them in their chairs, or they would choose them as delegates or representatives in this House — in which ■case they had much better not be chairmen. 52 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS But, passing from that, I would call attention to a plan — or rather speech — attributed to a noble friend of mine. Lord Pembroke. The plan attributed to him is simply that a sufficient number of life Peers should be created and added to this House. Now 1 venture to think that such a measure of reform as that would rather increase the evil than diminish it. If the number of the new life Peers were small, they would not suffice to leaven this House ; if, on the other hand, they were extremely numerous, they w^ould increase what is already a very great evil, the unwieldy bulk of the House. Then I should not like to put the temptation of a very large increase of Peers -wdthin reach of the noble Marquis opposite. He aheady scatters Peerages o'er a smihng land, and reads his history in the smiles of a considerable number of supporters ; and if he had the power to recommend to the Crown the immediate creation of a considerable number of life Peerages, I am afraid that the result might be that we should have to adjourn for our deliberations to Westminster Hall or Trafalgar Square. Even if these Hfe Peers are to be persons eminent in literature, science, and art, the addition would not be an adequate measure. A mere zoological collection of abstract celebrities would not be sufficient for the reformers of this House. We admire greatly the wonders of science, art, and literature, but I venture to think that they would not suffice to strengthen this House in the manner in which it ought to be strengthened. Nor would the mere addition of life Peers, whatever the number, have the effect of accomplishing what is one of the principal objects of all reform, namely, the exclusion of unworthy members from your House. Therefore I think you may sum- 53 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS marise the results of this proposal thus — it might have been sufficient in 1856 or 1869, but it will not be sufficient in 1888. It will not content those who desire a large reform of your Lordships' House, nor will it please those other two sections : those who desire no reform at all, and those who desire the abolition of the House — two sections which, although starting from different points of view, seem to me to arrive at sub- stantially the same goal. The mere addition of life Peers will not be adequate for your purpose. I go even further, and say that it will do you injury rather than good. We must try to lay broader and deeper foundations ; and so I now come to the main point for our consideration — namely, what are the real prin- ciples on which the reform of this House should proceed ? I may make one remark at once with regard to those principles, and say that we possess at this moment an ideal Second Chamber. We make no use of it, but we possess it It is one of the splendid but deserted halls of the palace of the Constitution. I refer to the Privy Council, which has many of the attributes of the ancient Roman Senate, and which comprises in its lists almost every eminent politician in the country. Were you to take the Privy Council for your Second Chamber, you would have in it an enormous delegation from this House, for out of 211 members no less than 109 are Peers. There is something curious about these figures. The attendance at the House of Lords during an average Session has been supplied to me. During the Session of 1885, the average attendance at this House was exactly 110. So if you took the Privy Council for a Second Chamber, you would not merely 54 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS have the best members of both Houses within it, but you would have almost exactly the same average attendance of Peers that you have now. But I discard all idea of such a Second Chamber for two reasons. First, there is nothing to prevent the Privy Council being flooded to any extent ; there is just the same objection to the Privy Council that there is to an unlimited addition of Hfe Peers. A Privy Councillor would be a life Peer, neither more nor less ; and the Privy Council would be in no degree guarded against unbounded incursions. There is the further objection that it would involve the abolition of this House. I discard any idea of utihsing the Privy Council in that way, because of these two reasons ; and the second of the two conducts me to the first principle which should guide any great reform of this House. This is that it is a cardinal principle of English politics that you should respect old names and old traditions. The whole course of the legislation of this country consists in pouring the newest wine into the oldest bottles. Although that has been said to be impossible, it has been attended in this country with excellent results. An illustration wiU show how wise and necessary it is to respect ancient names. In 1873 Lord Chancellor Selborne abolished the appellate jurisdiction of this House, and transferred it to another tribunal. Before the Act came into operation there was a change of Government, and the operation of that abolition was postponed, and ultimately, in deference to marked proofs of discontent both in Scotland and Ireland — as well as in the Colonies and in England itself — it was found necessary in 1876 to restore to this House, at least in name, its appellate jurisdiction. Was it done 55 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS by simple restoration ? Nothing of the kind. It was done by adding to the House two Judges — two life Peers — possibly two of the same Judges before whom the same cases would have devolved under the former measure. The two Judges were to sit in this House, and were to assist the Lord Chancellor and the other Judicial Peers in acting as an appellate tribunal. There are now three of these Judges, and there will eventually be four. It was really little more than saying that a new Court should sit inside these walls, but in order to attain this result we accepted a principle we had hitherto rejected — the principle of life Peers : and the country was entirely satisfied with that compromise. That guides me to the conclusion that any reform of the House of Lords should respect the name of the House of Lords, and that any reconstructed House of Lords should consist of some of the Peers, and that those Members who were not Peers should be called Lords of Parliament. The next principles I come to are those of delegation and of election. I believe that these principles are necessary, firstly, in order to keep the House of a manageable size, and to give a sense of pei*sonal responsibility to its members : secondly, they are necessary to exclude Peers who prove themselves to be unfit or unworthy to be legislators ; thirdly, they are necessary to obtain a popular basis ; and, fourthly, they are necessary to prevent stagnation by keeping free and unimpeded a constant succession of new members, or of members having received new mandates, in this House. How are we to apply these principles ? First, it is perfectly clear that if tliey were thoroughly applied, in 66 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS future none but Peers of the Blood Royal, who are in a wholly exceptional position, would sit in this House by the mere title of hereditary descent. Next, I venture to think that the less than seventy Irish Peers, and the less than twenty Scottish Peers, who have no seats in this House, although in other respects they have the privilege of the Peerage, should be added to the great body of the Peers in this House, which they would not largely swell ; and that body so constituted should delegate a certain number of members to sit for a limited period as representative Peers in this House. Of course, in such a system we should need the minority vote, or else I and my noble friends behind me would entirely disappear — a result I should greatly deplore. But this would not give the House the external strength, the outward buttress, which, if I am right in my apprehensions, this House so greatly needs. To do that you must have a mandate from the nation, a representative element elected by the nation itself. Your Lordships may say now you represent the nation to a large extent ; but 1 should wish a reformed House to have some clearer certificate of the fact. 1 think you would require to have in your reconstructed House a large infusion of elected Lords of Parliament — elected either by the future county boards or by the larger municipalities, or by the House of Commons, or by all three. 1 enter into no details ; but in that way you would have the elective principle introduced as gradually and as safely as you may choose, in what degree you desire, in what measure you may select ; you would have a large basis for compromise and arrangement ; you could 37 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS control the number according to your wishes ; you could obtain by election an infusion as large or as small as you please of the popular external element ; and in the last place, you would exclude without invidiousness and without difficulty unfit and unworthy Peers. It is not now a question of how much or how little, how many or how few. If it were the noble Marquis opposite who was addressing you, it might be a question of how few or how many ; but at this moment it is a question merely of framework ; and I venture to think that on that framework you can raise as large or as small a superstructure as you please. Then there is the obvious principle of life and official Peerages, which I think in themselves alone are insufficient and objectionable, but which would naturally form a valuable element in a reformed House. The fifth principle I should lay down is, that the proportions of these various elements should be fixed, or their numbers should be fixed, because, otherwise, you would not achieve an important part of the object of your reform. One further element I should like to see included. I know the dislike of all practical politicians for what are termed fancy franchises ; but I feel there would be great and important advantage in inviting the great self-governing colonies to send their Agents-General or representatives delegated for that purpose to sit, under certain conditions, in your Lordships' House. These principles, if carried out in practice, would probably involve the necessity of the Government of the day being able to nominate, for the duration of their existence, some officials or representatives, who should 58 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS bear the task of representing them in this House, if they were not otherwise represented. These are the sound principles, in my opinion, on which such a reform should proceed. But there are two general principles of a more negative character which seem to me of equally vital moment. The first is connected with the argument which the noble Marquis opposite brought forward with great force in his speech at Oxford. It was the argument that any increase of the power of the House of Lords must be at the expense of the power of the House of Commons, and that the House of Commons naturally would not be friendly to such an arrangement. That line of argument seems to me to imply two fallacies. It seems to me to lay down a principle, which I cannot admit, that there is only a limited amount of legislative and political strength in the country : and in the next place, to make a certain confusion between power and efficiency. I can imagine the case of a State possessing a great feudal castle — such as Berkeley, or Bracciano, or Chateau Gaillard — suddenly throwing up earthworks around it, and arming it with all the resources of modern artillery, and so causing uneasiness and mistrust to neighbours, who cherished an interesting relic, but feared a menace of war. That is one case, but the other is that of the owner of such a castle, afraid to renew the roof and the walls, cowering under its decayed shelter, afraid to protect himself against the coming storm and the pitiless hurricane, and allowing his old tower to fall about his ears, lest his comfort should excite jealousy among his neighbours. Well, my Lords, I venture to think that this expresses a distinction which I wish to draw between rendering 59 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS the House efficient and able for its duties, and rendering it too powerful for the friendly companionship of the other House of Parliament. But the noble Marquis's argument is perfectly true to this extent, that if this House acquired great powers, and at the same time acquired limited numbers and a tenure of fixed duration, it would become a much more difficult House to deal with than at present ; it would, indeed, disturb the balance of the Constitution, and being an almost unalterable Chamber might become a hard calculus in the body politic. We must further remember this — that in the words * unalterable ' and ' fixed ' there lies a great constitutional disarrangement, because, as I have already pointed out, the power held by the Crown of creating as many Peers as the Crown may think fit is the sole method of bringing the two Houses to an accommodation on a question on which they are at issue. Therefore, if you had a new House, and limited the numbers of that House, you would have to find some other constitutional arrangement to bring the two Houses into liarmony. My Lords, I believe we could do this by simply retracing our steps, and going back on the ancient lines of the Constitution. The real mother of Parlia- ments is the Magnum Concilium, the Great Council, which in the reigns of the Edwards divided itself into two and nearly into three, and became a House of Lords and a House of Commons, and I think that under certain guarantees it miglit be provided in any scheme of reform that the two Houses should meet together and form one body, and by certain fixed majorities carry or reject a measure which has been in dispute between them. This, of course, would be 60 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS impossible with an unrestricted hereditary House ; but it would be possible with a restricted Senate. There is another way of getting over the difficulty, which, I think, has been put forward by Mr. Bright ; but I am not sure. It is that after a measure has been passed once or twice by the House of Commons, and rejected once or twice by your Lordships, the House of Commons shall be enabled in the language of diplomacy to passer outre^ and proceed with the measure as if it had met with no opposition from your Lordships, and so override the ruling of this House. My objection to that is this : — In the first place it would involve great waste of time, because if you passed your Bills by the ordinary constitutional methods, the House of Commons would be constantly employed in discussing at great length measures which, on the hypothesis of the proposal, they knew the House of Lords would be obliged to reject ; whereas if you abbreviate your proceedings, and allow the House of Commons to discharge its measures at you, after short intervals, like the chambers of a revolver, you would do away with the position of this House as a Second Chamber at all, and reduce it to a second-rate court of revision or a debating society of a not very stimulating character. I pass from that topic, which is an important one, because it contains an obvious constitutional objection to all possible reform. I pass to one large principle which is also vital to the House of Lords and its future reform — because I take reform to be inevitable, if not to-day. It is this — if the House of Lords proceeds to a reform, which includes the principle of delegation, what is to be done with the Peers who have been 61 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS excluded ? For it is well known to your Lordships that if, like the Roman Senate, we are conscript fathers, it is because we are brought together rather by the involuntary process of conscription than by the principle of voluntary action. Would those excluded Peers be like the Scottish Peers who are not elected, and who are by that fact disabled from all contact with public life ? or would they be Hke the Irish Peers, who, although debarred from the constituencies of their native country, are at liberty to roam unrestricted through the boroughs and counties of this island ? Well, my Lords, I think a broad principle might be laid down — it seems to me that any person should be free to accept or refuse a writ of summons to this House, and that having either so refused or not having received a summons to this House, such a Peer should be as free to be elected to the other House of the Legislature as any other subject of the Queen. There is one obvious exception to this, and that is that any person volun- tarily accepting an hereditary patent of Peerage would by such an act be spontaneously excluding himself from that process by which the others, on the hypothesis I have mentioned, would be endeavouring to free them- selves. We have a very curious case which bears on this question of the necessity of Peers sitting in this House. There was a mysterious personage, V^iscount Purbeck, a connection of the noble Earl (Lord Jersey) who defeated the Government in the House the other night ; and I may here notice one of our minor dis- advantages, which is that if we want to designate each other we are placed at the hopeless disadvantage of having to go back to biographical and geographical details of a singularly involved and prolix character 62 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS I say that this nobleman, a kinsman of the noble Earl, endeavoured at the time of the Restoration to dis- embarrass himself of his Peerage. He was found sitting for the borough of Malmesbury, and the eye of the Executive was at once fixed upon him, and he was summoned to this House. He fought a gallant fight, because even under the republican rule of Cromwell he had been disabled from sitting in the House of Commons ; but after that he managed to get back again, and after a very severe legal contest he was again excluded ; and I believe there was a resolution in his case, the resolution of 1678, which affirmed that of 1640, in the Ruthyn and Hastings case. The resolution of 1640 declares, * That no Peer of this realm can drown or extinguish his honour (but that it descend to his descendants), neither by surrender, grant, fine, nor any other conveyance to the King ; ' and what I venture to deduce from that gallant struggle closed by that resolution is this — that what the House of Lords was competent on a former occasion to deny by such a resolution, the House of Lords by a resolution in this case is equally competent to affirm. I thank you most warmly for the attention with which you have listened to me. I have detained you at great length, and I fear I have touched on subjects which must have been unpalatable. My Lords, I have only one last word to speak to you, but it is a golden one — it is the word 'opportunity.' This question is no party question ; at any rate I have most sincerely endeavoured, as far as was possible, to keep it outside party lines. I have canvassed no member of your Lordships' House ; I have not asked a single Peer to 63 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS give me his vote or his support. It is not, indeed, possible for me or any other member of your Lordships' House to make it a party question at this juncture, even if we so wished. It is not I or those who think with me — it is not we alone, but it is the Conservative party, both in the House of Commons and the country, that are asking your Lordships to be up and doing : it is only your enemies that would have you be still. But the opportunity, my Lords of the Government, is with you ; you have a chance which may not occur again in this generation ; you have in the one House a majority of not less than a hundred ; you have almost the unanimous support of the other ; you have besides the supreme advantage of a political calm ; for although reform is in the air, there is no agitation in its behalf to which you might deem it undignified or pusillani- mous to yield. Such a chance, my Lords, rarely occurs, and wlien it has passed by is not apt to occur again. Reject my motion if you will, but at any rate act yourselves. * Miss not the occasion ; by the forelock take That subtle power, the never-halting Time, Lest a mere moment's putting off should make Mischance almost as heavy as a crime.' My Lords, there is one argument which will, I doubt not, be brought against me to-niglit, wliich is brought forward publicly and privately, and which, 1 confess, has great weight. They say it is not possible to introduce sudden reforms in an ancient country, and they follow that up by the analogy that if you roughly or rudely touch an ancient building, even for purposes of repair, it is apt to I'all about your ears. I venture 64 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS to say in reply to that argument that no remodelUng would come suddenly upon the country, and that no reform in this House, however radical it might be, would anticipate the just expectations of the people. And as for the analogy of the old building, I would venture to say this, that if the old building be sound it will safely stand repair; if the building be so unsound that it will not stand handling, in God's name let it be so certified and declared. In truth, my Lords, the frequent reconstructions of the House of Commons leave you no choice as to undertaking some measure of reform. Thrice in the last sixty years the House of Commons has dug new foundations for itself, and each time it has dug them broader and deeper, each time it has received an immeasurable accession of strength, and in the mean- time we have remained practically as we were at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries. My Lords, such a position as this is not wise, it is not politic, it is not secure, it is not even tenable ; it is better frankly to admit to ourselves and the world that, both in principle and in practice, we urgently need reconstruction and reform. Frankness, my Lords, indeed, on such an occasion is neither a merit nor a demerit in a person who thinks as I do ; it is an absolute matter of duty, and reticence would be little better than a crime. I therefore implore you, my Lords, and chiefly those of you who are privileged to be in the Government, not to neglect this opportunity, so marvel- lous if we look at the past, so bountiful if we regard the immediate future — this opportunity, by wise and by timely legislation, to repair, renovate, and reconstitute the authority and the usefulness of this immemorial 65 ¥ THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS Chamber. I beg, my Lords, to move the motion which stands in my name. The motion was : ' To call attention to the constitu- tion of this House, and to move that a Committee he appointed to inquire thereon' It was rejected by 97 to 50. 66 MARCH T4TH, 1 9 10. THE Earl of Rosebery was received with cheers on rising to move the following : — * That the House do resolve itself into a Committee to consider the best means of reforming its existing organization, so as to constitute a strong and efficient Second Chamber ; and, in the event of such motion being agreed to, to move the following resolutions ; — (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 Parhament. (2) That such a chamber can best be obtained by the reform and reconstitution of the House of Lords. (3) That a necessary preHminary 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.' He said : — My Lords, — It is twenty-two years almost to a day since I last brought the subject of the reform of your Lordships' House before you. I then thought that that would be the last occasion on which I should trouble you, because I then recognised that some motive power external to this House would be required before this House was likely to take tliat matter into its serious consideration. But now it has seemed better when, by a large concurrence of opinion, 67 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS it is felt that measures should be taken inside this House for the reform of this House — it has seemed better that the proposals should come from the cross- benches, from some neutral source, so as to be rather the work of the House itself than to appear to be the action of the House dictated or controlled or inspired by that front bench which is usually believed to lead the opinion of this House. My Lords, there has long been a body of opinion in this House that has been profoundly conscious of some imperfections in its .structure, which it would be well in the interest of this House to remove without delay. We have been conscious, I think, in the first place, that we are too numerous a body to be effective ; secondly, that we represent too much one interest, though, perhaps, that point of view has been somewhat exaggerated ; and thirdly, that the principle of heredity, which is now the basis of our Constitution, has met with increasing criticism and objection in the great body of the nation. My Lords, I hope that while we are all conscious of these imperfections, we are also conscious of the great and splendid history and traditions of this House. I am the last, I hope, in this Assembly to attempt in any degree to disparage it. No one can look at the history of this House without recalling the long list of illustrious men who have sat in it, and who are sitting in it, and without seeing that in every century and age of this kingdom it has attracted to it perhaps the majority of all the military and political ability of this country, and of late also a large- proportion of scientific and literary eminence. More than that, its antiquity is a fact which I think very few even of your Lordsliips realise, and certainly very G8 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS few of your critics. It is claimed by Professor Freeman, not merely a great historian, but a still greater Radical — for the name of Liberal he would have spurned — that this House is a lineal descendant and representative of the Saxon Witenagemote, and so illustrious a descent as this, prolonged through so many ages, is not a fact which any member of your Lordships' House, or any critic of your Lordships' House, can altogether afford to disregard. There have been eulogies passed upon this House in terms more eloquent than any that I can use, one of which, at any rate, though I know how distasteful is an extract to an audience, I will venture to inflict on your Lordships ; — ' Remember for one moment what the House of Lords is. It is an integi'al part of the Constitution of England. It holds a large place in English history. Most of the present holders of titles in the House of Lords are the descendants of the men who wrung the Charter from John on the plains of Runnymede.' My Lords, I confess that I think that is an overstatement, and if any of my brethren in this House make that claim I desire to make a respectful exception in regard to myself in any such claim. * They are the descendants of men who in the past history of Britain fought the battles of England against the world, and I say that to abolish that portion of the Constitution, which is older probably in point of antiquity, in point of history, than the House of Commons itself — to abolish that means a revolution greater than any that has taken place in the whole constitutional history of England.' Those are the words not merely of a public speaker of great power, but of a person of great political importance. They are the 69 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS words not of an old fossilised Tory embedded in this House ; they are the eloquent phrases of Mr. Redmond. They were delivered before an audience of his country- men in the Rotunda at Dublin some fifteen or sixteen jears ago, and though I am not in favour of disinterring old speeches, 1 do not think it out of place to recall this important extract as coming from one who at this moment is attempting, and not without some success, to disturb the arrangements of the whole financial administration of the country entirely with a vicAV to bringing about the abolition of the House of Lords. There is another point with regard to this extract which I should like noble Lords opposite to remember. It is that the enterprise on which he is engaged involves a greater revolution than any that has yet occurred in the history of England. What I want you to consider is that Mr. Redmond knows what he is doing and where he is going, and T think that there are a good many on the Ministerial side of the House who do not. I ventured to say that I thought when I last spoke on this subject that some external pressure would be required to bring the House of Lords actively to bestir itself in the work of its own reform. In saying that I mean no censure. It is obviously difficult for any body of men to bring themselves to disturb a state of things which, though not wholly satisfactory, is generally com- fortable. Quietn non vwvere is a great axiom of all lives, general and particular, and when in particuhu- you are required to concede some part, at any rate, of your privileges it is, in my judgment, quite natural that the House of I^ords should require some pressure to reform itself. But even if that pressure has come from with- out, this House in acceding to the movement is not 70 THF REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS acting under pressure, but is acting on the spontaneous results of its own action. There have been various attempts within this House to reform this House. I will not go so far back as the almost pre-historic attempts of the third Earl Grey, Lord Russell, and the late Lord Salisbury, but among living men there are two who have moved in the matter, Lord Dunraven and Lord Newton. Lord Newton, alone of all the House of Lords' reformers, was able to bring his move- ment to a successful issue. He at last succeeded in bringing about the appointment of a committee to con- sider the reforms that might be advantageous to this House, and so far he has gathered the only sheaf in this somewhat barren harvest. I lay emphasis on Lord Newton's committee for this reason, that it brought in a detailed report to your Lordships before the present agitation began, and though no action was taken in this House the reason was perfectly evident that there was no use taking action without the co-operation of the House of Commons, and that, of course, from the nature of things, could not be hoped for from the present Government. I am not blaming the present Government, but am only stating the facts. Well, then, we come to the very important external pressure which has come on us as a result of the General Election. The General Election, as has already been remarked, had this unique and remarkable result, that it has disappointed every party who engaged in it, and I am not quite sure that it is not for the benefit of the country as a whole that that result was obtained. There was, however, one direct and positive result that this House cannot afford to overlook. There was re- turned a majority of 125 to the House of Commons 71 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS violently and radically opposed to the existence, at any rate, of the prerogatives of this House. Even that majority requires some analysis. It is in the main made up of the Irish Party and the Labour Party. Now, the Irish Party desires the abolition of the House of Lords, avowedly and declaredly in order to get rid of the last obstacle to what is known as Home Rule. After that obstacle is removed they will presumably remove to Dublin, and in all probability trouble them- selves no more with our constitutional arrangements. Therefore, the majority against this House, so far as it is composed of the Nationalist I*arty, is one merely for a temporary object, and that an object to which the majority of the people of England have repeatedly shown that they are diametrically opposed. Then I come to the Labour Party. The Labour Party have no such temporary object. Their objects are too per- manent. They aim at the destruction of the House of Lords for the purpose of advancing various sweeping schemes, the nationalisation of this and the nationalisa- tion of that, for which at present the population of Great Britain, so far as I know, has shown no marked desire, and therefore they also must be considered, with some deduction as regards their operations, against the House of I^ords. 1 am bound to say there are other elements in that majority which I regard more seriously in reality than either of those which I have indicated. There are the Scotch. Now, my Lords, I cannot flatter your Lord- ships by saying that the objection of the Scotch to the hereditary constitution of this Chamber is ever likely to be removed. Strangely enough, it is an hereditary objection to an hereditary principle. It is born in their 72 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS bone and in their blood and their flesh. It has come to them from a century back. I remember Mr. Gladstone telling me that, when he was a young man travelling south from his father's house to London, at the time of the great Reform Bill of 1832, he passed through Dundee and saw two placards which made his blood run cold. I have absolutely forgotten one, but I think I shall never forget the other. The other was simply this : — ' To hell with the bloody tyrants ! ' And you, my Lords, or rather your predecessors, were the bloody tyrants. Very much the same sort of language is used now. I have sometimes wished that the people who use it could be brought by excursion train to the Palace of Westminster and invited to inspect this House on an ordinary work- ing day, for anything less Hke a committee of * bloody tyrants ' than the somewhat apathetic and sometimes somnolent, but always highly respectable body of men on these benches I cannot, for the life of me, conceive. I say, then, that from Scotland, and from the north of England I think — of Scotland I am sure — you have an objection which you will never be able to modify or break down in regard to the hereditary constitution of this House. But there is much more than the mere fact of the General Election. There is the fact that the Govern- ment, both in the King's Speech and in a speech which, without disparagement to that gracious document I consider is more important than any King's Speech, has submitted a plan which, I suppose, they have formulated in detail in private ; a plan, first for the disabling of the powers of the House of Lords, and secondly for its re- constitution. My Lords, I must ask you to follow me while I investigate the proposals and the plan of the 73 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS Government, so far as that plan is known to us, for that is the necessary alternative to any plan that you may submit to the country. I do not wish to make any attack on the Government. I can conceive nothing more easy for a competent orator than to make a very rattling speech against the Government at this moment, with extracts from their speeches, and the windings of their policy, not without noticing in passing those financial measures of strategy which seem, to the casual onlooker, more subtle than beautiful. But that is not my object. To-night my object is not in the least in the world polemic. I only want to consider, from a practical point of view, what is the policy of his Majesty's Government with regard to this House. The first notice we had of it was in the King's Speech. * Proposals will be laid before you,' were the words put into his Majesty's mouth, * with all convenient speed, to define the relations between the Houses of Parliament, so as to secure the undivided authority of the House of Commons over finance, and its predominance in legislation. These measures, in the opinion of my advisers, should provide that this House ' — this undefined House — ' should be so constituted and empowered as to exercise impartially, in regard to proposed legislation, the functions of initi- ation, revision, and, subject to proper safeguards, of delay.' Those words were sufficiently vague, but, through their lofty and somewhat foggy grammar, we seem to perceive a distinct intention that two parallel measures will be introduced into Parliament, one for the limitation of the prerogatives of the House of Lords, and the other for its reconstitution on a different basis. The week after we had more precise information from the Prime Minister. Immediately on the iissembling of the 74 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS House on 28th February he said : — * Subject, of course, always to unforeseen exigencies, we shall present our proposals with regard to the relations between the two Houses, and present them in the first instance, as I have already intimated, in the form of resolutions. Those resolutions will, I hope and believe, be both few and simple. They will affirm — I am speaking now in general terms — the necessity for excluding the House of Lords altogether from the domain of finance. They will ask this House to declare that in the sphere of legislation the power of veto at present possessed by the House of Lords shall be so limited in its exercise as to secure the predominance of the deliberate and considered will of the House of Commons within the lifetime of a single Parliament ' — to which has since been added the fact that Parliament is to be a shortened Parliament. * Further,' continued the Prime Minister, * it will be made plain that these constitutional changes are without prejudice to and contemplate in a subsequent year the substitution in our Second Chamber of a democratic for an hereditary basis.' In fact, my Lords, what is foreshadowed is our old friend the Campbell-Bannerman resolutions followed at some distant day, which is not indicated, and need not be indicated, by a plan for the reconstitution of this House on a democratic basis. That plan will not follow the passing of the Veto resolutions by the House of Commons. I am not now speaking of the question as to whether next year or in any subsequent year his Majesty's Ministers will be in possession of Downing Street. That is not the point that I wish to labour. What I want to point out is that it is absolutely and practically out of the question that, when they have 75 THE llEFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS passed their resolutions, if they ever do pass them, tliey should be followed at any subsequent day by the plan- Sir Edward Grey, the Foreign Secretary, in the course of the General Election, made some very strong declara- tions in favour of an efficient Second Chamber to be maintained on an elective basis. Those who read those declarations were glad to see that in any case tliere was to be an effective Second Chamber, but surely Sir Edward Grey and those who think with him must see that all prospect of their pledges or declarations being carried out is absolutely removed by the declaration of the Prime Minister this day fortnight. If the proposals are not to be parallel, if they are not to be pari passu, they must know perfectly well that they will never come to fruition. I am perfectly certain that my right hon. friends, Mr. Asquith and Sir Edward Grey, and their colleagues are speaking and acting in perfect good faith, but the sons of Zeruiah will be too hard for them. Just sketch out in your own mind what the pros- pects of the Liberal Party and of Ministers will be as sketched out by the Prime Minister. Suppose his own programme carried out. Suppose he carries the resolu- tions of which I have just read a description to your I^ordships. He will come back next year or in some subsequent year to his party and will say to them : — * Now we have carried our proposals for the abolition of the Veto, it is time for us to consider the reconsti- tution and reform of the House of Lords.' What will his party say to him ? They will say, ' We are very much obliged to you, we are exceedingly grateful, we recognise your good intentions, but we do not mean to have anything whatever to do with this business. You have done all we wanted. You have deprived the 70 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS House of Lords of all privileges, of all powers, of its Veto ' — as it is called, which is its right of concurrent legislation — * you have absolutely deprived them of it in the course of a single and shortened Parliament ; what more do we want ? You have brought the House of Lords to its marrow bones, you have bled it to death, you have reduced it to a moribund condition. We re- joice, you can hear our Te Deum, but do you think that we are such unutterable and doddering idiots as to restore what we have just been at so much pains to destroy ? ' 1 have the greatest opinion of the good sense of the Radical Party in the other House of Parliament, of the extreme wing of the Liberal Party, and I am as certain as though I heard the dialogue going on that, supposing the V^eto resolutions of the Prime Minister are carried out, that is what would result from the interview between the Prime Minister and his followers. And, indeed, would it be worth while for the Prime Minister, or for the Liberal Party, or for any one else, to set up the House of Lords when they had removed all its powers ? W as there ever, if I may use the ad- jective with all courtesy, so preposterous a proposal offered to either House of Parhament ? I am induced for once to agree with the sons of Zeruiah, whom I do not propose to particularise at this moment. You may choose, if you are in the position of the Government, logically between two lines and only two hues. You can either reform the House of Lords and place it on what you consider a better and more democratic basis, or you can deprive it of all its powers — that is the pro- posal of the Government — and leave it alone, but to combine the two proposals does seem to me one of the 77 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS most remarkable instances of illogical proposition that has ever been submitted, as I say, to the public. When you have annulled and shattered and bled to death this ^ Chamber, you then propose, in some moment of your leisure, to put it up again — I do not like to use any irreverent comparison — like that game of Aunt Sally, in which we were wont to spend the leisure hours of our youth. But I will give your Lordships another illustration which, I think, is more close, and which may appeal to the sporting section of your Lordships' House to which so many of you belong. Supposing one of us possessed a valuable horse to-day. According to the Government plan we ham-string it, we put an end to its power of motion, its power of volition, but at the same time we announce that next year, or on some future occasion, we propose to start it for the Derby. That is, so far as I can gather, the exact pro- posal that his Majesty's Government propose to submit to this House. Now, my Lords, there is one ominous word in the Speech from the Throne and the speech of the Prime Minister, which is the word ' predominant ' — the word * predominant ' in legislation as between the Hoase of Commons and the House of Lords. My contention is — and I know my noble friend the Secretary of SUite for India is a great authority, and 1 would ask his attention to this point — that the word predominant in that sense is absolutely unknown to the British Con- stitution, and in the second place that it iniphes without any further explanation the existence of an uncontrolled single Chamber. The predominance is to be estab- lished by three simple processes. I do not think it necessary to recall now what they are. In the Campbell- 78 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS Bannerman resolution, so far as I recollect, after a Bill had been read three times in three successive years in the House of Commons, and after a conference of the two Houses, it was to become law. In the picturesque words of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Government, with this Bill in its hands, was to go straight to the Throne without any interference from any other body of men. If that is not single-Chamber Government I do not know what is. I am not alone in my judgment. I have a very important authority on my side who has written a letter to the papers — I mean Lord Marchamley. Lord Marchamley has written to say with regard to the Campbell-Bannerman resolution that, * although I was a member of the House of Commons at the time I never Uked that resolution. It would practically abolish two-Chamber Government. It would decree the sole domination of the House of Commons.' The noble Lord is too modest when he says he was only a member of the House of Commons at the time. He was one of the most important members of the House of Commons. He was Chief Whip. As Chief Whip he was the principal strategist, and kept the conscience of the Liberal Party. We now know that all the time this resolution was being formulated by the Government and adopted by the House of Commons amid the loud acclamations of the House of Commons, the Chief Whip nourishing, like Cleopatra, an asp at his vitals, had an uneasy conscience that what he was approving was in reality most deleterious, as it would establish single- Chamber government, which, of course, all history tells us is pestilential to the country which adopts it. But I would also point out that if our powers would have gone under that resolution, and if our powers 79 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS will certainly go under the resolutions that were proposed by the Prime Minister, our very existence will be at the mercy of the House of Commons whenever they choose to put an end to us. What is there to prevent the House of Commons embodying in a Bill the famous resolution of February 6, 1649, which runs as follows : — * Resolved that the House of Peers in Parliament is useless, dangerous, and ought to be abolished, and that an Act be brought in for that purpose.' That was done. I am not at all sure, if that resolution had been proposed to the last House of Commons, that it would not have been carried by an overwhelming majority. What prevented it being carried into effect was this, that the powers of the House of Lords were still in existence and would have impeded the action of the House of Commons, so that it was not worth while to pass it, but under the Campbell-Bannerman regivie it could be done after being read three times without the consent of your Lordships' House. So our emasculated institution would then disappear, ' unwept, unhonoured, and unsung ; ' and I for one should not shed a tear for its disappearance if it ever reached such a condition as that to which his Majesty's Government propose to reduce it. What followed the resolution of February 1649 ? The very next day the House of Commons passed this resolution : — * Resolved, that it has been found by experience, and this House does declare, that the office of King in this nation, and to have the power thereof in any single person, is unnecessary, burdensome, and dangerous to the liberty, tlie safety, and the public interests of this nation, and therefore ought to be abolished.' 80 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS And an Act to this effect was brought in and passed. Well, it was brought in and passed. I do not in the least pretend that I anticipate as the result of the passing of the resolution of which the Government have given notice any immediate or direct danger to the Throne, but it is important for any student of history to consider what was the direct sequence of events at that time, and to remember that when a body once abolishes one brancli of the Legislature it will find it desirable to try that sort of operation again, eager to deal with some other body, and that the Throne itself, without anybody to intervene between it and the Commons, would be at any rate in a precarious position. I am not speaking on my own authority, or from conclusions I may draw from history. Let me appeal to the greatest sovereign who ever reigned in this country without the name of king ; I mean Oliver Cromwell. In the last speech he addressed to his Parliament in the very year in which he died, he made use of the following remarkable expression : — ' I tell you of one thing. I made it a condition ' — he said — * that is, taking the supreme power, that I would not undertake it without there might be some other body to interpose between you and me on behalf of the Commonwealth to prevent the tumultuary and popular spirit. You granted that I should name another House, and I named it. With integrity I did it.' That was the speech of the sovereign who possessed far more power in this country than any sovereign since his time and most before, and he said after an experi- ence of five or six years that he for one would not undertake to sit upon what was virtually the Throne of this country without a House of Lords, without a Second Chamber to intervene between him and the 81 G THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS tumultuary spirit of the people and of the Commons at large. But what followed this double abolition carried out in forty-eight hours ? In a few years Cromwell was trying, with an eagerness almost pathetic, to restore the House of Lords, which with great difficulty, and in a very imperfect shape, he was able to do, and simul- taneously with his attempt to restore the House of Lords, the House of Commons, almost on its knees, was begging him to restore the Monarchy which it abolished eight years before. And, of course, as we all know, eleven years after the abolition of these branches of the Legislature was carried they were restored by acclamation unaltered as they were before the great revolution. Speaking of Cromwell, I should like to say in passing that the Government, if they wished for it, will get no encouragement from him for the arrangement they propose. He who had fought against the King on behalf of liberty called it ' the horridest arbitrariness that ever was known in the world.' That is what he called government by single Chamber, and that is what the Government are about to propose to us. What is the policy of the Government ? It con- sists of a resolution declaring the complete domination of the House of Commons, and placing the existence of the House of Lords at the hazard of the whim of the momentary mood of the House of Commons. That is, some day they propose to establish a precarious, muzzled, impotent phantom of a Second Chamber. They propose to do so, and I tliink I have shown con- clusively they will never do so ; but if they do it, let me suggest one difficulty to them. Of whom would 82 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS this House be composed ? What self-respecting person would sit in this House who could sit in the most ordinary vestry in any country parish ? Of whom would this House of puppets and cripples be com- posed ? We see from the King's Speech the Govern- ment is in some difficulty as to the name which they shall bestow on their legislative body. Let me assist them in that. There is in this Palace an apartment well known to historians as the Painted Chamber. Let the Government, if they ever form their Chamber, call it the Painted Chamber, for it will be no more. If they like they may sketch in frescoes on the wall the image of the respectable and sagacious people who would represent the House which they have in their mind's eye. Or if they want something a little more material than a mere fresco — I don't think they would — it would be more convenient to walk straight through to the steps of the Throne in that further Chamber in this Palace, unembarrassed by any figures in it. But if they desire some more visible embodiment, they might go to the friend of our cliildhood, Madame Tussaud, and ask for some of her waxen images, dressed up in the robes which peers are supposed habitually to wear, and they would form a very suitable Chamber for the advancement of his Majesty's Government's enter- prises. And if they wanted something that could articulate they might easily get a division of the A PoUce or a couple of well-drilled companies of Guards, and they would fulfil all the functions that his Majesty's Government require for a Second Chamber. With a single Chamber people, at least, know where they are. They know whom they are voting for. They know where to place responsibihty of Acts and of Law 88 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS But a Second Chamber that is but the sham of a Second Chamber, that will be without a shadow of responsibihty and power, that is to act as a whipping-boy, where necessary, for the failures of the House of Commons, is a dangerous and a futile hypocrisy. The worst thing you can do with an ancient and illustrious House like this is first to degrade and disable it, and then to try and keep it in apparent existence for the purpose of decep- tion. 1 am as confident of this as I am that I stand here. When you have carried your measure, when you have got rid of the House of Lords, when you have substituted for it your ghosts and phantoms, there would very soon be a very violent reaction and a loud and almost universal demand from the country for the establishment of a stronger Second Chamber than exists at present. Meanwhile, there is to be an interval— a very considerable interval — between the revision of our powers and the reconstruction of the Second Chamber. Mr. Balfour in the House of Commons made a very clever gibe, as I thought, at the Government, in which he pointed out that the interval between the destruc- tion of our powers and the reconstitution of the Second Chamber might possibly be done intentionally, with a view of carrying a Home Rule Bill in that interval. That, of course, was only a gibe, but it was a very amusing one. At any rate, there would be a very considerable interval, and even if it were not for the purpose of carrying a Home Rule Bill, the wliole country and all its interests would be at the mercy of any chance majority, of any sudden ebulhtion of momentary wrath, such as swept over the country in 190G. We are told this is the voice of the people, that 84 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS when you come to the last resort the House of Com- mons represents the voice of the people. We are frequently reminded of it in this House almost ad nauseam. But this phrase 'the voice of the people,' like the majority at the last election, does require care- ful analysis. In the first place, the voice of the people would be much more effective and true if redistribution were carefully carried out. The voice of the people is uncommonly partial in its operation. No one has a greater respect for the voice of the people than I have — the deliberate voice of the informed people judging as between right and wi'ong on issues with which they are acquainted. But the voice of the people is so oddly constituted. In the city of Kilkenny 1742 votes represent the voice of the people ; and in South Essex the same voice is represented by 53,000 votes. And yet I am perfectly certain of this, that the voice of the city of Kilkenny — I do not know in the least who the member is ; I am speaking from general conviction — I am perfectly certain that the voice of the people as coming from the city of Kilkenny is quite as loud as the voice of the people coming from South Essex. There is another puzzle about the voice of the people. I am not going into figures now, but statisticians will point out how very small a plurality of votes is sufficient to return a very large majority to represent the voice of the people in the House of Commons. I will not labour that point now ; but I will point out this very curious circumstance. In the year 1889, twenty-one years ago, we established county councils, and there was an election for the London County Council. A Conservative Government was then in power, and the London County Council that was returned was almost entirely Liberal in character. 85 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS Now that was the voice of the people. But since then I think hardly without an exception, whenever the voice of the people returned a Parliamentary majority on one side it returned an entirely different majority on the other side to serve it on the London County Council. Though the point is not a conclusive one, yet it is, so to speak, a deduction from the large term, the voice of the people, which is always used against this House, and it has some value at the present moment. The voice of the people, whatever it may be, requires everywhere some protection against itself in unguarded moments. The voice of the people, like the voice of individuals, requires some interval for reflection. None of us, no individual in this House, not even on the right reverend bench, but has not at some time spoken and wished he had taken a little time for reflection before he had spoken. A Second Chamber, if it is kept in efficiency, does, at any rate, secure that the voice of the people should be deliberate and not impulsive. We all remember the familiar instance of the majority of forty that was returned in 1892 in favour of Irish Home Rule. This House — utterly kicking outside the traces in a manner worthy of the severest condemnation of the House of Commons, and one which would be impossible under the resolutions about to be proposed by my right hon. friend, the Prime Minister — threw the Bill out. The odd thing was that when we came to the next General Election, two years afterwards, the country by an enormous majority, by a much larger majority than was given to the other side in the year 1802, went in the other direction. That, I think, shows that the voice of the people, when it is given time for con- sideration, has not always pronounced in the same 86 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS absolutely consistent manner as is represented by those who constantly mention it. I want to touch upon one other point in regard to ^^ the voice of the people. 1 frankly admit that in this part of what I am saying I am hoping that my voice may reach those outside rather than those inside, because the facts that are famiUar to you are not always familiar to the great multitudes who read the news- papers in this country. The point I would endeavour to indicate in a passing sentence is this. I spoke just now of the Revolution which followed the aboUtion of the House of Lords at the time of the Commonwealth. Revolutions, as a rule, are not carried out by the voice of the people. They are carried out by a small and determined minority. The very House of Commons which carried this revolution was a mere rump, a fragment, of the original House of Commons. The very execution of Charles I. was carried, according to the testimony of all historians, by a comparatively small minority of the British people. Those who effected the beneficent revolution of 1688 — most of whom, by the way, were members of this discredited House of Lords — those who brought over WiUiam III., were, it is universally held, a minority of the people. Those who brought about the fall of the French Monarchy by the storming of the Tuileries in 1792 were not even France, not even Paris, but a deputation from Marseilles that came to Paris for that purpose. The executions of Louis XVI., his wife, and his sister were not carried out either by France or Paris, according to all testi- mony, but by a comparatively small minority of the inhabitants of the capital. Therefore, it is not the voice of the people that we have — whether well-founded 87 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS or not — in great revolutionary movements, but it is the voice of a small, determined, and intrepid minority. This is the effect of the policy of the Government on these hapless islands upon which we live. They are deliberately about to establish government by single Chamber without regard to precedents or authority or history, with a sole view to their own convenience and the wishes of a large section of their followers. That is the effect on these islands. What will be the effect on the Empire when these resolutions are made known to the Empire ? You will announce from that bench to the great Dominions of the Crown outside these islands that the House of Lords has been first emasculated and then abolished ; and that apaulo postfuhnmm Second Chamber is about to be brought in, or may be discerned in a political mirage, but never likely to be realised. Will not that bring about some diminution of confidence on the part of those Dominions of the Crown, with regard to this Parliament ? A single Chamber which is liable to every form of impulse, which is liable to every gust of popular enthusiasm, is a singularly strange centre for a disseminated Empire like ours. Our strength as a centre does not lie in forcing the pace for our Colonies, but in moderating, sobering, and guiding them, and so careful have we been that not merely should they be moderated, sobered, and guided from the centre, that wherever we have granted a Constitution to a self-governing colony we have taken the greatest pains to plant side by side with an elective Chamber at least an equally strong and efficient Second Cliamber. I am afraid the Dominions would ask their bewildered representatives in tliis country, ' Are these Second Chambers for 8H THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS external application only ? Are they of no use to the Mother Country whicli insisted on our receiving them, sometimes very unwillingly ? And are we now to be told ' — these great self-governing communities will say — * this is all very well for you ; but we, the heart, the parent, and the mainspring of the Empire, are going to be satisfied with a rump of a Senate or no Senate at all ? Now, what will the Greater Britains say ? The Greater Britains, I think you will all acknowledge in this House, are day by day influencing more and more our convictions and our proceedings in this country. These great forward communities, which some of us have visited, represent, to some extent, our future ; and, therefore, we take into account their counsels and their opinions every day more and more. Will this inspire confidence in these great communities ? How shall we explain our proceedings to them ? Take the case of Canada. The noble and venerable High Commissioner has a seat in this House. 1 do not know if he is here now, certainly I do not expect him to answer me now, but I shall be curious some time or another to learn in what form of despatch he proposes to communicate the resolutions of the Imperial Government to the people of Canada. He will inform them that the people of Canada were granted by the Act of 1867 a strong Senate possessing control over finance, and endowed with all the authority which a Second Chamber could possess. Lord Strathcona would have to tell the Senate of Canada that that was all very well for them, but that for Great Britain it has now been thrown on the dust heap. A High Commissioner has just come over from Australia — the first High Commissioner, Sir George 89 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS Reid, a man of infinite ability, popularity, geniality — no better choice could possibly have been made. But it is hard upon him that his first task should be to write a despatch to his Government in Australia, which must also begin : — ' In 1900 an Act was passed for Australia giving them a strong and efficient Senate, with financial rights, with financial control It is my painful duty to inform you that the Imperial Govern- ment considers that, though that is very well for Australia, it considers the purpose of a Senate to be useless and inefficient as regards the Mother Country.' But all their difficulties rolled into one will not equal those to be encountered by my noble and unfor- tunate friend the Secretary for the Colonies. He will have to write a despatch to South Africa. He will have to state to South Africa : — ' Last year we con- curred with you in producing a Constitution for you with two Chambers, a lower Chamber, as it used to be called, and a Senate with financial control and the power of rejecting, but not amending, Money Bills. We took it to our Sovereign for his signature and approval, and we obtained that signature and approval. Now I regret to inform you that we are about to sub- mit to the signature and approval of our Sovereign regulations, doing away with all the powers of the Second Chamber in this country, and reducing it to a nulfity. You will understand in South Africa why this is done without any unnecessary explanations from me.' My noble friend's despatch will be addressed, with a strange irony, to the last of the peers, who has reluc- tantly submitted to the yoke of entering this discredited Assembly. I am afraid that South Africa will consider that for the last eighteen months we have been going 90 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS through a sort of pantomime in Great Britain. And now we are to be told that the Government are not merely going to take up these resolutions to the same Sovereign who signed the Constitution of South Africa last year, but they are going to demand from him guarantees of a nature which have not yet been specified, to reverse the very principle which they insisted upon for South Africa last year. If this is not deliberately digging the grave of Empire, I cannot conceive any measure more hkely to do it. What a spectacle we shall present — the Mother of Parliaments digging up her Constitution by the roots, then cutting away the roots, and planting what remains at some future time in some barren and unfruitful soil to wither alone ! You will have shaken faith in every part of your Dominions in your Constitution, and in the validity of your Con- stitution. You will have shaken faith in the stability of your institutions, and, what is worse than all, in the stability of your race, and when all belief in the stabihty of your race has gone, your Empire will not be long in following. I would ask you to turn your eyes away from the melancholy spectacle presented by the contrast between what we enact for the great Dominions of the Crown outside and what we enact for ourselves — I would ask you to turn for a moment from that spectacle to two other great democracies from which we may take some warning in the course that we are about to take. Think of the United States. I must say I tremble when I think of the scorn of the United States when it witnesses our one-eyed, one-legged search for a Constitution in the twentieth century of the Christian era. What will they say to us ? ' One hundred and thirty-four 91 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS years ago we set out on a lonely and dangerous voyage in order to get away from the tyranny, as we considered it, of a Parliament in which we were not represented. What did we do when we began to keep house for ourselves, to frame a Constitution for ourselves ? We at once instituted the double veto which we had left behind in England — the veto of the Sovereign and the veto of the Second Chamber. We have, unlike you, retained both those vetos, and the veto of the Sovereign, that is, the President for the time being, is stronger than it ever was, the veto of the Senate is stronger than it ever was. Both vetos have gained strength with our strength, and grown with our growth, and you are now trying with your eyes open, in spite of our experience and our example, to put your neck under the yoke of what Cromwell truly described as the cruellest arbitrariness in the world.' I tremble to think of the scorn of the United States when it witnesses our constitutional operations. I take France, with which we are daily endeavour- ing to enter into more and more cordial relations. France has had a longer and a more diversified ex- perience of democratic revolution than any country in Europe, than any country in the world. It began with the great Revolution of 1789, and that Revolu- tion has not burnt itself out yet. It is still seething in the body politic of France. After four or five revolutions France at length, in a moment of reaction from Empire, set about framing its own Constitution. It had a great opportunity then for carrying into effect some of the democratic proposals which find so much favour with his Majesty's present advisers. Tliey were an advanced community ; what did they 92 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS do ? Did they do away with the veto or the Senate ? They constructed the strongest Senate that they could possess, with control over finance— a control which it constantly exercises, and, what is more — what has never been possessed by this House, or, so far as I know, by other Senates — with a veto over the dissolu- tion of the whole Parliament. What will France think when it sees our search after a new Constitu- tion based upon a single Chamber? What will all countries say, for, after all, the experience of all countries is identical in the matter, it does not vary ? It does not give you any hint or spark of encouragement. You have to follow blindly in the dark without any precedent to help you. I beg your pardon — there are precedents, there is something from which we can get some encouragement ; there are two exceptions to the general protest of all civilised communities against being governed by a single Chamber. I will name them. They are Greece and Costa Rica. I have been a Phil- hellene in my time, and I am sure we all wish very well to Greece. I am sure also we do not wish to say anything which could be in any way offensive to the feelings of the Greek nation, but 1 do feel that even though we are in some perturbation at this moment, we do not particularly envy the condition of Greece. Nor does it inspire us with any great encouragement to pursue the visionary search for a single- Chamber Government. As for Costa Rica, I know less, and I have not studied the history of Costa Rica. It has not been accessible to me so much as I could wish. But from the imperfect means at my disposal I gather this, that the existence of Costa Rica has been pretty evenly 93 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS divided between government by a single Chamber and Government by a dictatorship — I think more often government by dictatorship than government by a single Chamber. There seems to be a necessary alter- nation between the two. That is our position, that is the path sketched out for us by his Majesty's Govern- ment in the first decade in the twentieth century. You are going under their guidance to turn our backs on all experience, to scorn all precedent, to flout all tradition, to embark on a cheerless and perilous journey, without any guide or compass or encourage- ment, every omen portending disaster, in the strenuous emulation of Greece and Costa Rica. Will the country, when it is face to face with this course, be likely to adopt it ? I have a very strong opinion on that point. I am quite convinced that the country, when it is asked to embrace single-Chamber Government at the invita- tion of Ministers, will not do so. But whether or not they do so, our course is clear. We, representing the most ancient Chamber of Legislature in this country, are bound to submit our plan to the country, to avoid this overwhelming evil and this catastrophe of Empire. The choice before us is this — you can choose from two options. One is the preservation of the present House exactly as it is with greatly diminished and indeed vanishing power ; the other is the reconstitution of this House with the maintenance of legislative rights. That is, you may choose between being a Chamber of titled phantoms or a Chamber effective to exercise all the proper functions of a Second Chamber. I cannot doubt your choice as between those two options, and still less can I doubt the choice of the country. So we come by natural evolution to the question of procedure and THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS the question of proposals. I must apologise for having detained you so long in examining the plan of the Government, but it was a necessary procedure to adopt to examine what the alternative was which the Govern- ment have to offer the country before we sketch out in any way whatever our own proposals. I suggest, and I think it is the general idea of this House, that we should proceed by resolution and not by Bill. We proceed by resolution for two obvious reasons. The first is that a Bill is an affair of the Government — that nothing less than a Government can offer a Bill on a great measure of constitutional reform ; and, secondly, a Bill must go into accurate details of administration which it is not, in my judg- ment, expedient for this House to attempt to do. What we have to do, as I conceive, is this — moving slowly perhaps, but so far as possible with the consent of a large body of opinion in this House — to frame general resolutions of principle on which some future Government may propound a measure of reform. I think some people have thought that the Committee of the whole House is too large a body to undertake the work of considering a scheme such as this, but it was not possible in reality to take any other. You have already appointed a Select Committee. It would be useless to appoint another ; and it would be worse than useless because it would have been a work of procrastination and delay. The resolutions should, I think, one by one embody the principles on which reform in this House should proceed. I have laid on the table three resolutions of a preliminary nature which I hope your Lordships will be able to consider without delay. Indeed, I am sanguine enough to 95 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS think that they might be passed before what has come to be called the ecclesiastical holiday of Easter. I do not know whether that is too great a demand, but I would point out that the first two resolutions are, 1 think, practically unopposed by any considerable body of opinion in this House, and might be passed without a division. The third, I admit, is more contentious, but at any rate it could be passed without many days' debate, and if so it would be eminently desirable, I think, that it should be passed before Easter. Then we would lay other resolutions. I am anxious to take the largest possible body of opinion in the House with the proposals as they are formulated, and therefore I should be in no undue or indecent hurry to lay them on the table. May I say a word about the report of your own committee ? That was the one result of all the motions made on this subject in my lifetime. 1 am not responsible for the report of that com- mittee, though it was generally named after me, as 1 was chairman. It did not follow the lines I particularly cared about, and though I was glad to get it, I did not think it by any means adequate, even at that time, to the necessities of the occasion. Kut that committee laboured under very considerable difficulties. The Government ostentatiously washed its hands of its proceedings and declined to have anything whatever to do with it. Therefore, though we had a committee nominally of twenty-six, but really of twenty-five owing to the lamented absence of the late Duke of Devonshire, we had only three I^iberals — three bold and audacious I^ibcrals — who broke through party discipline and ventured to sit with us. One was our lamented friend, I^ord Selby, who was an orthodox Liberal and i>6 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS of most valuable assistance to our committee ; the other was Lord Courtney, who, I think, is less orthodox, if he will allow me to say so, because he has a real antipathy to being in a majority of any description or kind, and therefore, with a defect so uncommon and so unorthodox, that he must be ranked as a Liberal who is not quite according to the letter of the law. And then we had my friend, Lord Ribblesdale, who was also a valuable addition to the committee, but who, to use his own expression, is rather a freebooting Liberal, and came on an independent footing to join us. What I want to point out is that of twenty-five members, two of whom may be reckoned as independent and three as Liberals, we had nineteen Conservatives, which was an undue and unbalanced proportion. I honestly do not think that anybody who had been in that committee and listened to its discussions, which were very long — too long as some members thought, but not too long as the chairman thought — could have known, if his eyes were shut, to which political complexion the speaking member belonged. There was a real and anxious desire on the part of every member of the committee to throw his mind without prejudice into the common stock and to endeavour to produce the best result obtainable in the circumstances. On that I think I can appeal to my noble friends behind me who were on the committee for corroboration. I will not conceal from your Lordships even at the stage of going into Committee that it seems to me there are two vital principles at stake, so vital that without adopting them it is useless to touch this work of reform at all. The first is the question of heredity and of doing away with the hereditary right to a seat 97 H THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS in this House, which forms the third of the resolutions on the table, and which was the unanimous, spontaneous recommendation of your committee. T^he Earl of Halsbury was understood to dissent. The Earl of Rosebery. — ]\Iy noble and learned friend says no. Technically he is right, but in spirit he is wrong. He opposed all our proceedings without exception whatever ; but if he will allow me to say so, there were two occasions on which this resolution was passed. One was when we were deliberating at the commencement of our sittings, and the other was when the draft report came up for adoption. The Earl of Halsbury. — If the noble earl will for- give me, I was not there on either occasion. The Earl of Rosebery. — Then I am precisely right in saying it was the unanimous vote of our committee. My noble friend can hardly claim to have voted against a proposal when he was absent. The Earl of Halsbury was understood to say that he was engaged in public service, and in the administration of justice at the time. The Earl of Rosebery. — I am not disputing the validity of my noble friend's contention. I am quite sure, wherever he was, he was usefully and honourably employed. What I am saying is that when the resolution was put to the committee it was unani- mously passed. I want to point out, however, that the hereditary principle is not inherent in the constitution of this House, and did not originally form any part of the constitution of this House. Your Lordships must be aware, I think, that a majority of peei*s in this House up to the time of the Reformation did not sit by any hereditary right at all, and therefore, three centuries and 1)8 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS a half ago it was a majority of peers sitting by personal and life tenure that prevailed in the House of Lords. Hereditary tenure was no doubt very useful for feudal purposes, and in that way it came to be the practice in this House ; but I think we shall all admit that as a legislative engine it is open to grave objection, and that it has outlived its usefulness in our community. ^ It is the part of our constitution which is most objectionable to the country and most resented by the people at large. It is the most easy to attack and the most difficult to defend. The defence is that it works well in practice ; but it has ceased to work weU in practice. It is no sufficient answer, as has been frequently given during the election, to point to the eminence of our members and to the excellence of our debates. In the mind of the nation at large that does not touch the question. Suppose, if you can suppose, a House composed of Shakespeare, Bacon, NeA\i:on and Burke. Even then you would not remove the objection to the hereditary constitution of the House, because its critics would at once say that these are men of high and exalted genius, but how are we to ensure that their successors will inherit their genius with their names, and so far as we know anything about the progeny of these great men, and so far as they have had progeny, it is not the case ? There is the further objection that I sketched at the beginning of these proceedings that we are given a great many more peers than we want. It is enlarging the numbers in this House to an extent which is almost dangerous. A fertilising stream like the Nile flows annually, almost weekly, into this House ; but, unlike the Nile, it does not retire. The stream is 99 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS copious and constant, but there is no outlet, and when we consider the rate at which peers have been created and are likely to be created in future, even without the mysterious guarantees which are in certain circum- stances to be demanded, we may well begin to think that we shall have to ask the House of Commons to provide us with a more spacious Chamber if anything like our present constitution is to be preserved. Under the present Government, as far as I recollect, thirty-six or thirty-seven peerages have been created, three in the last fortnight — at any rate nine or ten every year the Government have been in existence, which is a sur- prising number considering the extreme distaste which the Liberal Party express of any contact with the House of Lords. Of course, if one may believe the statements of those who fix a coronet of promise on certain names outside this House, the number will be very considerably increased, almost to the extent of the guarantees that are to be demanded. I venture to think that, although that is a matter which may raise alarm, and it is a grave subject — it bears upon the whole question of the hereditary principle — 1 think I may say on the broad grounds which I have stated, without going into any that are more invidious, the hereditary principle is a source of weakness and not a source of strength to this House, strength being what we want. The second principle which I would ask you to adopt, and which I regard as vital to any reform which may be made in this House, is that of election from outside. That is a new principle in this country ; but it is not new elsewhere. It is almost unanimously 100 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS the practice elsewhere, and I remember it as being the practice in one specially Conservative country — the Kingdom of Prussia — where the House of Lords is freely recruited from the representative element. The House of Lords in Prussia has more strength and more constitutional power than is possessed by this House. But, even if it be a new principle, if we are to deal with this question at all we must not be afraid of new principles. They will soon lose their novelty in appli- cation, and if we are not to adopt any new principle in the process of reconstitution, I am afraid our reconsti- tution will be a futile enterprise. After all, nothing can be so anomalous as the British Constitution. We are afraid to introduce new principles into it. But, really, when you come to analyse the Constitution itself one might be inclined to think that a little novelty might to some extent improve it. You began with a House of Commons with a double Veto over it — ^the Veto of the Sovereign and the Veto of the House of Lords. The Veto of the Sovereign has not been exercised since the reign of Queen Anne, and is dor- mant, so dormant that it may be said to have perished of disuse. At any rate, it is not likely to come into action in our time. Having got rid of one Veto you are seeking to get rid of the other by enactment, leaving the House of Commons free to pursue its own devices. If you are to get rid of all the old principles that animate the British Constitution you will have to embrace some new ones if you want to place your Constitution upon a satisfactory footing. I venture to think that nothing but the elective principle will give new life and strength to this Second Chamber. 101 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS Nothing else will give you that contact with national life and national opinion which is necessary for the strength of any Chamber exercising the functions with which we are endowed. The hereditary principle has not given and cannot give us that strength. The addition of life peers, which has sometimes been suggested, has not given and cannot give you that strength. Let me give a familiar illustration. Take two popular men and make them life peers. Take the two gentlemen who, I understand, are most popular on I^iberal platforms at this moment — Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Winston Churchill. Both are very able orators. Make them life peers and put them in this House, and in a year, or two years at most, they would have no more contact with the people than any other member of this House, and they would lose all the advantages which the elected principle gives them, all the strength they receive from delegation, and would have to rely upon their mere sheer ability alone. When I speak of election I do not wish to be mis- understood. I do not wish it to be supposed that I would venture to propose that any addition to this House should be arrived at by means of popular election. That would only give an understudy, a feeble under- study, of the House of Commons ; and further, it would multiply all the horrors of a General Election, which we must all be anxious to avoid. If by any action, direct or indirect, of this House, we should put another General Election on the national programme it would be, I think, imputed to us as a crime. That all the mis-statements, all the personalities, all the foolish and erroneous placards, all the actual lies which are eni- 102 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS ployed at a General Election should be repeated for our benefit and selection would, I think, be a most un- justifiable and impossible proposition. I do believe that this ancient and illustrious Assembly would derive new strength, new grace, new dignity by association with the corporations and county councils of this country formed into elective bodies Jvery much on the French basis ; and I am bound to say that this representation, in my judgment, so far as it has any value, should form no inconsiderable proportion of this House. Remember that even if elected they might still be peers. It would be open to any member of your Lordships' House to stand for election outside ; and I venture to think that any peer, however illustrious his name and however long his descent, would gain, not lose, in dignity by entering this House as the representative, say, of Yorkshire or Lancashire. I will not go further into details. I only want, on this occasion at any rate, to establish two principles, which I repeat I believe are vital, and without which it is no use entering upon any operations. These principles, with all my heart and soul and with all the earnestness which I can^usei^'on so great and so solemn an occasion, I implore your^Lordships to recognise and adopt. I believe that at this critical moment you have an opportunity of rendering your country a greater service than has fallen to any ^ body of men since the Barons wrested the liberties of England from King John at Runnymede. You, like them, may rescue the nation from an impending despotism, not the despotism of a King, but the even more formidable despotism of a single and irresponsible Chamber. ^You have to pre- 103 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS serve and to vindicate the balance of our ancient Con- stitution. You have to protect the nation from the legislation of impulse, and of passion, and of excess. You have to guard the rights of minorities from the tyranny of the majority. You can do all this by sur- rendering privileges which day by day are growing less valuable, which act as a barrier between you and the rest of the nation ; and, having made that concession, by forming ungrudgingly and unselfishly, in a large and generous spirit, a reformed House of Lords which shall claim and deserve the confidence of the country. The Government will soon go to the country with its plan. Let us, too, go with ours. Let us, in our turn, appeal to that supreme tribunal — for, after all, in the long run, in the last resort, it is the nation that must judge — not the High Court of Parliament, not the House of Lords, or even the House of Commons. Demonstrate to your countrymen that the plan of the Government is a single-Chamber plan and spells disaster to the nation, and offer your alternative plan, which you may truly say is offered in the interests of the nation and not of a party or of yourselves. What is the alternative ? The alternative is to cling with feeble grasp to privileges which have become unpopular, to powers which are verging on the obsolete, shrinking and shrinking until at last, under the unsparing hands of the advocates of single-Chamber government, there may arise a demand for your own extinction, or the Second Chamber, the ancient House of Lords, may be found waiting in de- crepitude for its doom. 1 dare say in the course of this discussion you will be reminded of a memorable night in tlie great French Revolution, the night of August 4, 178U, when in suc- 104 THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS cessive waves of passionate enthusiasm the aristocracy of France surrendered privilege after privilege, until those who had entered that hall a proud and powerful aristocracy left it as simple citizens. My noble and learned friend appears to have that incident in his head. He, perhaps, will tell you that that great concession brought about the French Revolution. If he tells you so, and he does not say he will tell you, he will tell you wrongly. The Bastille had fallen and the Revolution had begun. The lesson to be learned from that memorable night is not the lesson of privileges conceded to a popular demand. They were in themselves gross and exorbitant privileges, which would not have been tolerated in this country during the last three centuries — privileges of forced labour, privileges in some cases of serfage, privileges of total exemption from taxation and what not, privileges as unhke as possible to that modest right of concurrent legislation which we are still permitted to exercise. The lesson for to-night is the lesson of too late. Had the French aristocracy made that surrender a hundred years earlier they might have saved the Monarchy and the State. What would have been the salvation of France in the reign of Louis XIV. came too late in the reign of Louis XVI. My Lords, the words ' too late ' are written across the history of every national catastrophe. These words will not be written here. I am confident of the wisdom and patriotism of this House ; so confident that I am convinced that they will rise to the heights of this great occasion, and vindicate the balance of the Constitution. You will, my Lords, if I am not greatly mistaken, save the Constitution by maintaining the guarantees that that Constitution demands ; you will save the future of 105 I THE REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS your country, for nothing less than the future of your country is involved ; and for yourselves you will earn imperishable honour and imperishable gi-atitude not merely of the nation now, but of generations yet unborn so long as the history of this country survives. rrintkd bv stbamr.ewavs and sons, towbk stvbbt, camvniih;! circds, lonuok, w.c. tbeialtrrenev^e^^^^^ecaU. ; subiect •il?i'"«'»" o NnV631Y fniV . 5'63 -12 AM LD 21-100m-2,'55 (Iil39822)476 Universicy of California Berkeley ^'< SlACKS JM 2 6 1979 LD9-30w.l2/76(T2555s8)4185— S-87 lL%ZZ'^':mms caa'jaMs.,^,^ Ma5f>519 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA UBRARY