CHAPTER XXII
THE CABINET AND THE HOUSE OF LORDS
Effect of The Reform Act of 1832.
By sweeping away rotten boroughs, and giving representatives to new centres of industry, the Reform Act of 1832 made a great change in the position of the House of Lords; not by lessening its power—for since the Great Rebellion the Lords as a branch of the legislature has never had much power—but by the change in the composition of the House of Commons which opened a door to conflicts between the two bodies. In the old unreformed days the Lords and Commons were in general accord, because both were controlled by a territorial aristocracy whose chief members were peers. That element remained, no doubt, strong in the Commons after the Act of 1832, but it was no longer overmastering, and it had to use its authority in a more popular spirit, so that the two Houses ceased to be controlled by the same force. By bringing about this result the Reform Act drew attention to the fact that an hereditary body, however great the personal influence of its members, could not in nineteenth century England be the equal in corporate authority of a representative chamber. It became apparent that the House of Lords might on important issues differ in opinion from the House of Commons, and that in such cases an enduring desire of the nation, as expressed in the representative chamber, must prevail.
Power of the Lords Thereafter.
This did not mean that the House of Lords must submit to everything that the Commons chose to ordain; that it was to become a mere fifth wheel of the coach; on the contrary, in matters not of great importance, or on which the Commons were not thoroughly in earnest, it exercised its own judgment, sometimes in cases that caused no little friction between the Houses. In 1860, for example, it rejected the bill to repeal the duties on paper; in 1871 it refused to concur in the abolition of the purchase of commissions in the Army; and in 1880 it rejected the bill to compensate evicted Irish tenants. In all these cases the policy of the House of Commons was ultimately carried out; and the peers recognised fully that their action on great measures was tentative; that they must not go too far; and that if public opinion was persistent they must in the end give way. As Mr. Sidney Low well says: "The House of Lords, ever since the struggle over the great Reform Bill, has been haunted by a suspicion that it exists on sufferance."[406:1]
The House of Lords is Conservative.
From the fact that it represents, in the main, the interests of property, and especially of landed property, the House of Lords tends naturally to be conservative, in the sense that it is adverse to popular demands which appear dangerous to interests of that kind, or indeed to the established order of things; but more than this, the peerage as a mass tends from its social position in the nation to gravitate toward the political party that clings to the nobility and the Church as pillars of the state. During the half century that followed the first Reform Act, the Liberals were in power much the greater part of the time, and they created by far the larger number of peers;[406:2] yet the House of Lords remained firmly Conservative throughout; for even Liberal peers—and still more their descendants—are drawn by a steady current to the other side; a current that was accelerated, but not caused, by the Home Rule Bill.
The House is, in fact, overwhelmingly Conservative. Of the hereditary peers more than four fifths belong to the Unionist party; and the disproportion is increased by the representatives from Scotland and Ireland. In the case of Ireland this is the inevitable result of the method of choosing, because elections occur only one at a time on the death of a representative peer, and his successor is always taken from the dominant—that is, the Unionist—party. In Scotland, there being no provision for minority representation, the same result takes place, the majority electing all the sixteen peers for the Parliament from its own side; and thus the representative peers from both kingdoms, forty-four in number, are Unionists to a man.
Meaning of the Term "Conservative."
It is commonly said that the House of Lords is a conservative body which acts as a drag on hasty legislation, and holds back until the nation shows clearly that it has made up its mind. This is undoubtedly true, and if it were the whole truth the limited authority retained by the House would provoke no strong resentment in any quarter; but it is only a part of the truth. The word "conservative" has two distinct meanings in England, according as it is spelled with a small or a capital C. The first signifies an aversion to change; the second, one of the two great political parties in the state. Now, for more than a generation after the Reform Act of 1832 these two meanings of the word were not very far apart. The Conservative party was to such an extent the party of resistance to change as to make plausible, if not accurate, Macaulay's comparison of the two parties that divided the nation to the fore and hind legs of a stag, the Liberals being always in advance, and the Conservatives following their footsteps at a distance. The simile expressed one aspect of a not uncommon feeling, that the direction of the national policy rested normally with the Liberals, but that when they went too fast the Conservatives would come to power for a short time, while the country adjusted itself to its new conditions. That under these circumstances the House of Lords should act with the Conservative party, and should help them to play the part of a brake from time to time, not in order to stop, but only to slow down, the coach on a hill, was natural, and not open to serious objection. But Disraeli's constant preaching against a merely negative policy, coupled with the need of seeking for working-class support after the extension of the franchise by the Reform Act of 1867, led to the abandonment by the Tories of the attitude of resistance to change. Even if it be true that the new Tory democracy is, on the whole, less progressive than the Liberal party, it is certainly not opposed to all progress. In more than one direction, indeed, it is distinctly more favourable to change. If the stag has not become double-headed, he has, at least, learned to walk with either end in front; and this change in the Tory party has had a marked effect upon the position of the House of Lords.
The House has Become a Tool of the Conservative Party.
Although the Conservatives have outgrown their negative attitude of resistance to change, and have become an aggressive party with a positive policy, they have retained and even strengthened their control of the House of Lords. The House has not, of course, lost all volition so completely as merely to register the commands of the Unionist leaders. To some extent it has its own opinions, which are now more conservative than theirs; and even when they are in power it amends the lesser details of their bills with a good deal of freedom, sometimes making its own views prevail. In 1899, for example, it struck out of the London Local Government Bill the provision allowing women to vote for the borough councils, a change that the Commons accepted with reluctance; and in 1902 it succeeded in making amendments to the Elementary Education Bill, which threw upon the rates the burden of current repairs in the Church schools, and preserved some control by the bishops over religious instruction therein.
But while the House of Lords has a will of its own in smaller questions, on the great party struggles that rend the country it throws its weight wholly on the side of the Tories, and plays into their hands. Thus, from 1892 to 1895, and again in 1906,—the only two occasions on which the Liberals have been in office for a score of years,—the House of Lords used its power boldly to hobble the government. That it did so to help the Unionist party, and not simply from conservative objection to change, is curiously brought out by its treatment of the principal measures of 1906. Besides the Education Bill, where the conflict of opinion lay very deep, two other government measures that aroused some feeling came to it from the Commons. One of them, the Trades Dispute Bill, which provided that a trade union should not be liable to suit for any action it might take during a strike, was certainly a radical measure, and one to which a chamber of conservative temperament might well object; but the Lords passed it without amendment. The other, the Plural Voting Bill, designed to prevent a man from voting in more than one place, involved no very profound question of principle, and made no very far-reaching change in English institutions, but was a bone of contention between the parties because it affected the chances of election in close districts. This bill the House of Lords summarily rejected.
The fact is that since the Reform Act of 1832 government by party has become highly developed; and although the differences between the principles of the two parties may be less fundamental than they were formerly, the voting in Parliament runs very much more strictly on party lines.[409:1] Politics have become more completely a battle between parties, in which it is more difficult than ever to avoid taking sides, while the combatants try to make use of every weapon within their reach. Now the very accentuation of party has made it easier for the peers to resist a Liberal ministry, because in doing so they are evidently opposing, not the people as a whole, but only a part of the people, and a part that is a majority by a very small fraction. In this way it has happened that the House of Lords, without ceasing to have an opinion of its own on other matters, has become for party purposes an instrument in the hands of the Tory leaders, who use it as a bishop or knight of their own colour on the chess-board of party politics.
Position of the House in Forcing a Referendum.
A cabinet never thinks of resigning on account of the hostility of the Lords; nor is its position directly affected by their action. Indirectly, however, it may be very seriously impaired, if the peers, claiming that the government is not really in accord with the electorate, reject important measures, and thereby challenge a dissolution of Parliament. By doing so they may reduce a ministry, that is not in a condition to dissolve, to a state of political impotence, both in fact and in the eyes of the nation. This was true of the Liberal administration in 1893-94, when the peers rejected the Home Rule Bill, and made amendments that struck at the root of the Parish Councils and Employers' Liability Bills, changing the latter in a manner so vital that the government finally withdrew the measure altogether. The Liberals protested that the House of Lords thwarted the will of the people, and ought to be ended or mended. The alliteration helped to make the phrase a catchword, but the cry excited popular enthusiasm so little that at the dissolution in 1895 the country upheld the same party as the House of Lords, and returned a large Unionist majority to Parliament.
For the Lords to appeal to the people at a moment when the people were of their party was naturally not an unpopular thing to do, and for some time after the fall of Lord Rosebery's government they rather gained than lost ground in the esteem of the public. The Conservatives, indeed, declared that the House had renewed its youth, and had become once more an important organ of the state by asserting its right to appealing from the cabinet and the majority in the Commons to the nation itself. The Lords were said to have attained the function of demanding a sort of referendum on measures of exceptional gravity; but useful as such a function might be, if in the nature of things a possible one, the existing House of Lords cannot really exercise it, because their object in doing so is essentially partisan. In attempting to appeal to the electorate, they act at the behest of one party alone. Thus in 1893 the Lords were quite ready to force the issue whether the cabinet retained the confidence of the country; but in 1905 when a series of adverse by-elections made it exceedingly doubtful whether the Conservative government had not lost its popularity, nothing was further from their intention than to cause a dissolution.
Now, a power to provoke a referendum or appeal to the people, which is always used in favour of one party and against the other, however popular it may be at a given moment, and however much it may be permanently satisfactory to the party that it helps, cannot fail in the long run to be exceedingly annoying to its rival; nor is it likely to commend itself to the great mass of thinking men as a just and statesmanlike institution. The House of Lords is a permanent handicap in favour of the Tories, which is believed to have helped them even in elections for the House of Commons. The workingmen have been told that although the Conservatives promise them less, they are better able to fulfil their promises than the Liberals who cannot control the House of Lords. These things must be borne in mind in discussing a possible reform of the upper House; but before coming to that question it will be well to look at the Lords under some other aspects—at their non-partisan activity, their treatment of private members' bills, and of private bill legislation, and at the personal influence of the leading peers.
Non-political Legislation.
So far we have considered only government bills, backed by the authority of a responsible ministry, which the upper House must treat with circumspection. The Lords do not feel the same restraint in regard to private members' bills sent to them from the Commons. These lie beyond the immediate range of party conflicts, and although they may occasionally deal with important subjects, neither the cabinet nor the parties take sides officially upon them. The Lords can, therefore, amend or reject them without fear; but it has become so difficult for a private member to get through the Commons any bill to which there is serious opposition, that this function of the upper House is not of great use. Still less vital is its power to initiate measures. In order the better to employ the time of the Commons the government introduces some of its secondary bills first in the Lords;[412:1] but measures proposed by individual peers have little chance of success. It is hard enough for a private member of the Commons to put his bill through its stages in that House, with all the sittings reserved for the purpose in the earlier part of the session; and it is even harder to pass a bill brought from the Lords at a later date. The result is that of the few private members' bills enacted each session only about one sixth originate with the peers.
Private Bill Legislation.
The relation of the House of Lords to private bill legislation is very different, for bills of that kind are in a region quite outside of politics. In their case, as already observed, the action of the Lords is, if anything, even more important than that of the Commons; and, in fact, the private bill committees of the upper House inspire in general a greater confidence, because the members are men of more experience.[412:2] While, therefore, the House of Lords occupies a subordinate place in regard to public measures of all kinds, and a position of marked inferiority in the case of government bills, in private and local legislation, which in England is of great importance, its activity is constant and highly useful.
Personal Influence of the Peers.
The personal influence of the Lords is far greater than their collective authority. With the waning of the landed gentry the respect for the old territorial aristocracy has been replaced by a veneration for titles, and this has inured to the benefit of the peerage. One sees it even in business affairs, although the Lords as a class are little qualified by experience for dealing with matters of that kind, the nobility having until recently been debarred by tradition from commercial life. One of the devices of that arch promoter Hooley for inducing the public to embark in his schemes was to include a number of peers in his list of directors—guinea-pig directors, as they were called, because their most visible function was to pocket a guinea for attendance at each meeting. The Hooley revelations some years ago checked this practice; but the fact that it should have existed shows the confidence that titles were believed to inspire among a large class of investors.
The glamour of rank appears to be if anything more dazzling as one descends in the social scale; and a scion of a noble family, even when he has no landed interest at his back, is usually a strong Parliamentary candidate in a working-class constituency. The extension of the franchise has thus rather increased than diminished the influence of the nobility. The House of Commons, no doubt, makes a show of insisting that the peers shall take no part in general elections; but they are, nevertheless, active in politics and even in great electioneering organisations, particularly in those that stand, like the Primrose League, a little outside of the regular party machinery. When a general election is not in progress the leaders of the House of Lords speak constantly in public; and at the present day speeches from the platform are reported in the daily press quite as fully, and read at least as widely, as those delivered in the House of Commons. A foreigner is impressed by the popular confidence in those peers who have attained a position in the forefront of politics. There seems to be a feeling that they are raised above the scrimmage of public life; that in rank, wealth, and reputation they possess already the goal of ambition, and are beyond the reach of the temptations that beset the ordinary man.
Reform of the House of Lords.
Objects of Reform.
The adoption by the Lords, in the autumn of 1906, of amendments to the Education Bill, so contrary to its spirit that they were rejected in the Commons by an overwhelming majority without any attempt at compromise, has brought the question of a reform of the upper House again prominently before the country. No one would now think of creating the House of Lords as it stands; but, as Mr. (now Lord) Courtney remarks, "The public judgment may long tolerate a machine which works without unnecessary friction, although it would not construct it in the same fashion if it had to be for the first time devised."[414:1] This is particularly true if it is difficult to propose something that would work better; and therefore in discussing the reform of the House of Lords it is important to have clearly in mind the objects to be attained. Now, there are four possible objects of a reform: to make the House less powerful; to make it more powerful; to change the nature of its power; or to bring it into greater harmony with the popular elements in the state; and it may be interesting to examine these objects in turn.
To Reduce the Power of the House.
The National Liberal Federation has repeatedly passed resolutions in favour of restricting what is called the veto of the House of Lords. This is most natural, for besides the objection in principle to hereditary legislators, there is the galling fact that the House is always hostile to the Liberal party. No one would suggest that so long as a second chamber is suffered to exist it should be wholly deprived of the right to reject or amend bills sent to it from the Commons. It is proposed, however, that the veto shall not be repeated after a certain interval, and the vital question is what that interval shall be. A provision that the Lords should not reject a bill passed by the Commons in two successive Parliaments, would probably be a mere legal ratification of their present constitutional position; for although, after a fresh general election has proved that the cabinet retains the confidence of the nation, the Lords may refuse a second time to enact one of its measures, they have never done so, and are not very likely to venture so far. A provision, on the other hand, that the Lords should not reject or amend a bill passed by the Commons in two successive sessions of the same Parliament would mean that except in the last session of an expiring Parliament, they could reject or amend seriously no government bill, whether convinced that the nation approved of it or not.[415:1] This would be almost equivalent to an entire abolition of the second chamber so far as government measures are concerned, because the shred of authority left would amount to little more than that of requiring the ministers to reconsider their position, which they could hardly do without stultifying themselves. The President of the French Republic has a similar right in relation to the chambers, but it is never exercised. A change of this kind could certainly be made, but whether it would be wise or not is another question.
Moreover, if a rule that the Lords should not reject or amend a government bill passed by the Commons in two successive sessions did not virtually destroy the power of the House of Lords altogether, it would not accomplish the object of the Liberals. It would not put them upon a footing of equality with the Conservatives, for it would mean that it would take them two sessions to pass any legislation of a far-reaching character, while the Conservatives could do it in one.
We are not concerned now with the question of reducing the power of the hereditary members of the House, by introducing other members in their stead; but of reducing the power of the House as a whole. Those persons who are seriously interested in reforming the composition of the body are usually more anxious to increase than to diminish its authority, and it would be somewhat strange to make the House of Lords more representative or more popular, while at the same time taking away the last remnants of its power in political questions.
To Increase its Power.
In considering suggestions to reform the House of Lords for the sake of increasing its efficiency we are met by the question whether with a parliamentary system, that is with government by party, as highly developed as it is in England, a more powerful upper House is possible. Fifty years ago second chambers were defended on the ground that they acted as a drag on radical legislation. But, as we have seen, the House of Lords does not really perform that function. It does not try to check legislation by one of the parties, and only under peculiar circumstances can it seriously restrain the other. Nor could any upper House render that service effectively in England to-day. The fact is that although historically the position of the House of Lords may have been the consequence of its hereditary, non-representative character, it is now doomed to its present condition by the inexorable logic of a political system. Its limitations in dealing with government bills are imposed by the principle of a ministry responsible to the popular chamber, and working through highly developed parties; its inability to exert a substantial influence upon other public legislation is the result, not of its own inherent weakness, but of the condition of the House of Commons; while in private bill legislation, which lies outside the domain of politics, it shares in full measure the authority of a coördinate branch of Parliament.
To Change the Nature of its Power.
The same reasoning would apply to any proposal to alter in character the powers exercised by the Lords. The channels of possible activity of any second chamber are fixed in England by the system itself, and they are not far from the ones in which the House of Lords now moves. The House could, no doubt, be shorn of the remnant of political authority that it still wields, and it could be deprived of its right to take part in private bill legislation; but it would seem that, except by merely reducing their extent, the nature of its powers cannot be very materially changed.
To Bring it into Harmony with the Nation.
Creation of Peers.
During the generation following the Reform Act of 1832, men spoke of the possibility of making new peers as a sufficient safeguard against obstinacy on the part of the upper House. It was felt that a ministry with the nation at its back could, if necessary, force the Lords to yield by advising the Crown to create peers enough to turn the scale. Lord Grey's government proposed to do this as a last resort to pass the Reform Bill of 1832, and obtained the consent of William IV.; but the threat was enough, and the Lords gave way. Such a drastic means of coercion is probably useless to-day; and would be only a temporary remedy. It is really not with the Commons that the House of Lords now comes into serious conflict, but with the cabinet which represents, or claims to represent, the nation, or to be more accurate the major part of the nation; and no creation of peers would be made to force a bill through the House of Lords unless the party in power had a mandate from the people to pass it. This is the real meaning of the saying that the House of Lords can force a referendum, or appeal to the nation, on a measure to which they object. A creation of peers to swamp the upper House would, therefore, not be tried until a general election had proved the persistent will of the electorate upon the measure in question, and then the Lords would in any case submit. Differences of opinion may, of course, arise on the question whether there is sufficient evidence of the popular will or not. In 1893, for example, the Liberals contended that the preceding general election had been carried on the issue of Home Rule, while the Conservatives insisted that it had really turned on other matters; and the same thing happened in the case of the Education Bill of 1906. Such a discussion may be conducted with heat, but especially with the enormous number of peers now required to turn a majority in their House, there is little danger of precipitate action. It is one of many cases where the conventions of the Constitution may appear to be strained, but where one may be sure they will not be broken.[417:1]
Moreover, if the creation of peers were within the region of practical politics to-day, it would be only a temporary remedy for existing grievances. Contrary to the prevalent opinion, Lord John Russell thought that in 1832 the authority of the House of Lords suffered, on the whole, more from the abstention of its members under threat, than it would have from an actual creation of peers that might have brought it into harmony with the people. He remarks that the Tory majority of eighty, hostile to Lord Grey's government, was held back by Wellington, but employed by Lyndhurst to kill unpretending but useful measures.[418:1] Subsequent events have shown the impossibility of maintaining harmony between the Houses by a single creation of peers, for had a batch of Lord Grey's supporters been given seats in the Lords in 1832, the House would have been heavily Conservative again within a generation.
The difficulty to-day is not so much that the peers are permanently out of accord with the nation, as that they are bound to one of the two parties into which the country is divided. A mere reduction in the size of the Tory majority would do little or no good; nor would the difficulty be solved if the majority were transferred to the other party, or even if it shifted at different periods. In a country governed by party as strictly as England is to-day, the majority in the upper House must at any one time belong to one side or the other. If the majority shifted, there would not be permanent irritation in the same quarter; but first one side, and then the other, would complain that the Lords thwarted the popular will. While, therefore, the occasional creation of a large number of peers, either hereditary or for life, might, at a sacrifice of the self-respect of the House of Lords, produce for the moment a greater similarity of views between the two branches of Parliament, a constant political harmony could be attained only by such additions to the upper House by each new set of ministers as would make it a mere tool in their hands. In short, an upper House in a true parliamentary system cannot be brought into constant accord with the dominant party of the day without destroying its independence altogether; and to make the House of Lords a mere tool in the hands of every cabinet would be well-nigh impossible and politically absurd.
Reform in the Composition of the House.
What is true of the creation of peers is true also of any other method of changing the membership of the House. Suggestions for reforming its composition have been based mainly upon the desire to reduce the hereditary element, and supply its place by representative men selected in other ways. The House contains, of course, many drones, who have inherited the right, without the desire, for public work. Either they do not attend at all, or they come only to swell a foregone majority upon some measure that has attracted popular interest. They give no time or thought to the work of the House, and their votes, on the rare occasions when they are cast, are peculiarly exasperating to their opponents. As the regular attendants at the sittings are few, it has been suggested that the English, like the Scotch and Irish, nobility should choose representatives of their own order, and that the rest should have no right to vote. Just as the Scotch and Irish representative peers are solidly Unionist, so a change of this kind would merely result in increasing the Conservative majority of the House, unless some principle of minority representation were adopted, in which case the majority, though numerically smaller, would be equally constant and more subject to party dictation.
On the other hand, it has been proposed to make the House more broadly representative of the nation by a more or less extended creation of life peers, nominated, in part, perhaps, by sundry public bodies in the United Kingdom. It may be doubted, however, whether life peers are needed to increase the eminence or, in one sense, the representative character of the House. The peerage has been opened freely to men distinguished in various fields; and while many men without wealth have doubtless been precluded from an honour that would burden their descendants, many others have come in. The number of hereditary members of the House has increased nearly, although not quite, in proportion to population; and only about one fourth of the present members sit by virtue of titles dating before 1800. A large share of the creations have been made for political service; but others have been conferred in consequence of wealth amassed in commercial and industrial pursuits; the most distinguished lawyers and soldiers have always been rewarded by a peerage; and so in more recent times have a few men of eminence in science and literature. A body that contains, or has recently contained, such men as Tennyson, Acton, Kelvin, Lister, Rayleigh, and many more, can bear comparison in personal distinction with any legislative chamber the world has ever known. Therefore one may fairly doubt whether the defect to be remedied by a creation of life peers is either a lack of brains in the House, or a failure of its members to represent the deeper currents of national life.
Reform Unlikely to Add Much Strength.
But the personal distinction of members, in fields outside of public affairs, has very little connection with the political power of a body; and the House of Lords itself furnishes one of the most striking proofs of that fact. The men whose names have been mentioned have taken no part in the work of the House, and such people rarely do. Moreover, if they take part they rarely do it well. Occasionally such a man may have a chance to say something on the subject of his own profession that carries weight. The speech of Lord Roberts in July, 1905, for example, about the inefficiency of the British Army, was considered a very impressive utterance, but, except for the rule of office that sealed his mouth in any other place, he might have delivered it with just as much effect elsewhere. Men who would be created life peers on account of their distinction in other lines would either take no interest in politics, or would take it so late in life that they would rarely carry weight with the public. Such influence and repute as the House of Lords now possesses is derived not from the personal fame of the members but from the social lustre of the peerage, and no creation of life peers would be likely to add anything to that. The authority of a public body depends not upon the eminence but upon the political following of its members; and it is self-evident that no leading English statesman in the full tide of his vigour and popularity would willingly exchange a seat in the House of Commons for an appointment for life in any second chamber, so that a House of Lords constructed on these principles would become in large part an asylum for decrepit politicians.
Another suggestion of a similar kind is that the House should be remodelled upon the lines of the Privy Council, but the Privy Council to-day as a working body is nothing but the ministry, the other members attending only on ceremonial occasions. It is a mere instrument of government in the hands of the cabinet; nor, so far as English politics are concerned, can it very well be anything else. The proposal that colonial members should sit in the House of Lords is interesting from other points of view, but clearly it could not be applied in the case of domestic legislation. That the will of the House of Commons on English questions should be thwarted by representatives from other parts of the empire would be far more unfortunate than to have it thwarted by hereditary English nobles.
Other Probable Results.
But if a change in the composition of the House of Lords would be very unlikely to raise its political position as a whole, it might well reduce the personal influence of individual peers. If the House came to be regarded as mainly a collection of persons holding seats for life, the social position of its members might be very different from that of an hereditary nobility. A radical reform in the composition of the House might also very well produce a change of another kind. Perhaps the most important function of the House of Lords at the present day, and probably the chief privilege of its members, comes from the fact that it is largely a reservoir of ministers of state. By the present traditions ministers must be all taken from one House or the other; and a large proportion of them are always taken from the peers. This gives a nobleman, who is sincerely interested in public life, even if of somewhat slender ability, a fair prospect of obtaining a position of honour and usefulness. Now, if a number of life peers were to be created, it would clearly be possible to confer a title upon a man for the purpose of making him a minister. If this were done commonly, it might affect not only the position of the existing peers, but also that of the House of Commons. For a man not born to a coronet would be able to achieve a high office of state without an apprenticeship in the popular chamber. Thus a channel might be opened for a direct connection between the cabinet and the political forces of the nation without the mediation of the House of Commons. The change might be a first step in lessening the authority of Parliament, because cabinets, as will be explained in the following chapter, being really made or destroyed by the popular voice uttered in general elections, much of the power of the House of Commons is based upon the fact that it is the sole recruiting ground for all ministers not hereditary peers.
Unsatisfactory, therefore, as the present position of the House of Lords is to many people in England, the difficulties that surround the question of reform are very great; and a half-unconscious perception of these explains in large part the fact that although proposals to reform the House have been made of late years by leading men of every shade of political opinion, none of them has borne fruit, or even taken the shape of a definite plan commanding any considerable amount of support. To reform the House of Lords, or to create some other satisfactory second chamber may not be an impossible task, but it is one that will require constructive statesmanship in a high degree; and to obtain the best chance of success it ought to be undertaken at the most unlikely time, a time when the question provokes no passionate interest.
FOOTNOTES:
[406:1] "The Governance of England," 218.
[406:2] In 1830 the House of Lords contained 326 hereditary members. From that time until the fall of Mr. Gladstone's cabinet, in 1885, the Liberals made 198 additions to these members; and during the same period the Conservatives made 70. Since 1885 the Conservatives have been in power by far the greater part of the time, and their creations of peers have been correspondingly more numerous.
[409:1] See the chapter on "The Strength of Party Ties," infra.
[412:1] When the Liberals are in power this is not much use for bills which the Lords are likely to amend seriously, because the amendments would have to be reversed in the Commons at a cost of much time.
[412:2] Rep. of Com. on Priv. Bill Legislation, Com. Papers, 1888, XVI., 1.
[414:1] "The Working Constitution," 120.
[415:1] Probably the advocates of this policy would not want to apply it in the case of private bill legislation.
[417:1] The power to create peers enough to swamp the House has a potential value. It could be used once for all to abolish or transform the body, and this fact has, no doubt, its effect on the general attitude of the members, but that does not affect the argument that as a means of maintaining harmony between the Houses the power is useless.
[418:1] "Recollections and Suggestions," 110-11.
