When the Speaker's Counsel hears that opposition in the House is likely to be made, he sometimes tries to prevent it by arranging for a conference between the promoters and opponents in the presence of the Chairman of Ways and Means. Rep. of Com. on Priv. Bill Legislation, 1888, XVI., 1, Q. 346.
CHAPTER XXI
THE HOUSE OF LORDS
Tracing its origin to the ancient council of the magnates of the realm, the House of Lords has, in the fulness of time, undergone several changes of character.[394:1] From a meeting of the Great Council of the King, it became an assembly of his principal vassals, the chief landholders of the Kingdom, ecclesiastical and lay; and finally it was gradually transformed into a chamber of hereditary peers, enjoying their honours by virtue of a grant from the Crown. Each phase has left a trace upon its organisation or functions, or upon the privileges of its members.
Composition of the House.
Before the Reformation the ecclesiastics in the House of Lords,[394:2] including the abbots and priors, usually outnumbered the laymen; but upon the dissolution of the monasteries, and the disappearance therewith of the abbots and priors, the proportions were reversed, and the hereditary element became predominant. At present the House contains several kinds of members, for it must be remembered that every peer has not a right to sit, and all members of the House are not in every respect peers.
The Hereditary Peers.
First there are the peers with hereditary seats. They are the peers of England, created before the union with Scotland in 1707; the peers of Great Britain created between that time and the union with Ireland in 1801; and the peers of the United Kingdom created thereafter. They rank as dukes, marquises, earls, viscounts, and barons, whose precedence, with that of their wives and children, furnishes abundant interest to those who care for such things. The Crown, that is, the ministry of the day, has unlimited power to create hereditary peerages with any rules of descent known to the law in the case of estates in land,[395:1] and since the accession of George III. the power has been freely used. All but seventy-four out of nearly six hundred seats belong to this class, which is now the only channel for an increase in the membership of the House.
