Footnote 143: The crown was authorized to create one Irish peerage only for every three such peerages that should become extinct. During the thirty years preceding the conferring of an Irish peerage upon Mr. Curzon, in 1898, the creation of Irish peerages was entirely suspended.[(Back)]
Footnote 144: Lord Palmerston, for example, was an Irish peer, but sat in the House of Commons.[(Back)]
Footnote 145: The recognized advisability of strengthening the judicial element in the Lords precipitated at one time a serious issue respecting the power of the crown to create life peerages. In 1856, upon the advice of her ministers, Queen Victoria conferred upon a distinguished judge, Sir James Parke, a patent as Baron Wensleydale for life. The purpose was to introduce into the chamber desirable legal talent without further augmenting the peerage. For the creation of life peerages there was some precedent, but none later than the reign of Henry VI., and the House of Lords, maintaining that the right had lapsed and that the peerage had become entirely hereditary, refused to admit Baron Wensleydale until his patent was so modified that his peerage was made hereditary.[(Back)]
Footnote 146: The Bishop of Sodor and Man is entitled to a seat, but not to take part in the chamber's proceedings. His status has been compared to that of a territorial delegate in the United States. Moran, The English Government, 170.[(Back)]
Footnote 147: On the composition of the House of Lords see Lowell, Government of England, I., Chap. 21; Anson, Law and Custom of the Constitution, I., Chap. 5; May and Holland, Constitutional History of England, I., Chap. 5; Moran, English Government, Chap. 10; Low, Governance of England, Chap. 12; Courtney, Working Constitution of the United Kingdom, Chap. 11; Macy, English Constitution, Chap. 4; Marriott, English Political Institutions, Chaps. 6-7; and Walpole, The Electorate and the Legislature, Chap. 2. The subject is treated in greater detail in Pike, Constitutional History of the House of Lords, especially Chap. 15.[(Back)]
Footnote 148: There are, of course, Englishmen who concur in the dictum of Sieyès that "if a second chamber dissents from the first, it is mischievous; if it agrees, it is superfluous." An able exponent of this doctrine, within recent years, is Sir Charles Dilke.[(Back)]
Footnote 149: Dickinson, Development of Parliament during the Nineteenth Century, Chap. 3.[(Back)]
Footnote 150: Notably in respect to legislation abolishing the plural vote and regulating the liquor traffic. The Lords rejected a Plural Voting Bill and an Aliens Bill in 1906, a Land Values Bill in 1907, and a Licensing Bill in 1908. In the interest of accuracy it should be observed that during the first session of 1906 a total of 121 bills became law, that only four (including the Education Bill) passed by the Commons were rejected by the Lords, and that fifteen passed by the Lords were rejected in the Commons. The proportions at most sessions during the period under review were substantially similar. But, of course, measures rejected by the Lords were likely to be those in which the interest of the Liberal government was chiefly [(Back)]
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Footnote 151: May and Holland, Constitutional History of England, III., 343-349. For references on the general subject of the reform of the Lords see pp. [115-116].[(Back)]