"As the affair is managed now, the peerage, though sometimes bestowed as the reward of merit, on men who have adorned particular professions, is yet much more frequently—nine times out of ten—employed by the minister of the day as his instrument to serve particular views of public policy; and is often given to actual demerit—to men who hire themselves out to do his commands through thick and thin. The peerage is now full of persons who have obtained possession of it by disreputable means."
But in spite of satire and hostile criticism members of the House of Lords have always enjoyed a considerable social popularity. They are widely esteemed for their titles, even by those who denounce hereditary legislators and desire to abolish the Second Chamber.
Disraeli created six new peers in 1867-8, and seventeen more from 1875 to 1880, in addition to conferring the earldom of Beaconsfield on himself. Yet Disraeli had written in "Coningsby" (1844):—
"We owe the English peerage to three sources: the spoliation of the Church, the open and flagrant sale of its honours by the elder Stuarts, and the borough-mongering of our own times. Those are the three main sources of the existing peerage of England, and, in my opinion, disgraceful ones."
Gladstone made fifty peers in his four premierships, and Mr. Herbert Paul, the Liberal historian of "Modern England," makes the following comments:—
"No minister since Pitt had done so much as Mr. Gladstone to enlarge and thereby to strengthen the House of Lords.
"Mr. Gladstone was lavish in his distribution of peerages, and rich men who were politically active, either in the House of Commons or behind the scenes, might hope to be rewarded with safe seats elsewhere."
