towards the approaching Colonial Conference, and in the efforts which have been made to follow in the footsteps of the late Foreign Secretary at the imminent risk of giving deadly offence to those patriots who, during Mr. Balfour's administration, were so insistent in their demands that the British fleet should proceed overland to settle difficulties in the Balkan provinces. Since the present Government came into office, we have heard little or nothing of the state of affairs in Macedonia, because the troubles in this part of Europe have served their political purpose, and have automatically fallen into the background.

The Government cannot fail to realize that such experiences as I have enumerated damp the enthusiasm of the less enlightened of their supporters, and that their legislative performances are likely to fall far short of the pledges which were so freely given at the polls. The result is that they are in a desperate hurry to force through measures to which they are pledged with as little critical examination as possible, lest they should fail to carry with them the conviction of the country, and they are not indisposed to shift the blame for their shortcomings on to the shoulders of the House of Lords. The Government are forced into impetuous action to placate their impetuous supporters in the country, who very naturally object to delay because they fully realize that to them delay is dangerous.

I have no desire to cavil at the present Government. On the contrary, I wish them well. In their Irish legislation they have laid down a programme which, if they succeed in carrying it out, as I most earnestly hope they may, will, to their horror and dismay, hand them down to posterity as the most conservative Ministry that we have seen in many years. They will have done more than any Govern

ment has ever done in the direction of wise reform and in establishing the Empire by strengthening the heart of it. I regret to see them embarking on a crusade against the House of Lords. It will fail because the real desire is to deprive the nation of any check upon hasty legislation, and there never was an occasion when the necessity for such a check was more self-evident or could be more easily proved. The House of Commons is not always a faithful mirror. It had ceased to be so during the closing years of the late régime, and the present House, on the election promises of its members, cannot substantiate its claim.

The origin of the clamor that the House of Lords must be ended or mended is to be found in the fact that Radical leaders fear lest the good sense of the people will revolt against Radical promises when put into concrete shape and held in suspense long enough for the nation to consider them. The more reasonable members of the party urge amendment of the House, but the larger section are impatient with half measures and claim that this check upon ill-considered and partially considered legislation should be entirely swept away, leaving the affairs of the Empire, and not merely of the United Kingdom, at the mercy of the passing mood of a narrow majority of the electors of the United Kingdom. The ending of the House of Lords is desired not in the permanent interest of the community, but in the temporary interest of one political party, who suspect that their theories do not commend themselves to the mature judg ment of the people.

The third count in the indictment of the House of Lords is to the effect that it is permanently and overwhelmingly Conservative. That is a fact. and a fact greatly to be regretted; but no remedy suggests itself to me. The predominance of one of the two great

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political parties has not always been the case. Parties in the past have been fairly balanced. There have been Whig majorities and Tory majorities; but of late the difference between the two branches of the Legislature tends to become accentuated. It does not follow that the Second Chamber is entirely or principally to blame. Formerly, public opinion underwent thorough filtering process in the House of Commons; now, owing to pressure of business and other reasons, it reaches the House of Lords in cruder form. Bills come up half baked. The necessity for revision in one Chamber is in proportion to the hurry exhibited in the other. If one may venture on forecast, the predominance of one set of general political opinions is assured in the House of Lords for some time. As an inevitable consequence, when the branches of the Legislature are of the same political complexion and pull in the same direction, a legislative spring-tide occurs, and the stream flows with easy rapidity; when the forces of the two Houses are exerted in the opposite directions, a neap tide occurs, and the current of legislation is reduced to very small dimensions. Whether this state of things is remediable or not, depends upon the view that is entertained as to the character of modern Radical legislation, and as to the functions of a Second Chamber. That a very great change, whether for better or for worse, has occurred in the conception of Liberalism cannot be denied. For decades and centuries Liberalism stood up for individual liberty, and urged the abolition of class privilege; now its rôle seems to be to fetter individual liberty, and to create class privilege. All Second Chambers, and probably, above all, our Second Chamber, adapt themselves to permanent national changes and requirements, but the tendency of modern Liberalism is to be in a des

perate hurry in working revolution; it appears to have no confidence in itself or in the persistence of its principles; and, if it be conceded that the legitimate function of a Second Chamber is to give pause to the people for reflection, it may well be inevitable that a Second Chamber, however constituted, will find itself perpetually lagging behind the aspirations and requirements of Radical thought. It is upon this phase of the question that the Government are concentrating themselves. They are not concerned with reform of the House of Lords. The fact which they "have under consideration with a view to a solution of the difficulty" is that "unfortunate differences between the two Houses" have arisen; and, as Lord Ripon has explained, the differences arise from the fact that, whereas party majorities fluctuate in the House of Commons, one party has a permanent and overwhelming majority in the House of Lords. A solution of the difficulty can only be found in one of four ways:

(1) The political, social and economic conceptions of the two parties in the country may be brought to something like a common denomination. This solution may, I think, be dismissed; at any rate, for some time to come. (2) A balance of political opinion may be created in the House of Lords. (3) A limit of time may be placed upon the suspensory powers of the House of Lords. (4) The House of Lords may divest itself of party liveries.

House remains largely Conservative. The "atmosphere" of a Chamber whose duty it is to act as the "governor" of a legislative machine produces its natural and inevitable result. It would require the creation of nearly 300 Liberal Peers to restore anything like equilibrium now, and, judging by experience, another batch would be required before long. Numbers would become excessive; the Crystal Palace or Olympia would be required to accommodate the House of Lords. A time limit seems equally out of the question, yet the utterances of the Prime Minister seem to point in that direction. The Prime Minister is quite explicit as to his views. He is not concerned with the constitution of the revising House. His sole object is to put a statutory limit to the suspensory power of that House, however it be constituted; and he surmises that the task will be easier than is generally supposed. That may well be, for to many the difficulty will appear insurmountable, and yet the task may prove so difficult as to tax human ingenuity to the utmost.

Our system is representative, as Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman truly observes, and the object of a representative system is that the true will of the people shall prevail. It is the represented not the representatives who have to be considered in devising limitations on the Second Chamber. It would be of no avail to place a time limit on the action of the House of Lords with the sole object of giving the House of Commons an opportunity for reflection. How is the opinion of the House of Commons to be affected? or a compromise arrived at? It might be attempted by a reversion to ancient custom, by the two Houses sitting, arguing, and voting together during the suspensory period; but an arrangement of that nature would afford no opportunity to the electorate to reconsider their opinions and express their views.

The constituencies are the ultimate court of appeal, and the Second Chamber grants a stay of execution in order that the case may reach them; delay is for their benefit, not for the benefit of the First Chamber. The Referendum is unknown to us, and is not likely to be adopted. The only appeal to the people at our disposal is by the costly and inconvenient method of a General Election. Our Second Chamber has, as we know, no wish to thwart the will of the people; all that it desires to do is to ensure that the true, well-considered will of the people shall prevail. At present it has to rely upon its common sense and powers of observation to decide whether any particular measure has or has not that sanction behind it, with the verdict of a General Election to decide the question in the last resort. If for this condition of things statutory limits are to be placed upon the Second Chamber, they must be accompanied by some device for voicing the will of the constituencies. If Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman can invent such a device he will, I am sure, meet with universal support, but without it "mending" the House of Lords will be synonymous with "ending" it; the Second Chamber would become a mere farce, and the country would be under the despotism of possibly a very small and possibly a very transient majority in the Commons' House of Parliament.

A partial solution might be found if the members of the House of Lords could release themselves from party obligations and would judge Bills brought before them purely on their merits and without any reference whatever to party considerations. That is, I fear, a counsel of perfection, for rule by party is firmly engrafted upon the national character and our system of government. Nevertheless it is greatly to be desired that the House of Lords should evince a more detached and more independent attitude and

spirit, for unquestionably it has been seriously damaged in the eyes of the people by the alleged interference of the late Prime Minister in dictating to the House of Lords the acceptance of the Trades Disputes Bill and the rejection of the Education Bill. The British canon of fair play shrinks from the conception of an ex-Prime Minister, with a vast majority against him in the House of Commons, pursuing his policy by appeal to party allegiance in "another place." A shrewd suspicion is abroad that if the Lords had acted on their own judgment they would have insisted on amendments to the Trades Disputes Bill, and would not have utterly refused a compromise on the Education Bill. What the country desires to see in the revising House is not a tactical dexterity, but a judgment unbiassed by party considerations on the merits of the measures submitted to it.

The character of the personnel of the House of Lords has already been alluded to, and it only remains to consider the estimate they have formed of their functions and duties. That they have arrived at a sound conception of the duties of a revising Chamber, and thoroughly understand their powers and the limitations upon them, must, I think, be conceded. The lines laid down by the responsible leaders of that House have been frankly accepted. They have been formulated on many occasions, and by no one better than by Lord Lansdowne on the 5th of October last, at Perth, when he said:

What the House of Lords claimed was not the right to obstruct; it did claim, and it meant to exercise, the right of revising measures that came up to them from the other House of Parliament. And let him say that process of revision was doubly necessary in these days, when, owing to the operations of the closure, a great many Bills came up to them which had never

been discussed at all, or of which, let them say, three-quarters of the clauses had never been debated in the House of Commons. They claimed that right of revision, and they also claimed the right, to be exercised only in extraordinary cases, of asking the country to judge between the two Houses of Parliament as it judged between them at the time of the rejection of the Home Rule Bill, when, they would remember, it pronounced an overwhelming verdict in favor of the House of Lords.

Whatever may be thought of the composition of the House of Lords, of its origin, or of the qualification of its members, it cannot be denied that its conception of its duties as a Second Chamber is sound; and experience proves it. Time and again the House of Lords has imposed its temporary veto upon legislation and the country has subsequently endorsed the action of the peers, and, once at least, in 1857, when Lord Palmerston and the Liberal Government went to war with China, and Cobden carried a vote of censure against the Government in the Lower House, the House of Lords, in supporting the Government against its own followers, showed that it accurately interpreted the settled opinion of the electorate.

What would be the opinion of a perfectly impartial person postulating a Second Chamber as necessary in a democratic system of Government and having under review the Second Chamber as it exists with us? I think he would be bound to admit that our Second Chamber forms a sound and accurate estimate of its duties, and that the great majority of its members are by education and experience well qualified to fulfil those duties. I think he would go further and add that it is improbable that a more competent body could be brought together by any system of election or nomination, however theoretically superior such methods of forming a Second Chamber may be.

That I believe to be the fact; but in spite of that I am strongly impressed with the necessity for reform. The real force of so-called "popular" opinion, the volume of which is not, I think, very large, is against any Second Chamber worthy of the name. The real desire is to end the Second Chamber, or, failing that, to reduce it to a condition of paralyzed impotence that amounts to the same thing. The necessity for a Second Chamber is recognized in all democratic communities. In none of them is the necessity so urgent as with us. Other nations are confronted with social and economic problems similar to those with which we have to deal; but, in other respects, our position is singular. With a vast Indian Empire to administer, with long and exposed frontiers in the East and West, with great and numerous dominions and possessions in all quarters of the globe whose interests are coterminous with and, in the nature of things, sometimes conflicting with the interests of other nations, our position is one of extreme sensitiveness. No other nation is exposed to such continual danger.

Our legislative and administrative machinery has to deal with problems of a character more varied and more intricate than those which are involved in the affairs of any other people. Any breakdown in our machinery would produce consequences infinitely more serious than in the case of any other community. With us the presence of an efficient governor to prevent the engine racing, of a flywheel to ensure steadiness and continuity of impulse, is more essential than to any other nation or Empire. Movement under a single Chamber-under the House of Commons-would be by bounds and rebounds, action and reaction; in short, by jerks. That would be of comparatively small importance were the effect produced confined to our own immediate domestic

concerns; but with a world-wide Empire and all the intricacies and complexities attaching to it involved, it is essential to our existence that the varied and violent modes of motion of the First Chamber should be reduced to one line of consistent progress. A Second Chamber is necessary to our existence. In view of that fact, and of the fact that the outcry against the House of Lords really originates in a desire to reduce it or any other Second Chamber to impotence or to abolish it altogether, it is highly desirable that the House of Lords should take steps to strengthen its position.

No great

The House of Lords is at present laboring under difficulties from which time will bring relief. When the cleavage of political thought is clear, and social or economic opinions have crystallized into concrete political shape, a revising Chamber can form a pretty correct estimate of public feeling from the constitution of the popularly elected House. It can rely upon it that certain lasting definite substantial views dominated an election. Such is not the case now. Party politics are in a state of solution. Elements are seeking the complements necessary for combination. distinct issues are at stake. No human being could define the political creed of the party in power; and the party in opposition are concerned mainly in inventing and imposing articles of faith upon the party in power which that party repudiate and deny. This "sloppy" condition of politics will pass away, party lines will harden up again under new conditions, but in the meantime existing circumstances impose unusual difficulties on the Second Chamber and make it specially incumbent on it to divest itself of elements of weakness and acquire elements of strength.

The most vulnerable spot in the constitution of the House is to be foun!