The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1884-08-16 00:00:00

POLITICS IN THE PROVINCES.

THE end of the fifth session of Parliament
finds the country immersed in a deeper tur-
moil of politics than has been the case for
mary years. As to the session itself, it has
not left much of a mark upon the statute
books of the land. The only measure of any
imTiortance passed by the Commons has
fallen through in the Tipper House, and the
duel now going on in the country is being
watched with mach interest throughout the
civilized world. Will the victory remain
with the Liberal majority in the House of
Commons or with the Conservative majority
in the -House of Lord? That is the point.
A battle somewhat similar in conditions was
fought more than half a century ago amid
riot and bloodshed in some of our large
towns—incidents which are happily absent
from the present controversy. In the midst
of the clang of arms between the contending
patties a cry has arisen amid the echoes of
St. James's-hall for the abolition of the
House of Lords as a legislative assembly—
not the stamping out of an old nobility as
such ; but the deprivation of the House of
Lords of the power twice to reject bills sent
up by the Commons. The veto of the Crown
upon measures passed by both Houses is
practically obsolete ; it is not exercised even
by George 111. Therefore, argue the ad-
verse critics of the House of Loris, let the
country apply to that assembly the principle
recognised by the Crown, and acted upon by
. successive monarchs since the reign of Queen
Anne.

The House of Lords is a very unique and
peculiar institution. There is nothing like
it as a legislative body in the world. Civil-
izad lands all over the globe elect their re-
presentatives of the people. We had an
elected assembly ourselves a thousand year.
ago, • when the Saxons were accustomed to
meet in Wittanagernote, or Great Council of
the Natien. The citizens and burgesses are
elected to deal with the national affairs
which may arise during the existence of a
Parliament, and the men so chosen are
responsible to those who elected them for the
way in which they discharge their duties.
Sometimes the popular representatives are
dismissed at others they are retained, and
aarel they retire. Not one of these conditions
would apply to the House of Lords. Some
of t'ie peerages have been in existence more
than 600 years. The original holders of
titles called into being by Simon de Mont-
fort, Earl of Leicester, have by their de-
scendants excercised an influence over our
legislation through all tie vicissitudes of
half-a-dozen cer_turies, Take, for instance,
the baronies of de Itos and Hastings created
by Henry 111, in 1264. These are both on
the rolls of peerage to-day ; and it is a
singular reflection that by hereditary right
the barons of these titles have had seats in
the House of Lords while dynasties have
risen and fallen, and Royal Houses have
flou.rised and decayed. There the baFons
have been during the reigns of Plantagenet
and Lancaster, York and Tudor, Stuart, and
Brunsv ick. Twice during their tenure has
civil war distracted Britannia's Isle. The
Wars of the licses, and later in our own
history, those between Charles I. and his
Parliament affected the tenure of thrones,
but not that of the barons with the exception
of a brief interruption to their legislative
duties during the Protectorate,—which may
also be said of the Commons, whose func-
tions were also dispensed with at will by
Cromwell. The present Secretary of State
for the Colonies, Lord Derby, possesses an
earldom which is 400 years old. The Duke
of Norfolk, who changed sides in the two
divisions on the Franchise Bill bears a title
two years older than that of the earldom of
Derby one having been created in 1483 and
the other in 1485.
The demand is now made by a certain class
of politicians that the nominees of the Crown
and their descendants shall not set aside the
decisions of the elected representatives of
the people. It is not confined to St. James's
Hall, nor are its echoes heard only in the pur-
lieus of Regent-street and Piccadilly. It is
responded to by conutry platforms, Man-
chester replying to Birmingham in demon-
qtration form. But after all this is scarcely
the practical part of the matter at present.
In such a demand the Queen's advisers,
which include many members of the House
of Lords, can take no part. Their business
with the peers is to induce them to accept
tho Franchise Bill when it is again presented
to them in October. Mr. Gladstone himself
will soon enter the field in which Lord Salis-
bury has been engaged for some time past.
It is not the first time of a political wrestle
between the Premier and the lord of Hatfield.
The life's work of the former is much nearer
to its. close than that of the Conservative
leader, but he is a doughty antagonist vet as
those against whom he launches his thunders
in the House of Commons often have
occasion to remember ; and his remarkable
eloquence will shortly be heard in response
to the effective and incisive rhetoric of the
Opposition Chief.