The Express.
London, England, 1856-02-26 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, TUESDAY EMING, PrBRUARY 26. 1856.

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LONDON, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 26.

Twuz are grounds foe hope that the question of
Life Peerages will be entertained by the House of
Lords on its own merits, apart from an irritating
eonffict between Prerogative and Privilege. Lord
LENDHURST and Lord DERBY propose to call the at-
tention of the House to its defective constitution u
a Court of Justice ; and, with reference to this sub-
ject, Lord DERBY intimated that he considered the
plan of Life Peerages as an open question. In
behalf of the Government, Lord GRANVILLE ex-
pressed their desire to approach the considera-
tion of the subject fres from personal or party
feeling ; and Lord LANSDOWNE, while dis-
claiming any intention to swamp the House by
cresting an immense number of life peerages,
asserted the expediency of creating a limited number,'
including other professions as well u lawyers. Here
the matter rests for the present; it will be satisfactory
if the conviction expressed by Lord LANSDOWNE—
that there is really no essential difference of opinion
on the question between the parties who sit on oppo-
site sides of the House—shall prove well-founded.
The most zealous advocates of the proposal to intro-
duce a limited number of life peers into the House
of Lords have no desire to destroy or impair the
hereditary character of that usembly. They believe
that the institution of a hereditary peerage is as
firmly based 00 the convictions and affections of the
people sa that of the Throne, or of the representative
branch of the Legislature. They regard the con-
tinued existence of a House of Lords as depend-
ing, not on theoretical opinions as to its utility,
bet os its power to maintain itself. After a
brief, though fierce, contest to establish a re-
public, the people of England acquiesced in a ;no-
, narchicsl form of government, as beet adapted to the
national peculiarities. After a much more protracted
struggle both the Crown and the Commons acquiesced
in the assertion by the Peers of a right to an equal
voice in the Legislature, with the Crown on one hand,
and with the representatives of the Commons on the
other. It is no doubt a prevalent opinion that the
necessity for subjecting every legislative measure
to a twofold disunion—first in one House

of Parliament and then in the other—has the advan-
tage of diminishing the risk of reek and hasty legis-
lation; bat it wee not with • view to this object
that two Legislative assemblies were made parts of
oar constitution. The arrangement was the result of
a compromise between two bodies neither of which
was strong enough to pet down the other. In no
other country except the United States have two
legislative assemblies been found to be permanently
compatible; and in the United States, as with us,
the existence of two legislative assemblies in Con-
gress is the consequence of a compromise between
equally balanced powers. The smaller States feared
that they would be swamped by the larger
ones if a Legislature based exclusively on the
principle of the representatiou of numbers was
adopted and to assuage their fear. a second branch
of the legislature was instituted in which every
State has an equal number of votes. The House of
Lords in England and the Senate in the Congress
of the United States are not powerful bemuse they
have best invested with legislative authority; they
have been invested with legislative authority because
they are powerful.
The Housed Lords is a necessity .rising from
the social ooedition of England. We should have to
endure it for the sake of pesos and quiet, even
though we derived no advantage from it.
Bat we do derive great advantages from
D. Indispensable though an elective legis-
lature be to maintain the liberties of the
people, it cannot be denied that the experience
of history seems to establish that the existence of
such an Institution is inseparable from a greater or
less amount of electoral corruption. To such a
sinister influence an assembly of legislators emir-
Wain authority in their own right is a wholesome
soaaterpoise. Again, the hereditary character of the
Chief Magistrate weld not long be maintained in a
country whore the Legislature was exclusively elec.
tie,. A hereditary assembly of legislators is required
es a buttress, or outwork, to impart greater stability
to the throes. And in a country in which the
distribution of property is so unequal as in England
it is absolutely seeresary that the tenure
of the supreme executive authority should be
hereditary. The convictica impressed upon all from
boyhood—growing with the growth and strengthen-
ing with the strength of every man—that ministerial
power is alone open to the ambitious, prevents those
Beres and iiseerupuless tiostasti for ascendanoy which
have shattered and subverted the liberties of every
European Sate but our own. These are the res.
sans which—by the peat majority rather needy
felt than clearly understood—have originated and
confirmed the predilection of Englishmen foe their
mixed =maniacal form of government, and the
equal reverence in widish they hold the institation of
the peerage with their other inetitatioes.

Bat the very men who sr* meet resolute to uphold
the privileges of the passage—hecanse they see more
*leanly thaw others the benefits which are derived
from mush as institution—an, from the very Name
of their knowledge, the most homely alive to Its de-
fects, sot only as a judicial but as a legislative body.
With all its faults, oar existing House of Commas is
characterised by a universality which pre-ennineratly
qualifies it for the task of legielatioe. Men of all
pursuits and avocations lad their way into it. Not
a nbjeet can les submitted for discussion in the
Hesse of 03111111086 regarding which there are not
some members posallarly fitted to pronounce a wend
opiaies, by the experience which they have acquired
is satire life. In this respect the Hoses of Lords is
indisputably inferior to the Hesse of Commons.
The mw of the peers are neither mare no,
less than English country gentlemen—a most
valuable class, but ono which is to a very
limited extent brought into actual contest with
the multiform phenomena of our varied and dimes-
past social relations. It is believed that this defect
in the constitution of the House of Lords admits of
Wog remedied by the admission to their delibera-
tions as Life Peers of a limited number of men who
have distinguished themselves in various walks of
life. The truth is that even when the power of the
Barons was at its height, they allowed the Crown to
associate a duo of life peers with them. The Bishops
and mitred Abbots who at in the House of Lords be-
fore the Reformation were not mere Churchmen ;
they were not called in merely to give opinions on
Clerical matters ; they were the Diplomatists, the
Jurists, the learned Statesmen of their times. Since
the Reformation this classless been reduced • in num-

bet, and the prevalent jealousy of the aerial Order
has in general prevented the Bishops from taking an
active and prominent part ia the deliberations of the
Peers. Something is wasted to replace the "Clerks"
who added accomplishments, business talent, and
natural powers strengthened by struggles against
adverse circumstance', to the chivalrous sentiments
and proud self-reliance of the Barone. And our
modern Protestant " Clarke " must be sought, not
among the Caves of the Oulleges and Cloisters exclu-
sively, bat among the educated claws of all proffer
clone. The occasional creation of hereditary peers is
an inadequate substitute for the introduction of such
a clue. The moat eligible men are often so circum-
stanced in point of fortune • that they shrink from
the acceptance of an honour which would entail upon
their descendants the necessity of living at great
expense without the means to do so with honour end
independence. Besides, in the second—or at furthest
the third—generation, the' newly ennobled family

becomes assimilated to the rest, thus rendering conti-
nual new creations necessary, and exposing the peer-
age to the risk of being lowered in popular estimation
by the excess of their numbers. A declaratory Act
limiting the number of life peers that could have seats
at one time in the House of Lord., would give ample
security for its permanent hereditary character.
Such an Act would be as acceptable to the people es
to the piers, for it would ensure them against the
danger of the House of Lords becoming a sere
assembly of nominees of the Crown. But indeed, es
Lord LANSDOWNE justly observed last night, the
Lords have ample security against any attempt 10
swamp them by an excessive creation of life peen%
in public opinion.
Intimately connected with the measure in favour of
which we have been arguing is one which has as yet
scarcely been mentioned in any quarter, but which
well deserves the consideration of the Rousso( Lords
when the question of Life Peerages is under discus-
sion. The security of the Hones of Lords as a per-
=anent institutioa rest, upoa the power possessed
by its individual members. That power is d►
rived, not indeed entirely, but in a great measure,
from their large property. Nothing can tend se
Rook to weaken the Hones of Lords as the exists's**
sta number of pauper peers. But it is notorious that
Wee are some members of that body whose circus-
stances are the reverse of affluent. Might not a peri-
odical histration of the House be advisable, with a
view to enable such members as are not in a condi-
tion to maintain the state of the Peerage to demit
their nobility? There would then be less tempta-
tion to thrust Peers into lucrative appointments, for
which their tole recommendation is that they need
the salaries attached to them. One abundant source
of aspersions against the Peerage would thus be
stopped up. The living holder of • Peerage, who
was unable to support it, would thus be relieved
from a false position; and his feelings for his
descendants might be assuaged by the reflection
that, in all new creations, ancient lineage and
historical associations, as well as large possessions,
are generally taken into amount; that if his descen-
dants again became wealthy their claims to Peer-
ages would be preferred.

" MANKIND,' lays SYDNEY SMITH, "are much like
the children they beget. They always make wry
faces at what is to do them good, and it is mower,
sometimes to bold the nose, and force the medians
down the throat. They enjoy the health and vigour
consequent upon the medicine. but cuff the doctor,
and spatter at his stuff." For some reason or other,
few prescriptions have proved so nauseous to the
British patient as that constitutional remedy else-
where so universally adopted, and with such signal
benefit to the health of the body politic—s Depart-
ment of Public Justice. The old delusion, indeed,
which formed a main article in the political
creed of nine-tenths of the nation in the days of
Lord &Dow, ham long eines been dimipated. The
laboon of ROMILLY, and Baououut, and BENTHAM
have not been is vain. Mu are now everywhere eon-
rimed that however excellent oar laws may be in
themselves. yet the mode of their aderiniatratices,
and, above all, the shape is which they are suffered
to exist, " if shape it can be called which shape ham
none," is unworthy of the enlightenment of the age
and disgraceful to the character of the coun-
try. Unconnected efforts, highly laudable in
therneelvee, bat eminently unsatisfactory in their
results, have in various directions been made
to get rid of the acknowledged scandal of
abuses which no one any lector seeks to defend or
has yet proved able to destroy. Outside the walla of
Parliament the Law Amendment Society has taken
an honourable lead in the assault ; in Parliament
itself Committee after Committee he. been formed,
and Report after Report been added to the existing
mam of printed lumber under which the spirit of
vigorous legislation lies hopelessly buried. There
he. been a vast apparatus, but oo reault—inflnite
preparations for doing,bnt nothing done. There in un-
diminished enormity, be:heroes and shapeless, still
spreads out "huge in bulk ' the unwieldy body of the
Statute Law. Vaster and more unmanageable still,
OMNI loads—ay, ship loads—of ever-accumulating
volumes burden the shelves from which the English
lawyer hes to educe for the English litigant the pria-
oiplooaad precepts of the unwritten law. Earnest men,
weary of the results of the past—justly apprehending
that a monotony of repeated efforts and repeated
failures is likely ere laeg thoroughly to disgust the
public with the very name of Law Reform—have at
length set their faces resolutely towards the only
remedy whisk has not yet been tried amongst us,
and which English memos sense and continental
experience alike recommend as the sole method of
treatment likely to prove truly effeetual.
It is with 'liners @adoration we perceive, from the
report of the Law Amendment Society meeting on
Saturday lust, that the Law Reformer have at
length agreed to concentrate their energies on a
single point. Rightly feeling that the &Nooses of all
measures of Law Reform meet mainly depend upon
the presence in Parliameet of a State functionary
specially charged to forward and superintend them,
the friends of improvement have agreed to " go in "
for the appointment of a Minister of Public Justice.
There can be no doubt they are right. In the
existing state of public and professional feeling
with regard to the amendment of the law, the
preemie, want of the time is not so much
the industry, knowledge, and zeal of individual
reformers—all these exist in abundance—but the
right direction and doe organisation of individual
exertion, under the superintendence of a Minister
specially and solely charged with the work. The
thing needed—aeLord STANLEY, with that statesman-
like acumen which so rarely fails him, told the meet-
ing on Saturday—" is organisation and system to
give unity and dilution to 'Lee which other.
wise are in great danger of being wasted I what we
want is a little more driving power--a little more
propelling force to overcome the resistance of inte-
rested parties." Mr. NAPIII, who also spoke with
greet spirit and ability, declared that in his opinion
" the appointment of a reeponsible Minister of Justice
to direct and untie the laborite of others, we. the real
key—the tree Malakhoff of the poeitioa ;" and he
pledged himself (a vow which we trust he will lose
no time is making good) "not to desist from his
attacks on that stronghold till he had carried it or
knew the reason why." As far as we are concerned,

we willingly tender him all the assistance in the
prosecution of so useful an enterprise which it may
be in our power to give; nor do we think there is any
danger of his failing to find a very effectual support in
the general feeling of the public.
The case, indeed, is really too plain a one to need
any elaborate arguments in its support. Every one
who has ever thought on the subject is fully prepared
to admit the indispensable necessity of having our
laws looked after by somebody. It is universally re-
cognised as expedient that efforts should be made by
the State both to re-mould the legislation of the past
and to watch vigilantly over the legislation of the
future. That the law officers of the Crown are nom.
petent to such a work is a notion too weakly
Utopian to be any longer indulged in even
by the moat confirmed optimist who ever
gave in an unqualified adhesion to the creed
that whatever is is right. To believe this is simply
to believe that the three most busily occupied mein
in the three kingdoms are qualified to undertake a
task which demands, and would most laboriously em-
ploy, the whole time and the undivided attention of
one of the ablest men that can be found, having him-
self a special aptitude for the work and being em.
powered to command the aid of an ample staff of well
qualified assistants. Sir FITZROY KELLY indeed, with
his usual talent for minute objections, seemed to find
in the difficulty of procuring an adequate man for fill-
ing the office, an objection against creating the office at
all. On this head it is sufficient to remark that the ex-
perience of Europe is the other way, nor is there any
reason to apprehend that the man need long be want-
ing if the place were once rightly constituted. To go
no further than the present Chancellor of the Duchy
of Lancaster is to go far enough to show that the
objection of Sir FITZROY KELLY is utterly destitute
of all foundation. The administrative ability evinced
by Mr. BAINES; as President of the Poor Law Board,
could not be employed more usefully to the country
or more creditably to himself than in the arduous
but honourable poet of Minister of Public Justice.
The choice of the man, however, is not the question
of the moment ; the immediate and urgent object is
the creation of the office. In this view we feel that
lad Saturday's meeting of the Law Amendment
Society, expressing as it did a very influential and
wide-spread public sentiment, ought to have great
weight with Government and the Legislature. When
Education, the Army, and Public Justice are each
placed under the control and superintendence of a
responsible department of the State, we shall feel
that considerable progress has been made towards
the reform of our military system, the national in-
struction of oar people, and the substantive improve-
ment of our law.