The Sun.
London, England, 1869-07-10 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, SATURDAY EVENING, JULY 10, 11,69.

rather more comprehensive character are being
seriously meditated, in regard to the thorough and
radical reorganisation, if not transformation, of that
hitherto, as our contemporary regards it, fossilized or
mummy fled, high and dry, section of the Legislature.
While the Cabinet's liberal supporters among the
morning newspapers are either dumb as to the actual
" situation," or simply suggestive of what is brew-
ing in the way of a Ministerial retaliation upon the
Lords, en revanche for their Amendments, the Daily
News speaks right out, goes manfully to the point
at once, without the smallest attempt at or
affectation of anything whatever in the shape of
circumlocution—insisting upon it that, the Peers
having declined point blank, and very peremptorily,
to bow to the decision of the House of the Com-
mons, a House elected upon this very question of
the Irish Church, and therefore directly represent
ing the opinions entertained in respect to that pre-
cise question by the great mass of the population,
one course, and one course only, is at this mo-
ment before the Chiefs of the Party now in power,
as the members of Mr. GLADSTONE'S Administration.
That course, it maintains, is simply the popularizing
of the House of Lords, appealing for justification
while so doing to the people out of doors. IA
collision between the two Houses many are beginning
to regard as at length a result quite inevitable. The
Conservative Peers are angered at heart to the extent
at least of being altogether unconciliatory. The
Ministerialists are, on the other hand, indignant be-
yond measure at the utter transformation of the Bill
by the introduction of the Lords' Amendments.
Rather than accept these, it is conceived that the
Cabinet, relying upon the support of the country,
will signalize their rejection in the way already some
time since proposed—namely, by abruptly closing the
Session, calling the House together alittle later on, rein-
troducing the Bill, and swamping the Lords bypouring
into it a very considerable number of Liberal Peers.
At amomentous juncture like this, when rumours of
the most ominous character are filling the air, it
seems simply preposterous that the House of Com-
mons should be frittering away its time, as it was last
evening, over such a frivolous discussion as the one
provoked by the member for County Kerry in regard
to a vitally important question as to whether there
shall or shall not be henceforth a grating
to the Ladies' Gallery. Scanning, however cursorily,
the ridiculous and fribbling talk there was over night
upon this topic, one cannot but recognise in the
whole thing—so much " excellent fooling." Fooling so
nonsensical of its kind that those who took part in
it, somehow, seemed incapable of opening their life
without blundering into some extravagantly absurd
gaucherie. Thus, the very proposer—or as he deemed
himself probably but most mistakenly, the chivalrous
proposer—of the motion "That in the opinion
of this House the grating in front of the
Ladies' Gallery ought to be removed," while
complaining that the said gallery was very dark,
very hot and very low roofed, observed indignantly,
that " The temperature there was always nearly
four degrees higher than in the rest of the House."
At which everybody I tughed—when the hon.
member replied with some warmth, " It was all very
well for hon. gentlemen to laugh, but they were there
for their pleasure—(renewed laughter)—while the
ladies came to listen to them ; and" added Mr. HER-
BERT, with an absurd lapsus, " it was a very poor
compliment to the ladies to put them in a
place iu which they were to be confined—
(great laughter)"—and so forth ! With no
less preposterous extravagance of diction or
of farcical phraseology, Mr. JOIINSON, in seconding
the motion of the member for Kerry, declared that
the present Black Hole of Calcutta, (meaning of
Westminster) was worse even than the stowing of
the ladies, as of old, away in the ventilator—backing
up h's preference by the coincident evidence of " his
predecessors of both sexes," at which the house
roared again, the honourable member ad ling a cor-
rection hardly less laughter-moving by reason of its
naïf gravity—" by *those of a former generation
then if the House preferred that expression ! " Mr.
I3EntsFono lIorE rendered himself hardly one
jot less absurd, in his turn, whether by his
serious inquiry as to what was, in point of fact,
the object of a Ladies' Gallery at all—" Was it," he
asked, " to enable a certain number of ladit s to add
one more to the number of evening parties, and
come down here in their best dresses, or was it to
allow ladies to enjoy one or two hours of ra-
tional, intellectual enjoyment iu their morning
dresses and bonnets, without being molested by
impertinent glances? (Indignant cries of "Oh !)"
Mr. BERESFORD HOPE closing his serio-comic address
by deprecating the notion of their adding " a flirting
lobby" to the House of Commons. The younger Mr.
SAM UELSON, the recently-elected member for Chelten-
ham, thereupon added his quota to the nonsense,
intentional or inadvertent, contributed upon this
matter last night to the debates in Parliament
Actually, in the course of his maiden speech,
bungling into the statement that " With regard to
the assertion that ladies would not come if the
grating were removed, because they would have to
appear in evening dress, he did not think that argu-
ment applied for a moment, because it was the
custom for ladies and gentlemen to appear
in full dress or neither. (Roars of laughter.)"
" Hon. gentlemen might laugh [he, too, exclaimed
indignantly, while precipitately correcting himself],
but he believed he was quite correct in what he had
stated—(renewed laughter)—and it was no more
necessary for a lady to come in full dress than for
any hon. member to appear in evening dress." Such
being the frivolous, fribbling, frittering small talk
applied to the discussion of this momentous question,
upon the eve of a political crisis, that, by bringing
the Lords and Commons into actual collision, may
• necssitate or prepare the way for a radical change in
the Constitution !

AT the last moment the Lords have come to the
same opinion of the Life Peerages Bill as we
expressed at the first moment. The bill is at once
too large and too small. It is both revolutionary
and " tinkering." To pass a measure altering the
constitution of one branch of the Legislature,
and at the same time to restrict that alteration
to the ludicrously minute minimum which
the
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smuoi unwisewished amid n
oi d
surrender
the principle of an hereditary peerage, and to
introduce life peers. This proposal may be wise;
but if it be so, why restrict it to two peers a year ?
If it be unwise, two peers are two too many. The
idea that the introduction to the Upper House of the
two most popular men living would popularise such
an aristocratic assembly as the House of Lords,
simply shews how far removed from popular
sentiment are the peers who entertain the idea. If,
as seems too probable, the Lords determine to throw
out the Irish Church Bill rather than give way upon
their principal amendments, what would two life
peers—what would the maximum nuniber Which can
exist at any time—twenty-eight—avail to prevent
that decision ? The recent majorities in the Upper
against the bill, as large as those in the Lower
House for it, have been composed of professed
Liberals as well as professed Conservatives. The
truth is that when Liberal politicians get into the
Upper House they undergo so great a change
under the aristocratic influences
.which surround
them that they unconsciously imbibe ideas alien
from those held by the great bulk of the
nation. In any assembly, therefore, in which the
hereditary element prevails there will always be
a strong bias on the side of Conservatism. A whole-

sale creation of Liberal peers may correct that bias
for a time, and enable a great measure to be
carried; but it will not permanently alter the
character of the assembly, and each fresh enlarge-
ment will render even a temporary alteration more
difficult. No doubt a large infusion of life peers
would be of more avail ; but then it must be a large
infusion, and not the homoeopathic proportion sug-
gested by the Lords themselves.
There is another reason why Lord RUSSELL'S bill
should have been thrown out. If it had passed the
Lords it would have gone down to the Commons at
a time of all others most unfavourable for the con-
sideration of this question. Assuming that the Lords
insist upon having their way with regard to the
Irish Church Bill, the question will then arise,
not in an abstract, but in a very practical
and pressing shape, Which House is to give way
when the two cannot agree ? To have presented
this Life Peerages Bill at such a serious moment
would have been not only to provoke a
very strong manifestation of feeling, but to
invite the embodiment of it in a sweeping measure.
It is quite possible that a great constitutional change
like that which the Peers have had under conside-
ration cannot be brought about except under
pressure and excitement. But we have not yet had
proof of this ; and as we would far rather see so
serious a matter discussed with freedom and calmness
than decided with heat and haste, we would have
it postponed to a more convenient season. It
is still possible that the wisdom which the Peers
shewed in reading the Irish bill a second time may
cause them to see the absurdity of destroying the
measure whose principle they have sanctioned. Should
that be the case, there will be abundance of time for
deliberation upon this other great constitutional
question. Should a different result unhappily take
place, it will be no time for considering trivial
reforms like this. Pills will not avail to cure earth-
quakes.