The Sun.
London, England, 1856-02-11 00:00:00

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But amidst all this parade of antagonism, it was
impossible to -discover the precise ground on which
the opponents of the step intended to give battle.
Or as lawyers would say, they never defined the
points whereon they could venture. to "join issue."
In fact, they seem to have had nothing like a clear
notion of such a point themselves,'or at all events
no sincere wish to arrive at it. They argued like
suitors, who feel that if once their " case" shall be
accurately defined, judgment must at once go
against them. Accordingly they threw up a cloud
of indistinct and incoherent objections, merely
with the view of making out something that
should look like au excuse, for referring the ques-
tion to the Committee of Privileges. Beyond this
they did not venture to look. What points the
Committee of Privileges could have to examine—
what process it could initiate—what evidence it
could command—or what power it possessed of
giving its decision any practical efficacy, they
never dreamt of inquiring. Lord Brougham, in
winding up the debate, confessed this " lame and
impotent conclusion," when he pleaded that by
adopting the motion for reference, their lordships
affirmed nothing more than an opinion that the
subject required further investigation. Under that
impression the vote was carried, and from what
passed in the house on Friday evening, it appears
that the victors are already becomingfrightened at
the possible consequences of their own success.
. The legal issue which the Opposition had in-
volved in such elaborate obscurity was defined by
the Lord Chancellor with inexorable distinctness.
It was, he said, nothing more nor less than this—
" Whether the House of Peers had a right to de-
cide that a patent granted by the Crown was or
was not valid 1" From this position there is no
`retreating. What is the attitude thus assumed by
the House ?. Here.is a single estate of the realm
—every one of whose members owe their place in
the Legislature to the will and summons of the
Crown, and many of whom derive their titles from
patents under the Great Seal, in which the lines
of descent were extended, limited, or varied in
almost every possible way from the customary
mode of inheritance—absolutely taking upon itself,
and by its single suffrage, to question, or perhaps
to cancel, the royal grants, to whose authority its
own existence is due. Some Peers, no doubt,
there are who.date their nobility from times an-
terior to the issue of letters patent, and• who may,
therefore, lay claim to a more independent place
and title. But, at all events, it is absurd that
Peers by patent—who constitute the far larger ma-
jority of the Upper House—should arrogate to
themselves the right of criticising and deter-
mining the validity of patents. In this case, it
is not a question of natural right, but of arti-
ficial privilege. An assembly of freemen may
be fully entitled to discuss and arrange the condi-
tions under which freedom shall be enjoyed, be-
cause it is the inherent right of men to be free.
The Peers, on the other hand, exercise functions
and enjoy privileges which do not come to them of
natural right, but by gift from some authority e
confesso superior to their own. The granter of
privileges must, in the very nature of things, be
higher than the grantee—at any rate, in so far as
the power of granting such privileges is concerned.
How, then, can the inferior body pretend to ad-
judicate upon the acts of the superior—or the
created to criticise the terms and tenour of their
creation

This, however, as the Lord Chancellor pro-
ceeded to show,. is not all. Peers enjoy privileges,
and hold a Amos elsewhere, than in their own
peculiar House. Even supposing that their Lord-
ships, by a vote of the Committee of Privileges or in
any other mode, should decide that Lord Wensley-
dale could not take his seat, how is that decision to
operate upon his standing and relationships else-
where? As a Baron he will have a certain place
allotted to him on all occasions, when the inaguatf s
of the land come into the sovereign's presence—
he will take a certain precedence in all public cere-
monials—he will enjoy immunity from legal pro-
cess against his person—he will be entitled to claim
trial from his peers if indicted before a criminal
tribunal. In these, and many other cases which
may arise, or which would inevitably be contrived
if only for the purpose of deciding the question,
the House of Lords must set itself in antagonism
to the Crown, the judges, and the public generally.
The peers are thus committed to a conflict of autho-
rity, which will, in great measure, be carried on in
regions wholly inaccessible to themselves. Barons
Lyndhurst, St. Lecu.ards, and Campbell may per-
suade.the Committee of Privileges' to decide that
Sir J. Parke has no right under his patent
to sit in the House of Lords. But what will
they do, when they find him placed beside them-
selves.as a Baron, in some Royal procession ; or
when, by; some decision of the Law Courts, Vuey
find then:6eives called upon to
.sit in judgment on'
a case in which he, as a Peer, has demanded to be
tried by his Peers ? ' Col isions like these are in-
evitable from the vote of Thursday night, unless,
indeed, some means of escape can be discovered by
a species of compromise. Yet it is not too much to
say, that the Upper Branch of the Legislature
would lose more prestige, would incur more danger,
and sacrifice more dignity from one such conflict,
than if a hundred life-peers were seated in a batch
upon its benches.

The apprehensien of a calamity like this we have
just mentioned constitutes, indeed, the chief ground
for terror and opposition on part of their lord-
ships. They dread lest the indepeedence of the He-
reditary House s'iould be "swamped" by an irrup-
tion of Peers nominated by the Minister of the
day, and holding their titles by a life tenure. In
former ages a similar fear prevailed from other
sources. At the Union with Scotland, the English
House of Lords were terrified at the prospect of a
large infusion of Scotch peers, who, for the- most
part, were equally distinguished for their antiquity
and their poverty, and to whom it was believed
the Court could always resort as a sine expedient
of manufacturing a majority. To this apprehen-
sion must be attributed the resistance exhibited
against the English peerage conferred by Queen
Anne upon the Duke of Hamilton, so trium-
phantly, but, as the Lord Chancellor proved, so
erroneously, cited by Lord St. Leonards. When
the. -Union with Ireland was accomplished, a si-
milar dread revived—rendered more acute by the
circumstance that for the purpose of carrying
the act the Irish House of Peers had been
swelled by a flood of new creations. In this case,
by a formal statute, the Crown consented to limit
its prerogative, and undertook that three peerages
should lapse for every new titlo conferred in re-
land.

But the power to create British Peers is wholly
unlimited by 1 tw. Lord Lyndhurst recognised tl, e
full right cf the Crown t o send a whole regiment
of the Guards into the House of Lords if it thought
proper. Legal and constitutional competence is
already enjoyed by the Sovereign to "swamp" the
House to any extent, even without resorting to the
device oflife peerages. Its preservation from such a ca-
taclysm rests, says the Lord Chancellor, not in legal
technicalities, notin the Committee of Privileges, but
in more powerful influences. " The checkwhieh would
now prevent the Government from creating an
improper number of peels was to be found, not in
the absence of the power of granting peerages for
whih teasth
only
to
life, but in the wholesome ever-acting control of
public opinion, which would render it as impossible
to adopt any step of that kind, as it would be to
ennoble all the regiments of the Guards." Justly,
therefore, was the Lord Chancellor entitled to con-
clude, that no reasonable okjections could be urged
against
otfhe view prerogative
aof augmenting
dignity and usefulness of the House of Lords.—
Morning Chronicle.
be the
used,exe wreisiteh

.
Sin JAMES BEOOKE.-49.. letter received in Norfolk
et 'tea that Capt. Brooke, a relaCve of Sir James Brooke,
Rajah of Sarawak, in now engaged in London in pur.
chasing steam-boats for Sir James.
The amount paid into the treasury of the East Ind'a-
house for bills on India from the 23d of January to the
Bth of February was 134,8811.
FALL OF A RAILWAY BRIDGE.—Two MEN KILLED.—
On Wednesday two arches of a bridge in course of erec•
tion over the river Doon, on the Maybole lineof railway,
suddenly fell to the ground with aloud crash. The arches
were built with brick, and were about 30 feet high.
Among the rubbish attention was immediately called to
out
from
amoincfly
mass of bricks and stones. He was relieved ag II
possible, but died in about ten minutes. Johna
as
Pdeartiliwekerße raalnonniegapue2rcbepriteikblieaysetrickwinligose head and 'thous!.
is a native
we believe, have
beenn suggest 11
of Belfast, and Tanzie of Longford.ltaafollowing
upon
that the heavy rains of Monday night,
search, fearfully msinirrgelmwedahsainsf
dtheirethcacy in cur-
ing an effect in soften-
ingTan-
zie,
the lime. Some
praterlding arches of such a size
doubts as to the policy of .
undergoing investigation
with bricks. The wetter ilvertiser.
by the authorities.
:14YHrollowav's Pills are, without
[ADVERTISEMENT,'
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any encomium here,
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