The Sun.
London, England, 1835-09-16 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

Well might Lord Melbourne protest against the rash
conduct of the Peers, when they determined to force
on a collision with the other branch of the Legislature.
Speculative writers had indeed pronounced that a Re-
form in the House of Commons must be followed by a
corresponding Reform of the House of Lords ; but
throughout the country there was a strong indisposi-
tion to put the best construction on the conduct of the
Peers ; and nothing hut the dogged spirit of hostility
to the nation, evinced by their Lordships throughout
the last Session more especially, could so far have
weaned the people of England from their old partiali-
ties and predilections, as to induce them to enter seri-
ously on the consideration of the question in what
manner a second House can be obtained to act har-
moniously with the Commons. The patience of
the people has become fairly exhausted. They
perceive that legislation must be at a stand, till
the House of Lords should receive such a modifi-
cation as may make it a national institution, which
it has ceased for some time to be. Like sensible
men of business, the people apply themselves to the
question of the composition of the House of Lords ;
because no other question can he entered on with
hopes of a successful issue till this be disposed of.
The most enlightened and moderate journals. of the
empire, however reluctant to recommend further organic
changes, have become convinced that the time has ar-
rived when to hesitate would be to betray the best in-
terests of the country. As a specimen of the preva-
lent feeling among the most respectable of our provin-
cial contemporaries, we have extracted an article from
the Scotsman, and another from the Edinburgh Chro-
nicle. The Scotsman, which again and again endea-
voured to moderate the ardour of some of the metro-
politan journals :on this subject, and urged the pro-
priety of giving the Peers a fair trial, now declares,
with a resolute and determinedspirit, " We should have
been better pleased if the great organic question, as
to the use of a House of Peers, its constitution and
functions, had remained in abeyance for some years,
because, while it is under discussion, a thousand
minor practicalreforms of the most necessary kind
must he postponed, and a dangerous impulse may be
given to the passions of the people ; but the folly of
the Peers has forced the subject on the country, and
it must be taken up and settled, at whatever hazard."
During the recess, the representatives of the people will
be in direct communication with their respective con-
stituencies, and they will then have abundant oppor-
tunities of ascertaining the intensity .of the popular
dissatisfaction with the House of' Peers. The reform
of the Lords will, in fact, be at every meeting, and
every public dinner, the peat topic of discussion.
This is the doing of the Lords themselves. They
have literally driven the people into a corner. They
have determined to leave them no alternative between
the conversion of the house of Commons into a non-
entity, and the remodelling of the Upper House.
It may always be assumed as incontrovertible
that before a nation can be inspired with such an
all but unanimous wish for a reform of an ancient
institution, the necessity for such a reform must
have been abundantly demonstrated. This sort
of unanimity is never obtained from the influence
of mere speculation. But though mere speculation is
insufficient to produce a conviction in the public mind
against a national institution, it is satisfactory to know
that speculation and practice are not in this instance
at variance. We believe there are few writers of much
reputation for political discernment, who have not long
ago repudiated the theory of the three powers of the
British Constitution. These three powers never
existed at all events in the British Constitution. The
history of the theory is curious enough. Cicero had
regretted that a government could not be formed, com-
bining in itself the excellences of democracy, aristo-
cracy, and monarchy. On this Montesquieu, un-
questionably a most brilliant and witty, but at the
same time by no means a solid writer, imagined that
he had been more successful than Cicero. He found
the theory in the woods of Germany, whence it had
crossed over to England. Blackstone copied Mon-
tesquieu, and .Blackstone has been set down as an
incontrovertible authority. The Commons and the
Lords are supposed to balance each other, and the
Crown to turn the scale. An acute writer very hap-
pi;y observed that, by this theory of the balance, the
Crown could never act ; for if the one House ba-
lanced the other, there was no room for the interfe-
rence of the Crown. Burke long ago showed that
the House of Lords possessed no separate power—
that there was but one and the same power in both
branches of the Legislature. He again and again
showed that the Lords could have no power but in
the House of Commons, and that a reform in the
Commons would alter the whole frame of the Con-
stitution. The arguments of Burke-, and of Bentham
(in his Fragment on Government, published in 1776,
in which Blackstone is handled without mercy), were
frequently used by the Tories in the discussions on the
Reform Bill in 1831 and 1832. A series of able ar-
ticles, in the early numbers of the Edinburgh Review,
opposed Parliamentary Reform, on the ground that
there could be only one paramount power in a na-
tion—that that power was, by the Constitution of this
country, in the House of Commons—that the
Lords had no power but that which they pos-
sessed through their nominees •in the Commons, and
through their influence in elections as great proprietors;
and that, therefore, Parliamentary Reform would ren-
der other changes necessary. Though all these writers
differ essentially as to their objects, they all agree as to
the impossibility of a House of Lords, independent of
the people, maintaining its ground in a collision with
the House of Commons really representing the nation.
The Standard of last night, alluding to an article in
the Chronicle of ysterday on the affairs of Spain, ob-
serves—" Even the Newspapers most favourable to the
cause of the Qiteen see, in the democratic proceedings
in the capital and the provinces, the elements of ruin
to her Government ; and the Morning Chronicle of
to-day laments over the anarchy which prevails in
Spain. It is somewhat instructive to perceive that
our Whig contemporary attributes the main cause
of the mischiefs to be apprehended from the Con-
stitution of 1812 to the want of a second Cham-
ber, which might control the Representative House.
In this we agree with our contemporary, whose
arguments' on this subject might, with advantage,
be applied to a country of more importance to us
than Spain." Our contemporary. draws inferences
from our observations which they do not justify. We
have never contended for a single Chamber. But
there is a material difference between the existence of
two Houses, and the constituting one 'with inde-
pendent irresponsible power. The fault of the
ptanish Constitution of 1812 was not that it was
"without an irresponsible House of Peers, but that
there was no medium whatever between the determina-
tion of the Deputies and its execution. The ad-
vantage of double stages of debate in separate
Houses, must be obvious to every one. In the
fiest heat of discussion the calin voice of reason
is not always heard. Were no other advantage
gained, that of time would be a great one. But
make one House irresponsible, and constitute it in
such a manner as to give it the least possible apti-
tude for legislation, with the most powerful motives
for abusing its powers in order to satisfy the
cravings of the great majority of its members,
etinfessedly paupers, and 'you deprive a nation of the
advantage which might be derived from a second
House. The Peers do not ask whether a measure is
beneficial to the nation or otherwise, but can we pre-
vent the nation from being benefited at all—or what is
the smallest possible amount of benefit which the na-
tion will consent to receive at our hands, without
rising up against us ? The remedy is pointed out
by the nature of the evil. The idea of one House
having a control over the other, is absurd. But
each power oNitt to have the privilege of independent
discussion, and ;".'o measure which has not the concur-
to become law. H ten,
rence o ough!
collision tboth o
be avoided ? By an appeal toow,
the nation,
which must always decide, in one way or other, in the
last resort. Let a certain number of Peers be chosen
by constituencies identified in interest with the nation,
and a collision, should it arise, may be terminated in
an easy and natural way. It may be possible, surely,
to vary the qualification from that for returning Mem-
bers of the House of Commons, and to extend the
range so as to produce consitlerable variety in the con.:'