Litchfield enquirer., 1879-11-06
The English House of Lords.

mere IS SeutTdl cApcCGdtIou tuIouSuouI Great Britain of general election. The pres ent parliament may, if we are not mistaken, run till 1881 but so long term is very unus- ual, and besides, by waiting till the last, the Ministry would lose that opportunity of choos- ing favorable moment for general election which is.one of the most important of minis terial privileges. When a general election does occur, there is plain necessity for such 8 reforming Parliament as England has not seen since 1642. So much are historians in the habit of belauding the Revolution of 1888, and the Reform act of 1882, that few are aware how little really radical improvement has been effected in the Constitution of Great Britain for two centuries. save in the substi- tuition of governing oligarchy for govern ing king Nothing shows more completely how conservative" the ruling classin England had become, than their bitter opposition to the abolition of the rotten borough system. Moth ing but the threat of revolution finally forced them to succumb. -.e ..e. -..
 The Reform bill was good but a very moderate, in fact a merely superficial measure. The fundamental difficulty developed by the Reform agitation was the incurable conserva- tism of the House of Lords. That body had been strong support of Liberalism under Anne, Geo. I. and Geo. II. The reign of Geo. III. entirely changed the character of that body. For the British government, that period was one of rapid degeneracy. The stupid conservatism which led to the American war was followed bya bigotted reaction against the French Revolu ton which committed En- gland to repressive measures more dlsgraceful because more inaccessible than any that have characterized the despotisns of the Continent The evil principles of Geo. III. were perpetu. atcd through the creations of his long reign in the House of Lords, and have stamped it with a character it has ever since retained. Of the peers made by Geo. III Mr. Buckle speaks as follows: .. .-a
 The creations he made were numerous be- yond all precedent. their object evidently be- ing to neutraize the liberal spirit hitherto pre- valing, and thus turn the House of Lords into an engine for resisting the popular wishes, and stopping the progress of reform. How com
 
 the readers of our history; indeed, it was Bure the men who were promoted. They consisted almost entirely of two classes of country gentlemen remarkable for nothing but their wealth, and the number of votes their wealth enabled them to control and of mere lawyers who had risen to judicial appointments partly from their professional learning, but chiefly from the zeal with which they reopened the popular liberties, and favored the royal perog- ative. "
 That this is no exaggerated description, may be ascertained by any one who will consult the lists of the pew peers made by Geo. III. Here and there we find an eminent man, whose public services were so notorious that it was impossible to reward them but, putting aside those who were in manner forced upon the sovereign, it would be idle to deny that the remainder, and of course, the overwhelming majority, were marked by narrowness and illiberality of sentiment, which, more than anything else, brought the whole order into contempt. No great thinkers; no great ora tors; no great statesmen; none of the true no bility of the land, d,-were to be found among the spurious nobles created by Geo. IT, Ci0- iIisatiGn im England, VoI. i, ?, 325.
 What Geo. III made the House of Lords 1t has ever since remained. At every critical emergency, such as the passage of the original Reform bill, or the disestablishment of the Irish Church in our own time, the House of the Lords has resiste ed reform till brought to terms by threat of swamping their conserva- tive majority by the creation of an hundred or more Liberal peers We were struck in a re- cent perusal of MacauIay's Life and Letters, by the hostility aroused in the young reforners of the period of 1889 against the Peers Maca,- evidently believed at the time that the abolition of the House of Lords would soon follow tie triumph of the Reform bill. Writing from the House of Commons in 1888, of a vote of censure passed by the Lords on the Liberal government of the period, he says: ..
 You know the Lords have been foolish enough to pass vote implying censure on the ministers. The ministers do not seem inclined to take it of them. The king has snubbed their lordships properly and in about an hour as guess (for it was near eleven) we shall have come to d resolution in direct opposition to that agreed to by the Upper House. No 6Ody seems Co cure one strGao J0r sohGt tue peers SGy a6Out Gny public matter. A revolution of the Court of Common Council, or a meeting at FrcemasOn's Hall has often made greater sensation than this declaration of d branch of the Legislature against the Executive Govern ment. Iae institution of the peerdge ts eotdent- ky dying q natural death. Vol !, paqe 267.
 The Wings of 1832 soon learned how much safer it is to destroy than to temporize with an institution so powerful, and so imbued with evil. as the British House of Lords. Writing of the fall of the Melbourne administration, Mir. Trevelyan. Macaulay's biographer, speaks thus strongly of the obstructive power of the Peers:
 The Peers gave them no chance from the first. Those who have joined in the idle iu- bilation over the impotence and helplessness of E the House of Lords. with which. in our own day, triumphant partisans celebrated the ciown- fall of the Irish Church. and the abolition of purchase in the army, would do well to study, the history of the decliue and fall of Lord Melbourne's Administration. There they would learn how substantial, and how formi- da0le, :s the power of Conservative statesmen who, surveying the field of action from the secure stronghold of an assembly devoted to their interests, can discern through all the dust and clamOr of popular movement, the exact strength and attitude of the hostile for ccs. An Upper Chamber which will accept from Ministers whom it delests no measure that has not behind it an irresistible mass of excited public opinion, has. sooner or later, the fate of those ministers in it's hands For, on the Ole hand, the friction generated by the process Of forcing a bill through reluctant House of Lords aaanys and scandalizes ra- ton which soon groSs tired of revolution once twelse-Inonth, and, on tlae other hand, the inability of a cabinet to conduct through both Houses that continuous flow of legisIa. ton which the ever changing necessities of cOuntry like ours demand. alienates those among its more ardent supporters who take litile account of it's difficulties. and see only that II is unable to turn it's bills into acts. = Lie cf NGcdnL1y. Fol. 1T pages 53 aud 24.
 We refer to the present political constitution of the British House of Lords because we be- ieve its existence incompatible with any thorough reform. Mir. Gladstone has before now tessed its wonderful capacity for obstruc- ton He hss carried one or two great meas ures over its veto but Ire has found any