The Irish standard., 1893-09-16
THE BRITISH LORDS.

THE BRITISH LORDS.
After brief discussion lasting only
four days the House of Lords rejected
Gladstone's Home Rule bill by the over
whelmipg vote of 40 to Al. Among the
peers who voted against it were ninety
men ennobled by Gladstone himself.
Though every one expected the lords to
reject the bill for the first time, but few
were prepared for such al enormous
Tory vote, and the result disposes of the
talk about creating Liberal peers to force
the passage Of the bill through the upper
house of parliament. Gladstone would
be obliged to make too many peers to So
cure majority for his measure, and the
newly created aristocrats may follow the
example of the ninety he had already
raised to the peerage and become Lib
eral- U nionists. AS the case now stands
i, is better for Home Rule that such
strong opposition has been offered to it
by the peers, who are hereditary legisla~
tors representing aristocracy and royalty
and far removed from the masses of the
people whom they have always oppressed.
During the debate on the bill the peers
seemed to strive with each other in say
ing scornful things of the democracy
whom they fear and hate, and even Lord
Salisbury forgot himself and snapped and
snarled at the yeomanry Of the empire
which threatens to sweep him and his
order out of existence before many years
if they act as an obstruction in the path
of progress and human liberty. The
lords who turned out in such large num-
bers at the beck of Salisbury to defeat
the will of the majority of the voters of
Great Britain and Ireland are described
as beardless youths noted for clothes,
debts and scandals, and old mon in their
senility who looked more like ghosts or
corpses than living human beings. One
of the American correspondents emphat-
ically declares that if the people of Eng
land could see the lords in a body they
would be Immediately doomed, SO des
picable are they as specimens of physical
and intellectual manhood. Harold Fred
eric believes that their doom has been
already sounded. About fifth of them
had never been inside the chamber of
peers before, and to fully one-half the
remainder it was almost as unfamiliar.
These titled strangers, he says, were
whipped up to London from their grouse
and partridge, and swarmed into the cor
ridors OF the House OF Lords in droves,
like rustics on personally conducted
tour through the sights of the metropolis
Policemen had to be stationed at every
turn in the passages to show them the
way to the scene OF their deliberations.
As for identifying them, that was quite
beyond the powers of the servants of the
house. Apparently any elderly farmer
wearing cover coat with side pockets
could pass freely in and take his seat
without question. This bucolic effect
colored the whole assemblage. In defer
ence to the occasion all wore black coats,
but their sunburnt, heavy faces, huge
red hands, and awkward pastures, kept
perpetually suggesting that they ought
instead to be in tweeds and CATERS No
tub humping demagogue could have
wished for more artless, unsophisticated
audience. They laughed wildly at bald
old elementary jokes, which even the
drivers of four. wheelers wearied of de-
cade ago. They stared at such speake ra
as strove to discuss the Home Rule bill
on the grounds OF logic, law, and consti-
tutional precedent. But when a cheaper
sort, like Cranbrook, rose, and simply
went for Gladstone as knave, liar, traitor,
and, lunatic, and spat on the Irish,
trampled them under foot as scoundre's,
murderers, alien scum, and filth, then
they beloved out great volleys OF Hear;
hear,"] like the roar OF their own prize
bulls at home. They listened with obvi-
Gus amazement to warnings such as
Spencer gently limited and Rosebery
bluntly thrust at them that their order
itself was on trial and stood IN jeopardy.
It seemed to them absurd. They know,
Of course, that there are some low fellows
in the big towns who talk like that, but
SO there are unruly poachers at home.
They cannot see there is more in it than
that, and SO they stolidly, cheerfully
trooped out behind Salisbury 400 of
them into the lobby against Home Rule.
And these are the men who after yawn-s
ing through four evenings Of speechmak
ing threw out the bill which occupied
the attention Of the representatives Of