Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1894-02-22
PUBLIC OPINION.
GLADSTONE AND THE LORDS

GLADSTONE AND TIE LORDS.
New York Tribune
The British electorate now awaits
signal for a revolt against hereditary
legislators. The National Liberal Fed
GRAFTON is powerful organ of party
opinion, but it can only take a secondary
part in instigating and organizing agita-
ton against the House of Lords. The
speeches delivered and the resolutions
adopted at Portsmouth are menaces,
which may force the upper House to
withdraw or modify its amendments to
the Parish Councils and Employers
Liability bills. But Mr.. Gladstone is
more powerful than any Liberal council
or caucus. He alone can give the signal
for a campaign against the Lords, and
from that conservatism which has
characterized his political convictions
throughout his career he is reluctant to
open the conflict. The rejection of the
Lords amendments by the Commons
may be the last warning, accompanied,
as it will be, by formidable political
demonstration at Portsmouth. If the
Lords are not disposed to listen to
prudent advisers, it may be followed by
a measure for the abolition of the upper
chamber, or by an appeal to the country,
if Mr.. Gladstone in his precarious state
of health can be prevailed upon to retain
the leadership of his party.
While every great country has found
it necessary to have two legislative
chambers, England alone makes birth
privilege the chief qualification for en-
tering one of them. The American
Senate represents the State Legislatures;
the German Bundesrath is created by
the Governments of the States; the
| French Senate is an elective body; the
Austrian Herrenhaus contains more life
members than hereditary peers; and the
Italian Senate is recruited from official,
scientific, literary and large taxpaying
classes. The British House of Peers
with its lords spiritual and lords temporal
is utterly unlike any other legislative
body in the world. 1t is in the main an
assembly of hereditary Legislators, rep
resenting ancient privileges and customs
interesting only to antiquarians and
historians like Mr.. Freeman, but en-
tirely out of gear with the Great Britain
of today, which is essentially and pro-
gressively democratic. While it per-
forms useful functions as a Supreme
Appellate Court, and while many of its
members have administrative capacity
and intellectual attainments of the
highest order of excellence, it remains
an anomaly in a country where the
people govern and practically exercise
sovereignty.
The English people with all their
reverence for precedent have logical
mind Utility is their practical test in
every day life, and it is the standard by
which they measure their institutions.
The Established Church would not have
survived this century if it had not
demonstrated its usefulness as relig-
ious body. The Prime Minister is
practically President elected by uni
yersal suffrage and responsible to the
people, but the monarchy has been pre-
served because it has been thoroughly
respectable during the Victorian era,
and has been nseful in many sways.
The House of Lords, if it is to survive
the storm and stress of democratic
progress and constitutional development,
cannot exist on the records of past ages
beginning with the Saxon Wirenagemot.
Its right to retain legislative functions
by virtue of hereditary privilege must
rest on the essential utility of its present
services to the nation.
Can the House of Lords be menGed?
Mr.. Bagehot, one of the most enlight
ened students of the British Constitu-
ton, did not consider it impossible 70
reinforce the upper chamber with life or
elective members and to convert it into
body which might be most useful in
reviving measures enacted by the
Commons. If Mr.. Gladstone were
younger and disposed to deal seriously
with the question of reforming the
House of Lords, that might be the
general direction which he would follow.
But no one can fail to notice that the
upper House has ceased to be a chamber
of revision for measures passed by either
party 1t registers automatically the
DEGREES of one party and obstructs
Systematically the legislation of the
other party. Logically one party ought
to be as free to govern and to legislate
while it is in power as the other party is;
but practically the House of Lords is a
Superf1uous party machine when there is
a Conservative Ministry, and nothing
lacc thap On obstructive hraka whan
there is Liberal Ministry. The only
effective method of mending it would be
to convert it from an hereditary into an
elective assembly, and in this way to in
vest it with true representative char
acter. So far as the hereditary peers
are concerned, this would be equivalent
to ending it.
oHIO'S YOUNG REPUBLICANS.