The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1894-02-20
THE ABOLITION OF THE LORDS.


A correspondent asks THE News
whether there is any probability of the
adjustment of the House of Lords.
concerning which there is so much talk
at the present day, and if so how it
would be accomplished. THE NEWS
does not believe that such n con.
tingency is likely to arise nor
does it know how it conld be
accomplished. The House of Lords
is part of the English legislative body,
which is composed Of tho Crown, the
House of Lords and the House of Com
mons. The House of Lords is the older
body Of the two latter, the House of Com
mons being an offshoot from the Lords.
Just when or how or under what cir
cumstances the House of Com
mons came into existence English
historians are silent upon. 1t was not
a creation, but an accretion, a steady,
slow growth, until it became recognized
MS part of Parliament. The existence
of two bodies was first recognized in the
Magma Charta, but here there is recog-
milton, not creation, showing prior
existence, but giving no indication as to
the date of its birth. From that time
down to the present its power, its duties
and privileges have increased, while the
power of the Lords has been diminished
and curtailed.
The House of Lords, however, is
part and parcel of the English system of
government, and no nation has more
respect for, or clings more tenaciously
to, custom. precedent and form than
England. The British insularism and
pecu1iarities are manifested wherever
English rule is dominant and the Crown
and the Lords are inseparably connected,
both with each other and the existing
and traditional form of government.
The House of Commons was originally,
as near as can be ascertained, an assem-
blage of the lesser peers and mobiles, and
its scope was gradually enlarged until it
took in the larger merchants, farmers
and other representatives of the masses
of the people.
That a nation so welded to custom
and precedent should decide to over
throw the institution of centuries and
the one bond that unites the throne to
the people is much to be doubted.
The present is not the first time in the
more recent history of England that
this proposition has been canvassed. and
there have been times when it has
seemed as though it was impossible to
stem the tide of popular condemnation
OF this hereditary branch of the legisla-
tive body, but the Lords, by bending
gracefully before the gale, have always
succeeded in weathering the storm and
have never yet abandoned any very
serious project to appease popular will.
The usual custom of prime ministers
in dealing with the House of Lords when
that body has stubbornly refused to ac-
cede to the demands Of the ministry has
been to create more peers in order that
the ministry might, through thesnew
creations, control the House of Lords.
Pitt created more than an hundred peers
and others have approached him in their
demands for creation; but this expedient
has been but temporary for the newly
created peers have speedily amalga-
mated with the other peers and quickly
assumed their prejudices as they en-
joyed their privileges.
TO destroy the House of Lords would
be to destroy the present government
Of England and there are no indications
that England has as yet advanced so far
towards republicanism that it is pre-
pared TO overthrow the monarchy and
its nobility. The question of Home
Rule for Ireland will certainly not be
the rock on which the peerage Of Great
Britain comes to grief.
The House Of Lords acts somewhat
similarly on the Commons, as the Senate
in this country does on the House of
Representatives. 1t is a conservative
body which approves or rejects measures
passed by the lower body and its judg-
mept Is frequently more TO be trusted
than that Of the larger body.
Tho proposition 70 abolish the
Lords Is TO certain extent
similar to the proposition to abolish the
Senate. IL isnot an impossibility, but il
is highly an improbability, and nothing |
short of revolution in public sentiment |
so severe as 20 strain If not TO destroy |
the throne itself can ever really |