The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1907-05-30
THE HOUSE OF LORDS
CHECKS 1T HAS RECEIVED AT THE
HANDS OF THE COMMONS. i

The Long Parliament Put the Peers
Out of Business Altogether For a
/ Number of Years Bolingbroke
Way With the Noble Lords.
There is an idea in the minds of very
/ many persons that the British house of
/ lords is supreme and can do pretty well
what it pleases. This, however, is a
mistake On several notable occasions
their noble lordships have been para
/ lived and have got very much the
worst of it in stormy arguments with
The gentlemen of the house of COM
mons.
The first occasion on which this hap
pened was when the peers yentured to
differ with the long parliament, which
was at the time engaged in a life and
death struggle with Charles l. The
commons on this occasion wasted no
valuable time in talking, but promptly
abolished the lords altogether and
turned them. archbishops, dukes, belt
ed earls and all the rest of the ger
geous coroneted crowd. into the street.
The gilded chamber was vacant.
For half dozen years or so the
country got on without any house of
lords.
All the checks the house of lords
have received have not been of such
drastic nature as this, of course.
Various ministries. finding that the
peers were unwilling to pass their pro-
posed bills. have resorted to the threat
to create enough new peers to swamp
the house of lords. These new peers
would. of course, have been pledged
beforehand to vote for the ministry
creating them.
F.. In I'LL the prime minister of the
day, the daring and INSCRIPTIONS Wis
count Bolingbroke. was anxious to ter
inmate the desolating and ruinous war
with France, which had been raging
on and off for twenty years.
TO effect this purpose he had drawn
up the treaty of Utrecht. 1t was neces-
sary at that time that lords and COM
mons should agree to treaty before
it would become valid. The commons
assented to the treaty, but the lords
declared that they would have none
of it and that the war must go on,
whereupon Bolingbroke coolly but
firmly informed them that, rather than
see himself defied by them, he would
create a whole army of new peers to
vote for the treaty.
The story goes that he had a regi-
ment of the Life guards paraded under
the windows of the house of lords and
threatened to make every trooper into
a noble lord if driven to it. He did
make twelve new peers, and then the
lords gave in.
The Liberal government of 1892 with
Earl Grey as prime minister, used the
same threat They wished to pass the
first reform bill. The lords hated this
bill bitterly.
Until then they had been practically
an oligarchy. with all the real power
in their hands The franchise had been
so limited that only rich men, and gen.
orally only the nominee of some great |
nobleman. could get into parliament.
The reform bill altered that 1t gave !
the smaller men chance. The lords
expressed their deliberate intention of |
wrecking the bill
Earl Grey retorted by extorting from |
King William IV.-who didn't like re- |
form bills. but dared not oppose the |
wish of the nation for fear of a revo- |
TO call up to the |
house of lords as many new peers as |
should be necessary to carry his bill.
The mere threat was enough for the |
lords They had no wish to see their |
order made cheap and ridiculous, as /
would have been the case had peers |
become as plentiful as blackberries.
1t used to be the custom in the Brit /
sh army for al officers commissions
to be purchased That is, an officer, in /
stead of getting into the army By |
means of competitive examination /
and rising hy merit. came straight |
from school. without knowing anything
Il the new duties he was about TO as
sumo, and had a commission bought |
for him After that. instead of being
promoted as a reward for his services.
le used TO bur each promotion.
II he had no money his chances of
1eing promoted were about a thousand
o one. The result VAS that officers
who had grown gray in the service and
ought IN many battles remained sub
,reiinates al their lives. while the sons
# wealthy families who had not seen
! quarter Of their service Jumped over
heir heads BY having their way pur-
,hased up for them 10 be colonies aud
Mir. Gladstone decided TO 10 away