New-York tribune., 1910-01-16
DUKES VS.. RADICALS
Posters and Campaigning-A
Long Struggle.

| hoard1ngS would be dull WITHOUT rneni
and the belted earls. Rakish they are,
with their audacious swagger and their
showy coronets tilted on one side; yet
| almost too vacuous and degenerate 10
| be wicked despoilers of tenants and tax
| payers and base intriguers against con-
stitutional rights. as they are repre-
sented in cartoons and text. The Chan
cellor of the Exchequer started the game
of Limehousing, and 1t has been taken
UP by the headquarters artists. the bill
| posters and the hooligans as an anus
| ing election sport. 1t is the light COM
edy of politics-the batting Of the lords;
! and it is more diverting than the mock
tragedy of the starvation cartoons on
either side-the Unionist satire on the
workingman's home under workless Free
/ Trade and the Liberal irony over the
taxed loaf So amusing has been the
pastime of grinning over the eolored
pictures of the dukes and earls on the
hoardings that the hooligans have not
been able to resist the temptation ITO
bowl them cut with impertinent sallies
and TO howl them down with general up
roar when they have taken the platform
and addressed them on their polticaI
duties.
The majority of the peers. who have
been plunging into politics and reinfore-
ing the Unionist dsbaters Of the Com
mons during the last three weeks, are
in training for a reformed house of lesis-
lative lords They have never before
been equally active in public life- They
{r, hack
ground, preoccupied with the pleasures
Of country life and with the minor duties
of land owners and patrons of local COM
munities. If they have suddenly ex-
posed themselves to indignity and az
front from Radical interrupters and
practical jokers ii is because they are
good sportsmen with the English fight
ing strain in their blood.
Their reward will come when the up
uer house is reformed and they are
accounted worthy of permanent rec
ognition as legislative lords. The sepa-
ration of the sheep from the goats Is IN
evitable. Their own Ieadsr. Lord Lans-
downe. has frankly conceded the neces-
sity for restricting attendance OF peeSs
at least half ana converting the Sec
end chamber into a more efncient ana
representative body than IL is at pres
erat Mr.. Balfour advocates drastic re-
form OF the upper house. The peers,
who have been heckled and silenced by
rough hammered workingmen and tur-
bulent hooligans. have described them
selves as reformers bent upon setting
their own house in order. II their most
sansuine expectations are fulfilled in an
old-fashioned landslide toward Toryisn,
in the elections, the reform Of the upper
chamber Will be one of the earliest works
undertaken by the Unionist adninistra-
ton.
The ~backwoodsmsn," who are ft only
for fox hunting, the management OF their
estates and public service in district
councils, will be relegated TO private life.
There will be a survival cf the fittest.
and the rghtins peers. who have faced
the Radical rnobs. will have earned the
right to remain in smaller and supe-
rior House of Lords. where the order or
merit is more important than birthrisht
The inefficient and pleasure loving
peers will be protected by victorious
Liberal government. which is not inter
ested in strengthening the upper cham
Der. A small majority. with the assist
ance of the Nationalists, will suffice TO
carry the budget rapidly through the
Commons and TO enact a statute by
which the consent of the upper house to
financial measures can be dispensed
with. ! second proposal respecting the
limitation of general legislative veto viii
probably follow the lines of the Camp
bell-Bannernlan resolution Of 1907 and
provide that ''ths will of the people as
deliberately expressed by their elected
representatives must within the limits OF
the lifetime of a single Parliament be
made effective" What has been sus-
gested is the passage a second and a
third time of Commons measure and
it's final enactment without the consent
of the Lords Sturdy John Bright origi-
mated this proposal over a quarter of q
century ago, and it has been adopted by
moderate Liberals as reasonable
method of substituting a suspension for
an absolute veto.
1t is doubtful whether so clumsy a
device will satisfy thoroughgoing Radi-
Gals. but it has been authoritatively laid
down as the government policy by the
Prime Minister. How the consent of the
Lords to this compromise is TO be OBJ
tanned is not explained, but il is evident
that until the relations of the two houses
are determined decisively the Liberals
will do nothing TO reform and recon-
stitute the upper chamber. The back
woodsmen'' have nothing 10 fear from
their friends the enemy" The menace
of reform which will be fatal to- their
political pretensions will coma from their
own party.
The dukes and earls are likely TO have
a much longer tenure on the electoral
show bills than those ephemeral crea-
lures, the Chinese slaves OF the gold
mines. If the majority in the elections
be small for one party or the other
there will be another contest in a year.
and they will figure conspicuously again
among the stage properties of q more
advanced Radicalism. II the majority
be large for the government there will
be strenuous struggle over both the
veto measure and Home Rule. with an
other appeal TO the country by the peers,
but with less cant about their disinter-
ested services for the democratic electo-