CHAPTER XI THE PROPOSED REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS REFERENCES: Spalding's House of Lords, 133-255; Pike's Constitutional History of the House of Lords; Macpherson's Baronage and the Senate, 59-370; Dickinson's Development of Parliament during the Nineteenth Century, 1-97, and 125-183; Courtney's Working Constitution of the United Kingdom, 118-120; Subjects of the Day, No. 4, 74-117; Houfe's Question of the Houses; Rose's Rise of Democracy; Bagehot's English Constitution, 157-197; Drifting towards the Breakers, by A Sussex Peer. See also pamphlets and magazine articles mentioned in bibliographical note at the close of this volume. TH HE abolition or reconstruction of the House of Lords is a live question at the present time in England. There are some who see no reason for the existence of what seems to them a superfluous and antiquated body and would abolish it entirely; while others, recognising the necessity of a second chamber and appreciating the past services of the lords and realising the possibility of future usefulness, would retain the Upper House, but would reconstruct it in such a way as to make it conform more nearly to modern ideas of representation. The reformers seek 1 Perhaps it might be well to remark that since 1895 the agitation in favour of the reform of the House of Lords has subsided, owing to the predominance of the Conservative party. But, as a prominent member of the House of Commons recently remarked, "it might revive as a burning question if the Liberal party came in and the House of Lords began again to throw out or spoil bills passed by the House of Commons." generally to restrict the hereditary principle, and to extend the elective in the composition of the body. There are also those in England conservative enough to believe that the House of Lords as at present constituted is a satisfactory legislative body, and that no material change should be made in its composition. The fact of the matter undoubtedly is that the House of Lords has not adapted itself to the growing democratic spirit in England to the same degree that the Crown and the Commons have. The result is that there now exists a broad chasm between that body and the masses of the English people. The sympathy of the lords has been turned in the direction of the few and not of the many. It is this fact that has caused Spalding to characterise the Upper Chamber in his forcible way as "the one stagnant and unprogressive branch of the legislature." 1 The prophecy of Walter Bagehot made a generation ago has been fulfilled in large part. Speaking of the possibility of the reform of the House of Lords, Mr. Bagehot remarked: "The danger of the House of Commons is, perhaps, that it will be reformed too rashly; the danger of the House of Lords certainly is, that it may never be reformed. Nobody asks that it should be so; it is quite safe against rough destruction, but it is not safe against inward decay. It may lose its veto as the Crown has lost its veto. If most of its members neglect their duties, if all its members continue to be of one class, and that not quite the best; if its doors are shut against genius that cannot found a family, and ability which has not five thousand a 1 "House of Lords," p. 5. |