the will of the people expressed through their elected representatives
in this House will be made to prevail."

The first mention of the subject in a King's Speech occurred in March,
1907, when this significant phrase was used: "Serious questions
affecting the working of our party system have arisen from unfortunate
differences between the two Houses. My Ministers have this important
subject under consideration with a view to the solution of the
difficulty."

On June 24, 1907, the matter was first definitely brought before the
House. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman moved that "in order to give effect
to the will of the people as expressed by their elected
representatives, it is necessary that the power of the other House to
alter or reject Bills passed by this House should be so restricted by
law as to secure that within the limits of a single Parliament the
final decision of the Commons shall prevail." To the evident surprize
of the Opposition he sketched a definite plan for curtailing the veto
of the House of Lords. This was followed in July by the introduction of
resolutions laying down in full detail the exact procedure. In his
statement Sir Henry made it very clear that the issue was confined to
the relations between the two Houses:--"Let me point out that the plan
which I have sketched to the House does not in the least preclude or
prejudice any proposals which may be made for the reform of the House
of Lords. The constitution and composition of the House of Lords is a
question entirely independent of my subject. My resolution has nothing
to do with the relations of the two Houses to the Crown, but only with
the relations of the two Houses to each other."

In 1908, Mr. Asquith became Prime Minister, but no further action was
taken. On the rejection of the Licensing Bill, however, he showed that
the Government were fully aware of the extreme gravity of the question,
but intended to choose their own time to deal with it. Speaking at the
National Liberal Club in December, he said: "The question I want to put
to you and to my fellow Liberals outside is this: Is this state of
things to continue? We say that it must be brought to an end, and I
invite the Liberal party to-night to treat the veto of the House of
Lords as the dominating issue in politics--the dominant issue, because
in the long run it overshadows and absorbs every other." When pressed
on the Address at the beginning of the following session by his
supporters, who were impatient for action, he explained the position of
the Government: "I repeat we have no intention to shirk or postpone the
issue we have raised.... I can give complete assurance that at the
earliest possible moment consistent with the discharge by this
Parliament of the obligations I have indicated, the issue will be
presented and submitted to the country."

The rejection of the Budget in 1909 led to a general election, in which
the Government's method of dealing with the Lords was the main issue.
The Liberals were returned again, but when the King's Speech was read
some confusion was caused by the distinct question of the relations
between the two Houses being coupled with a suggested reform of the
Second Chamber. This was a departure from the very clear and wise
policy of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, and had it been persisted in it
might have broken up the ranks of the Liberal party--very varied and
different opinions being held as to the constitution of a Second
Chamber. But the stronger course was adopted, and the resolutions
subsequently introduced and passed in the House of Commons dealt only
with the veto and were to form the preliminary to the introduction of
the Bill itself.

Just as matters seemed about to result in a final settlement, King
Edward died, and a conference between the leaders of both parties was
set up to tide over the awkward interval. The conference was an
experiment doomed to failure, as the Liberals had nothing to give away
and compromise could only mean a sacrifice of principle. The House met
in November to wind up the business, and the Prime Minister announced
that an appeal would be made to the country on the single issue of the
Lords' veto, the specific proposals of the Government being placed
before the electorate. A Liberal Government was returned to power for
the third time in December, 1910, with practically the same majority as
in January. The Parliament Bill was introduced and passed in all its
stages through the House of Commons with large majorities.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives made no attempt to defend either the
action or composition of the House of Lords, but adopted an apologetic
attitude. They agreed that the Second Chamber must be reformed, and
during the second general election in 1910 some of them declared for
the Referendum as a solution of the difficulty of deadlocks between the
two Houses. But there was an entire absence of sincerity about their
proposals, which were not thought out, but obviously only superficial
expedients hurriedly grasped at by a party in distress. Their reform
scheme, introduced by Lord Lansdowne, was revolutionary, and, at the
same time, fanciful and confused. It was ridiculed by their opponents,
and received with frigid disapproval by their supporters. Still, they
acted as if they were confident that in the long run they could ward
off the final blow. They were persuaded that the Liberal Government
would neither have the courage nor the power to accomplish their
purpose. "Why waste time over abstract resolutions?" asked Mr.
Balfour. "The Liberal party," he said, "has a perfect passion for
abstract resolutions"--and again, "it is quite obvious they do not mean
business." Even when the Bill itself was introduced, they still did not
believe that its passage through the House of Lords could be forced.
The opposition to the Bill was not so much due to hatred of the actual
provisions as fear of its consequences. The prospect of a Liberal
Government being able to pass measures which for long have been part of
their program, such as Home Rule, Welsh Disestablishment, or Electoral
Reform, exasperated the party who had hitherto been secured against the
passage of measures of capital importance introduced by their
opponents. The anti-Home Rule cry and the supposed dictatorship of the
Irish Nationalist leader were utilized to the full, and were useful
when constitutional and reasoned argument failed. At the same time as
much as possible was made of the composite character of the majority
supporting the Government.

Throughout the latter part of the controversy there is little doubt
that the Conservatives would have been in a far stronger position had
they acted as a united party with a definite policy and a strong leader
ready at a moment's notice to form an alternative Government. But they
were deplorably led, they could agree on no policy, and their warmest
supporters in the Press and in the country were the first to admit that
the formation of an alternative Conservative Administration was
unthinkable. Nevertheless, there could be no rival for the leadership.
Mr. Balfour, aloof, indifferent, without enthusiasm, and without
convictions, although discredited in the country and harassed in his
attempts to save his party from Protection, remains in ability,
Parliamentary knowledge, experience and skill, head and shoulders above
his very mediocre band of colleagues in the House of Commons.

The Bill went up to the House of Lords, where Lord Morley, with the
tact and skill of an experienced statesman and the unflinching firmness
of a lifelong Liberal, conducted it through a very rough career. The
Lords' amendments were destructive of the principle, and therefore
equivalent to rejection. But even a few days before those amendments
were returned to the Commons the Conservatives refused to believe that
the passage of the Bill in its original form was guaranteed. When at
last it was brought home to them that, if necessary, the King would be
advised to create a sufficient number of Peers to insure the passage of
the Bill into law, a howl of indignation went up. Scenes of confusion
and unmannerly exhibitions of temper took place in the House of
Commons. A party of revolt was formed among the Peers, and the Prime
Minister was branded as a traitor who was guilty of treason and whose
advice to the King in the words of the vote of censure was "a gross
violation of constitutional liberty."

As a matter of fact, Mr. Asquith was adhering very strictly to the
letter and spirit of the Constitution. Lord Grey, who was confronted
with a similar problem in 1832, very truly said: "If a majority of this
House (House of Lords) is to have the power whenever they please of
opposing the declared and decided wishes both of the Crown and the
people without any means of modifying that power, then this country is
placed entirely under the influence of an uncontrollable oligarchy. I
say that if a majority of this House should have the power of acting
adversely to the Crown and the Commons, and was determined to exercise
that power without being liable to check or control, the Constitution
is completely altered, and the Government of the country is not a
limited monarchy; it is no longer, my Lords, the Crown, the Lords and
Commons, but a House of Lords--a separate oligarchy--governing
absolutely the others."

Had the Prime Minister submitted to the Lords' dictation after two
general elections, in the second of which the verdict of the country
was taken admittedly and exclusively on the actual terms of the
Parliament Bill, he would have basely betrayed the Constitution in
acknowledging by his submission that the Peers were the supreme rulers
over the Crown and over the Commons, and could without check overrule
the declared expression of the people's will. The Lord Chancellor
pointed out the danger in one sentence. "This House alone in the
Constitution is to be free of all control." No doubt the creation of
ten Peers would not have caused such a commotion as the creation of
400, but the principle is precisely the same, and it was only the
magnitude of partizan bias in the Second Chamber that made the creation
of a large number necessary in the event of there being determined
opposition. It was a most necessary and salutary lesson for the Lords
that they should be shown, in as clear and pronounced a way as
possible, that the Constitution provided a check against their attempt
at despotism, just as the marked disapproval of the electorate, as
shown, for instance, in the remarkable series of by-elections in
1903-1905, or by a reverse at a general election, is the check provided
against the arbitrary or unpopular action of any Government. The Peers
were split up into two parties, those who accepted Lord Lansdowne's
pronouncement that, as they were no longer "free agents," there was
nothing left for them but to submit to the inevitable, and those who
desired to oppose the Bill to the last and force the creation of Peers.
The view of the latter section, led by Lord Halsbury, was an expression
of the wide-spread impatience and annoyance with Mr. Balfour's weak and
vacillating leadership. All the counting of heads and the guesses as to
how each Peer would behave afforded much material for sensational press
paragraphs and rather frivolous speculation and intrigue. The action of
any Peer in any circumstance is always supposed to be of national
importance. The vision of large numbers of active Peers was a perfect
feast for the public mind, at least so the newspapers thought. But in
reality the final outcry, the violent speeches, the sectional meetings,
the vituperation and passion were quite unreal and of very little
consequence. One way or the other, the passage of the Bill was secure.

The Vote of Censure brought against the Government afforded the Prime
Minister a convenient opportunity of frankly taking the House into his
confidence. With the King's consent, he disclosed all the
communications, hitherto kept secret, which had passed between the
Sovereign and his Ministers. He rightly claimed that all the
transactions had been "correct, considerate, and constitutional." Mr.
Asquith's brilliant and sagacious leadership impressed even his
bitterest opponents. It only remained for the Lords not to insist on
their amendments. Unparalleled excitement attended their final
decision. The uncompromising opponents among the Unionist Peers, rather
than yield at the last moment, threw over Lord Lansdowne's leadership.
They were bent on forcing a creation of Peers, although Lord Morley
warned them of the consequences. "If we are beaten on this Bill
to-night," he declared, "then his Majesty will consent to such a
creation of Peers as will safeguard the measure against all possible
combinations in this House, and the creation will be prompt." In
numbers the "Die-hards," as they were called, were known to exceed a
hundred, and it was extremely doubtful right up to the actual moment
when the division was taken if the Government would receive the support
of a sufficient number of cross-bench Peers, Unionist Peers, and
Bishops to carry the Bill. After a heated debate, chiefly taken up by
violent recriminations between the two sections of the Opposition, the
Lords decided by a narrow majority of seventeen not to insist on their
amendments, and the Bill was passed and received the Royal assent.

Now that the smoke has cleared off the field of battle, let us state in
a few sentences what the Parliament Bill which has caused all this
uproar really is. It is by no means unnecessary to do this, as those
who take a close interest in political events are, perhaps, unaware of
the incredible ignorance which exists as to the cause and essence of
the whole controversy, especially among that class of society who read
head-lines but not articles, who never attend political meetings, but
whose strong prejudices make them active and influential. The
Parliament Bill, or rather the Act, does not even place a Liberal
Government on an equal footing with a Unionist Government. It insures
that Liberal measures, if persisted in, may become law in the course of
two years in spite of the opposition of the Second Chamber. It lays
down once and for all that finance or money Bills can not be vetoed or
amended by the House of Lords--which, after all, is only an indorsement
of what was accepted till 1909 as the constitutional practise--and it
limits the duration of Parliament to five years. The preamble of the
Bill, which is regarded with a good deal of suspicion by advanced
Radicals, indicates that the reform of the Second Chamber is to be
undertaken subsequently.

This is the bare record of the sequence of events in the Parliamentary
struggle between the two Houses, each supported by one of the two great
political parties. In the course of the controversy the real
significance of the conflict was liable to be hidden under the mass of
detail connected with constitutional law, constitutional and political
history, and Parliamentary procedure, which had to be quoted in
speeches on every platform and referred to repeatedly in debate. The
serious deadlock between the Lords and Commons was not a mere
inconvenience in the conduct of legislation, nor was it purely a
technical constitutional problem. The issue was not between the 670
members of the House of Commons and the 620 members of the House of
Lords, nor between the Liberal Government and the Tory Opposition. The
full purport of the contest is broader and far more vital; it must be
sought deeper down in the wider sphere of our social and national life.
In a word, the rising tide of democracy has broken down another
barrier, and the privileges and presumptions of the aristocracy have
received a shattering blow. This aspect of the case is worth studying.

There could be no conflict of any importance between the two Houses so
long as the Commons were practically nominees of the Lords. At the end
of the eighteenth century no fewer than 306 members of the House of
Commons were virtually returned by the influence of 160 persons,
landowners and boroughmongers, most of whom were members of the other
House. Things could work smoothly enough in these circumstances, as the
two Houses represented the same interests and the same class, and the
territorial aristocracy dominated without effort over a silent and
subservient people.

The Reform Bill of 1832 was the real beginning of the change. By its
provisions not only was the franchise extended, but fifty-six rotten
boroughs, represented by 143 members, were swept away. There was
something more in this than electoral reform. It was the first step
toward alienation between the two Houses. There was a bitter fight at
the time because the Lords foresaw that if they once lost their hold
over the Commons the eventual results might be serious for them. It was
far more convenient to have a subordinate House of nominees than an
independent House of possible antagonists. The enfranchisement and
emancipation of the people once inaugurated, however, were destined to
proceed further. The introduction of free education served more than
anything, and is still serving, to create a self-conscious democracy
fully alive to its great responsibilities, for knowledge means courage
and strength. Changes in the industrial life of the country led to
organization among the workers and the formation of trade-unions. The
extension of local government brought to the front men of ability from
all classes of society, and the franchise became further extended at
intervals. The House of Commons, now completely free and independent,
kept in close touch with the real national awakening and reflected in
its membership the changes in social development. But the House of
Lords, unlike any other institution in the country, remained unchanged
and quite unaffected by outside circumstances. Its stagnation and
immobility naturally made it increasingly hostile to democratic
advance. The number of Liberal Peers or Peers who could remain Liberal
under social pressure gradually diminished. Friction caused by
diversity of aim and interest became consequently more and more
frequent. There were times of reaction, times of stagnation, times when
the national attention was diverted by wars, but the main trend taken
by the course of events was unalterable. The aristocracy, finding that
it was losing ground, made attempts to reenforce itself with commercial
and American wealth, thereby sacrificing the last traces of its old
distinction. Money might give power of a sort--a dangerous power in its
way--but not-power to recover the loss of political domination. The
South African War and the attempt to obliterate the resentment it
caused in the country by instituting a campaign for the revival of
Protection brought about the downfall of the Tory party. The electoral
_debacle_ of 1906 was the consequence and served as a signal of alarm
in the easy-going Conservative world. Till then many who were
accustomed to hold the reins of government in their hands, as if by
right, had not fully realized that the control was slipping from them.
The cry went up that socialism and revolution were imminent. _The
Times_ quoted _The Clarion_. Old fogies shook their heads and declared
the country would be ruined and that a catastrophe was at hand. But it
was soon found, on the contrary, that the government of the country was
in the hands of men of great ability, enlightenment, and imagination;
trade prospered, social needs were more closely attended to, and, most
important of all, peace was maintained. The House of Commons had opened
its doors to men of moderate means, and the Labor party, consisting of
working men, miners, and those with first-hand knowledge of industrial
conditions, came into existence as an organized political force.

The last six years have shown the desperate attempts of the ancient
order to strain every nerve against the inevitable, and to thwart and
destroy the projects and ambitions of those who represented the new
thought and the new life of the nation. Though apparently successful at
first, the rash action of the Chamber which still represented the
interest, privileges, and prejudices of the wealthier class and of
vested interests, only helped in the long run to hasten the day when
they were to be deprived of their most formidable weapon. They still
retain considerable power: their interests are guarded by one of the
political parties, and socially they hold undisputed sway. In an
amazing defense of the past action of the House of Lords, Lord
Lansdowne in 1906 said: "It is constantly assumed that the House of
Lords has always shown itself obstructive, reluctant, an opponent to
all useful measures for the amelioration of the condition of the people
of this island. Nothing is further from the truth. You will find that
in the past with which we are concerned the House of Lords has shown
itself not only tolerant of such measures but anxious to promote them
and to make them effectual to the best of its ability. _And that, I
believe, has been, and I am glad to think it, from time immemorial, the
attitude of what I suppose I may call the aristocracy toward the people
of this country_" The last sentence is a fair statement of their case.
The aristocracy are _not_ the people. They are by nature a superior
class which Providence or some unseen power has mercifully provided to
govern, to rule, and to dominate. They are kind, charitable, and
patronizing, and expect gratitude and subservience in return. As a
mid-Victorian writer puts it: "What one wants to see is a kind and
cordial condescension on the one side, and an equally cordial but still
respectful devotedness on the other." But these are voices from a time
that has passed.

Democracy has many a fight before it. False ideals and faulty
educational systems may handicap its progress as much as the forces
that are avowedly arrayed against it. Its achievements may be arrested
by the discord of factions breaking up its ranks. Conceivably it may
have to face a severe conflict with a middle-class plutocracy. But
whatever trials democracy has to undergo it can no longer be subjected
to constant defeat at the hands of a constitutionally organized force
of hostile aristocratic opinion. At least, it may now secure expression
in legislation for its noblest ideals and its most cherished ambitions.
A check on progressive legislation is harmful to the national welfare,
especially when there is no check on the real danger of reaction. To
devise a Second Chamber which will be a check on reaction as well as on
so-called revolution is a problem for the future. For the time being,
therefore, the best security for the country against the perils of a
reactionary regime is to allow freer play to the forces of progress,
which only tend to become revolutionary when they are resisted and
suppressed. The curtailment of the veto of the Second Chamber fulfils
this purpose. Whatever further adjustment of the Constitution may be
effected in time to come, the door can no longer be closed persistently
against the wishes of the people when they entrust the work of
legislation to a Liberal Government.


SYDNEY BROOKS

The first but by no means the last or most crucial stage of our
twentieth-century Revolution has now been completed; the old
Constitution, which was perhaps the most adaptable and convenient
system of government that the world has ever known, is definitely at an
end; the powers of an ancient Assembly have been truncated with a
violence that in any other land would have spelled barricades and
bloodshed long ago; and the road has been cleared, or partially
cleared, for developments that must profoundly affect, and that in all
probability will absolutely transform, the whole scheme of the British
State.

Thus far, with their usual effective, good-humored, shortsighted common
sense, with few pauses for inquiry, and with a characteristically
indifferent grasp on the ultimate trend of things, have our politicians
brought us. Our politicians, I say, and not our people, because one of
the distinctive features of the Revolution so far is that it has been a
political rather than a popular movement. It did not originate in the
constituencies, but in the Cabinet; it was not forced upon the caucus
by an aroused and indignant country, but by the caucus upon the
country; nine-tenths of its momentum has been derived from above and
not from below; the true centers of excitement throughout its polite
and orderly progress have been the lobbies of the House and the
correspondence columns of _The Times;_ it was only at the last that the
urbanities of the struggle between the "Die-hards" and their fellow
Unionists furnished the public as a whole with material for a mild
sporting interest. When Roundheads and Cavaliers were lining up for the
battle of Edgehill a Warwickshire squire was observed between the
opposing forces placidly drawing the coverts for a fox. The British
people during the past twenty months have seemed more than once to
resemble that historic huntsman. They have answered the screaming
exhortations of the politicians with whispers of more than Delphic
ambiguity; they have gone unconcernedly about their pleasures and their
business, to all appearances unvexed by the din of Revolution in their
ears; they have presented the spectacle, more common in France than in
England, of a tranquil nation with agitated legislators.

The Ministerial explanation of this lethargy and indifference is that
the people had no occasion to grow excited; their "mandate" was being
fulfilled, they were getting what they wanted, demonstrations were
superfluous. But no one who has read the history of the Reform Bill of
1832 or of the Chartist movement or who remembers the passions stirred
up by the Franchise agitation and the Home Rule struggle of the
eighties will swallow that explanation without mentally choking.

The truth probably is, first, that the multiplication of cheap
distractions and enjoyments and of cheaper newspapers has not only
weakened the popular interest in politics, but has impaired that
faculty of concentrated and continuous thought which used to invest
affairs of State with an attractiveness not so greatly inferior to that
of football; secondly, that for the great masses of the democracy the
politics of bread and butter have completely ousted the politics of
ideas and abstractions; and thirdly, that the Constitutional issue was
precisely the kind of issue in which our people had had no previous
training, either actual or theoretical, and which found them therefore
without any intellectual preparation for its advent. Up till the end of
1909 we had always taken the Constitution for granted, and were for the
most part comfortably unaware that it even existed. We had never as a
nation, or never rather within living memory, troubled ourselves about
"theories of State," or whetted our minds on the fundamentals of
government. There is nothing in our educational curriculum that
corresponds with the _instruction civique_ of the French schools, nor
have we the privilege which the Americans enjoy of carrying a copy of
our organic Act of Government in our pockets, of reading it through in
twenty minutes, and of hearing it incessantly expounded in the
class-room and the Press, debated in the national legislature, and
interpreted by the highest judicial tribunal in the land.

When, therefore, we were suddenly called upon to decide the infinitely
delicate problems of the place, powers, and composition of a Second
Chamber in our governing system, the task proved as bewildering as it
was unappetizing. Any nation which regarded its Constitution as a vital
and familiar instrument would have heavily resented so gross an
infraction of it as the Lords perpetrated in rejecting the 1909 Budget.
But our own electorate, so far from punishing the party responsible for
the outrage, sent them back to the House over a hundred stronger, a
result impossible in a country with any vivid sense, or any sense at
all, of Constitutional realities, and only possible in Great Britain
because the people adjudged the importance of the various issues
submitted to them by standards of their own, and placed the
Constitutional problem at the bottom, or near the bottom, of the list.
In no single constituency that I have ever heard of was the House of
Lords question the supreme and decisive factor at the election of
January, 1910. It deeply stirred the impartial intelligence of the
country, but it failed to move the average voter even in the towns,
while in the rural parts it fell unmistakably flat.

Even at the election of December, 1910, when all other issues were
admittedly subordinate to the Constitutional issue, it was exceedingly
difficult to determine how far the stedfastness of the electorate to
the Liberal cause was due to a specific appreciation and approval of
the Parliament Bill and of all it involved, and how far it was an
expression of general distrust of the Unionists, of irritation with the
Lords, and of sympathy with the social and fiscal policies pursued by
the Coalition. That the Liberals were justified, by all the rules of
the party game, in treating the result of that election as, for all
political and Parliamentary purposes, a direct indorsement of their
proposals, may be freely granted. It was as near an approach to an _ad
hoc_ Referendum as we are ever likely to get under our present system.
Party exigencies, or at any rate party tactics, it is true, hurried on
the election before the country was prepared for it, before it had
recovered from the somnolence induced by the Conference, and before the
Opposition had time or opportunity to do more than sketch in their
alternative plan. But though the issue was incompletely presented, it
was undoubtedly the paramount issue put before the electorate, and the
Liberals were fairly entitled to claim that their policy in regard to
it had the backing of the majority of the voters of the United Kingdom.

Whether, however, this backing represented a reasoned view of the
Constitutional points involved and of the position, prerogatives, and
organization of a Second Chamber in the framework of British
Government, whether it implied that our people were really interested
in and had deeply pondered the relative merits of the Single and Double
Chamber systems, is much more doubtful. "When he was told," said the
Duke of Northumberland on August 10th, "that the people of England were
very anxious to abolish the House of Lords, his reply was that they did
not understand the question, and did not care two brass farthings about
it." That perhaps is putting it somewhat too strongly. The country
within the last two years has unquestionably felt more vividly than
ever before the anomaly of an hereditary Upper Chamber embedded in
democratic institutions. It has been stirred by Mr. Lloyd-George's
rhetoric to a mood of vague exasperation with the House of Lords and of
ridicule of the order of the Peerage. It has accepted too readily the
Liberal version of the central issue as a case of Peers _versus_
People. But while it was satisfied that something ought to be done, I
do not believe it realizes precisely what has been accomplished in its
name or the consequences that must follow from the passing of the
Parliament Bill. There are no signs that it regards the abridgment of
the powers of the Upper House as a great democratic victory. There are,
on the contrary, manifold signs that it has been bored and bewildered
by the whole struggle, and that the extraordinary lassitude with which
it watched the debates was a true reflex of its real attitude.


CAPTAIN GEORGE SWINTON, L.C.C.

It has been more like a bull-fight than anything else, or perhaps the
bull-baiting, almost to the death, which went on in England in days of
old. For the Peerage is not quite dead, but sore stricken, robbed of
its high functions, propped up and left standing to flatter the fools
and the snobs, a kind of painted screen, or a cardboard fortification,
armed with cannon which can not be discharged for fear they bring it
down about the defenders' ears. And in the end it was all effected so
simply, so easily could the bull be induced to charge. A rag was waved,
first here, then there, and the dogs barked. That was all.

It is not difficult to be wise after the event. Everybody knows now
that with the motley groups of growing strength arrayed against them it
behooved the Peers to walk warily, to look askance at the cloaks
trailed before them, to realize the danger of accepting challenges,
however righteous the cause might be. But no amount of prudence could
have postponed the catastrophe for any length of time, for indeed the
House of Lords had become an anachronism. Everything had changed since
the days when it had its origin, when its members were Peers of the
King, not only in name but almost in power, princes of principalities,
earls of earldoms, barons of baronies. Then they were in a way
enthroned, representing all the people of the territories they
dominated, the people they led in war and ruled in peace. They came
together as magnates of the land, sitting in an Upper House as Lords of
the shire, even as the Knights of the shire sat in the Commons. And
this continued long after the feudal system had passed away, carried on
not only by the force of tradition, but by a sentiment of respect and
real affection; for these feelings were common enough until designing
men laid themselves out to destroy them.

Many things combined to make the last phase pass quickly. It was
impossible that the Peerage could long survive the Reform Bill, for it
took from the great families their pocket boroughs, and so much of
their influence. And there followed hard upon it the educational effect
of new facilities for exchange of ideas, the railway trains, the penny
post, and the halfpenny paper, together with the centralization of
general opinion and all government which has resulted therefrom. But
above all reasons were the loss of the qualifying ancestral lands, a
link with the soil; and the ennobling of landless men. Once divorced
from its influence over some countryside a peerage resting on heredity
was doomed; for no one can defend a system whereby men of no
exceptional ability, representative of nothing, are legislators by
inheritance. Should we summon to a conclave of the nations a king who
had no kingdom? But the pity of it! Not only the break with eight
centuries of history--nay, more, for when had not every king his
council of notables?--not only the loss of picturesqueness and
sentiment and lofty mien, but the certainty, the appalling certainty,
that, when an aristocracy of birth falls, it is not an aristocracy of
character or intellect, but an aristocracy--save the mark--of money,
which is bound to take its place.

Five short years and four rejected measures. Glance back over it all.
The wild blood on both sides, and the cunning on one. The foolish
comfortable words spoken in every drawing-room throughout the United
Kingdom. "Yes, they are terrible: what a lot of harm they would do if
they could. Thank God we have a House of Lords." Think now that this
was commonplace conversation only three short years ago. And all the
time the ears of the masses were being poisoned. Week after week and
month after month some laughed but others toiled. The laughers, like
the French nobles before the Revolution, said contemptuously, "They
will not dare." Why should they not? There were men among them for whom
the Ark of the Covenant had no sanctity. And then, when the
combinations were complete, when those who stood out had been
kicked--there can be no other word--into compliance, the blows fell
quickly. A Budget was ingeniously prepared for rejection, and, the
Lords falling into the trap, the storm broke, with its hurricane of
abuse and misrepresentation. We had one election which was
inconclusive. Then befell the death of King Edward. There was a second
election, carefully engineered and prepared for, rushed upon a nation
which had been denied the opportunity of hearing the other side. The
Government had out-maneuvered the Opposition and muzzled them to the
last moment in a Conference sworn to secrecy. It was remarkably clever
and incredibly unscrupulous. They won again. They had not increased
their numbers, but they had maintained their position, and this time
their victory, however achieved, could not be gainsaid. For a moment
there was a lull, only some vague talk of "guaranties," asserted,
scoffed at and denied, for the ordinary business of the country was in
arrears, and the Coronation, with all its pomp of circumstance and
power, all its medieval splendor and appeal to history and sentiment,
turned people's thoughts elsewhere.

And then, on the day the pageantry closed, Mr. Asquith launched his
Thunderbolt. Few men living will ever learn the true story of the
guaranties, suffice it that somehow he had secured them. Whatever the
resistance of the Second Chamber might be, it could be overcome. At his
dictation the Constitution was to fall. There was no escape; the Bill
must surely pass. It rested with the Lords themselves whether they
should bow their heads to the inevitable, humbly or proudly,
contemptuously or savagely--characterize it as you will--or whether
there should be red trouble first.

Surely never in our time has there been a situation of higher
psychological interest, for never before have we seen a body of some
six hundred exceptional men called on to take each his individual line
upon a subject which touched him to the core. I say "individual line"
and "exceptional men." Does either adjective require defending?

The Peers are not a regiment, they are still independent entities, with
all the faults and virtues which this implies; free gentlemen subject
to no discipline, responsible to God and their own consciences alone.
At times they may combine on questions which appeal to their sense of
right, their sentiment, perhaps some may say their self-interest; but
this was no case for combination. Here was a sword pointed at each
man's breast. What, under the circumstances, was to be his individual
line of conduct?

And who will deny the word "exceptional"? To a seventh of them it must
perforce be applicable, for they have been specially selected to serve
in an Upper House. And to the rest, those who sit by inheritance, does
it not apply even more? It is not what they have done in life. This was
no question of capacity or achievement. By the accident of birth alone
they had been put in a position different from other men. How shall
each in his wisdom or his folly interpret that well-worn motto which
still has virtue both to quicken and control, "Noblesse oblige"?

Very curious indeed was the result. It is useless to consider the
preliminaries, the pronouncements, the meetings, the campaign which
raged for a fortnight in the Press both by letter and leading article.
It is even useless to try and discover who, if anybody, was in favor of
the Bill which was the original bone of contention. Its merits and
defects were hardly debated. On that fateful 10th of August the House
of Lords split into three groups on quite a different point. The King's
Government had seized on the King's Prerogative and uttered threats.
Should they or should they not be constrained to make good their
threats, and use it?

The first group said: "Yes. They have betrayed the Constitution and
disgraced their position. Let their crime be brought home to them and
to the world. All is lost for us except honor. Shall we lose that also?
To the last gasp we will insist on our amendments."

The second group said: "No. They have indeed betrayed the Constitution
and disgraced their position, but why add to this disaster the
destruction of what remains to safeguard the Empire? We protest and
withdraw, washing our hands of the whole business for the moment. But
our time will come."

The third group said: "No. We do not desire the King's Prerogative to
be used. We will prevent any need for its exercise. The Bill shall go
through without it."

And, the second group abstaining, by seventeen votes the last prevailed
against the first. But whether ever before a victory was won by so
divided a host, or ever a measure carried by men who so profoundly
disapproved of it, let those judge who read the scathing Protest,
inscribed in due form in the journals of the House of Lords by one who
went into that lobby, Lord Rosebery, the only living Peer who has been
Prime Minister of England.

It is unnecessary to print here more than the tenth and last paragraph
of this tremendous indictment. It runs--"Because the whole transaction
tends to bring discredit on our country and its institutions."

How under these extraordinary circumstances did the Peerage take sides,
old blood and new blood, the governing families and the so-called
"backwoodsmen," they who were carving their own names, and they who
relied upon the inheritance of names carved by others?

The first group, the "No-Surrender Peers," mustered 114 in the
division. Two Bishops were among them, Bangor and Worcester, and a
distinguished list of peers, first of their line, including Earl
Roberts and Viscount Milner. When the story of our times is written it
will be seen that there are few walks of life in which some one of
these has not borne an honorable part.

Then at a bound we are transported to the Middle Ages. At the
Coronation, when the Abbey Church of Westminster rang to the shouts,
"God Save King George!" five Lords of Parliament knelt on the steps of
the throne, kissed the King's cheek, and did homage, each as the chief
of his rank and representing every noble of it. They are all here:--

The Duke of Norfolk, Earl Marshal and premier Peer of England, head of
the great house of Howard, a name that for five centuries has held its
own with highest honor.

The Marquis of Winchester, head of the Paulets, representative of the
man who for three long years held Basing House for the King against all
the forces which Cromwell could muster, but descended also from that
earlier Marquis of Tudor creation, who, when he was asked how in those
troublous times he succeeded in retaining the post of Lord High
Treasurer, replied, "By being a willow and not an oak." To-day the boot
is on the other leg.

The Earl of Shrewsbury, head of the Talbots, a race far famed alike in
camp and field from the days of the Plantagenets.

The Viscount Falkland, representative of that noble Cavalier who fell
at Newbury.

The Baron Mowbray and Segrave and Stourton, titles which carry us back
almost to the days of the Great Charter.

Nor does the feudal train end there. We see also a St. Maur, Duke of
Somerset, whose family has aged since in the time of Henry VIII. men
scoffed at it as new; a Clinton, Duke of Newcastle; a Percy, Duke and
heir of Northumberland, that name of high romance; a De Burgh, Marquis
of Clanricarde; a Lindsay, Earl of Crawford, twenty-sixth Earl, and
head of a house which for eight centuries has stood on the steps of
thrones; a Courtenay, Earl of Devon; an Erskine, Earl of Mar, an
earldom whose origin is lost in the mists of antiquity, and many
another.

And if we come to later days we have the Duke of Bedford, head of the
great Whig house of Russell; the Dukes of Marlborough and Westminster,
heirs of capacity and good fortune; Lords Bute and Salisbury,
descendants of Prime Ministers; and not only Lord Selborne, but Lords
Bathurst and Coventry, Hardwicke and Rosslyn, representatives of past
Lord Chancellors.

These, and others such as they, inheritors of traditions bred in their
very bones, spurning the suggestion that they should purchase the
uncontamination of the Peerage by the forfeiture of their principles,
fought the question to the end. If they asked for a motto, surely
theirs would have been, "Fais ce que dois, advienne que pourra."

And so we pass to the group who abstained, the great mass of the
Peerage, too proud to wrangle where they could not win, too wise to
knock their heads uselessly against a wall, too loyal not to do their
utmost to spare their King. More than three hundred followed Lord
Lansdowne's lead, taking for their motto, perhaps, the "Cavendo tutus"
of his son-in-law. And still there was fiery blood among them, and
strong men swelling with righteous indignation. There were Gay Gordons,
as well as a cautious Cavendish, an Irish Beresford to quicken a Dutch
Bentinck, and a Graham of Montrose as well as a Campbell of Argyll.
Three Earls, Pembroke, Powis, and Carnarvon, represented the cultured
family of Herbert, and, as a counterpoise to the Duke of
Northumberland, we see six Peers of the doughty Douglas blood. Lord
Curzon found by his side three other Curzons, and the Duke of Atholl
three Murrays from the slopes of the Grampians. There were many-acred
potentates, such as the Dukes of Beaufort and Hamilton and Rutland,
Lord Bath, Lord Leicester, and Lord Lonsdale, and names redolent of
history, a Butler, Marquis of Ormonde, a Cecil, Marquis of Exeter, the
representative of Queen Elizabeth's Lord Burleigh, and a Stanley, Earl
of Derby, a name which to this day stirs Lancashire blood. If it were a
question of tactics, then Earl Nelson agreed with the Duke of
Wellington, and they were backed by seven others whose peerages had
been won in battle on land or sea in the course of the last century;
while if the Law should be considered, there were nine descendants of
Lord Chancellors. Coming to more recent times, there was the son of
John Lawrence of the Punjab, and of Alfred Tennyson the poet, Lord St.
Aldwyn and Lord Balfour of Burleigh and Lord Lister, and Lords
Rothschild, Aldenham, and Revelstoke. What need to mention more?--for
there were men representative of every interest in every quarter; but
if we wish to close this list with two names which might seem to link
together the Constitutional history of these islands, let us note that
there was agreement as to action between Viscount Peel, the sole
surviving ex-Speaker of the House of Commons, and Lord Wrottesley, the