Chapter VI.: Catastrophe of the House of Lords.

It is not the dilatory illusiveness of a Whig, nor the direct hostility of a Tory administration, with which the people have principally to combat; their great foe is in the House of Lords, and until that foe be subdued—until the constitution of the second estate of the realm be so far modified as to be brought into harmony with the Reform Parliament—it is plain the government of this country cannot go on. There is a conflict of antagonist forces in the state; in the Lords there is a spirit and power of anti-reform that baffles and defeats the reform spirit of the Commons. The experiment has been tried; all the salutary measures of last session—the Jewish Disabilities Bill—the University Admission Bill—the Warwick Bill—the Prevention of Bribery Bill—and the Coroners’ Court Bill, were either so mutilated as to be made totally inefficient or entirely frustrated by the Lords. It was only in measures which had the semblance of abridging popular liberty and comforts—the Poor Law Bill and the Sale of Beer Bill, for instance—that the Upper concurred with the Lower House.

The question then is, shall this state of things continue—shall all the benefits anticipated from reform in the representation be defeated? In our opinion the constitution is still unsettled—we are still in the course of revolution. It is quite an historical blunder to suppose that the government of this country ever consisted of three branches, possessing equal and co-ordinate powers. Such a form of rule, when conflicting interests intervene, is and ever must be a chimera as fabulous as the phœnix. In England, one estate of the realm has always possessed predominant authority, to which the others have been subservient. Until the Orange revolution of 1688, the crown was paramount; thenceforward the aristocracy, and the great object of the Reform Bill was to abase their power. But see the issue; they have indeed been driven from the lower house, but have entrenched themselves on an adjoining eminence, where they are as omnipotent for mischief as ever. Thus the friends of reform—those who battled so long and stoutly for the amendment of parliamentary representation—have only achieved an absurdity—they have covered themselves with ridicule!

But is their error irretrievable? By the altered constitution of the house of commons the people have obtained an engine of vast power, when backed by the public voice, and shall not this engine be brought to bear on their old enemy in his altered position? What are the Lords that the nation should be mindful of them? They consist, for the most part, of hereditary imbeciles, steeped in the prejudices of birth, education, rank, and association. If we look into their history, as the Spectator has suggested, what is the result? Who are they that have generally been made peers—and why? Is a peerage the reward of virtue, of talent, of patriotism, of a long course of noble doings? Can any one say that, even in the selection of a virtuous man for a peer, his virtue has been the cause of his ennoblement; or, if a man of talent, that he has been chosen because his talent has been patriotically directed? No; the actual peerage is chiefly the result of Tory misrule—‘an efflorescence of war and taxation.’ It has been one of the means by which the great job of government has been carried on. If a patriot was troublesome, he was bought off by a peerage; if a powerful individual was importunate, he was quieted by a peerage; if votes were in demand, the possessor or manager was paid by a peerage; if a minister’s place was desired, he vacated it for a peerage. The lawyer, who proved the ablest tool of power, was rewarded by a peerage. Next to the public exchequer, the peerage has mostly been the treasury of Corruption.

The peers represent only themselves, not any great element of the social state; neither its property, intelligence, nor population. Even in personal income they are insignificant, not possessing above three or four millions of territorial revenue, which is not one-hundredth part of the national income, and this diminutive share of the general wealth is every year growing less in proportion to the increasing wealth of the other classes of society: for, be it remembered, that the income of the peerage, being derived principally from the soil, is comparatively limited in amount, and unlike the income derived from trade and manufactures, which, by skill and industry, admits of almost indefinite augmentation. Shall then a caste like this—stunted in its physical as well as moral developments—mostly ignoble in origin—belonging to nothing nor nobody—poor in purse as in intelligence—be allowed to be an obstacle to a nation’s progress—be suffered to delay, fritter down, or stifle every project of national amendment? The question admits of only one reply—the grievance must be abated:—it is monstrous that an irresponsible conclave, thrown up by chance, unconnected with and not deriving its powers from the great interests of the empire, should be able to thwart the people’s representatives, who really embody, are amenable for, and, of course, without let or hindrance, ought to direct the weal of the state. Unless reform has given this supremacy and directive power to the house of commons, it is an entire failure. We are still in the grasp of the Boroughmongers, as much so as when they filled the lower house with their nominees. In lieu of the substance we have embraced a shadow. The end sought was the triumph of the democratic branch of the constitution—the placing the commons on the pedestal of power heretofore occupied by the Lords, and making the third estate, that had been subservient, paramount to the two other estates of the realm, which, in future, were to be tolerated, as we conceive, rather in deference to old habits and prejudices, as ‘monarchical forms surrounding republican institutions,’ than as integral branches of authority, having a veto on the national will expressed through its constitutional organs.

To this state, both in name and reality, the government must be brought, otherwise it will not work. There was manifestly a hitch in affairs under the Melbourne ministry. The last session terminated abruptly with the question, arising out of Irish tithes, ripe for decision, namely, whether lords or commons should be the ascendant? This point must be decided before we can permanently hope for a liberal administration. If the Conservatives, of which there appear strong indications, prefer a fair stand-up fight, be it so. We will again back the Roundheads against the Cavaliers, commanded even by the hero of the Malpurba (see The Black Book, last edition, p. 405.) We have no fear of the issue—the organized masses of this vast metropolis and great towns of the kingdom would soon dispose of a scattered military, (many of whom, smarting under their own wrongs, sympathise with the popular cause,) aided, though they might be, by a stupid yeomanry, the raff of the club-houses, the Horse-guards, and universities. Victory would not long be in suspense, and after victory there is spoil—there would be confiscation and forfeiture—the pensioners and dead-weight people would disappear in the turmoil—and in the escheated domains of a defeated Oligarchy, it is possible resources might be found for compromising those monstrous incumbrances which now weigh heavily on the springs of national industry!

Whether, however, the nation’s difficulties be surmounted by a moral or physical struggle—the former is our prayer—it behoves the people in the existing crisis to be awake. Above all it is important they should look forward to the coming session. The last year of the Whig administration has been ‘mere fooling.’ They fairly succumbed to in lieu of facing the enemy. Their measures were framed, not in accordance with the wishes of the people, nor of their representatives, nor even according to their own estimate of the public wants, but absolutely according to what they thought might be agreeable to the interests and prejudices of the House of Lords. They even went lower than this in their prostration to the Tories and bench of bishops. They not only kept back all measures that were unlikely to pass the straight gate of the upper house, but actually did their utmost to take upon themselves and shield from their opponents the unpopularity of their rejection!

With a Ministry that obviously quailed before the public foe the people could feel little sympathy. The men they sought, and which the times required, were such as would be totally regardless of the upper house—who would consider it non-existent—and pursue a policy, not in accordance with the views of a few prejudiced nobles and ecclesiastics, but of the commons of England. This alone would have been the consummation of parliamentary reform: without it we have only the theory, not the practice, of good government—we are still writhing in the fetters of Gatton and Old Sarum.

The test, then, of a Reform Ministry really in keeping with a reform parliament, is short and simple—it is its determination to frame its measures in accordance with the lower not the upper chamber. If such measures are pertinaciously rejected by the upper house, this shows that the several parts of the government are incompatible with each other—that the branch which represents the property, intelligence, and population of the empire is thwarted in its course by that which represents none of these social elements. Hence the issue would be forced onward—the obstacle to the common weal removed—and the question so often asked—What must be done with the lords?—be at once solved!

As we have not yet answered this question, we might as well do it in this place. Its solution is unavoidable, and will be hastened rather than retarded by the startling re-apparition of the Tory plunderers. Only one leg of the constitutional tripod has undergone a curative process, and at least one more remains to be subjected to medical treatment. Let us see how this may be best accomplished.

It seldom happens that constitutional changes can be effected by constitutional means. As the object sought is a new disposition of political power, a little violence and departure from ordinary forms are usually essential to its achievement. The Reform Bill itself was not carried without coercion. An intimation, not to say a menace, was conveyed from a high quarter that constrained the refractory peers to withdraw their opposition. But a threat arbitrarily to increase the peerage is just as strong a measure, and as wide a departure from the constitutional objects for which the power to create peers is vested in the crown—as a threat arbitrarily to diminish their number. As, however, a sudden augmentation of the number of the lords is a change not at all to be desired, let us see whether the other alternative—a reduction—may not be adopted.

About the utility of ejecting the thirty bishops from the Lords no doubt is entertained by any sane and disinterested observer. They have long disgraced themselves and the church by their presence. Besides, it would only be an act of justice to the great body of Dissenters, who are not represented in either branch of the legislature.

But supposing the bishops got rid of, there would still be too much Toryism in the upper house for the wholesome and practical working of the government. Lord Grey reckoned up a majority of eighty tory peers always lying in ambush ready to crush him and his measures; it was this, more than divisions in the cabinet, which gave such a feeble and wavering character to the noble lord’s administration. Let us then see how this phalanx of evil can be further and least offensively reduced. Our purpose is to avert civil strife by a timely restoration of the balance of the constitution, which has been disturbed by the extinction of the nomination boroughs—by the abstraction of an aristocratic mass from one end of the beam without a corresponding diminution of weight at the other.

Next to the episcopal bench the chief strength of the Tories lies among the representative peers of Ireland and Scotland. It was the bishops and the Irish and Scotch peers, who had obtained their promotions or been elected under Tory influence, that defeated the Reform Bill on its first introduction into the House of Lords. Of twenty-three bishops who voted, twenty-one were against and two for the bill; of the sixteen representative peers of Scotland twelve were against and four for the bill; of twenty-three Irish peers nineteen voted against and four for the bill: thus, of fifty-four votes against the Reform Bill forty-three were the votes of bishops and Irish and Scotch peers; the proportion of Scotch peers being as three to one, of the Irish nearly five to one. So palpable an anti-reform spirit shows the utility of excluding from the lords the representative peers, along with their right reverend brethren.

For this mode of reduction two substantial reasons may be given.

First, a representative peerage is an anomaly in the constitution of recent introduction. Constitutionally, a peer is supposed to sit in his own right, by descent or creation, and to represent only himself, not others. Upon this principle he exercises the right of voting by proxy, which is a privilege denied to the members of the House of Commons, as inconsistent with their representative functions. To exclude the Irish and Scotch representative peers would therefore be a renovation of the constitution of the House of Lords, by bringing it back to that state of consistency and integrity in which it subsisted prior to the innovations introduced at the unions with Scotland and Ireland.

Secondly, the exclusion of the Scotch and Irish peers would be an improvement scarcely attended with personal sacrifice. The Irish peers sit only for life; the Scotch are chosen only for one parliament; so that the interests of both are terminable, unlike the legislative functions held by the hereditary peerage.

Against this proceeding it may be urged that the nobility of Scotland and Ireland would be unrepresented in the legislature. No such thing. If not sufficiently represented in the upper house, they have recently gained an indirect representation in the lower, by that clause of the Reform Act which gives the elective franchise to their dependents as leaseholders and tenants-at-will.

By the exclusion of thirty spiritual peers, and the forty-four temporal peers of Ireland and Scotland, a reduction would be effected to the amount of seventy-four members. If this should not be enough to bring the Lords into due keeping with the Commons, we would next suggest that all pauper peers be excluded from the upper house. There is an instance, mentioned in The Cabinet Lawyer, in the reign of Edward IV. of the degradation of George Nevile, duke of Bedford, on account of his poverty, which rendered him unable to support his dignity. Acting on this precedent, aided by the pension list, names might easily be selected, the exclusion of which from parliament would tend materially to elevate its character as well as harmonize the two branches of the legislature.

But if all these reductions should not suffice, we must resort to the peers created during the ministry of Mr. Pitt. In the two last reigns, there was a clear addition of two hundred and twenty-five members to the House of Lords. Toryism being the ascendant school of politics, the character of the peers created was, of course, determined by that of the minister from whom the honours were obtained. The effect of this was evinced on the introduction of the Reform Bill in 1831. Of the old peers of the United Kingdom, there was a majority of two for the second reading of the bill. Of the new peers of the United Kingdom created subsequent to 1792, the majority was against the second reading of the bill, and their number was only balanced by the creations under the Whig ministry. The entire subject will be made manifest from the following statement, copied from a tract ‘On the Adjustment of the Peerage.’

How to make a selection from the Pitt peers we are unable to suggest, unless they be at once black-balled by name, by a vote of the House of Commons, and declared ineligible to sit in parliament. It may be urged there is no precedent for this. But, in great emergencies, every age creates its own precedents. There was no precedent for the reduction of the French Chamber of Peers on the accession of Louis Philippe. There was no precedent for declaring the throne vacant when James II. was alive and well, and had only stepped over into Ireland: but it was done by the Whig revolutionists of 1688. A legislature which has disfranchised the rotten boroughs may, without greater violence, disfranchise their proprietors, who are alike unsuited to the times and an obstacle to the common weal.

The constitution is manifestly in a dilemma, and neither his “Highness” of Waterloo, sir R. Peel, nor any body else, can rescue it, except by the adoption of expedients analagous to those we have indicated, No Tory ministry can go on with the present House of Commons; nor can any liberal ministry go on with the present House of Lords. What, then, is to be done? Must the nation or a junta give way? Must the Reform Act be repealed, and Gatton and Sarum be re-established in their ancient glory, or must the House of Lords be adjusted? The last appears the most rational alternative. The peerage must be brought into that position of subserviency to the other branches of the legislature which the commons, previously to the Reform Bill, occupied. It would still have full power to discuss and debate public measures, but no power vexatiously to oppose the proceedings of the Reformed Parliament. As a liberal ministry would always have the means for preserving the liberal character once given to the Lords, there would be no danger of deterioration, or necessity for a second application of the first remedy.

Such appears the most natural solution of existing difficulties, and the final issue of the much-talked-of “collision.” It is the catastrophe of the House of Lords,—the hand-writing on the wall,—the fulfilment of which neither Whig nor Tory ministry can avert. From the passing of the Reform Act, the aristocracy lost their supremacy; the deed was then executed, though possession not fully given, by which political power was transferred to the great and increasing middle ranks of England. The people only now claim that for which they virtually stipulated, and which if timely conceded, the Lords may subsist a century longer, though not as hereditary legislators. As the yearly convocation of the Clergy subsists as a type of bygone ecclesiastical domination, so may the Peerage, as a type of lost feudal sovereignty.