comparison with any body of rich men, or, indeed, any class of men which the world has ever known.

But why make peers hereditary? Why have wealthy men as a rule for peers? Rich men are apt to be selfish and indolent; an hereditary class must consist of only average ability: why intrust such delicate and important functions to men so chosen? Because other men would be less strong; and inherent strength is the paramount requisite for the House of Lords. To say nothing of other modes of selection, respect for ancestry is a real and powerful social force in England: it is peculiarly available for this particular duty; it would not only be pure wantonness to thrust it aside, but it would be left as a very vigorous rival against peers chosen on any other principle. If ancestral peers are rejected, recourse must be had either to Lords elected by the people for life or otherwise, as the Senate in the United States, or to so-called Celebrities and Abilities nominated by the Crown. It is obvious at the first glance that in England peers elected by the people would not be a match nor a counterpoise to the House of Commons. The Commons would at once assert their claim to be the true representatives of the people; whilst the elected peers would have no strength to control the movements of the Commons, or to revise their decisions. Two Houses, elected directly by the people, of really equal authority, are an impossibility. This was the fatal weakness of the Athenian Council. The American Senate has hitherto escaped it, in consequence chiefly of a peculiarity which is not found in England. The United States is not a homogeneous nation, but a federation of sovereign states; and the senators, who are chosen by each state singly, are ambassadors or plenipotentiaries rather than an ordinary Upper House.

Celebrities and Abilities, distinguished politicians and professional men, retired merchants and manufacturers, nominated for life, would be still weaker for the purpose required. They would form too personal a body for strength. As soon as they reversed the votes of the Commons, and set themselves in array against a strong feeling in the country,-and this is the one great object of a second House, their individual characters, their lives, their several claims to deference, would be severely criticised; popular indignation would concentrate itself on each of them personally. It would be asked with passion why such men should be suffered to defeat measures eagerly desired by the country? Why should not other men of better sense be added to them at once, to outvote their folly? In other words, they would be at once prevented from performing the specific function of a House of Review. Their resistance would be ascribed

to their faults and crotchets. They would be quickly alarmed and afraid to act; and would end by becoming worthless. How different is it with the House of Lords! Its very impersonality is its strength. Few persons speak now of Lord Monteagle or Lord Derby; it is with the House of Lords itself that indignation meetings have to contend. The House of Commons is compelled to cope with an institution. The rejection of the Paper Duty cannot be rescinded by a change of Ministry, or a shifting of the peers, or the elimination of such as are obnoxious. The hereditary character of the peerage forces the attack to be directed against the House itself, as an institution of the country. This is precisely what a sound political philosophy would prescribe. It must be an offence far graver and more shocking to the common sense of the people than a temporary resistance to the desire of the day, which would make them willing to inflict a permanent injury on the independence of the Lords; and on the other hand, the absence of individual responsibility makes the Lords aware that a persistence in selfish or permanently unpopular conduct would imperil, not the seats of a few peers, but the peerage itself. A happier guarantee for independence, combined with real responsibility, can scarcely be devised; and it is again a result, not of theory or statute, but of natural growth out of the sagacity of Englishmen and the general principles of the Constitution.

Moreover, selected Eminences are a bad material for a IIouse of Lords. If they were not the best men in the State, they would stand below the Commons in public respect; they would be without authority or weight in reviewing their measures. If, on the contrary, as they ought to be, they were the foremost statesmen, they would feel a constant tendency to pervert the character of the House of Lords; they would be restless and ambitious, unwilling to submit to obscurity, eager to compete with the Commons for power. Collisions would be incessant; and the end would be, that the House of Lords would soon be reduced to insignificance, or be extinguished. As society is now constituted, the government of England belongs to the House of Commons. It is neither possible nor desirable to alter this fact. A strong House of Lords is needed to moderate the political movement; but the determination and conduct of the national policy is the inevitable prerogative of the Commons. Let the men who aspire to lead as rulers take their places in the House of Commons: it would be the ruin of the Constitution to transfer this highest power to the arena of the House of Lords.

Above all, selected peers would not be wealthy landowners;

and territorial wealth is the citadel of the House of Lords' strength. It is not because they have a large stake in the country, as is often said, that we think that peers ought to be gentlemen of great estates. The thriving shopkeeper and the well-paid workman have as deep an interest in the prosperity and tranquillity of the country as the richest lord or manufacturer.. Neither is it for the protection of property, as distinct from other interests, that wealthy peers are needed. Territorial wealth is wanted, because it thoroughly identifies the peers with the people, and so secures two enormous political advantages. It imposes on the peers a most real responsibility for good government, as the condition of that prosperity from which they derive their riches, and it procures for the House of Lords the direct support of a large part of the population. An Upper House made up of rich peers, who obtained their incomes from the Funds, would be as weak and as wretched an institution as could be framed. It would not even be national. There would be no security that such men would ever trouble themselves about what was going on in England. They might spend their lives in dangling about in the courts of Europe. They would be mere shadows in the day of trouble. When the angry sea of popular discontent rises; when demagogues denounce and threaten; when failing harvests and faltering trade vex the middle classes with loss of profits, and drive starving multitudes to the verge of rebellion; when a whole people, restless with suffering, is tempted in its perplexity to lay the blame on institutions, and to yield to the desperate hope that a change in them would work relief,-then it is that the stoutest political oak, the strongest iron, are required to dam in and confine the surging tide. Then it is that a body composed of men who derive their rentals from the largest and most widely-spread trade, employing the greatest number of people, and furnishing occupation to numerous other trades, can rally round it a support and confidence, and carry through a successful defence of institutions suspected through misery alone, that no other means can provide. In such a storm elected peers and nominated Celebrities would fly like stubble before the wind.

But let us guard against being misunderstood. We do not say that a House of Lords composed of unknown and inactive peers, who had earned no public respect by personal qualities and services, would suffice. In a free country such a body would and ought to lose its vitality. The hereditary principle in the English Peerage can bear to be tried by this test: the debates of the Lords and the public career of many peers will bear witness to the vigorous activity and intelligence of the English aris

tocracy. The principle of inheritance has no doubt been assisted by the accession of new men; it is well that it should be so. We confess, however, that during the last half century that practice has in our opinion been carried too far; and that the idea of reward has received a prominence over that of permanent capacity to perform the requisite functions to which it is not entitled, and which might end by changing the character of the House of Lords.

But, say Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright, the peers are irresponsible. No greater fallacy was ever uttered. We have shown that the nature of their wealth mixes them up intimately with the greatest interests in the kingdom. We go further, and assert that no other body is more directly and truly responsible. What is the power which holds men responsible? Public opinion, all will answer, the general sentiment of the country. But where is it to be found? by what instruments does it call offenders to account? By the constituencies, is the reply. But is it seriously pretended that electors, influenced as they are by blue and yellow clubs, intimidating landlords and managing attorneys, are the only true voice by which this great nation expresses its opinion and its will? Except in times of extreme excitement, is not the election of representatives a local affair, varying with each constituency? What mean the passionate cry for reform, and the angry charge of " mean and cruel legislation," but that responsibility is not always real, that regard for the true interests of the people is not always enforced? To us such accusations prove that, even in the opinion of Mr. Bright, neither the House of Commons nor the constituencies, at any single time, necessarily utter the settled conviction of the country. The liability of a member to lose his seat is no certain proof of true responsibility. Sir R. Peel, as minister, proposed Catholic emancipation, and was unseated on that account by his constituents at Oxford; but their very marked disapproval did not prevent him from successfully passing his measure. The men of Devonshire rejected Lord John Russell, when nominated minister by the Crown; but the Queen adhered to her choice, and he governed all England. These statesmen were not really responsible for their public conduct to Devonshire and Oxford, but to public opinion, which sustained them against the condemnation pronounced by their own constituents. On the other hand, the House of Lords exists on the tenure of public opinion. It is impossible to imagine the House of Commons destroyed, except by violence. The abolition of the monarchy is equally inconceivable. But a collision of the Lords with the settled opinion of the country would efface it from the

Constitution. Thirty years ago the suppression of the House of Lords was discussed throughout the land; it is not unheard of now. The sanction of public opinion the Lords know to be the condition of their power; they study it, they gather it from every quarter in which it may be correctly ascertained, -from the daily and periodical press, from books, and from society. They are compelled to discriminate between the momentary impression and the final judgment of the people. In an accurate discernment of this difference consist their value and their strength. Since 1832 they have never rejected the proposals of the Commons without some solid support in the country; isolated, they are absolutely powerless. Whenever the nation has finally made up its mind, whatever may be their private sentiments, the Lords invariably yield. What severer test of the most stringent responsibility can be devised? Their special duty is to resist the momentary will of the Commons, frequently backed by the passionate feeling of the people, whenever there is reason to believe that it is only momentary. The fiercer the excitement of misguided impulse, the greater the violence done to good sense and the public weal, the more directly does the House of Lords in resisting stake its existence as a security for its patriotism. Mr. Cobden complains that the Lords refuse to abolish church-rates; he charges them with opposing the will of the people. The instance is unfortunate. The majority is declining in the Commons. If all England were polled, church-rates would be retained by a very decisive majority. What matter is there here for complaint against the Lords for gentlemen of democratic opinions? They are opposing reason and enlightened opinion, retorts Mr. Cobden. But what are the tests of reason and good sense? Are they to be measured by the intellect and knowledge of Mr. Cobden and his friends? May not others claim to be as infallible popes as they? The view of the Lords about church-rates may be erroneous in the judgment of a philosophical thinker; but if departure from right reason renders an institution anti-popular, and warrants a demand for its being overruled or suppressed, short indeed will be the days of the House of Commons and the Manchester school. It is unpleasant no doubt to Mr. Cobden and the Commons that their decisions should be reversed by the Lords; but as a second opinion is the very object for which the House of Lords exists, they may comfort themselves with the thought of their superior wisdom, but must submit to the universal rule, that no men can always have their own way in this world.

We have now reached the last stage of our inquiry. The