the bearings of a particular movement or measure, undue readiness to believe that which it wishes to believe, and an arrogant contempt for views antagonistic to its own – these constitute the principal dangers of the future House of Commons of the United Kingdom. These dangers, we believe, will be diminished by the operation of the single-membered system, and by the gradual reaction of our self-governed colonies on public opinion at home, which will in time exercise a steadying effect on our domestic as well as our colonial and foreign policy.
But when all proper allowance is made for these conservative influences, it can hardly be doubted that the new constitution of the House of Commons will cast an additional burden on the restraining and moderating functions of what Mr Lecky terms "the other branches of the Legislature," in a passage which merits careful attention: –
"The increasingly democratic character and the increasing strength of the House of Commons may make it impossible for it to co-operate with the other branches of the Legislature; and the constant intervention of the House in the proceedings of the Executive, and of the constituencies in the proceedings of the House, may profoundly alter its character as a legislative body. Governments living from day to day, looking only for immediate popularity, and depending on the fluctuating and capricious favour of great multitudes who have no settled political opinions, may gradually lose all firmness and tenacity; and all power of muscular contraction, all power of restraining, controlling, or resisting, may thus pass out of the body politic."[1]
These grave and weighty words of warning invest with peculiar interest and importance the recent action and future position of the House of Lords. Will it be impossible, as Mr Lecky seems to fear, and sundry Radical orators hope, for the democratised House of Commons to co-operate with the hereditary House of Lords? The origin, progress, and end of the recent constitutional struggle seem to us to warrant a negative reply. The origin of the struggle was a demand on the part of the House of Lords to be consulted in any organic change even of the other legislative Chamber. In its progress, not only was that demand ridiculed, but the very existence of the body making it was challenged and threatened. In the end the demand was conceded, and the House of Lords has acquired a stronger hold in the esteem of the people, and increased influence in the councils of the State.
If we were to qualify at all the general approval of the "peace with honour" which terminated the struggle, it would be on the ground that it has left the Radical agitators the power of saying that the question of the House of Lords has not been finally decided, and that on the next convenient opportunity – i.e., whenever they again do their duty – it shall be reopened, and their independent existence destroyed. Language of that kind has, we notice with regret, been held even by so cautious a speaker as Mr Campbell-Bannerman. Now, had Mr Gladstone persevered, and brought the constitutional position of the House of Lords to a direct issue at the polling-booths, we are convinced an enormous majority would have declared in
- ↑ Lecky's History, vol. iii. p. 226.
