Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit MONDAY, MARCH 25, 1935. THE HOUSE OF LORDS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 55, Issue 139, 25 March 1935, Page 4

Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit MONDAY, MARCH 25, 1935. THE HOUSE OF LORDS.

"Relying on the wisdom of my Parliament I desire my prerogative relating to the creation of peerages not to stand in the way of Parliament's consideration of a measure relating to a limited creation of life peerages." Thus his Majesty opens the way for the discussion of a subject that Mr MacDonald once described as "a most attractive problem." Every few years some proposals have been advanced for reform of the constitution of the House of Lords. They have had the common'quality that nothing has come of them. The Parliament Act of Mr Asquith, passed twenty-one years ago after a severe struggle between the Houses, was not an exception. That did not reform the constitution of the Peers' Chamber; it merely reduced its powers. Reform was intended, but left to come after, and it is still postponed. "An hereditary legislature, in a community that has reached the self-governing stage, is an anachronism that makes the easiest of all marjis for mockery and attack so long as it lasts," Lord Morley said long ago. The weakness, in theory, is hardly disputed. But the hereditary chamber does not work so badly as to make it an offence in much more than principle. The feudal element is the smallest in the British peerage. At all times it has been recruited from the most successful leaders of all classes and all political faiths; its abilities and its sympathies have been increased by those creations at which Defoe girded, of "Lords whose fathers were the Lord knows who." It was the wise word of a shrewd observer, Prince Von Bulow, that "there is no more democratic aristocracy than the British, and no more aristocratic democracy." The Lords have done the best thing to make their chamber workable by leaving attendance in it to those of their numbers who feel the most attractions to a political life, and are presumably most fit. If all who are eligible sought to attend it would be an absolute assembly of about 740 members, including many who have no ability for the decision of public matters. As it is, it can be, to a considerable degree, a house of specialists, and the independence of its members can have its own value. Three real weaknesses of the House of Lords, declared the Earl of Rosebery years ago, were that its members were too numerous, that they represented too much of one kind ot interest, and that the principle or heredity had met with increasing criticism and objection in the. great body of the nation. But the House of Lords has been obviously the stronger tor the conferring of peerages upon men conforming to the description in the Bryce report of 1918 of elements that ought to find place in a Second Chamber." A Bill for the introduction of life-peers, which brought the question before Parliament in 1929, proposed that the number should be limited to twenty-five in one Parliament, which would avoid the possibility of "swamping." If Baron Rockley (better known as Sir Evelyn Cecil) intends to introduce a measure on similar lines the proposed change, though important in principle, will not be so sweeping as to arouse the country-