HOUSE OF LORDS

Evening Star, Issue 19760, 10 January 1928, Page 8

HOUSE OF LORDS

“PEERS OR PHANTOMS?” THE FOLLY OF REFORM THE THREAT OF 1911. Suddenly, inspired by some strange vitality, as we are told aged men are inspired by monkey-gland and similar injections, the House of_ Lords lias broken out into an eruption of active life, and has set itself (of all the unexpected things in the world), like some aged roue who fears the approach of death, to reform itself (writes the Right Hon. C. F. G. Masterman, in the ‘Sunday Express’). And if it persists in this desperate design it is undoubtedly destined to change the whole course of future political affairs. It never has been “ reformed,” although it has been for a time abolished, during the 600 years of its existence. In the great fight of seventeen years ago, in which it declared war on the House of Commons and endeavored to assert its hold over finance, we won two elections against it, and compelled it, by the threat of the creation of some'soo Liberal peers, to surrender its powers of dealing with taxation or permanently impeding the passage of an ordinary Bill.

But never did we make any attempt to alter the Constitution of an hereditary peerage. I have no doubt at all that directly you began to deal with the structure of the hereditary chamber, or to mingle the hereditary principle with the elective principle or with the nominated principle, to exclude two-thirds of the “ noble Lords ” from the Upper House, or to allow twothirds of the noble Lords to be elected to the House of Commons, the whole concoction will fall to pieces like a pack of cards, INSCRUTABLE FACES.

In the House of Lords the atmosphere is of universal and invariable courtesy; of inscrutable faces listening in dead silence to flattery or reproach, like the phantom voices of shades endeavoring in vain to break into speech beyond “Acheron’s ugly shore.” in fact, the nearest approach to consternation which I have seen in recent years was when Lord Cave recommended recently that the Government, represented by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons, should bo authorised to nominate some indefinite number of “ Socialists,” as representing a substantial proportion of the members elected by the people, which, as he pleasantly declared, would represent exactly the same virtues as the eight Socialists at present included among the seven hundred odd members of the Upper Chamber. They had no fear of the votes of this intrusion, but they had fear of the noise of this intrusion; such noise as that, for example, made by Lord Arnold, a Liberal renegade to Labor, who rises at intervals to hurl, at infinite length, contempts upon the members he is addressing, at whom they gaze in a kind of goggle-eyed amazement as if they 'were gazing at something dredged up from the. deep sea or a denizen from another planet.

Once I was told of a scene of disturbance. But that was created not by a member of the Upper House, but by a too vocal comment from the Press Gallery.

A noble lord, rising to address the House, heard a remark by one occupant of the Press Gallery to another: “It’s only that old fool, X. ; let’s knock off and get a drink.” Unfortunately that old fool X., instead of leaving well alone, asserted that he had heard those words uttered, and demanded that it be made a question of privilege. STRANGE SPEAKERS.

But whenever 1 have been listening to these strange speakers, to this strange audience, in this strange atmospnere, I have always felt tne late Duke of Devonshire summed , up ..the situation in his statement: “Last night 1 dreamed I was speaking in the House of Lords; and I woke up and Jound it was true.”

Last week 1 found “ iiie (JJd Thing going on” as merrily and as tranquilly as ever. On my rigiit were the bishops quaintly dressed in garments which are neither male nor , female; men of higher mental calibre than the average hereditary peer, hut obviously grotesque in any rigid for entrance to an Upper House or revising chandler, as representing a population of which probably a half have repudiated all forms of Christianity, and three-quar-ters are active or passive opponents of an Established Church.

On my left were a handful of .Liberals under the leadership of Lord Beauchamp, representing, according to the ligures of the last election, over three million of the electors; and some seven or eight “Labor” peers, led by Lord Haldane, supposed to represent some five million of voters. The scores or hundreds of “remainders” stood for a minority of the people of this country. LUCKY LORDS.

I could not help feeling sympathy with the Duke of Marlborough in his plea that, so Jong as the country was contented, the Lords were lucky in remaining as they were. Whatever change may come must be a change lor the worse. 1 spoke, among others, to a leading Liberal peer and a peer who has associated himself all through with a demand lor reiorni. Both of them explained to me that the Government would have done better to make only one change; that is, the abolition oi the “ backwoodsmen,” who, as Lord Fitz-Alan explained from definite figures, practically never attend the House of Lords, except when they are beaten up by panic or propaganda to throw out some Bill affecting property, wealth, or land. [ have never understood, and .1 do not understand to-day, who these “backwoodsmen” are. There is a story that when the peers were summoned to Lansdowno House in 1908, to decide whether they would reject our Licensing Bill, such a one attended, heard the discussions pro and con, returned to his wife in the evening, and described to Her all the glories of Lansdowne House and all the speeches uttered in the firm and unshaken belief he had been attending a meeting of the House of Lords in its own abode. But 1 still wonder who these backwoodsmen are. I can understand their existence in the old time, before railways or motor cars. Do they live in Mile End or Mayfair, taking in no morning or evening papers, op in some strange country districts ten miles troin any railway, ignorant and divorced from anything that is happening in the world to-day. ESTIMABLE MEN. Or are they, as I believe, men who have passed throughout public schools and universities, men who come up with their wives for the season or to shop in town, men who take in and read portions of the Conservative penny or twopenny newspapers, and in every respect estimable citizens, doing their duty in that state to which it has pleased God to call them. And if that be so, and you want to maintain a Conservative House of Lords, I cannot imagine any reason why these worthy persons should be expelled from attendance in that dolorous assembly, and only he allowed to elect the more voluble and perhaps i more preiudiceci minority of their ordei to sit in the Upper Chamber. In the great old days of Home Rule or the Parliament Bill the half-witted used to he dragged or cajoled up from their institutions or their country homes and wheeled in bath chair; through the lobbies to record the!' votes against the iniquities of the oik or the *other. And I cannot see wlij the half-witted should be removed from the scene, with, as an inevitable ac-

companiment, the reduction of the monetary value of the sale of a peerage, anti votes permitted for the more defiant of their order bo keep a permanent majority against political and social reform. But the exclusion of the backwoodsmen is really a trivial question. What is of greater importance is the refusal of prominent men who arc made peers to take part in the work appropriate to one of the two Houses of Parliament. Lord Northcliffe. I remember, at the time when he used to attack the Government of the day in all his newspapers, was repeatedly challenged to make his attack in the House of which he was a member, and as repeatedly refused. I remember, again, an attack on the late Lord Fisher, to wdiich he was determined to reply in a speech which would have shook several continents, and his being persuaded with difficulty by Mr M'Kcnna to answer in a few dignified sentences. A crowded assembly had come to hear his apologia, in full uniform (it was during the war). With his sword ringing on his heels he clanked to his place, opened the sheet of paper on which ho had written his observations, read them without preliminary in a voice of thunder, folded up the document, smiled broadly at his fellow-peers, and clanked out again, This was business. ELECTIONS’ VERDICT.

Ono great chance within recent memory has occurred for the complete chapge of the House of Lords. That wa's in 1911. Our Chief Whip, the MaHer of Elibank, had a complete list of 500 peers whom the King had promised to ennoble if the Lords persisted in rejecting the verdict of two elections concerning the Rarlianicnt Act. The creation of that 500 would have completely changed the character of the Upper Chamber. The change was averted on an historic night, against the decision of the Dichards, largely by the influence of the present Archbishop of Canterbury. It was only averted by a majority of less than twenty votes in a House of over 000. One of those who was on the list of those about to ho ennobled (and who, I suppose, had paid ley the sporting chance of being ennobled) told me of his fury as he saw that astute diplomat passing from one group to another during the evening, while he shook his list at him from the gallery and uttered subdued imprecations at Ids interference in the course of affairs. Ho himself has been ennobled since, and having attained his heart’s desire lias, I believe, never opened his mouth in speech or debate. LIMITATION. But where are the other 500 who were prepared to receive peerages on condition that they consented to vote for the limitation of the rights of peers? Most of them, I suppose, died, not having seen the promises; many died having believed that the promises had been fulfilled. No. Tf I were a member of the House of Lords I would urge the House of lairds to leave the House of Lords alone. As a rough, rude member of the other House said to me in the lobby: “Tell them to leave the damn tiling alone. If they commence to touch it it will ho damned.”