The Hawera Star. TUESDAY, MARCH 10, 1025. THE HOUSE OF LORDS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 10 March 1925, Page 4

The Hawera Star.

TUESDAY, MARCH 10, 1025. THE HOUSE OF LORDS.

Delivered everj evening by 5 o’clock in Hawera, Alanaia, Normanby, Okaiawa, LUham. Mangafoki, Kaponga, Alton, lf-irleyville, Patea. YVsvprley, Mokoia. Whakaniara, Ohangai, Alere.inere, Fraspr Hoad, and Ararat,,. '

The question of House of Lords reform is again exercising the minds of students of polities in the Old Country; and, since any constitutional change in the machinery of government. at Westminster is bound to be mirrored somewhat in the legislatures of the responsible . Dominions, the movement calls for some notice here. To the colonial mind the idea of an hereditary peerage, either with or without governing powers, makes at best a doubtful appeal. In that respect it ranks with the English rule that no man who earns his living in manual work may be an amateur oarsman, and with the absurd custom which speaks of the; professional (who carries his bat for a double century) as plain “Hobbs,” and the amateur (who fails to break his “duck”) as “Mr Gilligan.” But between the peerage as such and the House of Lords as the second governing chamber there is a world of difference. There are scores of peers who rarely, if ever, trouble, to see the inside of the House of Lords; and there have sat on its benches, at one time'or another, in the. past, two hundred ye’ars, some of the ablest men in the whole field of political history, from the Greek city state to the Union of Soviet Republics. From time to time there arise fiery advocates of unicameral government, who would sweep the Lords into oblivion, and with them the second chambers of government in every land. There is something to be said in support of that view as- an academic argument, but it will not bear the searchlight of practical application. Anyone who feels that one House is sufficient for parliamentary government need only spend two or three days in the galleries at Wellington, in the final week of any session, to convince him that some form of second chamber is absolutely indispensable. When the Prime Minister is driving the House, Bills are shoved through often, with little or no attention to detail, and the statute book would be in queer street sometimes without the revisionarv aid ot the Upper House. As matters stand today, a second chamber is necessary, both here and in the United Kingdom. The questions to be decided are, first, how it shall lie constituted, and, secondly, what shall be its powers. Since the Liberal Government of 1911 secured the passage of the Parliament Act, the House of Lords has been shorn of much of its former power, and the posi-

| tion it now occupies in tlio actual work of legislation is probably as near the ideal as our limited democracy can hope to come. Ultimately the voice of the people should prevail, an! the Lords have still the power of holding up proposed legislation until the pros and cons have been thoroughly debated in the public Press and from the platform. But there is no shadow of doubt that in its present form the House of Lords is far from perfection. With the powers allowed, it would be within its reach to prove itself the perfect second chamber; but, as it is at present constituted, there is no hope in the world' that it can do its powers .-justice. Exactly what is required is not easy to say, but the weaknesses are apparent to all. The need was well expressed by Sir Charles Oman, the eminent historian. who sits in the House of Commons for Oxford University, in a recent letter to The Times. After remarking that the question is one which demands attention from every Conservative —he is addressing particularly his own party —who takes the future as well as the present into'his outlook, Sir Charles proceeds: —

■ Sow, if ever, is. the opportunity for taking in hand the reconstruction of the Upper House, while we have a Parliamentary majority greater than any which has been seen since the day's of 183 d and the first reformed House of Commons. The party has a mandate from the nation to secure peace and stability for the future, as well as to solve the social problems of the present. It is absolutely necessary that something should be done which will make it impossible for any demagogue of the future to denounce the House ol Lords as unrepresentative, as a medieval survival, as overloaded with nonentities who never appear, or as adulterated with newcomers who owe their promotion to influences which cannot- be avowed. Every one knows that opinions differ as to the form which * reconstruction should take. But that, in view of the future, reconstruction of some sort is absolute!v necessary few will deny. Discussion is inevitable, since many divergent plans will certainly lie set out. But it is by discussion alone that we can arrive at conclusions.

Various political writers have advanced schemes for reconstituting 'the House of Lords on a more efficient basis, and some of the plans outlined have not been wholly fantastic. We may have occasion to refer to the topic again in a subsequent article; but for the moment it is interesting to notice, within the ranks of a powerfully entrenched Conservative Party, a movement having as its aim something which has for so long been regarded as one of the horrible, and disasterbearing visions of Radicalism. Even political beliefs seem to be advancing, as this old world goes spinning on “down the ringing grooves of change. ■' ’