REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXXI, Issue 15256, 17 March 1910, Page 6

REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS.

Lord Hosebery does not appear to have been very happy in his effort to draw an analogy between the House of Lords and the Federal Senate. Ot course, he was attempting an impossible task. The House of Lords is a purely hereditary chamber, over which the mass of the people exerciso no sort of control, while the Federal Senate is elected on the broadest franchise and is kept in constant touch with the constituencies. Lord Rosebory seems to have realised* his mistake directly he had paid, his pretty compliment to Sir George Reid. He said that Australia had taken care to secure a strong and efficient Senate upon the institution ol federation, but remembering, no doubt, that its strength and efficiency depended upon its broad, constitution, ho hastened to deprecate the idea of the House of Lords being elected by a popular vote. Unless his lordship has been cruelly misreported by the cable agent, his argument was sadly illogical. No two chambers could differ more widely than do the House of Lords and the Federal Senate, and yet we have a great Imperial statesman suggesting a resemblance that justifies the continuance of an archaic system of government. His amazing statement must throw further suspicion upon his own proposals for reform. It would be something to get an admission from the peers themselves that the mere possession of a title does not in itself constitute a right to sit and vote in the House of Lords, but this would bo of littlo practical value it it were accompanied by an obstinate determination that the possession of some other privileges should give the representatives of a particular class the power to control the legislation of the country. Lord Rosebery will search in vain in the colonies for a precedent to justify an attitude of that kind. There are many earnest reformers who stand firmly by the bicameral system of government, but if a second chamber constituted on the narrow bases of privilege and opportunity is the only substitute that can bo devised for the present House of Lords it will not be many years before the long-suffering people of the Mother Country adopt very drastic measures to free themselves from an intolerable incubus.