The Townshend Case

New Zealand Tablet, 4 October 1906, Page 22

The Townshend Case

The sensational Townshend case has closed in England—aoid the lid falls upon some sadly battered lay and clerical reputations. To the section of the public who look beyond the mere social sensation of the affair, the case presents a curious anomaly of the British Constitution. The Marquis Townshend— while declared by the jury to be neither a lunatic nor an imbecile— is nevertheless pronounced mentally unable to take care of his property. Yet he is deemed to be quite fitted to sit in the Gilded Chamber to legislate for the nation, and (in easily possible circumstances) to record a vote upon which the fate of the Empire might -depend. Many of our readers will recall the manner- in which the lame, the blind, the halt, and even titled imbeciles, were raked together from ' all parts of Europe and drafted into the House of Lords to defeat Gladstone's second Home Rule Bill in. 1893. ' To mould a mighty State's decrees ', and shape the destinies of an Empire, at least normal mentality should be required, and - a decent capacity for managing one's own affairs. Artemus Ward's suggested Parliament of showmen would probably represent a much higher average of legislative capacity than did a jolthead section oosf s the gilded aristocracy who swelled the big majority that kicked ''conciliation out of the House of Lords .in 1893. -Conciliation went out by the window then. It is now;' about to come in _by the door. - '•*