19103 The House of Peers 



Among the professors in the University of Lon- 

 don was a close friend of Hoover, William Pember 

 Reeves, director of the School of Economics, a man 

 of marked ability both as economist and executive, 

 sometime also prime minister of New Zealand. I once 

 tried to induce him to come to Stanford as pro- 

 fessor. 



On the invitation of Lord Weardaie (Philip Stan- 

 hope) I spent a day at Weardaie Manor near 

 Seven Oaks, Kent. My intelligent and forceful host 

 remained an ardent pacifist until the outbreak of 

 war left no alternative. He said to me that among 

 the five hundred or more members of the House of 

 Lords were "forty men of good ability." I did not 

 know whether this was praise or criticism. It is true, 

 however, that most of the forty were not born to the 

 purple. For certain of the older members in each 

 party have been made peers, a sort of emeritus 

 recognition of sheer ability; others buy their way by 

 subscriptions to the party treasury, ranging (it is 

 said) from sixteen thousand up to forty thousand 

 pounds. This is not exactly a scandal, because the 

 whole matter is publicly accepted ! Yet there is a Reform of 

 strong feeling against it, and part of the movement the Peer ~ 

 looking toward reform of the House of Lords is based 

 on the fact that as a whole it represents not states- 

 manship, nor even time-honored aristocracy, but 

 rather the so-called ' Beerage" made up of wealthy 

 brewers. 



By way of relief from serious things, I may men- 

 tion that about this time I happened to see a maga- 

 zine account (signed Owen Hatteras) of a eugenic 

 wedding in which bride and groom "pledged their 

 troth by giving and receiving an aseptic ring. The 



C 333 3 



