THE MACHINERY OF ELECTIVE GOVERNMENT. 637 



thority, but of hereditary wealth. It has never acted as what it is im- 

 agined by the political architects of Europe to be, an Upper Chamber 

 revising with maturer wisdom and in an impartial spirit the hasty or 

 ultra-democratic legislation of the more popular House. It has always 

 acted as what it is, a privileged order in a state of decay and jeopardy, 

 resisting as far as it dared each measure of change, not political only, 

 but legal, social, and of every kind habeas corpus, reform of the 

 criminal law, abolition of the slave-trade, and a cheap newspaper 

 press, as well as extension of the franchise because change in what- 

 ever line threatened directly or indirectly its own existence. So far 

 from being a Senate, it deliberately declared that it was not and would 

 not be made a Senate, by refusing to let a life Peer take his seat. 



The Upper Chamber or Senate is of course intended to have a 

 character of its own distinct from that of the Lower House, otherwise 

 the institution would be futile. The House of Lords has a distinct 

 character with a vengeance, and shows it on all occasions ; but this 

 nobody proposes to reproduce, modern society having decidedly pro- 

 nounced both against hereditary legislation and entailed estates. What, 

 then, is the distinction to be ? Of what special elements is the Upper 

 Chamber to consist ? This is what no political theorists tell us, while 

 they all busy themselves in devising modes of appointment or elec- 

 tion. Whether this or the other mode of production is the best, it is 

 impossible to judge, unless we are told what is the thing to be pro- 

 duced. Is the Senate to be a house of old men ? If so, it will have 

 the weakness of age, it will be ridiculed and despised. Is it to be a 

 house of the rich, that it may specially protect the interests of prop- 

 erty ? If so, it will be odious, and expose to political as well as social 

 attacks the very interest which it is set to guard. Is it to be a house 

 of superior wisdom and character ? If so, the popular house will be 

 bereft of its natural moderators, and delivered over to the passion and 

 impulse which it is the object of the institution to control, while, its 

 voice being the more direct expression of the national will, it is sure, 

 in any collision, to carry the day. This was seen in the case of Crom- 

 well's attempt to relieve his government from the stress of conflict 

 with the House of Commons by reviving the Upper House, the only 

 result of which was that the Lower House was left leaderless, and the 

 two fell foul of each other. The very existence of an Upper Cham- 

 ber is found, in the United States for example, to increase the reck- 

 lessness of the Lower Chamber, which feels itself at liberty to do what 

 is popular at the moment, leaving it to the Upper Chamber to prevent 

 mischief by the exercise of its veto. A Senate nominated, as is that 

 of the Dominion of Canada, by the Executive, besides being an out- 

 rage on elective principle, is a nullity, though with a lurking possi- 

 bility of misuse under the party system and in a country where politics 

 are fierce and constitutional tradition weak, as was seen when the Pro- 

 vincial Senate of Quebec was used for the purpose of a sort of coup 



