298 THE LORDS, THE COMMONS, AND THE PEOPLE. 



unction to their souls that either the House of Commons, or the nation 

 at large, are at this moment in a mood of mind to suffer a repetition of 

 the bold experiment which the Upper House hazarded last year, with- 

 out some more unequivocal demonstration of their opinion than they 

 furnished on that occasion. There is with nations, as with individuals, a 

 certain point beyond which human endurance cannot go. That point 

 is now reached in the case of the country and the House of Lords ; and, 

 if the latter calculate on the continued forbearance of the former, they 

 will commit a fatal error. 



Need we remind the Peers that it is not within the pale of possi- 

 bility that they can gain any thing either by a conflict with public 

 opinion, or by a collision with the House of Commons. With either 

 antagonist they would find themselves engaged in a most unequal con- 

 test. Shall we speak in yet plainer language } Is it necessary we should 

 tell them that the inevitable consequence of clashing on the great raea- 

 Bure in question, either with the Lower House or wdth public opinion — 

 in the supposed case, it would be with both — would be their own de- 

 struction as a separate branch of the Legislature ? Those are the best 

 friends of their Lordships, who, at such a moment as the present, 

 warn them of the perilous ground on which they stand because of their 

 understood intention of rejecting the; Municipal Corporation Reform 

 Bill for Ireland. These are their enemies who would urge and cheer 

 them on to the desperate experiment. Of this fact we do assure them, 

 that the Destructives are at this moment exulting immoderately at the 

 anticipated conflict, because they look for the extinction of the Upper 

 House as the certain result of the collision. 



