XIII A REPRESENTATIVE HOUSE OF LORDS 225 



population. Both hereditary and ecclesiastical legislators 

 are now felt to be wholly out of place in the parliament of 

 a people which claims to possess both political and 

 religious freedom. They have, during the last half 

 century, been tolerated rather from the difficulty of getting 

 rid of them, than from any belief in the value of their 

 services ; and it has long been seen, by all but the most 

 bigoted Conservatives, that something must soon be done 

 to bring the Upper House into harmony with modern 

 ideals. In these concluding 3^ears of the nineteenth cen- 

 tury our hereditary House of Lords is an anachronism. It 

 may be said that our hereditary Sovereign is also an ana- 

 chronism; but there is this great difference — that the 

 peers systematically use their power to prevent or delay 

 popular legislation, which the Sovereign, at the present 

 day, never attempts to do. 



It is clear, then, that any real and effective reform of the 

 House of Lords must, in the first place, abolish the heredi- 

 tary right to legislate, and must also exclude the bishops, 

 as such, from any share in law-making. This, of course, 

 does not affect the hereditary succession to the peerage, 

 which may continue at all events for the present ; but it 

 would be most advisable to discontinue the creation of 

 new hereditary peerages. Instead of these, life-peers 

 should be created, but always as a mode of indicating dis- 

 tinguished merit, whether exhibited by services to the 

 country at large, by philanthropic labours, or by excep- 

 tional achievements in the fields of science, art, or litera- 

 ture. The object of creating these life-peers should be, 

 to raise the character and dignity of the peerage, and thus 

 to afford material for the selection of a new House of 

 Lords, which should be worthy of its historic fame and be 

 in every way fitted to take a leading part in legislating for 

 a free and civilised people. 



Although all Liberals, and many Conservatives, will agree 

 that the mere fact of succession to a peerage does not 

 afford any sufficient guarantee of the possession of those 

 qualities which should characterise the legislator, yet most 

 of them will admit that the peerage as a whole does afford 

 some good material from which to choose legislators, and 



VOL. II. Q 



