232 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL chap. 



cases, on the other hand, has the Upper Chamber initiated 

 beneficent legislation or far-sighted policy, which has 

 been ultimately approved by the people and accepted by 

 the House of Commons. Yet in an Upper House which 

 really deserved the name we should naturally look for 

 guidance in the matter of those more important reforms 

 which are essential to real progress, especially such as 

 would tend to bring about a more equable distribution of 

 the constantly increasing wealth of the nation among the 

 masses of the people, thus diminishing and ultimately 

 destroying that seething mass of misery and starvation 

 which still persists among us, and which is the condemnation 

 of our boasted civilization. An assembly which truly 

 answered to its title of "noble" should be above the 

 personal interests and petty prejudices which influence 

 those who, in various ways, are engaged in the struggle for 

 wealth or for mere existence. 



The House of Lords, as it now exists at the end of the 

 nineteenth century, is not only an anomaly but an utterly 

 indefensible anomaly, and one wholly opposed to the spirit 

 of the age. In the proposal now submitted to public con- 

 sideration, a means is indicated of bringing it into harmony 

 with modern ideas while preserving its historical contin- 

 uity and constituting it so that it may be an aid, instead 

 of a clog, to the wheels of progress. Will the Lords 

 recognize the critical nature of their position, accept reform 

 as inevitable and as the only alternative to destruction, 

 and themselves initiate that reform ? If they do so, in no 

 hesitating or niggardly spirit, but fully recognizing that 

 a body claiming power to legislate for Englishmen must 

 be representative, and must be elected either directly or 

 indirectly by the people, then it is probable that even the 

 ever-growing Radical party would willingly accept such a 

 reform. They would be wise to do so ; because they 

 would thus obtain a legislative chamber probably as good 

 as any that could be obtained after a lengthy and profitless 

 struggle ; and, further, because a chamber such as is 

 here suggested is of a nature to admit of continual improve- 

 ment, and would necessarily develop as the nation devel- 

 oped, always keeping, as it should do, in the van of 



