Lords Sitting of 27 April 1869

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS—First Reading—Court of Common Pleas (County Palatine of Lancaster!* (79); Newspapers, &c.* (80).
Second Reading—Lifts Peerages (49); Representative Peers for Scotland and Ireland (50); Militia* (76).
Select Committee—Representative Peers for Scotland and Ireland, appointed.
Committee—Report—Norfolk Island Bishopric * (73).

LIFE PEERAGES BILL.—(No. 49).
(The Earl Russell.)
LIFE PEERAGES BILL.—(No. 49).

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(The Earl Russell.)
  THE EARL OF DERBY: My Lords, having made no remarks on the introduction of this Bill, and having paid considerable attention to the subject for a number of years, I am desirous of stating how far I am able to concur in the principle of the measure, and how far I am obliged to dissent from its main provisions. The noble Earl (Earl Russell), in introducing the Bill, stated very correctly the great difference which exists between this question and that which engaged your Lordships' attention in 1856. The question then was whether there existed in the Crown the Prerogative of creating, without the sanction of the House, an indefinite number of life peerages, conferring the right of sitting and voting in Parliament. It was raised as a matter of principle, and not as a question affecting an individual, for the occasion taken was to raise to the peerage, for the purpose of strengthening the appellate jurisdiction of the House, an eminent lawyer who was well qualified for a seat in this House and to assist in our ap-

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  pellate jurisdiction; and it was ingenuously admitted by Lord Chancellor Cranworth that, Lord Wensleydale being at that time far advanced in life, and with no reasonable probability of leaving a male heir, it was a fair and fitting opportunity for trying the question of principle. The question then raised was—has the Crown, by the mere exercise of its Prerogative, the power of creating an indefinite number of Peers for life, entitled to sit and vote in Parliament? My most learned Friend the late Lord Lyndhurst brought forward a Resolution in opposition to that assertion of Prerogative on the part of the Crown, in a speech which, for the knowledge it displayed of Parliamentary, legal, and constitutional history, would have been remarkable in the mouth of any man, and which was the more remarkable on account of his very advanced age. He was followed by my noble Friend the present Secretary for the Colonies (Earl Granville), who then held the Office of President of the Council; but I must be allowed to say that if the noble Earl was impar congressus Achilli, he undoubtedly displayed an ability in the manner in which he argued the case fully justifying the courage he had shown in presenting himself in opposition to so formidable an antagonist as Lord Lyndhurst. The discussion was conducted with great ability and learning on both sides; and, by a very considerable majority, your Lordships decided to refer the whole case to a Committee of Privileges, which should search for precedents and report their opinion to the House. That Committee sat for a considerable time, investigated various historical documents, and finally came to a conclusion adverse to the Prerogative of the Crown in respect of the power of granting life peerages, carrying with them the right to sit and vote in Parliament. Lord Lyndhurst accordingly moved a Resolution affirming—
  "That neither the said Letters Patent, nor the said Letters Patent with the usual Writ of Summons issued in pursuance thereof, can entitle the Grantee therein named to sit and vote in Parliament."—[See 3 Hansard, cxl. 1170.]
  To this the noble Earl on the cross-Benches (Earl Grey) moved an Amendment declaring that—
  "The House of Lords would not be justified in assuming the Illegality of the Patent creating the Right Hon. Sir James Parke Baron Wensleydale
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  for Life, and in refusing upon that Assumption to permit him to take his seat as a Peer."—[Ibid., 1179.]
  It was not denied that 400 years ago, when the Crown possessed the Prerogative of giving representatives to certain boroughs in one Parliament and depriving them of that representation in another, some letters patent for life peerages had been issued; but even in those days only one or two instances could be found in which such letters patent had been granted to persons who had not previously been entitled to sit and vote in Parliament under another title. It was not denied, too, that the Crown bad a perfect right to confer on any person the dignity of a Peer or Peeress of the United Kingdom; but the question was, whether in conferring that dignity the Crown was enabled to confer likewise the right of sitting and voting in Parliament. On a division Lord Lyndhurst's Resolution was carried by 92 to 57, the majority being 35. I should mention that the noble Earl (Earl Grey) had given notice of his intention, in ease his Amendment was carried, of moving Resolutions which were of great importance, and in the spirit of which, had the Amendment been adopted, I should have entirely concurred. Those Resolutions admitted, in the first place, that no precedent had been found within the last 400 years for the admission of a commoner to this House by the grant of a peerage for life, and they proceeded to affirm that the Crown ought not to be advised, without the consent of Parliament, to exercise the Prerogative. While declining, under the particular circumstances, to express disapproval of the conduct of the Ministry in granting to Lord Wensleydale a life peerage, the third Resolution went on to say,—
  "That the Grant of Peerages for Life might in some Cases he of Advantage both to the House of Lords and to the Public; but that the Practice of granting such Peerages would be peculiarly liable to Abuse unless guarded by some precautionary Regulations."—[Ibid., 1180.]
  And the fourth Resolution was—
  "That it will require further and mature Consideration to determine what Step it will be proper for the House to adopt in order to prevent the Patent granted to Lord Wensleydale from being drawn into a Precedent in favour of creating Peerages for Life, and in order to establish adequate Securities against Abuse if such Creations are hereafter to take place."—[Ibid.]
  After the passing of Lord Lyndhurst's Resolution the Crown admitted the cor-

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  rectness of the view taken by your Lordships in a practical form, inasmuch as a new patent was granted to Lord Wensleydale, conferring a peerage in the usual terms on him and the heirs male of his body. Now, the noble Earl (Earl Russell) has admitted, both by his speech and the Preamble to his Bill, the principle then laid down; so that we start from this position—that the Crown has not the power of creating peerages for life, carrying with them the right to sit and vote in Parliament; and that, if in certain cases the creation of life peerages ought to be sanctioned by the House, it would properly be as an addition to, and not as a restriction on, the existing Prerogative of the Crown, and would require to be limited by the strictest possible conditions. Starting from that position, we shall have little difficulty in considering the main provisions of the Bill. I may, however, first mention, in order to complete the narrative of the proceedings of 1856, that, shortly after the adoption of the Resolution, I proposed the appointment of a Committee to inquire into the whole question of the appellate jurisdiction of the House, and that your Lordships, being pleased to accede to that Motion, the subject was carefully considered;—the result being that, in order to carry out the avowed object of Lord Wensleydale's peerage, the Committee recommended the creation of not more than four life peerages, to be held by men possessed of legal qualifications, and fit to discharge the duties of the appellate jurisdiction. A Bill embodying that recommendation was introduced by Lord Chancellor Cranworth, and passed through this House without any material alteration. Being sent down to the House of Commons, it was accepted by the Government of the day, of which Lord Palmerston was the head, and was officially supported by the then Attorney General (Sir Alexander Cockburn), who now holds a very high position, and whose opinion is entitled to the greatest respect. I must say, however, that, while nominally supporting the measure, his speech was rather one damning it with faint praise, for it certainly threw a considerable quantity of cold water on the scheme. It was supported by the Government, and was assented to by those who represented the Opposition, and passed the second reading. It was
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  then, however, proposed that it should be referred to a Select Committee, and that proposal was supported by very high authorities, including my right hon. Friend the present Speaker of the House of Commons, the present Secretary of State for War, the present Prime Minister, and Sir James Graham. The result was that on the 10th of July the Bill was referred to a Select Committee; and I need hardly say what the effect and indeed the avowed object of that Amendment was—the Bill was never heard of again. The measure, I may remark, was opposed in the House of Commons for the most contradictory reasons. It was opposed, on the one hand, because it confirmed and secured to this House that which some persons wished to take away, its appellate jurisdiction; and, on the other hand, there was much opposition to it because it proposed that the legal life Peers should sit and decide questions during adjournments, and notwithstanding prorogations, without even an ostensible reference to the House at large. Another objection, too, was that it would be derogatory to the position of Members of this House to accept a salary for services rendered qua Members. Well, as I have said, the Bill was referred to a Select Committee, and was never heard of again. From that time the question of life peerages has remained in abeyance until it has been revived by the proposal now before the House. The noble Earl (Earl Russell) goes much farther in his principles, and still more in his details, than the proposition of 1856. He sets out by saying—and I do not dispute it—that there may be cases in which the Crown would be desirous of conferring a peerage on a person whose services and talents entitled him to the honour, but whose private means did not permit of his entailing on his family the burden of an hereditary peerage. That is, no doubt, a possible case, and I admit that your Lordships may properly consider the propriety of meeting it by sanctioning the creation of life peerages; but I beg that you will not come to a conclusion either way without bearing in mind certain considerations. In the first place, you are proposing to give an addition to the Prerogative of the Crown, and in these days an addition to the Prerogative of the Crown means an addition to the power of the Minister of the day, and an addition to

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  the power of the Minister, who depends for his position upon the votes of the House of Commons, means an addition to the power of the House of Commons. Now, I am not jealous of the privileges and powers of that House over the other branches of the Constitution; but your Lordships should consider how far you would be justified, at this moment and in the present state of the Constitution, in investing the House of Commons with any greater influence than they now possess over the constitution and action of this House. I need go into no argument to show that the influence of the Crown has greatly decreased, and that the balance of the Constitution between Crown, Lords, and Commons is in more danger than is often anticipated of being disturbed by the preponderance of one of these three powers. You have to consider, therefore, whether you will of your own motion and accord in trust practically the House of Commons with a larger power than they already possess of influencing the constitution of the House. I am very far from denying the great advantage we derive from the frequency with which persons who are heirs to hereditary peerages obtain seats in the House of Commons—they thereby gain a political training and education, and become imbued with the spirit and conditions of the House of Commons, so that when, in the course of nature, they succeed to seats in this House, they bring with them those feelings and conditions to modify the exclusive feeling which possibly might otherwise exist in this House. It is an advantage, indeed, to both Houses; for it is an advantage to the House of Commons to have among its Members men who, after an education and training within its walls, will succeed to this House, and will thereby exercise an influence here in favour of popular rights and privileges. Nor do I at all disparage the very great advantage which your Lordships derive from the creation of Peers taken from other classes. An infusion of fresh blood into this House is one of the mainstays of our Constitution, for it gives strength and influence to the House, and tends to maintain that balance which, according to the noble Earl (Earl Russell), and to everyone who knows the value of our Constitution, ought to a certain extent to be maintained between the different Estates of the realm. But let me im-
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  press upon your Lordships that you are about to increase the power of the Crown, and, through it, of the Ministry and the House of Commons, and to establish a peerage the like of which has never existed from the foundation of the Constitution. The noble Earl, speaking of the number of life peerages, instanced the cases of the Scotch and Irish peerages and also of the right rev. Bench. Now, I altogether deny that in the sense contemplated by the Bill those can be regarded as life peerages. I read, with some astonishment, an article in a journal which professes to guide public opinion—and which certainly is a very observant follower of public opinion—arguing that, in point of fact, every peerage, whether hereditary or not, is virtually a succession of life peerages, granted once for all to the several descendants. Now it does not require the wisdom of The Times to know that not one of your Lordships can enjoy his peerage for a longer term than his own life; but to attempt to draw any analogy between life peerages and those descending to the heirs of those on whom they were originally conferred, is an argument, I must say, with all due respect, worthy of those valuable institutions to which a large portion of the property of the Church in Ireland is proposed to be transferred. The case of the Scotch and Irish peerages, or of the right rev. Bench, is not at all analogous to the principle sought to be introduced by this Bill. As to the Scotch and Irish peerages, it is quite true that the individual holds his seat either for life or for the duration of the Parliament; but he holds it as the representative of a permanent succession of a body of men whose numbers the Crown has no power of increasing or diminishing—at all events without the sanction of Parliament. Is that, in the slightest degree, analogous to a proposal which gives to the Crown the power of creating at its pleasure a number of Peers, limited if you please, but without any succession, without any right of keeping up that title except by another creation on the part of the Crown? The case of the right rev. Bench is not quite so strong a ease, because they owe their seats in this House to the favour of the Crown, which has the right of appointing their successors. The office of a Bishop, however, is an hereditary one, and the offices are held in right of baronies, the Crown

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  being unable to take away from or add to those baronies. I dare say noble Lords opposite wish the Crown had the same influence over the Scotch and Irish Peers as over the right rev. Bench; but the position of the latter is very different from that proposed by the Bill. And, while on this subject, I wish to call the attention of the noble Earl the Secretary for the Colonies to a passage in the admirable speech which he delivered in 1856. He then said—
  "I remember that some quarter-of-a-century ago a foolish and absurd cry was raised in the country for the removal of the Lords Spiritual from this House. I am satisfied that at the present moment no such feeling exists; and I believe it would be considered both in this House and by the country to be a serious blow if the number of the Lords Spiritual were to be diminished even by one."—[3 Hansard, cxl. 280.]
  I hope the noble Earl adheres, and will adhere during the present Session, to the principle he then laid down—that it would be a serious misfortune if the number of Spiritual Peers were to be diminished even by one.
  I now come to consider the provisions of the Bill; and having in view the vast change which will be made in the constitution of this House—in its principle, I mean, if not in its composition—it is not unreasonable to express a hope that you will confine these peerages strictly within the limits of proved or probable necessity. The noble Earl (Earl Russell) proposes to limit the number to twenty-eight, and that not more than four should be created in any one year. Now, it seems to me that that number is far in excess of the necessities of the case. I do not know whether the noble Marquess (the Marquess of Salisbury) is present; but I regret to say I cannot concur in the view he expressed—namely, that one great object ought to be to produce greater harmony of feeling and uniformity than may under present circumstances exist between the two Houses. If I could concur in that, it is clear—as I think he admitted—that the Bill ought to go much further than it does, for it would practically do nothing to produce such uniformity. It will no doubt give an additional power to the Minister for the time being of introducing a certain number of persons into this House who will vote for him, without incurring the risk of unnecessarily increasing the permanent number of the House; that number, however, being in seven years
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  permanently increased by twenty-eight. The noble Earl urged that the influence of any particular Minister in creating these Peers would be thus limited; but he himself was in Office five or six years, and Lord Palmerston for about the same period. The present Minister, moreover, has succeeded to the position by a majority of 100 or 120, and I see no sort of reason why, unless he commits some strange blunder—which, of course, he may do—he should not retain his majority for the whole period of the present Parliament. If he retains it for five years, he would have the opportunity of creating twenty Peers, his devoted followers, and thus of exercising no inconsiderable influence over this House. [The Marquess of SALISBURY explained that he had not supported the Bill with the object of bringing the two Houses into greater conformity of sentiment, but because he wished this House to have more of a representative character.] But why of a more representative character? The great merit of the balance of the Constitution consists in this—that the Minister of the day, be he who he may, is compelled, or at least it is his duty, so to form his measures as to conciliate or secure the approval and consent of both Houses, representing distinct and different classes, however much in particular cases they may be combined. If this House is to be representative, you had better go further and say it should be elective. That may be a fit subject for argument; but it would be the destruction of the Constitution as at present existing, and the utter overthrow of the balance pointed out by the noble Earl. With regard to the number twenty-eight, I am sorry to have to refer again to the noble Earl the Secretary for the Colonies, but having referred to the discussion of 1856, I find he made this remark—
  "The chief objection was that it introduced a principle capable of almost indefinite extension; that Her Majesty might be advised to create not one but twenty life Peers, and that there was no security against the House being swamped by such creations. He need not say that, as far as the Government were concerned, that objection was entirely unfounded. What they wanted was to strengthen a little the number of law Peers in the House by means of life instead of hereditary peerages."
  The noble Earl admitted that the creation of twenty life peerages might inflict a serious injury on the constitution

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  of this House, and assured the House that the Government contemplated the creation of only one or two, for the purpose of strengthening the appellate jurisdiction of the House. Now, setting aside the question of giving the House a representative character, what are the motives alleged for the introduction of this Bill? The first is that there may be admitted persons of great eminence—more especially of the legal profession—capable of affording valuable assistance in our debates; and next that there are persons who have performed eminent services to the Crown, entitling them to the honour of the hereditary peerage, but who are prevented from accepting it by the narrowness of their pecuniary means. Now, I think your Lordships will be of opinion that it is important that this House should be composed mainly of persons of large hereditary possessions. It is not desirable for the independence of the House that there should be a number of Peers unable to sustain the dignity of their position. I do not, of course, deny, that there might be Peers of that class possessed of as much integrity and independence as the wealthiest members of the House, and exercising their own judgment with as complete a sense of responsibility and without reference to pecuniary interests; but, as a rule, this House rests upon the foundation of property, and of sure and settled property, and it would be a great misfortune if any large portion of it consisted of members unable to live up to the position they occupied. The noble Earl has had a Parliamentary experience of about fifty years at least, being a few years older than I am—[Earl RUSSELL: Fifty-five years.]—and he has had an official experience commencing more than forty-seven years ago. Now, I put it to him whether, in the course of those fifty-five years, he could have found in every year four persons, or two, or even one, on whom the Grown would have been desirous of conferring the dignity of a peerage, in consideration of their eminent merits, but who were prevented from accepting it in consequence of the want of pecuniary means? Now, he proposes the creation of four such Peers annually for seven years, replacing them of course at death; and his reason is that, in a single year, there might be several such cases, and that it would be
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  hard if they could not be admitted by reason of there being no vacancies. That, however, is really an argument for reducing the annual number; for after the lapse of seven years, the twenty-eight having been all placed in this House, he would be obliged to fall back on the vacancies which might occur. In view of that contingency, it would surely be more desirable if the number were extended over a longer period, and a smaller number created each year.
  I now tome to the qualifications provided in the Bill, and I regret to detain your Lordships at so much length; but I may not have another opportunity of offering an opinion on the subject—which, moreover, is one clearly out of the range of political or party consideration, though one of great constitutional importance. The Bill provides that six classes of persons shall be eligible—first, Peers of Scotland or Ireland; next, persons who have sat in the House of Commons for upwards of ten years; thirdly, officers of the Army and Navy; fourthly, certain high legal and judicial officers; fifthly, persons distinguished for their attainments in science, literature, and art; and, sixthly, persons who have rendered service to the Crown in any public office for not less than five years with a fidelity and ability entitling them to some mark of special favour. Now, it should be considered whether these Peers may not be placed in a position of some inferiority to the other Peers; and nothing, I think, ought to be more carefully guarded than this, that Peers should all be on precisely an equal footing, as far as Parliamentary status is concerned. Now, during the reign of Her present Majesty all these classes have been representatives in this House, with the exception of that noble profession, the Navy—["Lord Lyons?"]—I apprehend that Lord Lyons was not admitted a Member of this House on account of his naval services, so much as on account of his diplomatic services. As for my noble and learned Friend behind me (Lord Chelmsford), the honour of a peerage was not conferred upon him for his services in early life in Her Majesty's Navy, but for his legal attainments. With regard to officers of the Army, there have been a number of such persons raised to the position of British hereditary Peers, the last being Lord Napier of Magdala. I

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  need not refer to the various legal and judicial officers who have likewise obtained hereditary peerages. As for men distinguished for their attainments in science, literature, or art, I have always regretted that there existed no peculiar mode of distinction which it was in the power of the Crown to bestow upon them. It is a want that the country feels, and when I had the honour and responsibility of Office it was a matter I seriously considered; but the difficulties attending the creation of any such honours were such that I was compelled to abandon the idea. I am not entitled to refer, as a case of a peerage conferred for literary eminence, to a noble Earl behind me (Earl Stanhope), since he was already heir to an hereditary peerage when he acquired literary eminence; but I may take Lord Macaulay, and also Lord Lytton, whom I regret that we so seldom see or hear anything of in this House. There is likewise another noble Baron whom I must class with the literary Peers, formerly Member for Pontefract (Lord Houghton), against whom I certainly cannot make any such complaint. As to science, I will only recall the late Lord Wrottesley, Lord Rosse, and a noble Earl distinguished for his mechanical abilities (Lord Caithness), the representative of an ancient Scottish Peerage, who has been lately created a Peer of the United Kingdom. Much as I desire to do honour to literature, science, and art, even if the difficulty of selection were not so great, I should not regard a seat in this House as the appropriate reward for them. I do not believe a life peerage would be attractive to the great majority of really eminent men in those departments; and I was much struck with an observation recently addressed to the noble Baron opposite (Lord Houghton) by an eminent author who has attained a very distinguished position (Mr. Charles Dickens), on this very question of ennobling literary men. He said he had from the first determined that, whether he succeeded or failed, literature should be his sole profession, and that he would try to be master of one craft, and not "a Jack of all trades and master of none." I believe that feeling is one which prevails among literary men. They feel that the eminence they possess and the position they hold are wholly of a different kind from
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  that exercised by the privilege of sitting here; and I do not believe they would value that admission, provided it were limited to their own lives, thereby placing them in a comparatively subordinate position to that of other Members of the House. With regard to Scotch and Irish Peers, the principle of the Bill is surely inapplicable to them, inasmuch as they are already capable of supporting the position of hereditary Peers; and in the case of eminent services in the Army, the grant of a peerage is usually accompanied by substantial pecuniary income. By eminent services I do not mean political or partizan services. I do not mean men who have sat for ten years in the House of Commons, and have studiously voted on every occasion in favour of the Government, though they have never opened their mouths or done anything besides voting; but I can conceive a case in which a man may have sat for ten or twenty years in Parliament, without having exhibited any qualities entitling him to the peerage, and yet I can imagine a Minister saying to him—"I am quite ready to offer you a seat for life in the House of Lords. You have done us good service; you have voted very steadily with us; you hold a seat perfectly safe, which I should like to have for somebody else. You are probably fatigued by the labours of the House of Commons, and may like to have such a recognition of your services as is involved in being sent to the House of Lords, where you can enjoy your otium cum dignitate, and at the same time I hope it will be fully understood that you will continue your steady and consistent support of Her Majesty's Government." The mere fact of having sat for ten years in the House of Commons is no qualification justifying the infliction of the discredit of a peerage limited to a man's life. There are other classes which I have not enumerated—such as the great mercantile class, representatives of which have been raised to the peerage during the present reign. There is the diplomatic class, for example, ably represented by a noble Lord on the cross-Benches. These classes are already represented under the existing system; and, though I do not object to the principle of the Bill, I think the cases to which it would be applicable are few and far between, and that the number

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  proposed is unnecessarily largo for the exigencies of the case. Nor do I think that the machinery proposed is the best mode for carrying out the principle of introducing men of singular eminence, who have not the means of supporting hereditary peerages. I should recommend the noble Earl to strike out the classification altogether. Let the Crown create a limited number of fit persons; but the classification proposed might exclude some most meritorious men, while letting in others who have no sort of claim. To secure the eminence of the individual and the reality of the service, I would suggest that the letters patent should in each case recite something to this effect—
  "Whereas, in recognition of the signal services rendered by A. B. in the office of—, Her Majesty was desirous of conferring on him the honour of a peerage; but whereas A. B. has humbly represented to Her Majesty that the state of his pecuniary affairs did not justify him in entailing on his successors the burden of supporting such a peerage, Her Majesty has been graciously pleased to confer on him a peerage limited to his own life, under the terms of the Act of Parliament."
  I propose that the services be distinctly specified, so as to exclude unworthy persons, and that the sense of inferiority be removed by the offer of an hereditary peerage, leaving it to the person to decline it and to prefer a life peerage. Some noble Lords opposite manifested some astonishment at the proposed recital that the person's means were not adequate to the support of an hereditary peerage; but it is strictly analagous to the course pursued in the House of Commons. There are a certain number of pensions appropriated to persons who, for a certain length of time, have held high Office under the Crown; and the person receiving such a pension must make a declaration that the state of his private fortune does not enable him to uphold the position to which the high Office he has held entitles him. There are at the present time four recipients of those pensions; and I cannot see any reason why any one of those four gentlemen, whom I will suppose to be entitled to the honour of a seat in this House, should the Ministry think fit to appoint him, should not assert that his pecuniary means prevented him accepting an hereditary peerage.
  It had not been my intention to address your Lordships at such great length, but I must say, in conclusion,
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  that, while it is not my purpose to offer any opposition to the second reading of the Bill, I agree with the noble Earl on the cross-Benches that the measure requires to be carefully examined. I could wish your Lordships to adopt the suggestion I have made, but I reserve to myself the entire right, after the Bill shall have passed through Committee, of judging whether I shall be able to give it my support on the third reading.
  EARL GRANVILLE: My Lords, I cannot but express the feeling of gratification with which I, in common with the rest of your Lordships, have listened to the clear and able statement of the noble Earl. I think the noble Earl was perfectly correct, with one exception, in the historical account he gave of what passed when the question of life peerages was before the House in 1856. I think that it was then clearly admitted—and by Lord Lyndhurst himself if I am not mistaken—that the power to make life peerages had been exercised by the Crown and allowed by the House of Lords, but at a period so remote that Lord Lyndhurst considered the precedents as not bearing on the present state of the case and on the Constitution as settled at the time of the Revolution. The noble Earl mentioned the large majority by which Lord Lyndhurst's Resolutions were carried; but I have always regretted the decision the House came to on that occasion. I do not venture now to dispute that your Lordships may have correctly interpreted the law; but there certainly was such a large amount of opinion out-of-doors on the other side, represented by persons both on the Bench and at the Bar, that it must be admitted that there existed some doubt on the point, and I think it is to be regretted that we did not adopt that interpretation of the law which would have allowed life Peers to sit in this House. However, the decision formerly come to by the House can now only be remedied by a Bill, which, at some inconvenience, will raise a discussion in the House of Commons, when the Bill is taken down there, upon the whole position of your Lordships' House, which will be hostilely attacked on one side and defended on the other without any of your Lordships being present to plead your own cause. On the former occasion the authority of the Law Lords was to a great extent opposed to the proposi-

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  tion to create life Peers; but I think that any person who was in your Lordships' House at the time, and who remembers the speeches and private conversation of those Law Lords, cannot resist the impression that they were actuated by an esprit de corps with respect to their profession, and were afraid that the proposal, if adopted, would tend to diminish the honours which in future might be given to men eminent in the law. And it has happened within the present year that a noble Friend has informed me that there was another reason which influenced many in voting in favour of Lord Lyndhurst's Resolution, and against the creation of life Peers—the idea that the late Prince Consort entertained the plan of swamping the House of Peers with men having some smattering of science and literature. I had some knowledge of the Prince Consort, and I know that there could not be a greater fallacy than to suppose that, in the interest of the Crown, he desired to diminish the position and influence of the aristocracy. At the time of the repeal of the Corn Laws, he took in that, and also in some other cases, a different view from many of your Lordships; but I never heard of any case in which he did not appear most anxious to strengthen and maintain the House of Lords. The late Prince thought it desirable that the House of Lords should not represent a caste, but should be kept in harmony of feeling with the other House, and he believed that by an infusion into this House—though not in so large a degree as to swamp the House or to make it a representative assembly—of certain persons not belonging exclusively to the landed interest or to aristocratic families, harmony of feeling would be produced with the other House of Parliament, which represents all classes in the State; but to any large increase of the hereditary peerage he had, perhaps, a stronger objection than any of your Lordships, believing that nothing would be more injurious to your Lordships' House than the exhibition of a pauper aristocracy before the eyes of the public. The Prince thought that, as the means which formerly existed in the hands of the Sovereign of enriching Peers created for their merits had ceased to exist, it was a great disadvantage that persons distinguished by their merits should be excluded from the House of Lords merely on account of
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  their poverty; and he was of opinion that if a change were made in this matter it was desirable that it should not be delayed until it was pressed on the House by a hostile force. In all those opinions I entirely concur. With respect to the Bill under discussion, I feel the force of the objection that it is undesirable to introduce the precedent of interference with the Prerogative of the Crown. I concur in much that has been said by the noble Earl (Earl Russell), but I think there would arise this inconvenience from his proposal as to the categories from which the life Peers ought to be selected—that, on the one hand, whenever the number of life Peers was not filled up, there would be a pressure on the Prime Minister to select an individual from one of the categories, though there might be no person properly deserving the honour; and, on the other, if the proposition for forming these categories were rejected, its refusal might give occasion for an injurious tirade in the House of Commons, where it might be said that the life peerage is given to eminent soldiers who happen to have the good fortune to be in chief command at a particular moment, while it is denied to men who, like Newton, Macaulay, and Sir James Mackintosh, would be a distinction and honour to the House of Lords. For these reasons I think that there is some practical difficulty in dealing with the categories. The proposal of the noble Earl seems to possess no advantage in itself, and to have some peculiar disadvantages. The noble Earl (the Earl of Derby) argued that these life Peers would be inferior to the hereditary Members of this House. Now, I think if we pass any Bill on this subject, we ought to drop this language completely. I believe that the most rev. and right rev. Prelates are, technically, not life Peers; but supposing they were, would their position be in the slightest degree affected in the estimation of your Lordships? In the same way I may venture upon a personal illustration in the case of the noble and learned Lord opposite (Lord Cairns). I am sure there was not one noble Lord on this side of the House who, when he was made a Peer for his services, did not believe, quite independently of any party considerations, that he was a great accession to this House, though a troublesome one to us. Since that time he has been

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  made the Leader of the party opposite—I fear the great majority of your Lordships. The noble and learned Lord, in the course of his most successful career at the Bar, has accumulated a larger fortune than that of many of us hereditary Peers. But, supposing he had not acquired a fortune, and had chosen under this Bill to become a Peer for life rather than an hereditary Peer, should we have regarded him with less respect and consideration than we do now, or would he have been rejected for the Leadership of the great party opposite merely because his peerage would not have continued to his descendants?
  THE EARL OF DERBY: Nobody can doubt that the acceptance of a life peerage by my noble and learned Friend would have been hailed with satisfaction by every Member of this House; but the question is whether, if a life peerage only had been offered to him, except by his own wish and desire, he would not have felt that he was placed in rather an inferior position, compared with the rest of your Lordships? That is the only point I wished to raise. My suggestion, if adopted, would allow the choice of an hereditary or life peerage to rest with the person ennobled; so that, if through want of means he accepted a life peerage, he would, in the view of the public and of the Sovereign, be in precisely the same position as any of your Lordships.
  EARL GRANVILLE: I confess that I do not quite see the force of the argument, and I think it would be disagreeable to many persons to be called on to make a public and formal declaration in this way—that they were not possessed of means adequate to the support of the hereditary dignity. If, moreover, there is no public advantage in the suggestion, it has the disadvantage of limiting to a certain extent the Prerogative of the Crown; and such a restriction, unless there is great reason for it, ought not, I think, to be introduced. With regard to the number, that is a different thing, and I own I should prefer the Bill without the limit which it proposes. The noble Earl (the Earl of Derby) quoted an opinion of mine expressed in a speech made some time ago—and though the other night it was thought that there was some reason against answering a speech made a week ago, I presume it was not thought improper to answer a
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  speech of mine made thirteen years ago. Now, I do not remember my exact words, but I presume that my meaning was this—that to make twenty life Peers all at once would be an improper exercise of the Royal Prerogative, just in the same way as I think it would be an improper exercise of Prerogative to create, without adequate reason, twenty hereditary peerages. I own, therefore, that I could not follow the argument of the noble Earl about this great addition to the power of the Crown. He said very truly that the power rested mainly—though certainly not entirely—in the hands of the Prime Minister; but suppose that an ill-judging Prime Minister was, without some absolute necessity, to advise the Crown to make a very large number of hereditary Peers, what is there to stop him from doing so now? Absolutely nothing but the personal opinion of the Sovereign and the public opinion of the country. I know of no other check than that. Now in what possible manner are these two checks not applicable to the exercise of the same Prerogative in the case of life peerages? However, looking at the fears which some of your Lordships seem to entertain on this point, I am willing to concur with my noble Friend in fixing some limit to the number of life peerages. In conclusion, while we shall have another opportunity of discussing the details of the Bill, I am glad to see that there seems hardly any opposition to the passing of the second reading.
  THE EARL OF MALMESBURY: My Lords, it is not my intention to oppose the second reading of this Bill, although I confess that if I had been present when it was first introduced into your Lordships' House I should have been an exception to the unanimity with which it seems to have been received. Lot your Lordships consider what you are about to do in agreeing to the principle of this measure. From what I have heard and read of the last debate I think that the importance of this measure has hardly been appreciated by your Lordships, and that in assenting to it you may, perhaps, be doing more than you are aware of. The noble Earl who has introduced the Bill (Earl Russell) is no doubt one of our greatest reformers. He has also written upon the Constitution—a subject which no man is supposed to understand

  1667
  better than himself. But in all his reforms, important as they have been—in his reform of the House of Commons in 1832; in his proposed reforms of the House of Commons afterwards, which he did not carry into effect; and in the reforms of the House of Commons which he assisted the late Government to carry—the noble Earl has always kept strictly within the lines of the Constitution. In altering the House of Commons, he proposed nothing which could be called innovation—he extended the lines of the Constitution, but kept strictly within them. Now, in the present measure, the noble Earl has proposed a great innovation—he has gone altogether beyond the lines of the Constitution, and is not only proposing to alter the principles upon which the House of Lords has always existed, but he is altering the Constitution at the same time. I am very much mistaken if it is not one of the first principles of the Constitution that a peerage should be hereditary; that, indeed, is the very essence of a peerage. Now, the Bill at once sweeps away that principle. The term "life Peer" is a singular blunder, as it appears to me; for the life Peers contemplated by the Bill will not really be Peers, because they will not be pares of those who will be their colleagues in this House. The meaning of that word, as we have always understood it, is that here all are equal in social position, in political rights, and in that great privilege of handing down our names and titles to posterity. Now, the life Peers will not be equal to ourselves in respect of this most important privilege—they will be unable to transmit to their sons the titles and dignities given to them by the Crown. Nor, again, if we look upon ourselves as the nobility of the country, will they be noble, because the very essence of nobility is the transmission of that distinction to the son of the recipient. A peerage, as it exists in this country, is a very modern institution when compared with that of nobility. Nobility is one of the oldest institutions in the world. In the Roman Empire from the earliest ages there were patrician families, showing that the nobility was handed down from generation to generation. In the feudal ages, also, nobility was always considered hereditary; and to such an extent was this carried that, though the Crown could create, it could not withdraw a title ex-
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  cept by reason of felony, treason to the Crown, or cowardice in the field proved against a person in the ranks of the nobility. No doubt the monarchs of those days, were often reckless of all principles whatever, but they adhered still for form's sake to the one I have mentioned, when they wished to get rid of certain nobles organized conspiracies against them, and got up sham accusations and sham trials; but they were always obliged to prove acts of felony before they could deprive these nobles of the titles which the Crown had conferred upon them. Your Lordships are therefore, I think, about to go a step further than you really intend, because you will, by the creation of these life peerages, be making a very great innovation, not only among your own nobility, which has the privilege of being also an Estate of Parliament, but infringing on the first principles of nobility as it has existed for fourteen or fifteen centuries throughout Europe, and which existed several centuries before the establishment of English Peerages. I am, moreover, afraid, notwithstanding that some members of your Lordships' House, who have spoken on this question, have made rather too light of the apprehension that those Peers who, being created only for life, will be unable to hand down their titles and honours to their descendants, will be regarded as not being equal to those whose peerage is placed upon a different footing. If I know something of human nature, I cannot help being of opinion that there will be a feeling, so far as they are concerned, not certainly of the slightest disrespect, but that they are not of a grade quite on a level with the rest of your Lordships. I may add that I have always observed that the greatest pleasure which a man derives from having the honour of the peerage conferred upon him by the Crown arises from the fact that he is enabled to transmit it to his son and successors. I have even known instances of men who being childless declined the honour of a peerage, saying it was of no value to them, but that if they had sons they should be glad to accept it. Now, that is a feeling it appears to me to be a noble feeling and one which ought to be respected, and I should be very sorry that the nobility of this country should not look upon it as the highest privilege which they could possess to be able to transmit their title

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  and distinctions to their posterity. I very much doubt whether many persons will be found to seek for the honour of a life peerage—for it seems to me that it would amount—I will not say to an insult, but to a very humiliating slight, to offer a gentleman a peerage, and at the same time to tell him that the title and dignity conferred upon him shall not descend to his son, supposing him to have one. To a man who happens to have no son, indeed, it may be of less consequence whether his peerage is for life or not; but then no good reason can be urged against making a man in that position, a Peer after the old fashion if it is deemed desirable that the peerage should be conferred upon him at all. You object to giving a man a peerage which shall be hereditary because he does not possess the means which you deem to be necessary to support the honour of the next generation; but how do you know that his son, if he had one, might not by marriage or some other honourable means acquire a fortune sufficient for the support of the dignity? But, my Lords, I for one protest against the justice of the statement that it is necessary a Peer should be rich in order to maintain in this country the respect which belongs to his position. It might have been very well to use such an argument as that seventy or eighty years ago, when public opinion obliged every Peer to live ostentatiously, when he could not drive out without having four horses to his carriage and being attended by outriders, and when he wore his stars and ribbands morning and night. There is, however, no sort of resemblance between the state of things which existed in those days and that which exists at present. A Peer now comes up to town by railway, in the company of every person who chooses to travel in that way; he moves about as unostentatiously as any other class of persons. There are, in fact, no such distinctions in many respects as formerly prevailed between a Peer and other members of the community, and there is therefore, I contend, no necessity whatever why they should require to have large fortunes to maintain what is called their dignity in this country. They are respected according, not to their riches, but their usefulness as members of the Legislature and their usefulness in their several localities. It seems to me,
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  then, that the arguments founded on poverty, when urged in favour of the institution of life Peers, fall altogether to the ground. And let me suppose that poverty furnishes a good reason why we should resort to the creation of life Peers—would not such a state of things be calculated to throw a dangerous power into the hands of the Minister of the Crown, who is to decide upon the persons who are to receive such peerages—would not Peers so made be very much under the command of the Minister by whom they happened to be created? Again, a life Peer falls into bad health, and the Minister will have twenty applications to supply his place. Now, that being so, I should like to know from the noble Earl who has brought this Bill forward, and who has said it will not have any effect on the state of parties, how he arrives at that conclusion? Let your Lordships consider the probabilities of the future by the experience of the past. The noble Earl is aware that his party has been in Office twenty-nine out of the last forty years, and if that be true, is it not fair to calculate that they would have had the appointment of at least three-fourths of those twenty-eight life Peers in that time, enough to decide in the course of seven years the result of a division in your Lordships' House—for when I divided the House on a question relating to the Danish "War, the party majority in a full House was, I believe, only 9. These, my Lords, are some; of the objections which. I entertain to this proposal. It would, however, seem that you are about to give a second reading to the Bill, and I would simply observe, in conclusion, that I cannot help thinking you may hereafter have cause to repent what you will have done if you assent to the creation of life peerages, when on the occasion of great divisions much discontent will be expressed, and it will be said by the public—"Such and such a Bill was only carried by the votes of life Peers."
  EARL RUSSELL: I think, perhaps, my Lords, it would be well that I should now state to your Lordships the views with which I have made this proposition—especially as a noble and learned Lord whom I see opposite is of opinion that when I introduced the Bill I was not sufficiently explicit. At the outset I think I ought to state distinctly my view as to the hereditary character of

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  this House—I have no wish that the hereditary character of this House should be altered. In my view the hereditary character is essential to the House of Lords and essential to the Constitution, and I, for one, see no good reason for desiring to alter it. It is plain that the analogy attempted to be drawn from the Bishops and the Irish and Scotch Peers is only partially applicable to this Bill. The Bill does not deal with the creation of Peers, but with the right to a seat in this House. An Irish or a Scotch Peer is at the present moment perfectly aware that his son will not succeed to his seat in the House of Lords, and that there must be another act of election before he can sit in this assembly. The right rev. Prelates are also well aware that their sons will not succeed to a seat in the House of Lords, and that they will be succeeded by other Prelates appointed by the Grown. Therefore, I maintain that, in proposing to add to the number of Peers who now sit in this House not by hereditary right, I am not altering the general character of the House of Lords. In reply to a question put to me by the noble and learned Lord (Lord Cairns) when this subject was last under consideration, I may state that I have no desire to interfere with the character of this House with respect to its appellate jurisdiction, with which I am perfectly satisfied. On this point I will call your Lordships' attention to what Lord Cranworth said on introducing his Bill on the 30th of May, 1856. There had been a large Committee appointed, and his Lordship said—
  "That Committee—which was a very full one—consisting of between twenty and thirty members, examined a great number of persons connected with the administration of justice in your Lordships' House, the most eminent practitioners at the Bar, two distinguished Judges from Scotland, and other witnesses. The object of their inquiry was to ascertain how far the conduct of judicial business in your Lordships' House, as the ultimate court of appeal, was or was not satisfactory to the suitors and to the bulk of Her Majesty's subjects. Now, my Lords, I think I am entitled to say, as the result of that investigation, that the general—I might almost say the universal—feeling was that, although there were matters which avowedly required emendation, yet the administration of justice by your Lordships was an administration by a tribunal for which no substitute would, in the eyes of the public, be equally satisfactory."—[3 Hansard, cxlii. 781.]
  Now I perfectly concur in that statement; but I shall, of course, listen with
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  respect to any proposal which may be made by the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack with reference to the appellate jurisdiction. The noble Earl who first addressed the House (the Earl of Derby), while raising many objections to the measure, admitted that there might be cases in which, owing to peculiar circumstances, persons would not wish to accept hereditary peerages, although they might be perfectly qualified in other respects to occupy a seat in this House. It was also admitted by the noble Earl that persons had already been elevated to the peerage by the Crown from every one of the classes which I named in reference to life peerages on introducing the measure. I wish for no further admission from the noble Earl than that. I have paid very great attention to what has been said as to a person objecting to being appointed an hereditary Peer, and yet being willing to accept a life peerage. It may be that a man possesses only personal property, which he wishes to divide equally among all his children; or he may think it desirable that his eldest son should assume some profession for which he would be most probably disqualified if he became a Peer. These and other reasons may lead men to decline an hereditary peerage. It has been alleged that no sufficient reasons have been shown for making the proposed innovation; but the truth is that, in recent times, circumstances have changed with regard to the honours and rewards bestowed by the Crown. In former times, the Sovereign had the power to grant considerable landed estates out of the Crown domains; but this power no longer exists. The House of Commons has also changed; indeed, it is totally different from what it was when I first entered it. At that time there were many persons, Members of the House of Commons, who could not stand the excessive wear and tear of the present day. They represented small boroughs—these seats no longer exist. It has been stated in the public prints that I propose to give peerages to superannuated Members of the Lower House. Now a man may be elected—as I was myself—to a seat in the House of Commons at the age of twenty-one, and it can hardly be said that after ten years' service, that is at the age of thirty-one, he could be

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  properly termed superannuated. There are many men who are not equal to the excessive labour of the House of Commons at the present day. A man, whom we all regretted to lose—the late Sir William Follett, who was very eminent at the Bar—would, if he could have accepted a life peerage, have been a valuable accession to this House. Referring to the classes of men the most eminent of whom might be advantageously created Peers for life, I mentioned on a former occasion persons distinguished in science and literature. Now, I suppose no one will contend that men like Mr. Hallam or Sir William Blackstone would not be fit persons to sit in the House of Lords. But the noble Earl (the Earl of Derby) remarks that we already received into the House Lord Macaulay and two Barons who are at present Members of the House who have attained great eminence in literature. That is quite true; but why should you require that men of this class should only be created Peers if they have large landed estates to maintain their dignity, or if they are unmarried, and consequently unlikely to have any descendants on whom the dignity would devolve? For my own part, I do not see why an eminent literary or scientific man with a number of children and no landed estates should be precluded from accepting a life peerage. In considering this part of the question, I cannot help thinking that there have been men in former times—I wish to mention none in our own times—who would not only have added strength to the House of Lords by their great knowledge and distinguished character, but would have been of great use in its deliberations. For instance, a question which was much discussed at the end of the 17th century was the debasement of the currency; and I do not think that if Sir Isaac Newton (afterwards Master of the Mint) and John Locke had been Members of this House they would have been incapable of adding to the information of this assembly. Another man, whom a late editor has represented to have been entirely removed from practical business, was John Milton; yet he was Latin Secretary—in fact, the equivalent of Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs—to the Protector Cromwell, and in that capacity displayed a remarkably good judgment. During the time he held
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  that office there occurred the terrible massacre of the Protestants at Piedmont. John Milton naturally felt strong indignation; but his prudence induced him to write a private letter to Cardinal Mazarin, asking for the intervention of the French Court in the matter; by that means an end was put to the massacre which was then going on. I do not believe that even my noble Friend the present Foreign Secretary—who could not, I think have written Paradise Lost—could have shown in such a case greater business aptitude or more practical prudence than did the author of that great poem. I should, for my part, be very glad to see men of that class in the House. With regard to the suggestion which has been made to me, I need only say that my object is attained by having indicated the several classes from which I think that life Peers ought to be selected. I shall be quite ready to leave the matter entirely to the discretion of the Crown, and to omit in Committee the whole of that part of the Bill; only trusting, as I hope I may do, that there is not one of those classes or categories which would be excluded from a fair consideration. Seeing that the times have so much changed—seeing that the Crown has no longer the power which it formerly possessed of granting estates or pensions, except by Act of Parliament, to distinguished generals or admirals—seeing that there are now many persons capable of taking part in public affairs who, from ill health or other reasons, would not venture to go into the House of Commons, because there is such a severe censorship kept over the Members of that House that a man hardly dares to be absent from any division of importance—I cannot but think it would be both a great advantage to this House and a satisfaction to themselves that they should participate in the deliberations of Parliament, although they would scarcely feel equal, physically, to the labours of the House of Commons. These then are the grounds upon which I ask your Lordships to read this Bill a second time. I do not propose in any way to interfere with this House as a court of appeal. That is a separate question which will, no doubt, be brought before your Lordships by authorities vastly more competent to deal with it than I can be. I propose the Bill only as a political measure—as a

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  measure that will not impair the hereditary character of this House, which I wish to see maintained. I hold that this House is fully competent to perform all the duties which devolve upon it. When noble Lords talk of adding to the power of the Crown, I must really remind them that there is a power in the Crown now, which can be exerted, of adding hereditary Peers to this House in sufficient numbers to secure a majority for the Government of the day. We all know that when there was a question between the Ministers of the Crown and this House whether the Peace of Utrecht should be made, or whether the country should continue the Succession "War, twelve Peers were added to this House, an addition which at once changed the majority. Swift in one of his letters wrote that, happily, the Queen had given a majority to the Ministers in the House of Lords; and Lord Bolingbroke said that if one dozen new Peers should not be sufficient, there would be another dozen made, and thus a majority would be obtained. We know also—it is in our own memory—that at the time when the noble Earl (the Earl of Derby) and I sat together in the Cabinet, the Cabinet, with the sole exception of the Duke of Richmond, proposed to the Crown that a number of Peers should be made; and it appears by letters published on the authority of my noble Friend on the cross-Benches (Earl Grey) that on that occasion Lord Grey proposed to recommend William IV. to make fifty Peers in order to carry that Bill. Well, those must all have been hereditary Peers, and, therefore, it is idle to tell me that I am now seeking to add to the power of the Crown. We know that in the reign of William IV. those who proposed that large creation of Peers, being supported by public opinion out-of-doors, and having the nation with them, were successful in obtaining the object they sought. The fifty Peers, it is true, were not made; the Peers chose to take another course, which, it appears to me, was less dignified—they absented themselves from the House. That was the only reason why the fifty peerages were not created; for if the Peers who resisted,the Bill had attended, Lord Grey had the promise of the King, and would have proposed, with success, that fifty, sixty, or seventy Peers should be made. I now propose, therefore, to your Lord-
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  ships not to add in any way to the power of the Crown, but to supply a want that the change of time and circumstances has produced; and in my opinion the measure would, tend to increase the strength and uphold the character of this House.
  LORD CAIRNS: I certainly had intended to ask your Lordships' attention for a few moments on this occasion, but we have other business still before us to-night, and inasmuch as there appears to be on all sides of the House a strongly manifested disposition that this Bill should pass a second reading, I think I shall best consult your convenience by postponing, until a later stage of the measure, the remarks which I should wish to make upon it. I think, upon further consideration, that this Bill will be found to be one mainly depending upon its details. If those details are arranged in a manner which shall be safe and satisfactory, your Lordships may possibly be willing to see it pass into law. But I desire for myself and for many of those around me to keep ourselves entirely unpledged as to the course we shall take on the third reading of the Bill, supposing that after it emerges from Committee it should not appear to be satisfactory to your Lordships. I undertake before we go into Committee to lay on the table the Amendment that I would suggest in the Bill; and I think the more convenient time to explain that Amendment and to state my reasons for proposing it will be when we are going into Committee.
  LORD DENMANfelt strongly that the measure was wrong in principle. A Member who had been in the House of Commons ten years might, bike a certain distinguished person in Dublin, have lost his election, and might thereupon be appointed to a life peerage under this Bill. He hoped that all who had the Constitution of this country at heart would join with him when he should move, as he did now, that the Bill be read a second time that day six months.
  Amendment moved, to leave out ("now") and insert ("this day six months.")—(Lord Denman.)
  THE EARL OF FEVERSHAMsaid, he entertained so strong an opinion with respect to the impolicy of this measure, that he felt bound to reserve to himself the right on any future occasion to take

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  such a course with respect to it as his judgment might dictate. There was no doubt that by this measure their Lordships were asked to change some of the most important principles which were inherent in the Constitution of this country. Though it was proposed at present to carry out the principle of the Bill to a very small extent, when they had once established that principle what security was there that it might not be extended, or that it might not be made use of for the purpose of creating Ministerial majorities? Considering the very slight advantages which would be produced by carrying this measure, was it worth while to break through a great constitutional principle? He could not think so. Neither could he agree with the noble Marquess (the Marquess of Salisbury), who wished to give their Lordships' House a representative character. If they made the House representative in any sense, they would destroy its character altogether. It was by a system of balances—it was by creating a variety of interests—that they would best carry out the idea of the Constitution, not by assimilating all its parts, and bringing everything down to one uniform level.
  On Question, That ("now") stand part of the Motion? Resolved in the Affirmative. Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Tuesday the 11 th of May next.

REPRESENTATIVE PEERS FOR SCOTLAND AND IRELAND BILL—(No. 50.)
(The Earl Grey.)
REPRESENTATIVE PEERS FOR SCOTLAND AND IRELAND BILL—(No. 50.)

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a "—(The Earl Grey.)
  THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCHrose to move as an Amendment that a Select Committee be appointed to consider the state of the Representative Peerage of Scotland and Ireland, and the laws relating thereto. It was known to their Lordships that by the Act of Union Scotland was represented in that House from Parliament to Parliament. As each Parliament was summoned the Scotch Peers were called upon to return sixteen Representatives, and it was proposed by this Bill that the Scotch Representative Peers, instead of sitting in that House
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  for the Parliament to which they were elected, should, like the Irish Representative Peers, sit for the period of their natural lives. That would male a very considerable difference in the position of each Scotch Peer, because, under such an arrangement, the other members of that Peerage would have a much less chance of becoming one of the Representative Peers than at present. In 1707, at the time of the Union when the number of Representative Peers was fixed at sixteen, there were 154 Scotch Peers on the roll, to whom nine had been afterwards added, making a total of 163. Deducting the peerages which had become extinct through want of heirs, attainder, and other ways, and which amounted to seventy-seven, there were now existing in Scotland just eighty-six peerages, of which five were vested in females. But of this number there were forty-six Scotch Peers who had seats in that House, either as Peers of England, of Great Britain, or of the United Kingdom; and as there were at this moment five Peeresses, there would remain thirty-five, who, if this Bill became law, would be without prospect, in the ordinary course of human life, of becoming Representative Peers. At the time of the Union there was great difference of opinion between the Commissioners of Scotland and the Commissioners of England as to the proportion of Members to sit in the House of Commons and also in their Lordships' House. The English Commissioners proposed thirty-eight Scotch Members for the other House; but the Scotch Commissioners objected so strongly to that limitation that the English gave way and forty-five was the number agreed upon. At the same time the Scotch Commissioners argued that if Scotland was to have forty-five representatives in the House of Commons it ought to have more than sixteen in their Lordships' House. On that point, however, the English Commissioners would not yield; and the Commissioners of Scotland, sooner than lose the union of the two countries, gave way; but the result was great dissatisfaction in the Scottish Parliament, and some very strong protests were made by the Scotch Peers at the time. The English Peerage at that period was somewhere about 180, the Peerage of Scotland numbering, as he had stated, 154. The Peerage of the United Kingdom had been greatly aug-

  1679
  mented since then, and one would have supposed that the Scotch Peerage would have received a corresponding increase of its representatives; but that was not so. There were many deficiencies at present in the management of the election of Scotch Peers, which called more urgently for amendment than for such an arrangement as that proposed by the noble Earl (Earl Grey). His noble Friend proposed to make eighteen Representative Peers, but he would do that by a peculiar process—namely, when by death the representation fell below sixteen, then three Peers were to be elected, and every Scotch Peer should have not only a vote for each of the three, but a cumulative vote, so as to be able to give three votes to one Peer if he chose, and not merely two to one and one to another. That was introducing certainly a very novel system of voting, and one not at all contemplated at the time of the Union. If noble Lords took the trouble to look into the record of the debates at the time, they would find that nothing of the kind was contemplated, and he thought it very important that an investigation should be had into the manner in which the proposed changes would affect the Peerage in question, and for this purpose he would move the appointment of a Select Committee.
  Amendment moved, to leave out from ("that") to the end of the Motion and insert ("a Select Committee be appointed to consider the state of the Representative Peerage of Scotland and Ireland, and the laws relating thereto.")—(The Duke of Buccleuch.)
  EARL GREYsaid, that he had failed to discover any reason for the appointment of this Committee, because, while he admitted that the Bill proposed to make an important change in the representation of the Scotch Peers, that change was one that could be better considered by the Whole House than by a Select Committee. Under the system of voting now existing the Scotch Peers were practically compelled to vote in favour of the policy of the party to which they owed their nomination. The least display of independence on their part might be visited upon them at the next dissolution, and might cost them their seats. Formerly, when this power was exercised by the Ministers of the Crown, some incidental advantage arose
  1680
  from it—objectionable as it was in principle—since it was the means of giving weight in that House to the Government of the day, which it was desirable it should possess. But for many years the system had ceased to be attended even by this advantage, since it was no longer the Government but a party which nominated these Peers, and that party of late had generally been in Opposition. He believed that Mr. Pitt was principally induced to adopt the system of life representative peerages for Ireland at the time of the Union from the experience that had been gained of the ill consequences of the other system in the case of Scotland. The inconvenience, if not the scandal, arising from this system had induced the Scotch Peers of late to agree among themselves that a Peer once returned should continue to be returned, unless extraordinary circumstances arose to justify a contrary course. The title of his measure simply described it to be a "Bill to amend the Law relating to the Election of Representative Peers"; it would consequently permit of clauses being added to meet the noble Duke's views; and, as the noble Duke had offered no arguments against the Bill, he submitted that the proper Parliamentary course would be to agree to read the Bill a second time, and then to refer it to a Select Committee, if their Lordships wished, which Committee could also consider the laws relating to the election of Peers of Scotland and Ireland, and introduce such Amendments as it deemed desirable.
  THE EARL OF PORTARLINGTONsupported the proposition to read the Bill the second time and then refer it to a Select Committee. He thought, however, that the most desirable course would be that some process should be devised which would establish only one Peerage for the whole of the three Kingdoms.
  THE DUKE OF ARGYLLwas strongly in favour of the second reading of the Bill, and then that it should be referred to a Select Committee to consider the clauses in detail. He agreed with the statement that every Member of that House should be an independent Member, and the manner in which, at a recent election, the majority of Scotch Peers exercised their power showed that it was expedient to change the right of Scotch

  1681
  elected Peers to sit in that House into a tenure for life; and he felt that if the principle of the minority vote was applicable to any case it was precisely applicable to the elections by the Scotch Peers, who were a small body, and the majority had the absolute power of excluding the minority. The noble Duke (the Duke of Buccleuch) had given—no doubt, accurately—an account of the present state of the Scotch Peerage; but, with respect to the proposition to refer the whole subject to a Select Committee, he must say he agreed with what had fallen from a noble Marquess (the Marquess of Salisbury) on a former occasion, to the effect that they should have no hole-and-corner proceedings in that House, but should conduct their business in the face of day. The whole of the Papers connected with the Scotch Peerage were on the table of the House; and could be inquired into by any Member of the House as well as by a Committee. There was nothing in this matter for a Select Committee to do which might not be done by a Committee of the Whole House.
  LORD CAIRNSsaid, the noble Earl (Earl Grey), who proposed the measure, had asked the noble Duke who moved the Amendment to accept the second reading, and send the Bill to a Select Committee. But that would be sanctioning the principle of the Bill, and leave nothing else to be done. The first question raised by this Bill was the tenure of office by the Scotch Representative Peers. The noble Earl said it was of great importance that there should be perfect independence on the part of those who sat in this House, and that that principle was seriously invaded when a Scotch Representative Peer was liable to be removed from the representation in a subsequent Parliament if he happened to give offence to those who had elected him. Now, he quite agreed in the importance of securing perfect independence in this House so far as that object could possibly be accomplished; but if they were now arguing the question for the first time, if they were embarrassed by no existing legislation with regard to Scotch and Irish Peers, but were asking what was the best rule, would their Lordships be in favour of representation for life, or representation for each Parliament? For his part he thought that nothing could be more at variance with the first principles of representation than
  1682
  that you should choose as your representative a person who would continue some thirty, forty, or fifty years in that capacity, although, meanwhile, you might have changed your opinion, and he might have changed his, although the whole face of nature might have been changed, the whole aspect of affairs obliterated, and another state of things have come to the surface. A certain system of choosing Representative Peers for Ireland and Scotland having been adopted at the time of the Union with England, and being now the law of the land, he thought that system ought not to be lightly altered; and there was great objection to change. But if their Lordships could see their way to alter Acts of that solemnity, and argue the question upon principle, the argument in favour of the Scotch system prevailed very much over that in favour of the Irish system. Moreover, so far from there being any reason to suppose that the choice of representatives in Scotland was exercised by the majority with anything like tyranny, he believed that instances could be given to the contrary, and that there were in this House representatives of the Scotch Peerage who might fairly say that, in their political views, they did not concur with the majority of the Scotch Peers. The noble Earl (Earl Grey) said that in former times the Scotch Peers were always reckoned on as supporters of the Crown, and that whatever Government was in commanded their votes. That, no doubt, was the state of things in the last century, and frequent accusations were then made of corrupt practices and intimidation in the choice of the Scotch Representative Peers; of letters from the Secretary of State, saying what list should be accepted and what refused; and a Bill had been introduced proposing that the ballot should be adopted in the election in order to prevent this intimidation and those corrupt practices. But when the noble Earl was obliged to confess that this state of things had passed away, and that there was not now even a rigid exercise of their right of choice on the part of the majority, what possible reason was there to depart from the system which now prevailed, and which, during the present century at least, had worked very well? Had the Scotch Peers themselves solicited this alteration? He was not aware that they

  1683
  had applied for it. Some individuals among them might differ in opinion as to the merits of the present system, but as a body the Scotch Peers had not asked for a change. The first part of the Bill, relating to the change of tenure, instead of being supported by argument, was, as he had said, opposed to argument. He now came to the second part of the Bill, which was really its most important part—the mode of choice both in Scotland and Ireland, and the proposal to introduce a system of cumulative voting. Even the noble Earl would admit that the first object of any system of representation was to endeavour to produce, as far as you possibly could, the same result which would be produced if you were able to consult individually the constituency which sent the representatives to Parliament. Now, in this respect, the proposal of the noble Earl might be subjected to a simple test. It was difficult to ascertain the exact numbers, but he took the number of Irish Peers to be 112, including the Representative Peers, while the number of Scotch Peers, including the Representative Peers, was sixty-four. The only reason why these 112 and these sixty-four Peers were not in their Lordships' House at this moment in their own persons was because it was supposed at the time of the two Unions that the number of the House would be unduly swollen if the whole Peerage of Scotland and Ireland were to be transferred to this House, to sit along with the Peerage of England. Fortunately, many questions were discussed in this House which were not of a party character; but if any party question were before the House, and the whole of those 112 and sixty-four Peers were present, voting per capita, would the noble Earl say, from what he knew of their political opinions, that the majority on one side would be one bit less than it would be through the votes of the Representative Peers alone? That was the whole question. If it could be shown that, in case the whole of the Peers were present, there would be a smaller majority than there would be at present—there might be some argument for changing the existing system of representation. But that could not be shown. It was said to be very unfortunate that while the representatives of the Scotch constituencies in the House of Commons supported, with trifling exceptions, the present Go-
  1684
  vernment, a large majority of the Scotch Representative Peers were not supporters of the Government. So far from that being an argument for a measure of this kind, he thought it conclusive against the measure. The Scotch Representative Peers did not represent the commoners of Scotland—they were represented by their own Members in the House of Commons; and because the Scotch Representative Peers belonged to one political party and the representatives of the commoners to another, that was no reason for changing the system of choosing the former. It was said that those who supported the minority vote should be strong supporters of the proposal made in the Bill with regard to the cumulative vote. Now, there was one sufficient answer to that observation. The principle of the minority vote was introduced into the representation of the House of Commons in a very isolated class of cases, upon a very small scale, and professedly as an experiment. That experiment had been tried. Had it been accepted by Parliament and the country as satisfactory? He himself (Lord Cairns) was the person who ventured to propose it in that House, and he watched with great interest the result of the experiment. He was bound, however, to say—and the confession was one which he made against himself—that, so far from the experiment having been acceptable to the Members of the party opposite, it had been denounced in most unqualified terms by many who had seats in the present Cabinet; while, as to his own political friends, there was a very great division of opinion among them, and he doubted whether, if it were new to come before the House as a new proposal, the principle of the minority vote would be adopted. But he would go further. A very strong argument in favour of the minority clause, both in that and the other House of Parliament, was that it could not be regarded as involving in any sense a party question, because probably the result of the minority vote in the "three-cornered" would be to leave each party as it was before. Could the same, he should like to know, be said of the present proposition? Why, this was avowedly a proposition to take from one side of the House a certain number of votes and to give them to the other. The principle, therefore, differed most essentially from

  1685
  that involved in the minority vote. The next ground, he might add, on which the minority clause was supported was that, while the number of Members in the large centres of representation were to be increased under the Reform Bill, the smaller constituencies, by means of which the opinions of the minorities in those great centres had previously been represented, were to be destroyed; and it was thought, that being so, that it was in all fairness due to those minorities that they should be afforded some chance of having their views represented under the new system. That argument, however, he contended, had no application to a case in which their Lordships were called upon to deal, not with various constituencies, but with a single body of men who had been excluded from that House simply because their presence would make its numbers too large. He wished also to observe that there was another great danger attaching to the principle embodied in the Bill. The noble Earl who brought forward the measure (Earl Grey) was obliged, in order to give effect to its principle, to increase the number of Scotch and Irish Representative Peers by adding two to the number of each; but he (Lord Cairns) could not help looking upon it as a very dangerous thing to re-open an arrangement which was made at the time when the Acts of Union were passed. The Scotch Peers at the time of the passing of the Act of Union with that country were 154 in number; the English, he believed, were 180. Now, sixteen members of the Peerage of Scotland bore a certain proportion to the 180 Peers of England; but the Peerage of England had since been increased to over 400, to which number, of course, the sixteen Representative Peers of Scotland bore nothing like the same proportion as they had done formerly to 180. Moreover, there were documents connected with the Act of Union—he was not sure that there were not expressions in the Act itself—which showed that the number of Scotch Representative Peers was fixed in a certain proportion to the number of Members for Scotland occupying seats in the House of Commons, the number of those Members having at the time of the passing of the Act been only forty-five, while it was now sixty. Now, if sixteen was the proper proportion as compared with forty-five, it would
  1686
  seem to follow that the number of Representative Peers must be increased in order that it should bear the same proportion as at first to the increased number of Scotch Members. On the other hand, however, there were, he thought, strong arguments against any increase in the number of Scotch Representative Peers. And there was a statement made by his noble Friend behind him (Lord Portarlington), which was, in his opinion, entitled to great weight. If any change whatsoever was to be made in the number of Representative Peers in that House, the problem which ought to present itself to their Lordships' consideration was, it seemed to him, whether that change ought not, at all events, to be made in the direction of the absorption of the Peerage of Scotland and Ireland in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. There were among the Peers of those two countries some titles of great antiquity and some illustrious names; and he must contend that it was desirable provision should be made for absorbing them in the Peerage of the United Kingdom rather than that the representative system which had hitherto prevailed should be altered. The arguments which he had urged went, he thought, entirely against the principle of the Bill; but should it be referred to a Committee there were questions deserving of consideration, with which it did not deal, which might well form the subject of inquiry. Among them was the question to which his noble Friend had referred, as to whether a Representative Peer who happened to obtain a peerage of the United Kingdom should still be regarded as a Representative Peer. There was also the question as to what should be the rules laid down, in the case of a Member of that House who had a peerage both in England and Scotland, as to his right to vote for a Representative Peer for Scotland. Those were matters with which any Committee to whom the subject might be referred might with advantage deal. But he must, in conclusion, beg their Lordships not to approve the principle of a measure which proposed to effect a great and important change in a system established by the Act of Union—a change which, in his opinion, would not be an improvement, but the reverse.
  THE EARL OF AIRLIEsaid, that there was a great discrepancy between the

  1687
  speech of the noble and learned Lord and that of the noble Duke who had preceded him on the same side of the House (the Duke of Buccleuch); for, while the speech of the noble Duke was in favour of inquiry, and in no way in opposition to the principle of the Bill, the noble and learned Lord had spoken strongly against that principle. Indeed, the noble and learned Lord was so carried away by his dislike of the Bill that he did not hesitate to speak disparagingly of the principle of the representation of minorities which he had so powerfully advocated only two years ago, and in support of which he, too (the Earl of Airlie), had recorded his vote. That change in the noble and learned Lord's (Lord Cairns) views led him to hope that the House might, at some future time, have the advantage of his eloquence in advocating other measures which he now opposed. The noble Duke had said that, instead of dealing with the Bill at once, there ought to be a preliminary Committee appointed to inquire into all the facts. But the facts were perfectly well known to noble Lords already; and, indeed, the noble Duke himself answered his own argument when he made a very accurate statement of those facts. The noble Duke had urged that a Committee of Inquiry was necessary, because the Bill was one which would effect a great change in the representation. On this he (the Earl of Airlie) would merely remark that a great change was made two years ago by the House of Commons in the representation of the country without any preliminary inquiry by a Committee; and surely the noble Duke would not contend that the question of electing Peers to this House was more important than that of electing Members of the House of Commons. In his opinion, the noble Earl's proposal was a very fair one; but he hoped that, if the House agreed to the second reading, the noble Lord would consent to its being referred to a Select Committee, which might inquire into such points of detail as were not so well known as the leading features of the measure. He much regretted that the noble Earl had not introduced into the Bill a provision that Scotch and Irish Peers who did not sit in that House should be henceforth placed on an equality in respect of their capability to sit in the House of Commons—because he could see no reason
  1688
  why Scotch Peers who had not been elected to the House of Lords should be wholly excluded from political life, while Irish Peers who had not been elected to the House of Lords were permitted to represent English and Scotch constituencies in the House of Commons.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I do not wish to detain your Lordships at any length, but I will venture to express my surprise that the noble Earl, who is an old politician and reformer, should have been in such an unaccountable hurry to press forward this Bill. If the present Motion were for rejecting the Bill I certainly should not vote for it. In the present state of my convictions I am not disposed to vote against the principle of the Bill; but it appears to me that the Bill is perfectly new to us, and that it has not gone through those preliminary steps of inquiry and discussion which all measures ought to go through which relate to a subject so grave as the constitution of a House of the Legislature. This measure has been compared with the introduction of the minority clause in the representation of the House of Commons. But what was the history of that clause? It was introduced by Earl Russell in the Bill of 1854. It had been continually under the consideration of Parliament and of the public, and it was not until fourteen years afterwards that it was adopted by Parliament as the law of the land. But what is the history of this proposal? The other day it occurred to some Member of the House of Commons for the first time. On his bringing the proposition forward in the House of Commons it was put aside by a few civil words on the part of the Prime Minister; and then my noble Friend was applied to and introduced his Bill. The principle embodied in my noble Friend's Bill may be perfectly correct, but we have had absolutely no information, knowledge, or inquiry to enable us to decide upon what is a grave alteration in the Acts of Union, which unite the three parts of the country together, and in the constitution of this House. The noble Earl who has just sat down (the Earl of Airlie), tells us that all the facts are perfectly well known. They may perhaps be perfectly well known to Scotch circles; but we are not all Scotch. The main reason why a large party supported the minority clause in the other House was that there was

  1689
  an obvious defect in the state of the representation which then existed. There was one class wealthy and educated, and another poor and uneducated; and these were placed numerically and absolutely on a par in voting for Members of that House which decided upon questions of taxation. Now this was on the face of it a great injustice in theory, and one which might lead to serious disasters in practice; and to remedy that injustice and inequality the principle of minority representation was advocated as regards constituencies returning Members to the House of Commons. But is there any such division of classes and interests in the constituencies which return Scotch and Irish Peers? The analogy wholly fails. Then, to take another point. It may be that the rights of the majority are tyrannically exercised, and have been so exercised for a considerable time, and it may be that the interference of Parliament is necessary; but I should like to know what are the facts before acting upon such an assumption. The noble Earl (Earl Grey) has spoken of grievances which are felt in Scotland; but I should like to have something more than vague allusions to circumstances that have never been properly explained to the House. Is there a grievance, or is there not? If there be a grievance will those who suffer from it speak on the subject? I believe we ought to inquire on this point of Members of the Scotch and Irish Peerage who do not sit in this House. If they suffer from any grievance let them come before a Select Committee of your Lordships' House and say so, and we shall then know what we are about. There is another point showing the great difference between the minority clause in regard to the two Houses. The class which is outvoted in regard to the House of Commons is absolutely without relief; whereas the class which is outvoted in regard to the House of Lords can be relieved at once by the simple action of the Sovereign. This is a question entirely different from that we were discussing in an earlier part of the evening, because there is no question here as to the transmission of an hereditary dignity; and if the Minister for the time being is of opinion that an injustice has been done to the Scotch or Irish constituencies, it is open to him to raise to the Peerage of the United Kingdom a sufficient number of Scorch and
  1690
  Irish Peers to remedy that injustice. The fact that such a step has not been taken is a strong reason to my mind that no real injustice exists. I do not say that arguments cannot be adduced to show that this opinion is unfounded, but let us not change the Constitution of the country in a vital point by passing a Bill which has not been submitted to any inquiry or investigation whatever. In voting for the Amendment of the noble Duke I am not voting against the principle of the Bill, but merely in favour of proceeding on so grave a question in that cautious and careful manner which has always been characteristic of this House.
  EARL GRANVILLE: I wish to say a few words on what has fallen from the noble Marquess (the Marquess of Salisbury). In the first place, I am at a loss to reconcile his present argument with that which he urged with great force the other day. The noble Marquess then asserted that, in the estimation of the public, the House of Lords was too apt to discuss important subjects in Committee Rooms, so that the proceedings were never perfectly known to the public, whereas additional weight would be given to their proceedings if they were more public.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: This will be a Committee to take evidence.
  EARL GRANVILLE: The noble Marquess says the present case is different. Well, I never imagined that the noble Marquess said there ought to be no more Select Committees in this House. But on this particular question, above all others, I think it is desirable that the arguments urged pro and con in this House should be known to the public. The noble Marquess has said that the Scotch Peers know all about it. Well, that is rather disadvantageous to us who have only one Scotch Peer on our side, while fifteen sit on the other side of the House. At all events, however, we can discuss the matter in a full House as well as in a Select Committee. I most humbly and respectfully advise noble Lords opposite, if they mean to get rid of this Bill, to reject it on the second reading, instead of adopting a course which the public will regard as an attempt to stifle the question.
  THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH: The noble Earl on the other side of the House has made an imputation on

  1691
  me which I repel with scorn and indignation.
  EARL GRANVILLE: I have not made the slightest imputation against the noble Duke. In all these proceedings the noble Duke takes a very active part; but I should be very sorry to make any imputation against him. I was merely speaking of the general impression which might prevail out-of-doors.
  THE EARL OF LEITRIMsaid, that, as this discussion had arisen, every noble Lord had a right to express his opinion on the questions at issue. He avowed that he should be very glad to get rid of the Bill altogether; but that was no reason why he should vote for the noble Duke's Amendment. According to the Act of Union the Irish Peers were bound on their election to take the oath before an Irish magistrate. There happened at the period of the first election of those Peers to be great political excitement in Ireland, and instead of those Peers taking the oath in Ireland, as the Act of Union evidently intended, an Irish magistrate was brought over to this country, before whom they took the oath. They had been asked whether they were going to discuss the principle of the Bill. Hardly a discussion on Irish affairs ever was held without its being said—"You Irishmen never can agree; you are always quarrelling. Take an example by the Scotch. See how unanimous they are." If these constant changes were to occur in the system of government the whole basis of society in the country would be disarranged. He objected to the Bill, and hoped it would not pass.
  THE DUKE OF ARGYLLdesired to explain that in the observations he had made he had not meant anything personal to the noble Duke opposite (the Duke of Buccleuch).
  LORD DENMANurged upon their Lordships the superior advantages attending a reference of the Bill to a Select Committee as compared with dealing with it in Committee of the Whole House.
  After a few words from Lord COLCHESTER,
  EARL GREYcraved the indulgence of their Lordships for a very few moments. The noble and learned Lord behind him (Lord Cairns), as he understood him, said that their great object should be so to arrange the system of Representative Peers as to produce, on a division in that House, nearly the same effect as
  1692
  would be produced if the whole of the Peers represented were able to attend in person. Now, he was perfectly content to test this Bill by that simple principle; and he asked, if the whole 112 Peers of Ireland were able to vote in person in that House, whether they would be likely to vote all in one way? Out of the twenty-eight Irish Representative Peers returned to that House by the existing mode of election, it was doubtful whether a single one supported Her Majesty's Government. If any of them did so, it was only one. He wanted to know whether that satisfied the noble and learned Lord's own test? Again, if the whole of the Scotch Peerage were entitled to vote in that House, was it probable that they would vote in all cases in the proportion of 15 to 1 against Her Majesty's Government? He was himself no partizan of Her Majesty's Government; but he proposed this measure simply because he believed it was a scandal in the eyes of the country that a system professing to be a representation of the Peerage of Scotland and Ireland was in no sense of the word a real representation. A measure had recently been proposed in the House of Commons to effect—though in a less satisfactory manner—the same object as he sought to attain by this Bill, and a considerable disposition to support it had been manifested; but the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government, while he admitted that the existing state of things was a real grievance, said, and said most properly, that the remedy for it ought to come from the House of Lords. That right hon. Gentleman did not intimate that if their Lordships failed to correct a great, acknowledged, and glaring evil, the other House of Parliament would pass it by permanently; but he did say, and most justly, that the opportunity of correcting the evil ought, in the first instance, to be left to their Lordships' House. It would be most unwise and most injurious in every respect to their Lordships' House if, after a change of this kind was deemed necessary, they should have to argue the question, not upon a Bill originating among their Lordships, but upon one sent up from the other House. If they got rid of this Bill by a side wind, in the manner now suggested, it was very probable that they would be called upon to decide upon the question

  1693
  in another way—and was that, he would ask, likely to add to the dignity of their Lordships' House? He had heard, with more astonishment than he could describe, the noble Marquess (the Marquess of Salisbury) speak of the want of information on this subject, and express his opinion that on that account the matter should be referred to a Select Committee, But when, not many weeks ago, he (Earl Grey) proposed that a Bill, the principle of which had been accepted by their Lordships, should be referred to a Select Committee, in order that they might the better deal with its details—because, from general observation, both in that and the other House of Parliament, he had come to the conclusion that a Committee of the Whole House was very ill-adapted for discussing details—the noble Marquess reproved him very severely for wishing to shelve a question of great public interest, instead of having it considered in the House, and before the public. That objection of the noble Marquess did not, he thought, apply to the details of the Habitual Criminals Bill, but it did apply to a proposal not actually to reject this Bill, but to postpone it by means of a general fishing Committee upon the state of the Peerage of Scotland and: Ireland. As a protest against such a course, he must ask to take the sense of the House upon the subject.
  LORD CAIRNSexplained that what he meant to convey, in the observations to which the noble Earl had taken exception was, that if all the Irish Peers were in that House, there would be a large majority voting on one side.
  On Question, Whether the words proposed to be left out shall stand part of the Motion?—Their Lordships divided:—Contents 32; Not-Contents 77: Majority 45.

  CONTENTS.

  Hatherley, L. (L. Chancellor.)

  Morley, E.

  Russell, E.

  Saint Albans, D.

  Halifax, V.

  Somerset, D.

  Powerscourt, V.

  Airlie, E.

  St. David's, Bp.

  Camperdown, E.

  Clarendon, E.

  Belper, L.

  De Grey, E.

  Camoys, L.

  Fortescue, E.

  Chaworth,L.(E. Meath.)

  Granville, E.

  Clandeboye, L. (L. Dufferin and Claneboye.)

  Grey, E. [Teller,]

  Kimberley, E.

  Erskine, L.

  Minto, E.

  Foley, L,

  1694

  Keane, L.

  Skene, L. (E. Fife.)

  Lurgan, L.

  Somerhill, L. (M. Clanricarde.) [Teller.]

  Northbrook, L.

  Overstone, L.

  Suffield, L.

  Ponsonby, L. (E. Bessborough.)

  Sundridge, L. (D. Argyll.)

  NOT-CONTENTS.

  Buckingham and Chandos, D.

  Gloucester and Bristol, Bp.

  Richmond, D.

  Rutland, D.

  Arundell of Wardour, L.

  Wellington, D.

  Bolton, L.

  Brancepeth, L. (V. Boyne.)

  Bath M. [Teller.]

  Exeter, M.

  Cairns, L.

  Salisbury, M.

  Castlemaine, L.

  Tweeddale, M.

  Chelmsford, L.

  Winchester, M.

  Churston, L.

  Abergavenny, E.

  Clements, L. (E. Leitrim.)

  Annesley, E.

  Bathurst, E.

  Clinton, L.

  Brownlow, E.

  Cloncurry, L

  Cadogan, E.

  Colchester, L.

  Dartmouth, E.

  Colonsay, L.

  Derby, E.

  Colville of Culross, L.

  Doncaster, E. (D. Buccleuch and Queensberry.) [Teller.]

  Delamere, L.

  Denman, L.

  De Saumarez, L.

  Eldon, E.

  Dunboyne, L.

  Ellesmere, E.

  Dunmore, L. (E. Dunmore.)

  Erne, E.

  Feversham, E.

  Egerton, L.

  Graham, E. (D. Montrose.)

  Elphinstone, L.

  Fitzwalter, L.

  Home, E.

  Foxford, L. (E. Limerick.)

  Lauderdale, E.

  Leven and Melville, E.

  Gage, L. (V. Gage.)

  Malmesbury, E.

  Hartismere, L. (L. Henniker.)

  Mansfield, E.

  Nelson, E.

  Headley, L.

  Portarlington, E.

  Heytesbury, L.

  Romney, E.

  Kesteven, L.

  Rosse, E.

  Ormathwaite, L.

  Stanhope, E.

  Redesdale, L.

  Tankerville, E.

  Saltersford, L.(E. Courtown.)

  Vane, E.

  Saltoun, L.

  Bangor, V.

  Sheffield, L. (E. Sheffield.)

  Gough, V.

  Hardinge, V.

  Silchester, L. (E. Longford.)

  Hawarden, V.

  Hood, V.

  Sinclair, L.

  Lifford, V.

  Walsingham, L.

  Sidmouth, V.

  Resolved in the Negative.
  Motion, as amended, agreed to.
  Committee appointed accordingly.
  And, on Friday, April 30, the Lords following were named of the Committee:—

  L. Privy Seal.

  E. Grey.

  D. Somerset.

  V. Eversley.

  D. Richmond.

  L. Elphinstone.

  M. Bath.

  L. Redesdale.

  E. Doncaster.

  L. Silchester.

  E. Airlie.

  L. Monck.

  E. Portarlington.

  House adjourned at half past Nine o'clock, to Thursday next, half past Ten o'clock.