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Tue House of Lords being certain when the mail left to throw out the Home Rule Bill, which it has done by a majority of ten to one, it might have been thought that the Radicals who want the Bill to pass would have been anxious to support Mr. Storey's_motinn for restricting the Veto of the Upper House. But the following extract from the Daily Neros of the 5th of August shows why they abstained from this course Mr. Storey's motion for restricting the powers of the House of Lords over Bills passed by the House of Commons resulted in a count out at the evening sitting last night. Mr. Storey did not succeed in attracting either Liberal or Radical support for a feeble and compromising scheme. The words of the motion are peculiar, and the motion itself is open to a good deal of adverse criticism. She. Storey moved " that itis desirable in the public interest, and for the promotion of necessary legislation, that any Bill which has twice passed this House, but has failed to pass elsewhere, should become law, if, with its long history has the House of Lords thrice rejected in the same Parliament a Bill supported by the Government of the day Mr. Storey could only cite the instance of the Municipal Corporation Bill, and we do not Delieve that there is another. Mr. Storey does not, as it seems to us, sufficiently bear in mind the fact that the House of Lords occupies in practice a very different position from that which it occupies in theory. Lord Salisbury is quite incorrect and ti unconstitutional in calling it a Second ber. The Duke of Devonshire has no authority for saying that the Lords should. not set themselves against the declared will of the These concessions are made for the purpose of conciliating opponents and of bliuding the public to the monstrous anomaly which they still permit to linger in a democraticage. The House of Lords has, unless finance be concerned, the same legal rights as the House of Connnons, There is nothing whatever to prevent the Government from introducing the Home Rule Bill in the House of Lords next year, if they should regard such a step as intrinsically politic and desirable. This artificial picture of the Peers as a body with limited privileges, ich are to be used to protect the people against their representatives, is drawn with an object. It is intended to conceal and not to exhibit the trath. It is to draw away the eyes of the masses from observing the trick Which the Tories and Dissentient Liberals endeavour to play, The Duke of Devonshire and Lord Salisbury assert or imply a pretension which has never yet been conceded to the Lords, and which they. have never even put forward themselves, they say that they vote according to their convictions, well and good. 'The only answer is that they do not.' But the demand that it should rest with them to determine whether the House of Commons reflects the v its constituents is a fraud upon demos and an outrage upon the first princi self-government,. +The satur Lords as an institution is largely in their own hands. Englishnen are rather apt to under. rate the value of abstract principles in politics. So long as things work, they are for letting things alone. If the Lords had continned ce resist the removal of Catholic disabilities or the great Reform Bill, or the 1 ofthe Corn Laws, or the Disestablish. ment of the Irish Church, or the introduction of the ballot, or the Inish Land Bills of 1870 and 1881, or the enlargement of the County Franchise, they would have long since conseil to form part of the British Constitution, They were wise in time, to use the famous phrase of Lord Brougham, They may be wise in time again, There is certainly no reason why Liberals should encourage them—except for the Machiavellian purpose of compassing their overthrow—to impose upon the House of Commons the burden of carrying every Liberal Bill in three successive years before it can become law. There are, after all, great advantages in an unwritten constitution, There are great disadvantages in strengthen: ing the House of Lords. These two facts are, taken together, quite enough to account for the result of Mr. Storey's inopportune proposal.
We could not expect that with the two parties officially hating each other 8 much as they do in the House of Commons and in the Press, we could fad them agreeing on the responsibility for the row on the 2th of July. It is perhaps fortunate that the two men who began it came from opposite sides of the House, but the party papers of course find in their opponents the real cause of the fight. Tt will be enough to give extracts from two opposing vurnals, The Standard says We had all of us, without distinction of Party, believed that disorder in our Legislature Would never degenerate into blows, and it shall again pass through the House of the support of the Government of the day. Sisk the, wa dition of decorun—a tradition that the tradition of decorum—a tradi Commons in the same Parliament, and should receive the assent of the Crown." The motion raises several questions of doubt and importance. Tt gives the House of Lords in its present shape, without any improvement or reform, without any introduction of the representative clement, rights considerably in excess of those which it habitually claims or exercises, How many times many of the Statesmen who adorn debate—would restrain even the most unruly from the descent to primitive fisticuffs. We can no longer lay the flattering unction to our souls; and toust in future renounce our pri-ge of observing from a pinnacle of conscious dignity the affrays in Colonial Assem-plies or the broils in the French Chamber, The arrival of the Speaker at length restored
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.