THE HOUSE OF LORDS: CAN IT BE REFORMED?—We look to a second Chamber to improve the work of the first, not simply to foil it. We do not expect to have to do the work over again, as has been the case with nearly every measure submitted to the ordeal of passing the House of Lords. Why is this? How comes it to happen with a House in which, without doubt, there are men of acknowledged capacity—men fully coming up to the idea of what an assembly of notables should be—there is this constantly recurring, mischievous meddling? How is it that beneficent legislation has almost invariably had to be wrung from them, and that an inordinate waste of time, coupled with an utterly unnecessary and irritating friction, has been the result? An answer to these questions is to be found in the fact that the members of the House of Lords feel themselves entitled to legislate according to their own sweet will, and without reference to the wishes or wants of the people of this country. They look upon all political and social questions from the point of view of their own order—an order which at the best must be regarded as exclusive and privileged. This tendency is a perfectly natural one, and they are to be no more blamed for exhibiting it than any other class, whether rich or poor, professional or commercial, for looking at matters from their own point of view. We must condemn the system which not only enables the Lords to do this, but gives effect to their views by according to them privileges for which practically the country gets no return. We have no right to expect a Peer to place himself outside his surroundings: we have a right to demand that the needs of the many shall be preferred to the interests of the few. Observe the tendency of those interests, and note one result, at least, which is in itself productive of ill. The tendency among the Peers towards the principles of Conservatism increases every year. Even Peers who in the House of Commons were apparently sound Liberals rarely maintained their strictly Liberal attitude; and where the original possessor of the title proves true to his early faith, it is rarely that his successor walks in his steps. The consequence is that the Conservative majority in the House of Lords has for many years gone on steadily increasing, and the addition of fresh recruits does little to stem the tide; one result of which is that a Liberal Ministry comes into power very heavily handicapped; it has this hostile majority always to contend with, and has to shape its measures, not so much with an eye to the wants of the people, as to the possibility of mollifying this majority. It further throws the burden of legislative work on the House of Commons unduly, because a Liberal Ministry knows full well that it will require the force of a large majority in the Lower House to induce the Upper House even to consider its measures. Much of the difficulty experienced in the House of Commons, by the Government as well as by