Let us from memory give a list of the more conspicuous members of the present House of Peers whose names are likely to be known to American readers, to wit: the Dukes of Devonshire and Norfolk; the Marquises of Ripon and Landsdowne; Earls Roberts, Rosebery, Elgin, Northbrook, Crewe, Carrington, Cromer, Kimberley, Minto, Halsbury, Spencer; Viscounts, Wolseley, Goschen, Esher, Kitchener of Khartoum, St. Aldwyn (Hicks-Beach), Milner, Cross; the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London; Lords Lister, Alverstone, Curzon of Kedleston, Mount Stephen, Strathcona and Mount Royal, Avebury, Loreburn, and Rayleigh. Let me emphasise the fact that this is not intended to be a list of the ablest members of the House, but only a list of able members something of whose reputation and achievements is likely to be known to the intelligent American reader. If the list were being compiled for English readers, it would have to be twice as long; but, as it stands, I submit that it is a list which cannot approximately be paralleled from among the members of the House of Commons or from among the members of the Senate and House of Representatives combined. I take it to be incontrovertible that a list representing such eminence and so great accomplishment in so many fields (theology, statesmanship, war, literature, government, science, and affairs) could not be produced from the legislative chambers of any single country in the world. The mistake which Americans make is that they confuse the hereditary principle with the House of Lords. The former is, of course, spurned by every good American and no one denies his right to express his disapproval thereof in such terms as he sees fit. But few Americans appear to make sufficient allowance for the fact that whatever the House of Lords suffers at any given time by the necessary inclusion among its members (as a result of its hereditary constitution) of a proportion of men who are quite unfit to be members of any legislative body (and these are the members of the British peerage with whom America is most familiar) is much more than counterbalanced by the ability to introduce into the membership a continuous current of the most distinguished and capable men in every field of activity, whose services could not otherwise (and cannot in the United States) be similarly commanded by the State.