On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
sesses in abuse . If the property of humble Industry was dear to them , why do they not secure to the poor the . full a 4 vantages to which they have a ri ght from educational and ecclesiastical endowments ? Wh y do they not repeal the corn-laws , which mulct the labourer of so large a proportion of the bread which he earns by the sweat of his brow ? Why do they not promote a complete revision of taxation , and let it fall , where it ought chiefly , and , if possible , alone , to fall , —on realized property ? Why do they not assert those rights of labour , the property in his own bones and sinews , of the man who toils ; a property continually and cruell y invaded and restricted by the corporate privileges so vigorously upheld by their lordships ? Why , but because the Peerage is the great sinister interest by which all the other sinister interests in the country are shielded and supported ? And what reform can make it otherwise ? The principles avowed in the late debates are of no accidental growth . They result from no individual
peculiarities . They are the natural and necessary result of making the legislation of a great empire a private inheritance , instead of a public and responsible trust . They must ever flow from making a property of the enactment and administration of law and government . Occasional exceptions will be produced , from time to time , by various causes ; but substantially the House of Lords always has been what it is , and always will be . A single generation of titled patriots would involve the institution in an act of suicide .
Very brief would be the good resulting from any creation of Peers , however extensive . Every body knows the effect of the alderman ' gown , though it be not hereditary . Even life Peers would be a perilous experiment ; and a creation of others would only cut out worse work for the next generation . Besides , the introduction of a hundred new Lords , and not less would now
suffice , is equivalent to a revolution . So strong a measure would scarcely be more palatable to the Peerage than the simple abolition of their legislative functions . An elective chamber has been suggested , to be chosen either by the Peers themselves , or by the people . The cumbrousness of such a contrivance is much more
evident than the utility . Supposing Peers the electors , the result would be merely a distilled essence of the present House . If the election were popular , we should only have a second and less perfect representation of the people . No intelligent nobleman but would , we apprehend , prefer a seat in the one representative body to any such position . To that he would , of course , become eligible ; and it would be a much more honourable and efficient station for him to occupy . It will be said that tne abolition of the legislative functions of
the House of Lords would be unconstitutional . Very likely ; although the unmeaningness of the word constitution , at upplitd to anything really existing in the Government of this country
Untitled Article
The House of Lords—Reform or Abolition ? 569
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1835, page 569, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2649/page/5/
-