ake them Radical
as to insist that they must and will be so, or to render them
inimical to the aristocracy and to aristocratic institutions as to
exhibit a violent hostility on the part of the aristocracy towards
them. I apply this observation generally to their way of dealing
with the question rather than to the particular words of the
disputed clause, which is probably on the whole fairer and better
as the Peers amended it than as the Commons framed it, so much so
that I do not understand the tenacity with which the Government
cling to it. One thing is very clear, that neither for this nor
for the justices clause is it worth while (to either party) that
the prevailing harmony should be broken and the Bill be lost. If
both parties were sincerely desirous of an accommodation, and
there was any common interest, any common ground on which they
could meet, there would be no difficulty in an adjustment; but
this is not the case. Not only are the interests and wishes of the
two parties at variance, but the desires of the moderate and the
violent in each party are so too. The moderate in both probably do
wish for an accommodation. The Bill is the Bill of the Whigs, and
with all the amendments it does in point of fact accomplish their
object, though not, as Lyndhurst said, so completely as without
them. They wish the Bill to pass, therefore, but the Tories detest
the Bill even as it is, and it is no concern of theirs _quoad
Bill_ that it should pass; on the contrary, they would rejoice at
its failure, but its failure would place the two Houses in a state
of collision, and though each party would throw the blame on the
other (on very plausible grounds either way), it is more the
interest of the Lords than of the Commons to avert this, because
the danger of collision attaches exclusively to the Lords. The
violent of the Commons would rather like it; the violent of the
Lords would doggedly encounter it. There are many who desire that
the dispute should not be settled, in order to push matters to
extremities and involve the Houses in a contest, in order to
extirpate the House of Lords. What renders it more desirable on
account of the Lords that the Bill should not be lost, and a cry
got up against them, is the circumstance of their having thrown
out so many other Bills, and some on very unjustifiable
grounds--the Dublin Police Bill, for example. Not a word was said
against its merits; on the contrary, it was not denied that the