rs 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.

We have seen how in the United States a man can only win his way to the
House of Representatives, and hardly more easily to the Senate, without
earning the favour of the local politicians and "bosses" of his
constituency, and how, when he is elected, his tenure of office is
likely to be short and must be always precarious. It is probable that in
the United States not one of the distinguished men whose names are given
in the above list would (with the possible exception of two or three who
have devoted their lives to politics) be included in either chamber.
They would, so far as public service is concerned (unless they were
given cabinet positions or held seats upon the bench), be lost to the
State.

It is, of course, impossible that Americans should keep in touch with
the proceedings of the House of Lords; nor is there any reason why they
should. The number of Americans, resident at home, who in the course of
their lives have read _in extenso_ any single debate in that House must
be extremely small; and first-hand knowledge of the House Americans can
hardly have. Then, of the English publicists or statesmen who visit the
United States it is perhaps inevitable that those whose conversa