net in the Commons
has to "attend the House"; to contribute by his votes, if not by his
voice, to the management of the House. Even in so small a matter as the
Education Department, Mr. Lowe, a consummate observer, spoke of the
desirability of finding a chief "not exposed to the prodigious labour
of attending the House of Commons". It is all but necessary that
certain members of the Cabinet should be exempt from its toil, and
untouched by its excitement. But it is also necessary that they should
have the power of explaining their views to the nation; of being heard
as other people are heard. There are various plans for so doing, which
I may discuss a little in speaking of the House of Commons. But so much
is evident: the House of Lords, for its own members, attains this
object; it gives them a voice, it gives them what no competing plan
does give them--POSITION. The leisured members of the Cabinet speak in
the Lords with authority and power. They are not administrators with a
right to speech--clerks (as is sometimes suggested) brought down to
lecture a House, but not to vote in it; but they are the equals of
those they speak to; they speak as they like, and reply as they choose;
they address the House, not with the "bated breath" of subordinates,
but with the force and dignity of sure rank. Life peers would enable us
to use this faculty of our Constitution more freely and more variously.
It would give us a larger command of able leisure; it would improve the
Lords as a political pulpit, for it would enlarge the list of its
select preachers.

The danger of the House of Commons is, perhaps, that it will be
reformed too rashly; the danger of the House of Lords certainly is,
that it may never be reformed. Nobody asks that it should be so; it is
quite safe against rough destruction, but it is not safe against inward
decay. It may lose its veto as the Crown has lost its veto. If most of
its members neglect their duties, if all its members continue to be of
one class, and that not quite the best; if its doors are shut against
genius that cannot found a family, and ability which has not 5000
pounds a year, its power will be less year by year, and at last be
gone, as so much kingly power is gone--no one knows how. Its danger is
not in assassination, but atrophy; not abolition, but decline.

NO. V.

THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

[Footnote: I reprint this chapter substantially as it was first
written. It is too soon, as I have