I think, a
just objection as far as it goes. The House of Lords, as it cannot turn
out the Ministry for making treaties, has in no case a decisive weight
in foreign policy, though its debates on them are often excellent; and
there is a real danger at present in giving it such weight. They are
not under the same guidance as the House of Commons. In the House of
Commons, of necessity, the Ministry has a majority, and the majority
will agree to the treaties the leaders have made if they fairly can.
They will not be anxious to disagree with them. But the majority of the
House of Lords may always be, and has lately been generally an
opposition majority, and therefore the treaty may be submitted to
critics exactly pledged to opposite views. It might be like submitting
the design of an architect known to hold "mediaeval principles" to a
committee wedded to "classical principles".

Still, upon the whole, I think the augmentation of the power of the
peers might be risked without real fear of serious harm. Our present
practice, as has been explained, only works because of the good sense
of those by whom it is worked, and the new practice would have to rely
on a similar good sense and practicality too. The House of Lords must
deal with the assent to treaties as they do with the assent to laws;
they must defer to the voice of the country and the authority of the
Commons even in cases where their own judgment might guide them
otherwise. In very vital treaties probably, being Englishmen, they
would be of the same mind as the rest of Englishmen. If in such cases
they showed a reluctance to act as the people wished, they would have
the same lesson taught them as on vital and exciting questions of
domestic legislation, and the case is not so likely to happen, for on
these internal and organic questions the interest and the feeling of
the peers is often presumably opposed to that of other classes--they
may be anxious not to relinquish the very power which other classes are
anxious to acquire; but in foreign policy there is no similar
antagonism of interest--a peer and a non-peer have presumably in that
matter the same interest and the same wishes.

Probably, if it were considered to be desirable to give to Parliament a
more direct control over questions of foreign policy than it possesses
now, the better way would be not to require a formal vote to the treaty
clause by clause. This would entail too much time, and would lead to
unneces