In the other constitutional monarchies of Europe no hereditary qualification to legislate or govern is recognised, except in the royal families. Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Denmark possess elective senates or upper chambers chosen by special constituencies for various periods, all being directly or indirectly representative of the people. In Italy princes of the royal house have seats in the senate, but all the other senators, unlimited in number, are nominated by the king for life. The French senate is elected by an indirect process, one quarter of the senators being chosen for life by the senate itself. The Swiss federal constitution resembles that of the United States, and the Ständerath, or state council, like the American senate, represents upon equal terms the cantons or states, composing the confederation, each canton, great or small, choosing two representatives. In Norway the Lagthing, or second chamber, is merely a sort of standing committee of the Storthing, or popular assembly, which divides itself into two houses, the Lagthing containing onefourth, and the Odelsthing the remaining three-fourths of the members. In Greece the single legislative assembly is elected by manhood suffrage, and in warlike Montenegro the sole qualification of electors for the legislature, elected annually, is to bear, or to have borne, arms. In all the New World of America there is but a solitary instance of any hereditary qualification for political power being recognised, and that is in the case of the Brazilian sovereign. The gift of self-government conferred by Great Britain on so many of her colonies has been specially modified in almost each individual case, but a second chamber or upper house forms an element of every constitution, although the hereditary principle has in no case been adopted. This dual arrangement has not been altogether successful, and in some colonies, notably in Victoria, a chronic struggle is carried on between the two branches of the legislature, resulting more than once in an absolute deadlock. The second chamber is elective in some colonies, and nominated in others, but everywhere the number of members is fixed, unlike that of the peers. As to details of constitution, these so-called 'councils' vary not a little. In the Cape Colony the members of the Legislative Council are elected by the same voters as those of the Assembly, half of them for a period of five years, and the remainder for a period of ten years. All members of Council must be qualified by the possession of property. In Victoria members of the Legislative Council must themselves possess a considerable property qualification, and are elected by owners of property; the Council itself is permanent, but the individual members retire by rotation, one-fifth every two years. In South Australia a member of Council requires no property qualification, but is elected by persons possessing a qualification, and voting as in one district for the whole colony. One-third of the Council retires every four years, the executive having no power to dissolve it. In Tasmania the Legislative Council is chosen by electors who must possess a certain qualification. Thus, in four out of nine constitutional British Colonies, the Second Chamber is of an elective character. Members of the Legislative Council are nominated by the Crown for life in New Zealand, Queensland, New South Wales, theDominion of Canada, and Newfoundland. In all the nine colonies the members of the Lower House are elected by large and popular constituencies, the property qualification for electors being in some cases nil, in others very small; and it may be said that nearly all male adult citizens are electors in Australia, while a moderate qualification is required in most of the other colonies. The defects of the dual system are less manifest in the other colonies than in Victoria, where an Assembly of eighty-six members, chosen by 176,000 electors, finds itself confronted by a Council of thirty members, chosen by a constituency of some 30,000. At the last election sixty-two per cent. of the electors in contested districts voted for the Assembly, and forty-five per cent. for the Council. Thus it appears that the Council was elected by the votes of only twelve per cent. of those who took part in the election. It is clear that there is a constant risk of collision between two co-ordinate branches of the legislature absolutely independent of each other, and elected by constituencies so different from each other in character. The electorate for the Council is numerous enough to be powerful, but not numerous enough to be popular, and the Council represents an influential class only, while the Assembly represents the whole body of the people. No constitutional method exists for bringing these two bodies into harmony, nor for deciding between them, and the result has been the natural one-recurrent deadlocks of the political machine. Where the members of Council are nominated the same difficulties do not arise. The number of members is indeed limited, so that the responsible ministers of the Crown, who must possess the confidence of the popular Assembly, cannot strengthen their party in the Upper House, at any important crisis, by the nomination of additional members prepared to support their views. But as vacancies occur from time to time in the Council, they are filled with supporters of the existing ministry, and thus to a considerable extent the two chambers are kept in sympathy, and the risk of conflict is diminished. If ever constitutions fall to be framed for new colonies, and it is still deemed necessary to establish what Norway and Greece 1 In Newfoundland a Bill for the abolition of the Legislative Council has recently passed the Legislative Assembly, and in New Brunswick a similar Bill, introduced by Hon. W. Wedderburn, Provincial Secretary, has also been accepted by the Provincial Assembly. successfully dispense with a second chamber of the legislature entirely independent of the first-the experience of Victoria must not be forgotten. Only a very prosperous and law-abiding community could have passed without serious disaster through one political crisis after another, resulting from the impracticable constitution with which Victoria has been saddled. Various schemes of reform have been from time to time proposed, notably the so-called 'Norwegian' scheme of Mr. Francis, which provided that in cases of irreconcilable difference the two chambers should vote as a single house, and the majority by this joint vote should finally decide. At present the idea of a plébiscite is popular, giving a direct appeal to the electors, and referring to them the decision, ay or no, upon any question as to which the two houses have come into collision. In the United States and in Switzerland appeals of this nature are made to the people upon constitutional questions of the highest importance, such as lie beyond the competence of the legislature to decide, and the system works successfully, although its results are somewhat conservative. The plébiscite' is merely a republican equivalent for the royal prerogative' of monarchical countries, as has been correctly pointed out by Mr. A. L. Windsor in the pages of the Victorian Review. When the Sovereign, acting under the advice of responsible ministers, supported by a majority in the House of Commons, proceeds to swamp opposition in the House of Peers by creating new peerages, or by the issue of a royal warrant, a deadlock of the constitutional machinery is of course prevented, but such a course can only be adopted when it is clear (on account of a recent general election or otherwise) that the ministry possesses the confidence of the people, as well as that of the House of Commons. The mere knowledge that there exists a constitutional method, whereby the popular will can be made to prevail over the resistance of a privileged class, has been usually sufficient of late years in this country to obviate serious collisions between the two branches of the legislature. In Victoria it is otherwise, and there constitutional reform has become absolutely essential to the peace and prosperity of the colony. The anomalous character and position of the House of Lords would perhaps escape observation if Great Britain alone were concerned, so rarely does that House venture to reject, or even seriously to mutilate, any measure upon which British public opinion has been distinctly expressed, either by parliamentary elections or through the columns of the press, which almost wields the authority of a plébiscite. When Ireland is concerned it is altogether a different matter; the public opinion of that country exercises no influence over the House of Lords, and upon Irish questions the conduct of the Peers has more than once well-nigh rendered the peaceable government of Ireland an impossibility, and the reform of the Upper House a necessity. Immediately after the great reform of the Lower House in 1832, the Peers displayed upon Irish affairs, more especially upon the Irish Tithe Bill, a spirit of antagonism to the popular representatives, which drew from Thomas Babington Macaulay such words as 'The Lords are hastening the day of reckoning.... I am quite certain that in a few years the House of Lords must go after Old Sarum and Gatton.' The great Whig orator was mistaken; he lived to become himself a member of the House which he expected to see abolished, and once more, after the lapse of nearly half a century, a great Liberal majority in a recently elected House of Commons, eager to conciliate Ireland, has found itself paralysed by an opposition in the Lords which may almost be called unanimous. The position is indeed somewhat extraordinary. The Government of Mr. Gladstone, who is supported by an overwhelming majority both in the House of Commons and in the country, declared that they regarded a particular measure as necessary for the peaceable administration of Ireland during the next few mouths. They asserted that, unless such a bill were passed, the duty would devolve upon them of carrying out laws, which in their opinion were so unjust and oppressive as to have brought society in Ireland 'within a measurable distance of civil war.' If the bill in question had been rejected by the House of Commons, after such a declaration, the course of the Government was sufficiently clear. A dissolution immediately after a general election would have been out of the question, and they would doubtless have at once resigned office. But the bill was not rejected; notwithstanding serious defections in a certain section of the Liberal party it passed the Commons by ample majorities. It is true that these majorities were largely composed of Irish representatives, but the Compensation for Disturbance' Bill being exclusively applicable to Ireland, the support accorded to it by Irish members might fairly have been regarded as a point in its favour. The bill then went to the Upper House, where it received hardly any support at all, except from members of the Government, and was thrown out by an overwhelming majority; it would in fact have been rejected, even if no peers had voted besides those who profess to support a Liberal Government. Thus the House of Lords declared emphatically that they had no confidence in the Irish policy of ministers, who were rendered absolutely helpless to do anything for Ireland. To propose the creation of new peers in this case would have been a futile remedy, as members of Mr. Gladstone's late government, ennobled within a few days, had voted against the Irish bill. To dissolve the House of Commons, by whom the bill had been passed, would have been simply absurd. By resigning office the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland might at least have convinced the public that he believed in the necessity for the remedial 6 measure, which he had himself proposed; but he did not resign. By 'tacking' the essential clauses of the ' Compensation for Disturbance' to the Appropriation' Bill, the Lords might have been compelled to reconsider their hasty decision, but the Government refused to entertain any such proposal. The final result of the whole affair has been a protest uttered by one Cabinet Minister in the House of Commons, and explained away by another in the House of Lords. Even this little ebullition of feeling was produced, not by the rejection of the Government measure, but of another Irish bill, introduced by an independent member, and affecting solely the registration of voters for the election of members of Parliament in Ireland. When responsible ministers are contented to accept defeat of their Irish policy at the hands of hereditary and irresponsible legislators, when they neither consider it necessary to resign, nor to take any measures for giving practical effect to their policy, the crisis may perhaps be regarded as not particularly serious. The events of the late session have nevertheless brought home to the minds of many reformers the fact that parliamentary reform does not mean the reform of one House of Parliament only, and that each reform of the representative branch of the legislature renders more essential a reform of the hereditary branch, if the British Constitution is not to become unworkable. With a Conservative Ministry, and an unreformed House of Commons, the hereditary chamber has always worked smoothly enough. Since the Reform Acts of 1832 and 1867 collisions of opinion between the two Houses have been frequent, but notwithstanding the infusion of a considerable popular element into the Lower House, its general tone and sympathies are still aristocratic, and no hostility of class feeling has ever embittered these collisions. Many peers have occupied places on the green benches of the Lower House, and many members of that House have reason to believe that they will one day take their seats upon the red benches in another place.' The Liberal majority in the House of Commons, backed as it is by public opinion out of doors, knows well enough that it is quite unnecessary to accept Lords' amendments to popular measures, like the ‘burials,' 'employers' liability,' or 'ground game' bills, but there is a distinct unwillingness to coerce or humiliate the Upper House, and mischievous amendments are often agreed to, the plea being that the bill, even as it stands, is too good to be lost. On the other hand, upon all minor questions, affecting small sections of the community only, and upon all bills in the hands of independent members of Parliament, the House of Lords is supreme, and may postpone for an indefinite period the relief of Jews from religious disabilities, the legalisation of marriage with a deceased wife's sister, the amendment of the laws affecting the property of married women, or the protection of ancient monuments from destruction. Members in charge of measures such as these in the House of Commons know from sad experience the perils of another |