travel books: increasingly hostile to the first. That the House of Lords was a nuisance no progressive of the next generation was likely to deny, but to assert that its influence was of a minor character without significance must to-day be regarded as absurd. In order to realise how absurd we have only to think what would have been the shape of history had the House been abolished in 1832 or even in 1911. This can be done by considering the legislation destroyed by the direct action of the House, but that is a serious underestimate, for it takes no account of the legislation killed before it was born. Anglo-Irish relations have been embittered by the activities of the House of Lords. Had the British Constitution been purely representative Irish home rule would have come thirty years sooner than it did. Although in 1893 an election had only just been fought largely upon the issue of home rule, and Gladstone's Bill had passed the Commons by a majority of 34, the Lords did not hesitate to reject this "considered judgment" of the people by the largest vote ever recorded by them. Of no aspect of its policy is Joseph Chamberlain's assertion more true that "the chronicles of the House of Lords are one long record of concessions delayed until they have lost their grace, of rights denied until extorted from their fears."(1) What might have been given to the moderate and constitutionalist Irish home rule movement in 1893, what might even in 1913 have formed the basis of Anglo-Irish friendship, had eventually to be granted to a revolutionary committee. The intervening years of bloodshed are the responsibility of the House of Lords as an institution and the peerage as a class. It is interesting to reflect on the different treatment accorded to the project 1 Quoted by Emily Allyn, Lords versus Commons, p. 118, from J. Chamberlain's Speeches (ed. by H. W. Lucy), p. 90. books

Books > Old Books > The British Constitution (1938)

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THE HOUSE OF LORDS

increasingly hostile to the first. That the House of Lords was a nuisance no progressive of the next generation was likely to deny, but to assert that its influence was of a minor character without significance must to-day be regarded as absurd. In order to realise how absurd we have only to think what would have been the shape of history had the House been abolished in 1832 or even in 1911. This can be done by considering the legislation destroyed by the direct action of the House, but that is a serious underestimate, for it takes no account of the legislation killed before it was born.
Anglo-Irish relations have been embittered by the activities of the House of Lords. Had the British Constitution been purely representative Irish home rule would have come thirty years sooner than it did. Although in 1893 an election had only just been fought largely upon the issue of home rule, and Gladstone's Bill had passed the Commons by a majority of 34, the Lords did not hesitate to reject this "considered judgment" of the people by the largest vote ever recorded by them. Of no aspect of its policy is Joseph Chamberlain's assertion more true that "the chronicles of the House of Lords are one long record of concessions delayed until they have lost their grace, of rights denied until extorted from their fears."(1) What might have been given to the moderate and constitutionalist Irish home rule movement in 1893, what might even in 1913 have formed the basis of Anglo-Irish friendship, had eventually to be granted to a revolutionary committee. The intervening years of bloodshed are the responsibility of the House of Lords as an institution and the peerage as a class. It is interesting to reflect on the different treatment accorded to the project

1 Quoted by Emily Allyn, Lords versus Commons, p. 118, from J. Chamberlain's Speeches (ed. by H. W. Lucy), p. 90.