system to have something to do with the unprosperous condition of the
landlord, the farmer, and the labourer; with the depopulation of the
country and the congestion in the towns; with the bad housing of the
poor, and with various other evils which they suppose themselves to
see staring them daily in the face. They may be entirely mistaken
alike In their estimate of mischief and their hope of mitigation. But
they are not moved by delight in change for its own sake. When the
Crowd sympathises with disapproval of the House of Lords, it is
because the legislative performances of that body are believed to have
impeded useful reforms in the past, to be impeding them now, and to be
likely to impede them in the future. This may be a sad misreading
of the history of the last fifty years, and a painfully prejudiced
anticipation of the next fifty. At any rate, it is in intention a
solid and practical appeal to experience and results, and has no
affinity to a restless love of change for the sake of change. No
doubt, in the progress of the controversy, the assailants of the House
of Lords attack the principle of birth. But the principle of birth is
not attacked from the _a priori_ point of view. The whole force of
the attack lies in what is taken to be the attested fact that the
principle of a hereditary chamber supervising an elective chamber has
worked, is working, and will go on working, inconveniently, stupidly,
and dangerously. Finally, there is the question of the Irish Union. Is
it the English or Scottish Crowd that is charged with a wanton desire
to recast the Union? Nobody knows much about the matter who is not
perfectly aware that the English statesman, whoever he may be, who
undertakes the inevitable task of dealing with the demand for Home
Rule, will have to make his case very plain indeed in order to make
the cause popular here. Then is it the Irish Crowd? Sir Henry Maine,
of all men, is not likely to believe that a sentiment which the wisest
people of all parties in Ireland for a hundred years have known to lie