said that to dispute the authority of an elected body fresh from its
constituents is a deliberate incitement to the adoption of lawless and
unconstitutional methods. The assertion which the House of Lords made
at the end of last year is an intolerable assertion. I believe the
country is altogether unprepared for it; and I wonder it was thought
worth while to risk an institution which has lasted so many centuries,
in the very skirmish line of Party warfare.

I am aware there is a special reason for the temerity of the House of
Lords. It is not a very complimentary reason to the Members or the
leaders of the late Government, but it is argued that the Conservative
Party cannot be worse than they are. No matter what they do, nor how
they are hated or reprobated by the country, the Conservative Party
cannot possibly occupy a more humiliating and unpleasant position than
they did after the last two years of the late Administration.
Consequently, having reached the low-water mark of political fortune,
they think they can afford to be a little reckless, and that at the
very worst they will be returned in their present numerical
proportions.

That is a very natural explanation of their action; but if we for our
part were to accept the assertion lately made by the House of
Lords--an assertion which is the furthest point to which aristocratic
privilege has attained in modern times--that assertion itself would
become only the starting-point for a whole new series of precedents
and of constitutional retrogressions; and worse than that, if by any
chance, having raised this issue, we were to be defeated upon it--if
having placed this Resolution on the records of the House we were to
fail to give effect to it, or were to suffer an electoral reverse as
the conclusion of it--then good-bye to the power of the House of