the Commons; they think, if they do not say: "The House of Lords is
our enemy and that of all Liberals; happily the mass of it is not
intellectual; a few clever men are born there which we cannot help,
but we will not 'vaccinate' it with genius; we will not put in a set
of clever men for their lives who may as likely as not turn against
us". This objection assumes that clever peers are just as likely to
oppose the Commons as stupid peers. But this I deny. Most clever men
who are in such a good place as the House of Lords plainly is, will
be very unwilling to lose it if they can help it; at the clear call
of a great duty they might lose it, but only at such a call. And it
does not take a clever man to see that systematic opposition of the
Commons is the only thing which can endanger the Lords, or which
will make an individual peer cease to be a peer. The greater you
make the SENSE of the Lords, the more they will see that their plain
interest is to make friends of the plutocracy, and to be the chiefs
of it, and not to wish to oppose the Commons where that plutocracy
rules.

It is true that a completely new House of Lords, mainly composed of
men of ability, selected because they were able, might very likely
attempt to make ability the predominant power in the State, and to
rival, if not conquer, the House of Commons, where the standard of
intelligence is not much above the common English average. But in
the present English world such a House of Lords would soon lose all
influence. People would say, "it was too clever by half," and in an
Englishman's mouth that means a very severe censure. The English
people would think it grossly anomalous if their elected assembly of
rich men were thwarted by a nominated assembly of talkers and
writers. Sensible men of substantial means are what we wish to be
ruled by, and a peerage of genius would not compare with it in