treaties could wait a little without harm, and in the very few cases
when urgent haste is necessary, an autumn session of Parliament
could well be justified, for the occasion must be of grave and
critical importance.

Thirdly, it may be said that if we required the consent of both
Houses of Parliament to foreign treaties before they were valid we
should much augment the power of the House of Lords. And this is
also, I think, a just objection as far as it goes. The House of
Lords, as it cannot turn out the Ministry for making treaties, has
in no case a decisive weight in foreign policy, though its debates
on them are often excellent; and there is a real danger at present
in giving it such weight. They are not under the same guidance as
the House of Commons. In the House of Commons, of necessity, the
Ministry has a majority, and the majority will agree to the treaties
the leaders have made if they fairly can. They will not be anxious
to disagree with them. But the majority of the House of Lords may
always be, and has lately been generally an opposition majority, and
therefore the treaty may be submitted to critics exactly pledged to
opposite views. It might be like submitting the design of an
architect known to hold "mediaeval principles" to a committee wedded
to "classical principles".

Still, upon the whole, I think the augmentation of the power of the
peers might be risked without real fear of serious harm. Our present
practice, as has been explained, only works because of the good
sense of those by whom it is worked, and the new practice would have
to rely on a similar good sense and practicality too. The House of
Lords must deal with the assent to treaties as they do with the
assent to laws; they must defer to the voice of the country and the