THE HOUSE OF LORDS.

Thames Star, Volume XIV, Issue 4580, 8 September 1883, Page 1

THE HOUSE OF LORDS.

The British House of Peers is composed of .hereditary landowners, whp collectively own 14,258,557 acres of land, and whose collective income is about £15,000,000, or at an average rate of £29.000 to each of the 516 members. The "Fortnightly Review " thus scarifies this body:—" They have persistently opposed, so far as they dared, every measure of reform brought forward during the present century, and more especially every measure that has militated against their own class interests. Not only are Conservative in the real sense of the word but in the party sense. When a Conservative Ministry is in power they are useless ; when a Liberal Ministry is in they are actively pernicious. Notwithstanding their wealth, they ure not independent. They are place hunters; they are clamoring for decorations, and they dip heavily into tbe public exchequer. In pay, pensions, and salaries they divide among them--. selves (including the salaries of the bishops) £621,200 per annum. It may be an open question whether the system of one or two cbsmbers is more desirable.. No sensible person, however, can advocate a chamber destined to act" with, controlling impartiality, composed of enormously rich . meu draining vast incomes from lands, absorbing large amounts of public money in pay and pensions, and perpetually intriguing to secure the triumph of the party' to which a fcreat majority of them permanently belong. It is surprising that so astounding a legislative assembly as-pur r Hoose of Lords can have existed so! long in a " country inhabited by sane human beings, and its existence in a country where the paramount assembly is elected by a. majority would, of course, be out of the question." .. '