TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3148, 27 March 1909, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

PRAISE FOR THE PEriRS. A writer in the American exchange holds the novel opinion (for an A merican) that the much-cried down House of Lords is the most demo cratic institution in a democratic country, and his reasons for taking this stand are certainly interesting. For, we are informed, no less a personage than James, Duke of York (afterwards James II.), married the daughter of lawyer, who married a brewery-miss; and from this union Great Britain is indebted for two of her Sovereigns. Moreover, according to the writer, few of the august personages who sit in the unpopular Chamber can trace their pedigree much further back than the reign of Charles 11., whilst of the rest, two only can boast of an ancestry anterior to the time of George 111. What of the barons who so doughtily braved the frowns of the tyrant John, and compelled him to give the memorable Magna Charta, we proudly ask? We are answered: Not one remain; only one family in the realm can boast of a male descent from the date of the institution of the Garter. 1349. Whence, then, comes that aristoI cratic body, the House of Peers? They mostly were indebted for their ennobling titles to [prominence in the nobte art of cloth-weaving, tailoring, shopkeeping; and the callings of banker, lawyer, merchant and brewer, are responsible for many a creation. And so, the fritndly critic remarKS, the Saxon system still prevails; those who accumulate a residue of power in the t shape of leisure are called upon to govern, so that the others need not be both a red by such matters. From such a stock, therefore, must spring a variety of experience and knowledge in their descendants.