The Lords
""TT was what they call at teameetings an intriguing situa- ._ tion. when the son of a Viscount begged the British Government last week to save him from the fate of inheriting a seat in the House of Lords. It would be interesting if we knew how many peers-to-be supported him; but there would certainly be some. ’ The heir to a Peerage is in a des- » perate situation if he has political ambitions, as last week’s supplicant (Quintin Hogg) of course has, since he can’t escape his inheritance merely by refusing it. He may refuse to sit in the Lords, which, as the law stands, is a dereliction of duty; but he may not remain in the House of Com-
mons once the Peerage has technically descended on him. The other "grave handicaps" that Mr, Hogg deplored in a _ hereditary _title may or may not be real; most men who get the chance seem willing to risk them: but a Peerage is certainly "a millstone round the neck" of a man launched on a political career. If he is not quite compelled with the woman in one of Meredith’s novels to "relapse on religion and little dogs," he is forbidden to be active in the only
heid that interests him, which usually means a relapse of some kind. He may of course be a scholar or a man of science, an artist, a sociologist, or a fanatical traveller; but he is not likely to be any of those things if he has been an active politician, and to force him into them in middle life is cruelty to a helpless animal. He knows that even there his title will get in his way, and he can’t console himself any longer with the thought that "everybody loves a lord." Most of us love the kind of man that a lord often is-cour-teous, self-effacing, public-spirited., We respect the standards to which he is traditionally trained and by which, in the end, he is always Jrdged. But it is too much to expect that he will inevitably reach those standards, and if he doesn’t -if he is no more successful in sublimating himself than the rest of us usually are-he may find himself adrift in a world in which only toadies are kind to him.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 439, 21 November 1947, Page 5
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383The Lords New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 439, 21 November 1947, Page 5
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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