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than the average M.P. Nor is a member of the House of Lords subject to the temptation to sell his conscience in order to win favour with constituents. It is of course true that some of those who have inherited seats in the Upper House would do no credit to that, or to any other assembly. This danger must always attach to the principle of heredity. But to quote a happy phrase by a well-known English writer-" The accidents of birth are not so dangerous as the accidents of the ballot."* At most, those peers who are mental or moral failures represent a minute fraction of the total membership of the House of Lords. On the other hand, it may easily happen that a general election of the House of Commons may take place at a moment when the unthinking mob of electors has been temporarily excited by some political cry, and the majority of that House will then be committed to a policy which has no basis of reason behind it.

The real defect of the House of Lords is that at present it is too large. So great is the desire among Englishmen and Scotsmen who have won distinction in any sphere of life to obtain peerages that the House of Lords has become swollen beyond the limits of an effective debating assembly. It is true that in practice the majority of peers seldom attend debates, and the decisions of the House are left to a comparative handful of peers. But it would be far better to have a smaller House. The same consideration applies, it may be added, to the House of Commons, which would probably be a much more efficient assembly if its present membership were halved.

The obvious way of reducing the excessive size of the House of Lords is to extend to the whole of the peerage the system of electing representatives which is already in operation in the case of the peerages of Scotland and of Ireland. A House of Lords composed of two hundred representative peers, elected for each parliament by their fellow peers, would be a far more efficient assembly than the present House, which contains over 700 members. To these 200 representative peers might be added 50 "Lords of Parliament " appointed by the Crown for life. In particular, this addition would enable the government of the day to provide seats in the House of Lords for some of the princes of India, and for men who had won distinction in the overseas Dominions.

*A. A. B. in the Evening Standard of June 27, 1927.

These reforms would automatically deprive the Prime Minister of the day of the power of over-riding the Upper House by the threat of creating new peers; for no peer would be entitled to sit in the House of Lords until he had been elected to that position by his fellow peers. With this safeguard, the House of Lords would acquire an assured position and would be able to discharge its duties to the nation with the same sense of security that every other second chamber in the world possesses.

There is no reason to fear that the essential liberties of the nation would be in the least degree imperilled by this change in the position of the House of Lords; on the contrary, they would be better protected. Under present conditions it is the House of Commons, not the House of Lords, that threatens the liberties and also the prosperity of the nation. At present the House of Commons is chosen by a vast electorate, mainly consisting of persons who pay no direct taxes, and who consequently are, for the most part, unaware of the fact that they pay any taxes at all. As was pointed out by the present writer in the last issue of the EDINBURGH REVIEW, the result of this irresponsible franchise is that the electorate as a body feels no interest in the crucially important question of public economy. And since the electorate feels no interest in economy, most members of parliament feel The average candidate for parliament has to think of winning votes, and of nothing else; and he can win more votes by offering bribes to the electors at the taxpayer's expense than by proposing to reduce the taxpayer's burdens.

This is the final explanation of the continued growth of expenditure, in spite of the fact that responsible ministers have more than once pledged themselves to economy. Yet it is notorious that the critical position in which many of our once flourishing industries find themselves to-day is very largely due to the heavy burden of taxation they have to bear. Other countries are reducing the burdens on their industries; Great Britain is increasing the burden on hers. As an instrument for guarding the nation against the steady growth of this grave peril, a House of Lords, composed of men with wide practical knowledge of the problems of industry would be invaluable. But by a curious paradox of our constitution, the House of Lords, which is essentially representative of the principal sources from which the

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State's revenues are derived, is not permitted to touch questions of national finance: uncontrolled power is left to the House of Commons, which is mainly dependent on the votes of persons who make no direct and conscious contribution to the expenses of the State.

The gravity of the situation can hardly be exaggerated. If the House of Commons continues to be elected on a franchise which places the final power in the hands of non-taxpayers, and if the Upper House is still to be debarred from dealing with Money Bills the whole structure of our national wealth may in the lifetime of a single parliament be shattered to pieces by a socialist ministry.

The Conservative party now has a great opportunity. It possesses a sufficient majority to carry through the House of Commons the measures necessary for the removal of the gross anomalies of our present constitution; all it needs is the courage

Of course a Bill for the repeal of the Parliament Act and the reform of the House of Lords will meet with passionate opposition. The members of the Labour Party will oppose any such measure because it would block the way to the social revolution of which they dream; the Liberals will oppose it because their minds are still dominated by the political tradition of the Victorian era. But these two parties combined only represent a minority in the House of Commons, and a minority in the country; their joint scream need only frighten Tories who are very timid. As a party the Conservatives have the power to act and the duty to act-the power to establish an effective second chamber, the duty to safeguard the permanent interests of the nation.

HAROLD Cox.

RECENTLY PUBLISHED BOOKS

THE MIND AND FACE OF BOLSHEVISM. By RENE FÜLÖPMILLER. Translated from the German by F. S. FLINT and D. F. TAIT. With Illustrations. Putnams; 21s. net.

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THE remarkable illustrations, depicting various aspects of Bolshevik activity in Russia, are an essential part of this comprehensive study of the theory and practice of Bolshevism. If we accept the doctrine " by their works ye shall know them," there can be little doubt that the minds which produced certain " monuments " photographed here are diseased. Herr Fülöp-Miller's analysis of Bolshevism is impressive, both by reason of its German thoroughness and of its shrewd parallels with other movements. In Russia, in a "Servile State "" centuries behind Western Europe in development, the great founder of Bolshevism proposed to establish a material paradise on earth by setting up modern machinery, by establishing electric light in every village, and by subordinating human personality to the ideal of the "Mass.' To achieve the ideal it was necessary to abolish every manifestation of "capitalist" civilisation, religion, art, literature and music as we know them. In the process it was inevitable that machinery itself should become the Bolshevik god, and the author shows that it was indeed a form of perverted religious idealism in Lenin (similar to the inspiration of many Russian sects) which made him calmly assume that it was possible to transform the great mass of the illiterate Russian peasantry into parts of a machine-driven "Mass " State, subordinating to the Mass " every personal consideration. No scientific observer would ever have believed in this as a possibility, and it is there ultimately that Bolshevism will break down. The author suggests also that only in a State where opinion had been so long suppressed, and amongst people so unaccustomed to rational thought as the Russians, could such a deifying of the machine have occurred. Every aspect of the matter is dealt with in the book-how the doctrine affects everyday life as well as how it affects the organizations of Bolshevik" art and literature how marriage, no longer any kind of sacrament, tends to become an orgy-how every woman must hold herself for the use of any man who desires her, with the marriage ceremony a mere farce, if used at all. Of all the books which have appeared on this subject this is the most crushing indictment of everything in the Bolshevik scheme, precisely because it is a scientific, critical investigation, and not merely a tirade or a panegyric.

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LORD BROUGHAM AND THE WHIG PARTY. By ARTHUR ASPINALL, M.A., Ph.D. Manchester: At the University Press. Longmans; 18s. net.

LORD BROUGHAM (incidentally a distinguished contributor to the

EDINBURGH REVIEW in its first number in 1802 and for forty-four years thereafter) has been singularly neglected by biographers, and the present study of his relations with the Whig party is therefore welcome. It is an extremely interesting story that Mr. Aspinall has to tell, and he supports it by the reproduction of a number of letters from and to Brougham. He justly remarks that Brougham, with his great and varied talents and his abounding ambition, is a fascinating subject for the biographer, but confines himself to Brougham's political relations, which he treats very thoroughly.

CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. By E. KEBLE CHATTERTON. (The Golden Hind Series.) Illustrated. John Lane; 12s. 6d. net. By Mr. E. F. Benson's "Drake " Mr. Chatterton was set a high standard for his life of John Smith, the man who really established the colony of Virginia; and he does not fail to give us an eminently readable, thorough and convincing account of the life of this attractive adventurer. We get a well-told story of Smith's remarkable travels throughout Europe in his younger days, and we learn how, throughout his life, every ship he sailed in met with adventure. The book is a worthy addition to the Golden Hind Series of lives of great Englishmen, and we shall look with pleasure for the volumes on Hudson, Raleigh, Hawkins, Frobisher and Grenville, which are to come.

MOTHER INDIA. By KATHERINE MAYO.

net.

Cape; 10s. 6d.

As Miss Mayo anticipates in the introduction to this book, any study of the conditions of life in India, undertaken with the intention of pointing to the black spots so that these might be removed, is bound to give rise to discussion, to misunderstanding and misrepresentation of motive. It must be admitted that she " calls a spade a spade," and that some of her descriptions of, for instance, the effects of the Hindu “child-marriage" system, are revolting. We read of girls of seven years going out of their minds or suffering unspeakable internal injuries from the consummation of their marriages with grown men. We read of confinements taking place in surroundings of the utmost filth with the assistance of a midwife dressed in foul rags kept for the purpose from one such occasion to another. Whilst the chapters on this subject are the most provocative, the author has gathered impressions in all parts of India: she has interviewed the ruling princes, visited the peoples of the hills (for whom her admiration is expressed), and talked with British officials and doctors throughout the country. She quotes the debates of the Legislative Assembly in support of some of her conclusions, and the whole book is well documented. The effect of much of it is appalling, but Miss Mayo writes as one compelled by a sense of responsibility to counteract what she believes to be the false position taken up by Indians, particularly by the Hindus, who ascribe all the evils in Indian life to the oppressive British rule;

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