perilous stuff. Intellectually, of course, it is on the level of the anxious householder who searches with a light for a leak in the gas-pipe. However the question of the House of Lords is to be dealt with, it cannot, with any regard to the most elementary constitutional decencies, be disposed of by any large or final scheme in the present House of Commons.

It cannot be too strongly emphasised that this Parliament has no mandate to complete during its course the task of reconstructing the Second Chamber or of altering its powers. The Coalition Parliament had such a mandate. It was the price of coalition stipulated for by the Conservative Party, but it was never exacted and never paid. It has not been renewed. Nor is that all. When the Liberal Government decided in 1910 to diminish the powers of the House of Lords, it took the strong course of appealing to the country and of getting its approval. The present conditions, therefore, have received the sanction of the electorate in the most direct and definite way through a general election. The election of December 1910 was devoted almost exclusively to a discussion of the respective merits of the Parliament Bill and of a rival scheme put forward by the Conservative Party, which included the re-modelling of the composition of the House of Lords on semi-elective lines and the application of the Referendum for the solution of deadlocks between the two Houses. That scheme was rejected at the polls.

To attempt such a coup d'état, to turn the energies of the Conservative majority in the House of Commons to carrying it out, would be to put an immense strain upon the solidarity of the Party. It is by no means certain that it could sustain it. The attempt cannot be made without incurring the risk that the party in this Parliament would be so shaken that it would be no longer fit to give the country a stable government after the next general election. The proposal thus runs counter to, and is utterly incompatible with, the main duty of the Party so to order its activities that, whatever be the internal condition of other Parties, it, at least, is able to supply this prime need of the country. Those who insist that drastic reform must be carried out in this Parliament are proceeding-no doubt unconsciously-on the

assumption that the Conservative Party will be defeated! at the polls and, by fair means or foul, must, before that happens, erect a constitutional bulwark against the legislation of its successors. It is a defeatist policy; it is founded on the fear of defeat, not on the duty of achieving victory.

Yet a constitutional problem there is, for the fact remains that at present no adequate means exist of insuring that in legislation 'the considered judgment of the people shall prevail.' If a Parliamentary coup d'état be renounced, how is the problem to be approached? There are only two practicable methods. The first is to introduce during this Parliament a complete scheme of reform of the House of Lords, for the purpose of full discussion and criticism in both Houses, and, thereafter, to make such a scheme, if it commands the approval of at least the Conservative Party, a leading issue at the next general election. By this method the grave risk that the Conservative Party may be shattered is avoided; while at the same time the whole of the difficult questions, upon which at the moment there is both dubiety and difference, will receive ventilation, and the attention of the public under conditions of calm and coolness be turned to this large constitutional question. The other course is to proceed by stages, abandoning the attempt to reach constitutional finality even in the next Parliament. Minor alterations in the composition of the House of Lords,' within the framework of the Parliament Act,' could, of course, be carried out without constitutional impropriety. It would immensely strengthen the House of Lords as a legislative chamber if its numbers were reduced through the whole peerage electing a certain fixed number of their members to sit in Parliament. There is at present no authentic representation of Labour in the Lords. That is a practical defect which could be remedied by giving the Crown, through the Prime Minister, the right to summon, after a general election, a certain number of individuals to sit in the Second Chamber for the duration of the Parliament.

No attempt need be made here to lay down categorically which of these two methods is the better. Both of them, from a purely constitutional point of view, are unimpeachable. The present writer approaches the ques

tion from the position that the final objective is a reduced but reinforced House of Lords, entrusted with powers of i reference to the people. To achieve that end, internal reform of the House must take place first, in order that the country, by experience, may be satisfied that it is fit to wield such a power. If, on the other hand, it is desired to reach finality at the earliest possible date, it would seem inevitable that the House of Lords should be made an elective chamber. But the introduction of the elective principle is beset with difficulty or with danger. The hereditary Peers, it may safely be premised, would never consent to the complete withdrawal of their right to sit in the Second Chamber. Thus an insurmountable difficulty would confront a Conservative Government which proposed a purely elective body. Yet the partial introduction of the elective principle is the most unsatisfactory of all expedients. It brings the hereditary and the democratic principles into direct conflict and opens the door to a new phase of political agitation, undertaken with a view to making the Second Chamber elective only. There is, therefore, much to recommend the second alternative. It is in keeping with the temper and tradition of England. For England shrinks instinctively from constitutional change until change is proved, by events, to be actually necessary, and even then prefers to take one step at a time. The Parliament Act has not yet been proved, in practice, to be a failure. The Referendum, though many believe that it is the destination to which British democracy must move in its gradual evolution, is viewed with doubt and suspicion by some Conservatives and nearly all Liberals, who even now retain much of the Whig tradition that the political function of the people is strictly and permanently limited to the election of parliamentary representatives. This and much more that could be added merely show that public opinion is not yet ripe for a final scheme of reform. However that may be, and whichever of the two alternatives be selected (if, indeed, the whole subject of the House of Lords be not left untouched for the moment), it is clear that the policy of endeavouring to pass in this Parliament a final and drastic scheme of reform of the Second Chamber is unsound, dangerous, a gamble, and a folly.

To sum up the political situation, the duty and the objective of the Conservative Party are plain and obvious. It is the maintenance for a considerable number of years of stable and progressive government and the establishment of peace in industry and the reconciliation of Labour and Capital. For this the situation is favourable and the opportunity auspicious. The disintegration of the rival Parties is complete. Its own reputation stands high. The national regard and respect for the Conservative leader is deep. Across this prospect there falls the shadow of a grave danger, originating within the Party itself the desire to use its power to obtain a mechanical security, instead of an organic-in industry by 'curbing the power of the Unions,' in the Constitution by erecting a bulwark against the next Socialist Government. It is driven by the desire to achieve incompatibles. To pursue incompatible aims is to court failure to achieve them is impossible. Faced with the alternatives of ‘a smack at the Trades Unions' or the reconciliation of Capital and Labour; of the alteration of the constitution by a Parliamentary coup d'état or the continuance of the national confidence in the moderation, fair-mindedness, and disinterested outlook of the Conservatism of to-day, the Conservative Party enters a fateful year. How will it stand in October 1927 ?

NOEL SKELTON.

SOME RECENT BOOKS.

Henry Rider Haggard-Walt Whitman-Restoring Shakespeare-Prof. Weekley - Bart Kennedy - Godwin's Enquiry-William Lisle Bowles-Sadhu Sundar Singh and Another-Becket and the Albigensians-German Stories-Gilbert and Sullivan-The French Drama.

TIME was when between the spring and the autumn seasons of publishing there was a dead period or holiday time. Such abstinence in the output of books seems to have passed away, and a casual glance at the stream of literature poured forth during the recent summer, suggests that much of it is an opportunity for the release of serious and even unreadable thought-lay sermons on life and time, the soul, evolution, and other aspects of existence, natural or otherwise, from the mystical to the mathematical. It is just as well perhaps. The thought which cannot be expressed is apt to grow intolerable; and that, doubtless, is the cause of much of the literary lumber which suffers its brief, dusty, and neglected day. As is our duty we shall examine some of the better of the serious efforts that have reached us in the past few months; but, possibly because of that régime of printed dullness, we are glad to welcome the new inflow of autumn books.

Among the best of these is Sir Henry Rider Haggard's posthumous autobiography, 'The Days of My Life' (Longmans), written in 1912, but kept meanwhile in the publishers' safe, and now issued under the excellent editorial care of Mr Charles Longman. It did not need these volumes to remind us of the truth that Rider Haggard, besides being possibly the most popular writer of romance in his day, was a large-hearted, high-minded, serviceable man; who, indeed, was a little disappointed at his own success in literature for it took from the time and energies he would rather have given to legal, political, and social activities. To me happiness and work welldone, or service faithfully accomplished, are words with a like meaning,' he wrote in this honestly self-revealing record, and his acts and deeds prove the assertion true. He was happy in his work as a Norfolk and a South African farmer; as a lawyer, a magistrate, an examiner