III. COSSACK CRADLE-SONG: "SPI, MLADENETS MOI. SLEEP, sleep, my pretty son, Bayushka bayou ; Calm shines the moon upon Thy cradle pillow. While I my stories tell, While I my songs coo, Closed be thine eyes, sleep well, Bayushka bayou. Turbid the Terek roars O'er pebbles fretting; Tchechens lurk on its shores, Their daggers whetting. Father's a soldier tried, Steeled to war, constant, true; So sleep in peace, my pride, Thou too shalt live to know Grasp a gun-barrel; Thy saddle-cloth all fine Will I with silk sew. Sleep, sleep, own child of mine, Thy heart of Cossack breed, Will in the night flow. Weary with long delay At nights divining Pining art thou too. Sleep, sleep, till troubles come Bayushka bayou. JUSTICE FOR THE LORDS. WE were not deceived in our expectations. The House of Lords, when every other hope failed, came to the rescue of the country. The new Franchise has been postponed until the whole scheme, of which it is but a part, shall be submitted to Parliament. A delay this but a delay which can well be endured, since it is in a high degree preferable to stamping one half of the scheme as law, while we are yet ignorant of what the other half is to be. It will be admitted when excitement and declamation shall have passed by, even if it be not already generally admitted, that the Peers would have egregiously evaded their duty had they passed the Bill as it was presented to them; also, that they have, in staying for a short time the enactment of a measure extending the Franchise, been most careful to declare that they are not hostile to the measure itself, but only to the ill-advised method according to which it has been laid before Parliament. They have been very far from straining the legislative power which they possess; they have, on the contrary, arrested execution with the least possible offence to the views and wishes of those who advocate a speedy extension. If they may not do as much as this, they may as well cease to exist altogether, for they will be deprived of all independent action. We believe that the House of Lords is widely misconstrued and unjustly maligned, because the independent action of which we have spoken is claimed for them only at times when a Liberal Ministry is in power. When we have a Conservative Government we hear nothing about this independence; they are content to endorse without protest the acts of a Conservative House of Commons. Those, however, who make this injurious remark-which may sound plausi ble to superficial minds-leave out of sight a most important consideration. They forget that Conservative Cabinets will, in framing their legislative measures, respect, and defer to, the opinions of the Lords; they will not force upon their lordships proposals to which they are known to object, or they smooth away disagreements before discussion becomes public, thus avoiding the scandals of open collisions. Radical Cabinets, on the contrary, not only are indifferent to the cautious and time-established maxims of the Upper House, but they take a pride in running counter to them, and in provoking conflicts. When this difference of conduct between Conservative and Radical Ministries is taken into account, the attitude of the House of Lords towards either party ceases to be so remarkable, and it is not so clear that their lordships surrender their self-respect in the one case, and are jealous for it only in the other. It is in the course of nature that an Upper Chamber, a Chamber of revision, should be frequently in conflict with that class of politicians who are the most ardent, the most impatient, and the most heedless of any interest but their own. But its very raison d'être is, that it may moderate the action of such a selfish class and consult for the general interest. Ours has been of late years obnoxious to the abuse and menace of such a class, with whom it is an instinct to denounce sober examination and to parade numerical and physical force. It is, while our national culture remains as at present, a condition of the existence of the House of Lords, that it must endure the savage, vulgar insults and attacks of the least reflecting and least respectable sections of the community. The Upper House seldom is, and never should be, opposed to the deliberate wishes of the people properly so called—that is, of the great commonalty of the nation. It is monstrous to suppose that they, acting as a privileged class, should place themselves in antagonism to the body of their countrymen, and be blameless because they are invested with special rights and powers. Yet we are perpetually being told that the Peers are committing this very crime, this very folly. And how are the accusations made colourable? Why, by those least respectable sections of the community of whom we have spoken, professing that they are the people, and that opposition to their crotchets and plots is treason to the nation. Those who look at all closely into political disputes discover that a great number of them are due to the indefinite sense in which that term "the people" is allowed to be used. If a little more care were insisted upon, on opening the argument, to ascertain what, in that connection, is meant by "the people," mountains would be made out of mole-hills less frequently than they are. Three tailors, a drunken rabble, a knot of enthusiasts, may arrogate that appellation, and thereupon everybody who does not subscribe their fancies may be denounced as a public enemy. It is not always silly persons who thus cause confusion by using the term "people' or VOL. CXXXVI.-NO. DCCCXXVI. "nation" in a restricted or peculiar sense. Men of ability have, for purposes best known to themselves, condescended so to mislead their hearers. We remember that the present Prime Minister, when speaking at West Calder on the 2d of April 1880, defined the "nation" to be something separate and distinct from the aristocracy, the Established clergy, the landed interest, the wealth of the country, the rank of the country, and all close corporations. What sort of a nation it would be that should remain after deducting the classes which he enumerated as not belonging to it, the right honourable gentleman did not pause to explain. But it is abundantly clear that "the people" or "the nation" is frequently said to be withstood when only a clique or a party finds an obstacle or two in the paths of its fads. It is a decided blot on our legislative system that one of the three great institutions which must work together to the making of a law of England sets about its business on all important occasions under a storm of menaces and insults. No sooner is it known that a bill is to be sent up to the Lords, to which in whole or in part they may reasonably take exception, than they are assailed in the most shameless and scandalous way, men of all ranks thinking it not beneath their dignity to resort to terrorism as a means of making them deaf to reason and conscience, and alive only to their privileges and interests. If we were to read in some traveller's tales of a semi-savage potentate who, sitting on his throne under pretence of administering justice, was, by a pistol at his head, compelled either to decide according to the dictation of a bully or to risk his life, how we should R thank God on the wretched puppet, Bill, so far as it goes; they do not -with what complacency should object to it on account of any of its we, from our summit of civilisation, provisions. But they know that it look down on such a transaction! is to be followed by another bill, Yet these are exactly the condi- which will deal with the redistritions under which the House of bution of the seats in the Lower Lords addresses itself to its duties House; and they say very reasonwhenever party feelings run high. ably, "Let us know what this We do not know that we are redistribution is to be, and let us naked; we do not know what a judge whether it be fairly adjusted, figure our barbarism makes before or we cannot consent to this exgrinning Europe. Selling our tension bill, from which the rediswives at Smithfield, quotha! that tribution is to spring." This is is a trifle to making our nobility the head and front of their offendlegislate under pressure of most ing; and all the reflecting part of fearful threats and demonstrations. the community will, as we hope, How can we claim to be civilised see how moderate has been their when we are not ashamed to prac- demand. tise such ferocity! Fortunately our nobles are, for the most part, men of courage and patience, whom it is not easy to intimidate by vulgar bluster. They have shown their mettle by dealing as they have dealt with the imperfect Franchise Bill. Had it been possible to influence them by terrorism, they never could have rejected that Bill; for, long before they entered upon the consideration of it, they had been assailed by threats from various quarters, beginning with the Prime Minister, and spreading over a spacious organisation of violent prints and violent speakers-this being the method by which thousands of Englishmen of this nineteenth century choose to have our laws made. But threats did not prevail. The Lords, while admitting that a Franchise Bill will and must be passed, refused to sanction a fragmentary measure of the sequel to which they are as yet in ignorance. Have they by this action been braving opinion-been denying to the nation a reasonable and widely-desired reform — been wantonly exerting their power because they happen to possess it? By no means. They have said little or nothing against the Franchise The argument that extension of the franchise ought not to be considered apart from the redistribution of seats with which it is so intimately connected, is, fortunately, a very strong one. It is not only strong in itself, but it has been emphatically supported in time past by many of those statesmen who now censure the Lords for being guided by it. No one now opposes it on its intrinsic value; but the best apology that can be made for giving it the goby is, that the two bills together would give rise to so many debates that an ordinary session of Parliament would not suffice for the disposal of them. A poor rejoinder this to the unanswerable proposition that the two bills ought to be considered together! The trial has never been made to get both through in one session, therefore no one is entitled to pronounce on the feasibleness, or otherwise, of such an attempt. A session of Parliament is not, that we know of, restricted to any particular length; and if only the will were present in those who order such matters, a way might surely be found of dealing with both the kindred subjects in one session, |