those of a composite character-have included a large proportion of the chief elements of weight and ability in their respective countries. In the colonial constitutions under the British Crown, where responsible Governments have been established, the usual type has been one elective and popular Chamber and a smaller Chamber, consisting of members who are either nominated for life directly by the Crown, or who sit by virtue of high offices to which they have been appointed by the Crown, or, more frequently, of a combination of both classes. In some cases, however, election and nomination are mixed, and in others the Upper House is completely elective, but subject to a property qualification for the electors or members, or for both. There are no less than seventeen colonies under the British Crown with responsible Governments. Many of them are so small that inferences drawn from them are scarcely applicable to a great country, but a few of the Senates of the larger colonies. may be briefly sketched.1 Thus, in the Dominion Parliament of the great Canadian confederation the Senate consists of eighty-one members, nominated for life by the Governor-General under the great seal of Canada, and selected in stated proportions from the different provinces in the confederation. Each senator must be at least thirty years old. He must have property to the value of four thousand dollars and a residence in the province which he represents, and he receives a payment of one thousand dollars a year. Each province also has its own separate Parliament, but they are not all constructed on the same type. 1 An excellent summary will be found in a little work of Mr. Arthur Mills, called Colonial Constitutions, 1891. See, too, In Newfoundland there is an extremely democratic constitution, for both the Legislative Council and the House of Assembly are elected by manhood suffrage, though a property qualification is retained for the members. In Africa, the Senate of the Cape of Good Hope consists of twenty-two members, elected for ten years, and presided over by the Chief Justice of the colony. There is a property qualification both for electors and members, and the members of both Houses are paid. Full responsible government in this colony only exists since 1872. The neighbouring colony of Natal was made a distinct colony in 1856. Its Legislative Council is formed of five official and two nominated members, together with twenty-three members who are elected for four years by electors possessing a certain property qualification. Vast territories lie outside these colonies, which are administered by commissioners; while the West African dependencies, with their large native and almost infinitesimal European populations, and the more important islands adjacent to Africa, are managed by governors, with the assistance of councils. In the numerous islands or island groups which are subject to the British Crown there is much variety of constitution. Thus, in the Bahamas, in Barbadoes, and in the Bermudas, we find the threefold constitution consisting of a governor, a popular elected Assembly, and a Legislative Council nominated by the Crown. In the Leeward Islands, which were combined into a single Government in 1882, the Federal Government consists of a governor and a Legislative Council. of ten nominated and ten elected members, representing the different islands. In Jamaica there is now no representative Assembly, but the governor is aided by a Privy Council and a Legislative Council of eighteen members, of whom four are official, five nominated by the governor, and nine elected by colonists who pay a certain level of taxation. It is specially provided in the Constitution that six of the elected members can, if unanimous, carry any financial measure. Most of the small islands are administered by a governor and a Legislative Council consisting partly of official members and partly of members nominated by the Crown. It has been remarked that there is a strong tendency of opinion in the island colonies hostile to representative institutions, and in favour of more concentrated government honestly administered. Thus, in Grenada and St. Vincent representative institutions were abolished at the request of the people in 1876 and 1877, and a form of government by a governor and Legislative Council, partly official and partly unofficial, has been adopted. A very similar change had been effected, a few years earlier, in several of the islands which formed part of the Leeward Islands. Jamaica, in 1866, surrendered a representative Constitution that had existed for 200 years, and accepted a far less democratic Constitution; and on the coast of Central America representative institutions, after an experience of seventeen years, were abolished in British Honduras in 1870. In Australia the colonial governments have passed through several phases, and questions relating to the formation of an Upper Chamber, its power over money Bills, and its relations to the governor and the Lower House, have been fiercely debated, and usually argued chiefly upon British precedents. It is here only necessary to state the nature of the Upper Council in each colony. In New South Wales the Legislative Council is nominated for life by the governor. The minimum. number is fixed at twenty-one; but this number has been largely exceeded, and there was one unsuccessful attempt, in the premiership of Sir Charles Cowper in 1861, to overbear the Council by nominating a large number of members in order to win a majority. It was strongly condemned, both by public opinion in the colony and by the authorities in England.' Four-fifths of the members must be persons not holding any paid office under the Crown, but this is not held to include officers in the sea and land forces or retired officers on pension. In Queensland the Legislative Council is formed on the same principle of nomination; in Victoria, in South Australia, in Western Australia, and in Tasmania, it is an elective body, directly elected for limited periods, but usually under a special property qualification. In New Zealand the less democratic method is adopted, and the Legislative Council consists of members nominated by the governor. Before 1891 they were appointed for life; but an Act of that year made all new appointments tenable for seven years only, though the councillors may be reappointed. If we turn now from these various constitutions to our own we shall find, I think, a very general agreement among serious political thinkers that it would be an extreme misfortune if the upper, or revising, Chamber in the Legislature were abolished, and an agreement, which, if less general, is still very wide, that it must, in some not far distant day, be materially altered. For my own part, I should consider it a misfortune if the hereditary element, of which it is now mainly composed, were not still largely represented in it. The peerage occupies a vast place in English history and tradition. It has a widespread influence and 'See Coghlan's Wealth and Progress of New South Wales, p. 500. Rusden's History of Australia, iii. 258-62. 2 Coghlan, p. 501. New Zealand Year-Book, 1894, p. 14. an indisputable popularity; and, as I have endeavoured to show, its members possess in a high degree some of the qualities and capacities that are most useful in the government of men. Their political prominence not only represents, but also sustains and strengthens, a connection between the upper classes of the country and political life, to which England owes very much, and in an age as democratic as our own it may qualify some evils, and can produce no danger. It must also be remembered that, without resorting to revolutionary measures, no reform of the House of Lords can be carried without its own assent, and it is scarcely within the limits of possibility that it would sanction a law which extinguished its hereditary element. To carry such a measure in spite of it would probably prove a long and most serious task. It has become a fashion of late years, at times when the House does, or threatens to do, something which is thought unpopular to organise great London demonstrations against it. Some thousands of men and women, largely swollen by mere holiday-seekers, and representing at most a very doubtful voting preponderance in two or three London constituencies, are accustomed to assemble in Hyde Park, and by the mouth. of men who, for the most part, would be unable to find a single constituency that would send them into Parliament, to proclaim themselves the voice of the nation, and hurl defiance at the Upper House. In England these things have little weight. In France they have been more serious, for more than one revolution, for which the immense majority of the French people had never wished, has been accomplished by the violence of a Paris mob. There can, however, be little doubt that, if a proposal for the violent destruction of the House of Lords were brought authoritatively before the coun |