class-selfishness of the House of Lords have prevented us from seeing how the Disturbance Bill would have actually worked. The exasperation arising on its rejection, and the opportunity which that rejection furnished to politicians whose aims avowedly go far beyond land reform, make it impossible to regard what has since happened in Ireland as affording any key to what would have followed the passing of the Disturbance Bill into an Act. But the refusal to pay rent, and defiance to the law to take its course, is certainly not correctly interpreted when it is set down to a communistic motive. It is simply a piece of political tactics, indefensible if you please, but directed to other aims than the subversion of the idea of property. On the other hand, it is noticeable that the very wildest schemes of land reform are those which, on the face of them, promise to do most for establishing property as an institution. To create half a million of small landlords by buying out the necessary number of large ones with many millions of national money would be a practical token of respect to the notion of property that could not be easily paralleled. Laboured attempts are made by Conservative critics to show that the system of small properties in land, if carried out into all other spheres of property, would practically destroy the stimulus to exertion in the acquisition of property by which society benefits so largely. But to make this argument good, it would require to be shown that those who advocate the encouragement of small properties by law, also advocate the prevention by law of all except small properties. If there are Radicals who desire this, their number is so limited that they cannot count in any fair endeavour to estimate the actual or probable drift of the popular mind. Radicalism may be a very bad thing, but there is no evidence that it is doing anything with the principle of property beyond seeking to make some new and, as it believes, more profitable applications of it, or that, if it did, it would receive any countenance from the common sense and justice of the people at large. The destruction of society, accordingly, by Liberalism, on this score, may be set down as a bugbear.

Another way in which Radicalism is said to be dragging Liberalism towards the destruction of society, has reference to its alleged hostility to an hereditary peerage, and its functions in the legislature. The abolition of the House of Lords is a question which there will probably be abundance of time to consider, but meanwhile it may be remarked, that unless Conservative writers and speakers have some better arguments in reserve than those which they are in the habit of using, the case for their favourite institution must be weaker than might otherwise have been supposed. The idea involved in a Second Chamber is one for which we shall seek in vain for a parallel in any other department of business. What municipal council, railway or banking board, commercial firm, single trader, professional man, or head of a family, ever wants another council,

board, firm, trader, practitioner, or family head with power of veto to prevent it or him from getting on with the work? The answer made is that rashness is unadvisable, and that delay may often be useful in legislation or administration, as if there were no delay provided in the House of Commons. But rashness is unadvisable in everything, yet it has passed into a proverb that delays are dangerous, the opinion of mankind apparently being that the best course on the whole is not to lose time in executing a resolution to which one has come after the best consideration he has been able to give to it, and to accept the correction of experience if a mistake has been made. Why should it be otherwise in the business of a nation? What national benefit has been gained by the repeated instances in which the House of Lords has thwarted the House of Commons and then yielded? Has the delay, or rather stoppage, of the Irish Disturbance Bill been proved to be a blessing?

But, it is said, the House of Lords, being responsible to no constituents, can furnish an independent criticism unattainable otherwise. But that is precisely what it cannot do. The House of Lords, like every political body, naturally falls into two parties, and party leadership and opinion belong to the Commons. If on any special point the House of Lords should be recalcitrant, the minister who leads the dominant party in the House of Commons has, in his power of creating new peers, an effectual weapon for securing consent, and the knowledge of this makes really independent criticism by the House of Lords, except in trifles, impossible. You may, if you like, elect to conduct your business on the plan of planting an adviser opposite you, empowered to stop you when he sees you resolved on doing something rash, but if at the same time you produce a revolver and give him to understand that he had better not stop you when you really want to go on, most people will think that you have given yourself a good deal of trouble for nothing. Yet in what other position does current Conservative apology leave the country in relation to the House of Lords?

On its showing it does not appear that society would be destroyed, or even much damaged, were the feeling against an hereditary Second Chamber ascribed to Radicalism to be successful in its aims. The legitimate power of the higher classes in the public life of the country would still remain, and an influential Parliamentary career would still be open to hereditary prudence, hereditary honesty, and hereditary ambition,' wherever they might be found. There is not the slightest reason to suppose that a man who had used the opportunities which wealth had given him to perfect his character and capacities for public usefulness, would be otherwise than greatly aided in the attainment of popular leadership and political influence by the presumption in his favour legitimately created by the possession of an historic name and that perfection of manners

which is the distinction of an aristocracy with traditions. To this not even hereditary title is essential, and the question might be left perfectly open, whether title, if retained at all, might not be more profitably employed as a reward for personal service alone. It is no part of Liberalism to make a blind tilt against inequality, but only against unjust or inexpedient inequality. The same instincts which naturally prompt the mass of mankind, when not maddened by want, to acquiesce in property, dispose them also to acquiesce in inequality. The two are indeed indissolubly bound up together, and recognition of the one involves recognition of the other.

To have my own and all I can gain for myself, I must allow everybody else the same right. Hence in a state of society where the law has not interposed to give one individual the advantage over another in the race of life, there will be no room for envy, and there will not be much envy. Inequalities clearly traceable to nature, or even to better luck, and not tainted by injustice, will be accepted by the mass of mankind, as will also those official inequalities which are necessary for the performance of the work of the State. It needs no argument to prove that this sentiment holds good of power and honour, as well as possessions. Where the law creates an inequality which is clearly irrational, as when it patronises one religion in preference to another, while destitute of the infallibility necessary to decide which, if either, is true, its action is resented. In such a case the sense of what is due to public utility is outraged, since, for anything the law knows, it may be enervating the public mind by superstition, instead of strengthening it by truth and virtue. Where again the law gives power or honour to some and denies it to others, for no reason of public utility, but seemingly out of mere favouritism, Liberalism must seek the removal of the inequality, both because in such a case the sum of general happiness is diminished by the unjust disappointment caused to those who are neglected, and because a spirit of servility is encouraged in the community by every act of respect and obedience which is exacted for artificial reasons. But where a man's power and honour are his own, either because he has fairly won them by his merits, or has fairly come by them in some way, or where he wears them as the reward or the instrument of public service, the assent of Liberalism is instantaneous and unhesitating. For this reason the upper classes have, in the leadership of a people daily adding educated intelligence to the teachings of life, an opportunity of rising to the enjoyment of a power which is as much superior to that exercised by their ancestors among their villeins by aid of sword and halter, as moral influence is to material force.

This consideration also disposes of another charge of destroying society brought against Liberalism in its relations to the new Radicalism. The latter is said to be busy propounding the doctrine that Parliament exists not to pass laws for the people, but to give

formal sanction to laws which the people have already virtually passed. Even had Radicalism taken to preaching this, it would be nothing so very far amiss, when properly understood. It is surely not going to be maintained that Parliament is to spend its time in passing laws which the people do not need; and what key can be had to the people's needs, unless it be their expressed wishes? Grievance before Supply is no novelty in the constitution, and it is to be hoped there is no design anywhere to have the spirit of that arrangement reversed. That the people should take a deep interest in the proceedings of Parliament, and should make their remarks on them, is inevitable, more particularly now that through the telegraph and the press the great council of the nation virtually conducts its business in the immediate presence of the nation. In the initiative of national business, and in all parts of the making of laws dependent on the special political skill which the legislator ought to possess, a competent Parliament is not more likely to be interfered with by the people than a tried family solicitor by a sensible client in transacting the business of the estate and drawing the necessary deeds. At times the solicitor may anticipate or even overrule the client's judgment for his good, in the certainty of an ultimate indemnity. But does that imply that Parliament is to make a rule of going on in contemptuous disregard of the national will as to the necessity, the nature, and the great structural principles of legislative measures? What strengthening of society is expected from such procedure?

There is the less necessity for alarm on this score, that the formation of the national will is greatly in the hands of competent politicians, if they choose to exert themselves. No more signal or instructive illustration of this is to be found than the remarkable achievement of the present Premier in overthrowing the late Government by a persistent appeal to the people on grounds of reason, fact, and sound policy. It is right that the wiser part of the world should guide those who, in the particular matter in question, may not be so wise, while yet wise enough to recognise wisdom when they hear it. But if those who are wise dislike the necessary trouble, if they prefer to go into a corner and sulk at the success of inferior men, all that can be done is to rebuke them for their self-indulgence, and remind them that they should be the last to complain. Liberalism, however, would be false to its creed and to the patent facts of English political life if, in despair of wise leadership for the people or popular preference for wise leadership, it should pause in any course dictated by the demands of social justice. When a nation's security ceases to be consistent with the progress of justice, it has passed its prime, and no amount of Conservatism will arrest its decline. There then remains for the patriot only the tragic consolation, that although a people may fail, the race has an inexhaustible future.

ROBERT WALLACE.

THE CITY PAROCHIAL CHARITIES.

THE question of the City parochial charities must soon receive the attention of the Legislature. It is fully ripe at any rate for discussion, and the interval which must elapse before its final settlement may well be occupied by efforts to contribute to the solution of a sufficiently perplexing problem. A crude or hasty measure of reform would be much more disastrous than the existing state of things, for at present the mischief is local and disorganised.

The story may be briefly retold. Centuries ago, London meant the City, and the City meant London. The suburbs, as we have them in these days, were the country; the West-end of to-day was non-existent; south of the Thames were a few steady-going villages and the quaint Boro';' the East-end, instead of teeming with that dull, uncomplaining, laborious life of which few of us know much, was dotted with picturesque hamlets; the large mass of the people of the metropolis dwelt within the square mile, which is now almost exclusively identified with the mercantile life of the metropolis, but which then was synonymous with the word 'London.'

With the view of helping their fellow-citizens, good folk, living, be it remembered, in ages differing widely from our own, often bequeathed lands or money to be administered by the authorities of the parish in which they had passed their days. One legacy would take the form of providing the poor with bread or clothing or coals; another would be intended to insure the maintenance of the parish church and the continuation of its services; a third would make provision for apprenticing poor boys or bestowing a marriage portion on needy maidens; a fourth would be designed to found pensions for old and unfortunate parishioners. These purposes may once have been wisely and regularly fulfilled. Whether they were or not, is of no consequence now; probably it did not much matter at the time, for the amount to be administered was often so small that its misapplication could not have been very harmful to the community.

But at the present time the complexion of the question is quite changed. The poor people, for whose direct or indirect benefit these bequests were intended, are not now, as a class, or to any considerable degree, resident in the City of London. The provision which was