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advancing civilization. When titles are given only for life, and are bestowed exclusively as recognitions of merit or of exceptional ability and integrity, there will grow up among us a true aristocracy characterized by the highest intellectual and moral qualities, while the old aristocracy of birth will be less and less esteemed, except in so far as it possesses similar characteristics. Educated public opinion will, from time to time, indicate the men who should be made eligible for election to the Upper Chamber, and no Ministry will then dare to advise the Sovereign to bestow this honour on the unworthy, or as a reward for mere political support, thus lowering the standard of those who are eligible for election by the people's local representatives. If, further, it was the rule that each of the great political parties should give titular honours to not more than a fixed number in each year, the balance would be kept even, and at successive elections each party would have an equal range of choice.

There are many matters of detail which it is not necessary to discuss at present. Among these are the term for which the Lords should be elected; whether they should change with a change of Ministry, or by a portion retiring at intervals; whether the judges, when they leave the bench, should be ex-officio members or should be eligible for election. These are matters of minor importance, which will be easily settled when the main principles of the scheme of reform are decided on. These more fundamental points may be summarized as follows: (1) The limitation of the number of members in the new House of Lords to about two hundred; (2) The extension of the range of choice to knights and baronets; (3) All titular honours in future to be granted for life and only in recognition of distinguished merit; (4) An age-qualification of about forty years; (5) Representation of counties as units, by two members of each; (6) The constituency to consist of all the members of the County, District, Town, and Parish Councils in each county.

I now submit this scheme of reform, first, to the leaders among the existing peers, to whom it offers an honourable mode of escape from a difficult position, not by an ignominious surrender to popular demands after a long struggle which they know must terminate in defeat, but by voluntarily recognizing their anomalous character as hereditary legislators in an otherwise representative government, and by themselves initiating the reconstruction of the Constitution which at no distant date is inevitable. By so doing they may preserve the continuity of the aristocratic Upper Chamber, add greatly to its dignity and power, and give to the world the too rare example of a privileged class voluntarily resigning such of its privileges as are inconsistent with modern civilization. This I conceive to be true conservatism.

To the Liberal and Radical parties and I am myself an extreme Radical-I submit my scheme as one that will remove all the evils and anomalies of the present House of Lords, transforming it into a representative chamber of the very highest character, which must always be in harmony with advanced public opinion as expressed by the whole body of its freely elected local representatives. Such a House of Lords would be really capable of fulfilling what is supposed to be the special function of an Upper Chamber-that of calm and judicial consideration of such measures as were the result of sudden waves of prejudice or passion, either in the population at large or in the House of Commons. It would thus appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober, and would give expression to deliberate and permanent, rather than to hasty and temporary, public opinion. To secure a body capable of doing this and I cannot see how it could be more effectually done than by some such method as I have here suggested-would be, in my opinion, a measure of radical, yet safe and judicious, reform.

CHAPTER XIV

DISESTABLISHMENT AND DISENDOWMENT: WITH A PROPOSAL FOR A REALLY NATIONAL CHURCH OF ENGLAND

THE wide-spread agitation for the disestablishment and disendowment of the English Church calls for more notice than it has hitherto received from those who, while agreeing with the necessity for some such movement and the abstract justice of its main object, do not look upon the existing Established Church merely as a powerful sect whose prestige and influence are to be diminished as soon as possible and at almost any sacrifice.

At the various meetings in favour of disestablishment (some twenty years back), little or nothing was said as to the details of the proposed or desired legislation; no scheme was formulated as to a practicable and beneficial mode of applying the national property now held by the Church, or of preserving and utilizing for national objects the parish churches, cathedrals, and other ecclesiastical buildings spread so thickly over our land, and which constitute a picturesque and impressive record of much of our social and religious history for nearly a thousand years. The only thing we have to guide us as to the aims and objects of these agitators is a constant reference to recent legislation in the case of the Irish Church, and we are therefore left to infer that some very similar mode of dealing with the English Church, its property and its buildings, is what these gentlemen have in view. But if this be so, it is surely the duty of all who have the social and moral advancement of their country at heart, and are uninfluenced by sectarian rivalry, to protest against any such scheme as in the highest degree disastrous. It may be thought by many that this agitation cannot possibly succeed in gaining its object for a very long time, and that it is useless to discuss now what shall be done at some indefinite and distant future. But this may be altogether a mistake; gross abuses do not now live long, and when an agitation is started as powerfully and influentially as this one, supported as it will undoubtedly be by the great mass of the operative class, and made a party cry at future elections, the end may not be very far off. We may then find it too late to introduce new ideas, or to persuade the Nonconformist leaders of the movement to give up their special programme, however injurious some portions of that programme may be to the best interests of the country.

My object in this chapter is, therefore, to urge upon all independent liberal thinkers to lose no time in taking part in this movement, laying down at once certain principles to be adopted as an essential condition of securing their support; and I propose, further, to show a practicable mode of carrying out these principles so as to produce results in the highest degree beneficial to the whole community.

The main principle that should guide our action in this matter, I conceive to be, that existing Church Property of every kind is National Property, and that no portion of it must, under any circumstances, be alienated, either for the compensation of supposed or real vested interests, or to the uses of any sectarian body; and further, that the parish churches and other ecclesiastical buildings must on no account be given up, but be permanently retained, with the Church property, for purposes analogous to those for which they were primarily established the moral and social advancement of the whole community.

That the property now held by the Established Church is national property, is generally admitted; and also that the Church, as represented by a body holding particular religious opinions, can have no permanent vested interest in that property, although the individuals of which it is composed may have life-interests; and the case of the Irish Church should be a warning to us to look far enough ahead, and prepare for the inevitable change so much in advance of any immediate political necessity for it that we may allow all individual vested interests to expire naturally, and so have no need to make special compensation for them. In Ireland every kind of vested interest was brought forward, and it was even claimed that, as every clergyman had a chance of obtaining a better living, or of becoming a bishop, he should be compensated accordingly; and that every member of the Church had an actual vested interest in its maintenance during his life. It was because all legislation had been put off till it could no longer be delayed, that these interests had to be considered, and the result was, that a sectarian Church was permanently endowed with a large amount of national property. But any such necessity of compensation for vested interests of individuals may be obviated by a little foresight, and by legislating sufficiently early to allow everyone to retain his rights and privileges in the Church during his lifetime. All individual vested rights would thus be satisfied, and it is probable that they would not interfere with the complete establishment of a new system at a comparatively early period, because a transition state is always an unsatisfactory and an unpleasant one, and long before half the individual lives had expired, and perhaps in the course of a very few years, the change might be voluntarily effected.

While legislation was proceeding in the case of the Irish Church, it was made sufficiently clear that it is almost impossible suddenly to abolish any such great national institution, and to find any suitable mode of applying the surplus property without grievous waste, or so as to be really beneficial to the community; and it was almost felt to be a means of getting out of a difficulty that every shadow of a vested interest should be fully compensated, and the inconveniently large amount to be disposed of reduced to manageable proportions. I believe, however, that in the case of England no such difficulty exists, and that the whole of the Church revenues may be applied in

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