and if the Bill had gone up to the other House backed by that majority he believed the Lords would have passed it. But during the interval between the second and third readings, the opinion of the Commons appeared to have undergone a considerable alteration; the majority of fifty-three had dwindled to nine. The Lords could not overlook this change, and they might think it wise to give the Commons time for reconsideration. He advised the House, therefore, as the most dignified course, to be satisfied with a declaration of their constitutional privileges; and he concluded by moving the above Resolution.

Mr. Collier contended that the vote of the House of Lords was opposed to constitutional usage, and to the tacit understanding which regulated the proceedings of the two Houses, without which the constitution could not work. He argued this position upon principal and authority, and, after a minute examination of the precedents reported by the Select Committee, he contended that not one of them was at all applicable to the present case; that it did not appear that the House of Lords had ever rejected any bill imposing or repealing a tax on purely financial grounds. He suggested the serious consequences of this new power assumed by the House of Lords, whose sanction hencefor ward would be required after the Budget had been settled by the Commons.

Mr. Coningham said the passing of this Resolution would not dis pose of the question, while it would provoke an agitation out of doors which had not been seen for many years. He entered his deliberate protest against the decision which

had been come to by the Government of placing an unmeaning truism on the records of the House.

Mr. Osborne observed that the financial and the constitutional questions had been very much mixed up in the discussion. As to the repeal of the paper duty, he had considered it rash, reckless, and improper. But the House had not considered it in that light; they had repealed the duty. As far as common sense went, the act of the House of Lords was right; but it was against the constitution.

Mr. James complained of the lame and impotent conclusion of Lord Palmerston, who ought, ho said, to have come forward to support the dignity of the House of Commons. The House of Lords had paralyzed the financial policy of the Government, and the resolution proposed was a poor and paltry compromise of opinions in the Cabinet.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, after reproaching the Opposition with being silent partisans of a gigantic innovation, said he could not refuse his assent to the Resolutions, because they contained a mild and temperate, but a firm, declaration of the rights of the House of Commons. The vindication was a good and sound vindication; but the House had a right to vindicate its privileges by action, and he reserved to himself an entire freedom so to vindicate them. Mr. Collier had gone through the list of pretended pre cedents, and had shown that there was not a rag or shred of authority for the claim put forth by the House of Lords. The course of the precedents was entirely adverse to the pretension of that House to interfere with the taxing func

tion of the Commons, whose privileges were essentially violated by the act of the Lords. He wanted to know whether the power of review exercised by the House of Lords in other matters of legislation was to be extended to finance; whether the financial errors of the Commons were liable to be corrected by the Lords. He justified the Government in choosing the best in preference to the most popular financial policy, and asked what was to be the influence of the conduct of the Lords upon those who were hereafter to frame financial measures.

Mr. Whiteside, in reply to the taunt of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, observed that the speech of Lord Palmerston was such as became the First Minister of the country, and admitting, as it did, distinctly and emphatically, the right of the House of Lords to resist the repeal of a tax, the speech was satisfactory to the Opposition side of the House. If the act of the Lords was a gigantic innovation on the constitution, as alleged by Mr. Gladstone, why did he not meet the invasion of their privileges by action? He main tained that that act was sanctioned by the constitution and the law of the land, and its principle by the precedents cited by the Committee. He accused the Chancellor of the Exchequer of making an attack upon the constitution, and if it was desired to strip the House of Lords of the right they had exercised, he asked a decision of the question whether we were to continue to live under that constitution, or whether it was to be revolutionized.

Lord Fermoy said the Liberal party, reserving to themselves the right to take other steps, thought

they were not abandoning their principles in allowing these Resolutions to pass. But he did not approve the speech of Lord Palmerston, to which that of the Chancellor of the Exchequer was, he thought, a complete and convincing answer. He denied that there was a single case in which the Lords had rejected a Bill purely financial sent to them by the Com

mons.

Mr. Butt said, in voting for the Resolutions, he did not consider them as conclusive, and the third Resolution pledged the House to further action, "to guard for the future against an undue exercise of the power exercised by the Lords." He should vote for the present Resolution because he believed that the Lords had infringed the privileges of the Commons.

Sir J. Shelley thought the Resolutions were weak and impotent.

Mr. Stansfeld said the only fault he found with the Resolutions was that the concluding one did not explicitly point the moral of the tale; but he excepted to the speech of Lord Palmerston, who, he thought, had abandoned the constitutional right of that House. There was no doubt of the technical right of the Lords to refuse their assent to any Bill; the only question was as to the constitutional exercise of the right, and he denied their constitutional right to refuse their assent to a money Bill, part of a Budget. The rejection of the Paper-duty Repeal Bill was a claim to revise the Budget, to perpetuate a tax against the assent of the representatives of the people, and thereby to increase the supply asked by the Crown. The question was, whether the House would consent to such a claim.

Mr. Disraeli offered to Lord Palmerston the sincere tribute of his adhesion to the patriotic speech by which he had introduced the Resolution. He had acknowledged, on the part of Her Majesty's Government, that the course taken by the House of Lords with reference to the Paper-duty Bill was justified and authorized by the state of the law. If this was the case, there was an end at once of the question as to the privileges of the House of Commons. A privilege that could not be asserted ceased to be a privilege, and was only a pretence. But he had confessed that the act of the Lords was not only justified by law, but sanctioned by policy. Was that conduct, he asked, which the House was called upon to condemn? After an examination of the three Resolutions in connection with the financial policy of the Government, he declared that he saw nothing to object to in them; they embodied, he said, his own views; and he complained that he and his party should be exposed to an attack from the Chancellor of the Exchequer because they supported Her Majesty's Govern ment. Adverting to the three amendments, of which notice had been given and which had been withdrawn, notwithstanding that the Resolutions had been stigmatized as lame and impotent, he commented, in a vein of humorous satire, upon the inconsistent and absurd course taken by the authors of the amendments. In conclusion, he gave his cordial assent to the Resolution, which, in his opinion, expressed a temperate and wise course on the part of the House, and had been proposed in a spirit suited to the occasion.

Lord J. Russell, while he ex

pressed his gratitude to Mr. Disraeli for the support he had given to the Government, desired to vindicate Lord Palmerston from the interpretation which had been put upon his speech, and which the words would not bear. Lord Palmerston had admitted the technical and legal right of the Lords to reject a Bill, but he had not said. that they were not only justified by law, but sanctioned by policy.' Lord John proceeded to express his own opinion of the act of the House of Lords-namely, that it was rash and unjustifiable, and might be followed by other similar acts, which in their consequences would work a new form of Government. The third Resolution affirmed that the House had the power to guard against an undue exercise of power by the Lords, and he thought it would be unwise to state in detail in what way it would be exercised. Ever since the constitution had been a constitution, this House had had the power of regulating the finances of the country, and if that power was shared with the House of Lords the result would be utter financial confusion. However indiscreet had been the conduct of the House of Lords, it was the duty of the Commons to pursue a calm and even course.

Mr. W. D. Seymour objected to the Resolutions as insufficient for the occasion. Mr. Leatham, Sir John Trelawney, and Mr. Dilwyn took the same view of them.

Mr. Horsman, after reminding the House that he had warned them of the importance of the financial measure which had given rise to this question, argued, in opposition to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that the power of the House of Lords to review, correct, and check the financial policy of

the House of Commons, though one to be rarely exercised and only in exceptional cases, was constitutionally vested in that body. But in cases of conflict of privilege, the decision did not belong to either House; the real authority rested with the nation. Precedents might be quoted on either side upon this question, but it was not sufficient to show that they were analogous. The virtue of precedents varied with the times; each era had its own. In former days the privileges of the Commons were employed as a barrier against the Crown, which they resisted through the medium of the Lords. Till of late years the Lords had exercised an undue influence in the House of Commons, so that there was an absence of motive to set them in motion on Money Bills. But the Act of 1832 had effected a great transfer of power. The predominant authority was in the Commons; the Lords no longer, directly or indirectly, ruled the country. Losing their territorial ascendancy, they became a real second council of the nation, acting as a security and safeguard against the despotism of democracy. The Lords were, with the Commons, the trustees of the national interests; they were closely identified with the people, and it was a mistake to say that, because they were not elected, they were not a representative body; they did represent the feelings and interests of the country. Having lost their indirect influence, it was the more necessary that the direct influence of the Lords should be strengthened. Charged with the same interests as the Commons, and responsible to the same tribunal of opinion, on what principle could the Lords be excluded

from a reviewing power over financial legislation, and the Commons be emancipated from that salutary check to which they were subject in other matters? In this case, the Lords had exercised that power; by their veto they had checked the House of Commons in a headlong, precipitate, and mad career, and they challenged for that act the verdict of the country.

Mr. Bright said he was surprised that Mr. Horsman had not concluded his speech by an amendment that would reverse the Resolution. He was not very well satisfied with the Resolutions; he would not attack, nor would he defend them. They were not worthy of the occasion, and bore marks of having been written by more than one hand. It could not be denied that the Lords, if they had not violated the privileges of the Commons, had broken the usage of Parliament. The appointment of the Committee, and the very Resolution before the House, condemned, by implication, what the Lords had done; but the course proposed would denote in after times a melancholy decline of spirit in the House of Commons. The Lords, to whom the theories of Mr. Horsman had always been palatable, had made repeated efforts to exercise the power of amending money Bills, which had been defeated by the Commons. The Resolutions of the House in 1678 and 1691 asserted the absolute control of the Commons over all aids and supplies granted to the Crown, and this right was reasserted in subsequent years. stream of resolutions and declarations confirmed and consecrated the principle existing for 500 years, and which he had thought everyone admitted, -the funda

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mental and unchangeable principle of the English Constitution, that taxation and representation were inseparable in this kingdom. Mr. Bright then proceeded at some length to vindicate the policy of repealing the paper-duty, as a relief to an important industry, and to other industries depending upon an abundant and cheap supply of paper, and he charged the House of Lords with inflicting most harsh and cruel treatment on persons interested in these industries. He complained, too, of their unfair proceeding in refusing to allow the paper-duty to be repealed while they retained the additional income-tax, which was substituted for it. The Lords might reject Money Bills; they might even amend such Bills; they were omnipotent within their four walls; but if they took a course contrary to the usage of Parliament, it be came this House to say what course they should take. His opinion was, that it would only be consonant with the dignity of the House of Commons to pass another Bill to repeal the paper-duty, and if they gave the Lords, in return, "time for reconsideration," he believed they would accept the Bill, and thus the difficulty would be surmounted.

The first Resolution was then agreed to.

The second Resolution was "That although the Lords have exercised the power of rejecting Bills of several descriptions relating to taxation by negativing the whole, yet the exercise of that power by them has not been frequent, and is justly regarded by this House with peculiar jealousy, as affecting the right of the Commons to grant the supplies and to

provide the ways and means for the service of the year."

This also was carried, a verbal amendment proposed by Mr. Mellor being negatived by a large majority.

The third Resolution was then put and agreed to-" That, to guard for the future against an undue exercise of that power by the Lords, and to secure to the Commons their rightful control over taxation and supply, this House has in its own hands the power so to impose and remit taxes, and to frame Bills of Supply, that the right of the Commons as to the matter, manner, measure, and time may be maintained inviolate."

The proceeding thus adopted, however, by no means satisfied the wishes of those who conceived that the Lords by their late vote had infringed an essential privilege of the other House of Parliament, and that the precedent thus created was likely to prove of dangerous application hereafter. The question was again raised on the 17th July by Lord Fermoy, who moved the following Resolution:-"That the rejection by the House of Lords of the Bill for the repeal of the Paper-duties is an encroachment on the rights and privileges of the House of Commons; and it is therefore incumbent upon this House to adopt a practical measure for the vindication of its rights and privileges." There was, he said, out of doors, a strong feeling of indignation upon this subject, indicated by the number of petitions, and of public meetings in the principal towns of England which had adopted Resolutions denouncing the aggression of the Lords. His Resolution contained