These difficulties perplex and irritate him. Probably he goes
home with a hasty generalization.
But the answer to these objections is not difficult. Without posing as
a champion of the House of Lords, one may point out that it is a very
ancient and deep-rooted institution; that to pull it up would cost an
immense deal of trouble; that it gives us a second or upper house
quite free from the acknowledged dangers of popular election; that the
lords have long ceased to oppose themselves to changes once clearly
and unmistakably demanded by the nation; that the hereditary powers
actually exercised by the very small number of peers who sit in the
House do give us an average exhibition of brain power quite equal to
that found in the House of Commons, in which are the six hundred
chosen delegates of the people; that, as regards the elevation of rich
men, a poor man cannot well accept a peerage, because custom does not
permit a peer to work for his livelihood; that it is necessary to
create new peers continually, in order to keep as close a connection
as possible between the Lords and the Commons; _e.g._, if a peer has a
hundred brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, cousins, they are all
commoners and he is the one peer, so that for six hundred peers there
may be a hundred thousand people closely allied to the House of Lords.
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