bill be again rejected in a definite manner, there will be only
two courses open to me, one to cut out of public life, which I
shall infinitely prefer; the other to become a supporter of
organic change in the House of Lords, which I hate and which I am
making all this fuss in order to avoid. We have a few weeks before
us to try and avert the mischief. After a second rejection it will
be too late. There is perhaps the alternative of advising a large
creation of peers; but to this there are great objections, even if
the Queen were willing. I am not at present sure that I could
bring myself to be a party to the adoption of a plan like that of
1832.

When people talked to him of dissolution as a means of bringing the Lords
to account, he replied in scorn: "A marvellous conception! On such a
dissolution, if the country disapproved of the conduct of its
representatives, it would cashier them; but, if it disapproved of the
conduct of the peers, it would simply have to see them resume their place
of power, to employ it to the best of their ability as opportunity might
serve, in thwarting the desires of the country expressed through its
representatives."

It was reported to Mr. Gladstone that his speeches in (M48) Scotland
(though they were marked by much restraint) created some displeasure at
Balmoral. He wrote to Lord Granville (Sept. 26):--

The Queen does not know the facts. If she did, she would have
known that while I have been compelled to deviate from the
intention, of speaking only to constituents which (with much
difficulty) I kept until Aberdeen, I have thereby (and again with
much difficulty in handling the audiences, every one of which
would have wished a different course of proceeding) been enabled
to do much in the way of keeping the question of organic change in
the House of Lords out of the present stage of the controversy.

Sir Henry Ponsonby, of course at the Queen's instigation, was
indefatigable and infinitely ingenious in inventing devices of possible
compromise between Lords and Commons, or between Lords and ministers, such
as might secure the passing of franchise and yet at the same time secure
the creation of new electoral areas before the extended franchise should
become operative. The Queen repeated to some members of the opposition--she
did not at this stage communicate directly with Lord Salisbury--the essence
of M