alleged prerogatives. We had to send a dynasty adrift before we
could regard our liberties as moderately secure. No greater disservice
can be done to any institution than to advance exaggerated or
ill-founded pretensions on its behalf, and this is what Neo-conservatism
proposes to do for the Crown. It will be well to keep this institution
off the hustings. To utilize it for party purposes seems like an
insidious form of treason. The Established Church is fairer game, but
absolutely worthless as a means of raising the wind for a forlorn party.
An institution which needs all the support it can get has none to share
with companions in distress. The Church may have a larger hold upon a
portion of the middle classes than it had thirty years ago, but the
working classes are separated from it by a wider gulf. Many who attend
its services and call themselves Churchmen are utterly indifferent to
its political fate. It is preposterous to represent the Established
Church as necessary to the maintenance of civil and religious freedom.
In the course of her history she has been the unrelenting foe of both,
and we have no more of either than she could help our having. The want
of disciplinary powers prevents her from interfering with the belief,
or, except in grave cases, with the moral conduct of her members, but
the paralysis of the authority necessary for internal discipline is not
the same thing as religious freedom. The bondage of the Church is not
the liberty of the State. Disestablishment has not yet come within the
range of practical politics, but if a popular statesman felt it his duty
to bring the question fairly before the electorate, it is at least
doubtful whether the verdict would not be hostile to the Church. No
doubt need be entertained as to the result of such an appeal in the case
of the House of Lords. The constitution of the House as an assembly of
hereditary legislators is admitted to be indefensible. Its theoretic
prerogatives are tolerated only on the understanding that they shall
never be exerted. It exists by virtue of habit and indifference, aided
by a conviction of its powerlessness. As a decorative institution there
is no great eagerness to pull it down, but whenever the House forgets
that its functions are ornamental, and commits itself to a serious issue
with the Commons, its last hour will be at hand. The step most likely to
precipitate its doom would be for the Tory party to glorify it as the
palladium of