t been smooth or without incident. There have been moments of
failure, of rebuff, and even of disaster. It would almost seem as if
the motive power which has carried the party of progress through the
storm and stress, and landed it in security, had been outside the
control of any one man or any set of men. Although distinguished men
have led and there have been many valiant workers in the field, a
movement that has extended over nearly a hundred years must have its
origin and energy deeper down than in any mere party policy. It is the
inevitable outcome of the steady but inexorable evolution of free
institutions among a liberty-loving people.

In order, first of all, to trace the course of the actual controversy
as it has been carried on in the House of Commons and in the country,
it is not necessary to go further back than 1883. In that year the
Lords had rejected the Franchise Bill, and it was then that Mr. Bright,
in a speech at Leeds dealing with the deadlocks between the two Houses,
sketched a plan which was really the essence and origin of the
principle adopted in the Parliament Act that has just become law. The
Lords had rejected many Liberal measures before then; attempts had been
made to get round or overcome their opposition; but not till then was
any practical method formulated for dealing with the serious and
permanent obstruction to progressive legislation. Mr. Bright himself
had condemned the peers and declared that "their arrogance and class
selfishness had long been at war with the highest interests of the
nation," and now he advocated a specific remedy, which he declared
would be obtained by "limiting the veto which the House of Lords
exercises over the proceedings of the House of Commons." The actual
plan was that a Bill rejected by the Lords should be sent up to them
again, "but when the Bill came down to the House of Commons in the
second session, and the Commons would not agree to the amendments of
the Lords, then the Lords should be bound to accept the Bill." This
method of procedure, it will be seen, was more expeditious and drastic
than the scheme in the Parliament Act.

Mr. Chamberlain joined vigorously in the campaign against the Peers.
Telling passages from his speeches are quoted to this day, such as when
he declared that "the House of Lords had never contributed one iota to
popular liberty and popular freedom, or done anything to advance the
common weal," but "had protected every abuse and