oted against him. I am not
prepared to take such a rough-and-ready test of the opinion and of the
mental processes of the British democracy as that. I should hesitate
to say that when the people pronounce against a particular measure or
Party they have not pretty good reasons for doing so. I am not at all
convinced that in 1900 the electors were wrong in saying that the war
should be finished--by those who made it. Even in the last election I
could, I daresay, find some few reasons to justify the decision which
the people then took; and if we should be so unfortunate in the future
as to lose that measure of public confidence now abundantly given to
us, then I shall not be too sure that it will not be our own fault.
Certain am I that we could not take any step more likely to forfeit
the confidence of the people of England, than to continue in office
after we have lost the power to pass effective legislation.

I will retort the question of the Leader of the Opposition by another
question. Has the House of Lords ever been right? Has it ever been
right in any of the great settled controversies which are now beyond
the reach of Party argument? Was it right in delaying Catholic
emancipation and the removal of Jewish disabilities? Was it right in
driving this country to the verge of revolution in its effort to
defeat the passage of reform? Was it right in resisting the Ballot
Bill? Was it right in the almost innumerable efforts it made to
prevent this House dealing with the purity of its own electoral
machinery? Was it right in endeavouring to prevent the abolition of
purchase in the Army? Was it right in 1880, when it rejected the
Compensation for Disturbance Bill? I defy the Party opposite to
produce a single instance of a settled controversy in which the House
of Lords was right.

[An honourable Member: What about Home Rule?]

I expected that interruption. That is not a settled controversy. It is
a matter which lies in the future. The cases I have mentioned are
cases where we have carried the law into effect and have seen the
results, and found that they have been good.

Let me remind the House that, but for a lucky accident, but for the
fact that Letters Patent can be issued by the Crown and do not require
the statutory assent of Parliament, it would very likely have been
impossible for this Government to have made the constitutional
settlement in the Transvaal and in the Orange River Colony, because
the Constitutions