for not
attempting to alter this state of things. We cannot alter it, I know,
without taking up the foundations of our constitution. But is it not
absurd, while we live under such a constitution, while, throughout
our whole system from top to bottom, political functions and judicial
functions are combined, to single out, not on any special ground, but
merely at random, one judge from a crowd of judges, and to exclude
him, not from all political assemblies, but merely from one political
assembly? Was there ever such a mummery as the carrying of this bill
to the other House will be, if, unfortunately, it should be carried
thither. The noble lord, himself, I have no doubt, a magistrate, himself
at once a judge and a politician, accompanied by several gentlemen who
are at once judges and politicians, will go to the bar of the Lords, who
are all at once judges and politicians, will deliver the bill into the
hands of the Chancellor, who is at once the chief judge of the realm and
a Cabinet Minister, and will return hither proud of having purified the
administration of justice from the taint of politics.

No, Sir, no; for the purpose of purifying the administration of justice
this bill is utterly impotent. It will be effectual for one purpose,
and for one purpose only, for the purpose of weakening and degrading the
House of Commons. This is not the first time that an attempt has been
made, under specious pretexts, to lower the character and impair the
efficiency of the assembly which represents the great body of the
nation. More than a hundred and fifty years ago there was a general cry
that the number of placemen in Parliament was too great. No doubt, Sir,
the number was too great: the evil required a remedy: but some rash and
short-sighted though probably well meaning men, proposed a remedy which
would have produced far more evil than it would have removed. They
inserted in the Act of Settlement a clause providing that no person who
held any office under the Crown should sit in this House. The clause was
not to take effect till the House of Hanover should come to the throne;
and, happily for the country, before the House of Hanover came to the
throne, the clause was repealed. Had it not been repealed, the Act of
Settlement would have been, not a blessing, but a curse to the country.
There was no want, indeed, of plausible and popular commonplaces in
favour of this clause. No man, it was said, can serve two masters. A
courti