no conflict with
them. But it is not fit that we should be unable to bear an equal part
with them in the great work of improving and digesting the law. It
is not fit that we should be under the necessity of placing implicit
confidence in their superior wisdom, and of registering without
amendment, any bill which they may send us. To that humiliating
situation we are, I grieve to say, fast approaching. I was much struck
by a circumstance which occurred a few days ago. I heard the honourable
Member for Montrose, who, by the by, is one of the supporters of
this bill, urge the House to pass the Combination Bill, for a most
extraordinary reason. "We really," he said, "cannot tell how the law
about combinations of workmen at present stands; and, not knowing how
the law at present stands, we are quite incompetent to decide whether
it ought to be altered. Let us send the bill up to the Lords. They
understand these things. We do not. There are Chancellors, and
ex-Chancellors, and Judges among them. No doubt they will do what is
proper; and I shall acquiesce in their decision." Why, Sir, did ever any
legislative assembly abdicate its functions in so humiliating a manner?
Is it not strange that a gentleman, distinguished by his love of popular
institutions, and by the jealousy with which he regards the aristocracy,
should gravely propose that, on a subject which interests and excites
hundreds of thousands of our constituents, we should declare ourselves
incompetent to form an opinion, and beg the Lords to tell us what we
ought to do? And is it not stranger still that, while he admits the
incompetence of the House to discharge some of its most important
functions, and while he attributes that incompetence to the want of
judicial assistance, he should yet wish to shut out of the House the
only high judicial functionary who is now permitted to come into it?

But, says the honourable Member for Montrose, the Master of the Rolls
has duties to perform which, if properly performed, will leave him no
leisure for attendance in this House: it is important that there should
be a division of labour: no man can do two things well; and, if we
suffer a judge to be a member of Parliament, we shall have both a bad
member of Parliament and a bad judge.

Now, Sir, if this argument proves anything, it proves that the Master
of the Rolls, and indeed all the other judges, ought to be excluded from
the House of Lords as well as from the House of Commo