Page:Civil and Religious Liberty (Annie Besant).pdf/19

 institution; but dying men sometimes live long, and dying institutions may last for centuries if only they are nursed and tended with sufficient care. A House in the election of whose members the people have no voice; a House whose members are born into it, instead of winning their way into it by service to the State; a House which is built upon cradles and not upon merit; a House whose deliberations may be shared in by fools or by knaves, provided only that the brow be coronetted—such a House is a disgrace to a free country, and an outrage on popular liberty. As might be expected from its constitution, this House of Lords has ever stood in the path of every needed reform, until it has been struck out of the way by hidden menace or by stern command. Is there any abuse whose days are numbered? be sure it will be defended in the House of Lords. Is there a monopoly which needs to be abolished? be sure it will be championed in the House of Lords. Is there any popular liberty asked for? be sure it will be refused in the House of Lords. Is there any fetter struck from off the limbs of progress? be sure that some cunning smith will be found to weld the fragments together again, under the name of an amendment, in the House of Lords. The only use of the thing is, that it may act as a political barometer by which to prognosticate the coming weather; that which the House of Lords blesses is most certainly doomed, while whatever it frowns upon is crowned for a speedy triumph. It has not even the merit of courage, this craven assemblage of toy-players at legislation; however boldly it roars out its "No," a frown from the House of Commons makes it tremble and yield; like a reed, it stands upright enough in the calm weather; like a reed, it bows before the storm-wind of a popular cry. As a question of practical politics, the House of Lords should be struck at almost rather than the Crown, because the whole principle of aristocracy is embodied in that House, the whole fatal notion that the accident of birth gives the right to rule. Our puppet kings and queens are less directly injurious to the commonwealth than is this titled House. The gilded figure-head injures the State-vessel less than the presence of hands on her tiller-ropes which know naught of navigation. And with the fall of the House of Lords must crash down the throne, which is but the ornament upon its roof, the completion of its elevation; so that when the toy-house has fallen at the breath of the people's lips, and we