The House of Lords Question Author:Andrew Reid Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: II By Lord Monkswell No statesman can hope to deal satisfactorily with the question of the reform of the House of Lords who is not thoroughly familiar with... more » that question from three points of view—the point of view of the Radicals, the point of view of the Tories, and, above all, the point of view of the man in the street, who, although by force of circumstances he may own a nominal allegiance to the Liberals or the Conservatives, is apt, when hard pressed for his vote, to exclaim, " a plague on both your parties." From the Radical point of view there is no doubt a very great deal that may reasonably be urged against the House of Lords as at present constituted. Indeed, in an assembly of good Radicals it is hardly possible to paint that assembly in colours too black to suit the taste of the audience. But though unmeasured denunciation of the Lords is popular on Radical platforms, I doubt whether either the vehemence of the attack or the nature of the arguments adduced are calculated to gain converts. Preaching to the converted is one thing. In that exercise, rhetoric rather than logic is in request. You may trounce and buffet the heathen and the unbeliever to your heart's content, and the 36 harder you hit the more pleasure you will give. But with the missionary it is different, and it is just this vital difference that strong party men commonly ignore. Strong party men seldom make any sustained effort even to understand the arguments of their opponents, still less to enter into their sentiments and to see things from their point of view. That is where politicians break down, and we constantly see eminent Radicals pounding away at the House of Lords in a manner that certainly does not advance their cause with the general public. In the first place, I would observe of...« less