would justify their being intrusted with the responsibility of recommending some of their number to the Crown for the honours of the peerage.

These and doubtless many other arguments could be brought to bear against the admission of natives of India to the House of Lords ; but even though it should be proved that some of these objections were well founded, it appears to me that the advantages of obtaining within the walls of Parliament some independent expressions of native Indian opinion far outweigh the arguments which have been urged or are likely to be urged against the proposal.

Let us take the above objections seriatim and consider their value.

Whatever may be the opinion of the majority of the princes and rajahs of India, the only two with whom I have spoken on this subject both expressed themselves as pleased with the idea. They are semi-independent sovereigns, their dominions are widely separated from each other, and one of them, if not the most powerful, is one of the wealthiest of native rulers. Notwithstanding the fact that these princes rule their subjects without other interference from Great Britain than that exercised by the British agents resident at their courts, and that the territories of the most important of the two are larger than some European countries, they both regarded the idea from a personal point of view, and would evidently welcome the possession of seats in the House of Lords as an honour and a privilege, so long as the acceptance of such a position did not involve any abdication of their present semi-independent sovereign rights.

If such men look upon the possession of a seat in the Upper House of the Imperial Parliament as an honour, we need be under no apprehension as regards the feelings of the less important princes and nobles of India who are entirely subject to British rule. It is doubtless true that some of the magnates of India are not fitted by education or character to take part in the government of a great Empire, but there are others who are eminently capable of doing so, and who prove their capacity by the admirable manner in which they rule their own states and territories.

If the doors of Parliament are to be closed to all who cannot bring satisfactory certificates of proficiency in the art of governing, I fear a not insignificant proportion of the existing members of both Houses will have to make up their minds to resign their seats, and I am afraid that certain disclosures made in recent years have shown that neither House can boast that men of dubious character are entirely unknown within its walls. If Indian princes ever sit in the Imperial Parliament, whatever be the principle of selection, whether they are summoned by writ on the recommendation of the Government, or whether they are chosen, like the Irish and Scotch representative peers, by the votes of their fellows, it is most unlikely that the disreputable

and the incapable will be selected. In either case it will be the interest of those in whose hands rests the responsibility of nomination to choose the men who will do the greatest credit to the Empire and to their order, and whose elevation will redound to the honour of India.

The proper answer to the fourth argument of my hypothetical objector is that the House of Lords lays no claim to be representative of the people either of Great Britain or of Hindostan, and that if the princes and rajahs could in any political sense be said to represent India, their proper place would be in the Lower and not in the Upper House of Parliament. The fifth, sixth, and seventh objections may be taken together. There are doubtless still many natives of high caste and rank who conscientiously object to cross the ocean; but this superstition is rapidly dying out, and many of the most important princes of India have successfully overcome the prejudices engendered by religion and caste, and have repeatedly visited Great Britain and Europe. Without doubt also only those princes would be recommended to the Crown for a life peerage who were willing to visit occasionally the capital of the Empire, and to take their part in the labours of the House of Lords. The means of communication between India and Great Britain are now so perfected that it takes a man no longer to reach Bombay from London than it often took our fathers and grandfathers to journey to Dublin. When my father was a boy at Eton the Irish lads were always granted an extra fortnight's holiday, in consideration of the time it took, or was supposed to take, to reach home, whilst now a man can transfer himself from England to India in a fortnight plus one day.

Whatever prestige an Indian magnate might lose by occasional absences from home would be amply compensated for by the public knowledge that he was able to raise his voice in the Imperial Parliament, that he could influence by his vote and arguments the course of legislation, Indian as well as Imperial, and that as a member of the Legislature he was necessarily in personal contact with the rulers of the Empire, It is possible that Eastern magnates visiting Europe might learn some Western vices, but unless we are prepared to acknowledge that Christianity and civilisation have failed in their missions, we surely may be justified in entertaining the hope that some of these Orientals might return to their homes with characters strengthened and improved by the acquisition of Western virtues.

The conferring of honours, whether at home or abroad, sometimes leads to jealousy and heartburnings, but we do not consider this a valid reason for discontinuing the practice, nor is there any cause to believe that the creation of native life peers would be more conducive to discord than is at present, say, the distribution amongst the same class of the order of the Star of India.

In answer to the ninth objection, why should we imagine that native princes holding seats in the Upper House for life would either be so weak as only to vote as the Indian authorities desired, or so selfish and ignorant as to use their position exclusively for their own personal interests, or for those of their own race, order, or religion?

No one has a right to speak thus disparagingly of an entire class without being able to bring forward the strongest proofs in support of his accusations. But no such proofs are forthcoming. The evidence which is to hand shows that several of the native rulers and rajahs are men of talent, of education, and of character, genuinely desirous of bettering the condition of their less fortunate countrymen, firmly convinced of the advantages of British rule, and desirous of furthering the interests not only of India but of the Empire.

The presence in the House of Lords of half a dozen or of a dozen Indian princes, granting them to be all as weak and as selfish as the objection presupposes, would not endanger the British Constitution. The only result of such conduct on their part would be that they would forfeit the respect of their colleagues and consequently deprive themselves of all influence in the Upper House, and possibly run the risk of forcing the Crown to decline to create any new native peers as vacancies occurred in their number.

The answer to the tenth objection is that the arm of the British Government, especially in India, is long and powerful, and that if a native prince misbehaved, the fact of his presence in the House of Lords would not prevent the Government from visiting him with the punishment which might be his due.

I do not regard the eleventh and twelfth objections as serious. If on general grounds the creation of Indian life peers be considered advisable, ways and means could easily be found of surmounting the difficulties suggested, which after all are only matters of arrangement and detail. For instance, if it were thought desirable that the Crown should be partly or entirely guided in its choice of life peers by the votes of the magnates of India, the difficulty of deciding on the several claims of princes and rajahs to be included in the electoral body could easily be settled by confining the right of voting within the ranks of those to whom the British Government have already accorded the much-esteemed honour of being received on state occasions with an artillery salute.

With respect to precedency, the native prince or rajah would in the House have to accept the position due to the rank accorded him as a peer of Parliament, irrespective of any higher title he might possess, in the same way as Irish or Scotch peers, who are also peers of the United Kingdom, often in the House sit by titles inferior in dignity to those under which they are known in their own countries.

The addition of a dozen or of half a dozen life peers to the

Imperial Parliament could not possibly do harm, and the direct identification of India with the governing powers at home might be the means of awakening a genuine feeling of loyalty to the Crown and Empire amongst powerful and influential classes in Hindostan, some members of which at present, if not hostile, are indifferent and not seldom discontented.

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The people of Great Britain, absorbed in their own local concerns and politics, are apt to forget that they are citizens of a world-wide Empire, that Her Majesty is not only Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, but also Empress of India, that she rules over Mahomedan subjects than the Sultan of Turkey, and that the Hindoos who owe her allegiance are greater in number than the whole of her Christian subjects in Great Britain and Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the Cape.

The presence of Eastern princes and magnates in the House of Lords would bring these facts home to the imaginations of the people, and would add not a little to the picturesque and romantic atmosphere which surrounds the Gilded Chamber.

Canada is already represented in the House of Lords; why should not India also have her peers in that assembly?

There are few Britons who would not welcome some practical step towards the fulfilment of the popular idea of Imperial Unity, if not of Federation, and here is a decided step which might be taken in that direction. What should hinder the Crown from summoning to the Upper Chamber the most distinguished sons, not only of India, but of the Empire ?—and thus there might gradually be collected within the walls of Parliament a veritable 'Bundesrath,' or Imperial Council-a nucleus of men versed in affairs, brought together from every part of the Empire, indigenous to their respective soils, whose opinions would have weight in the Assembly of the nation, and whose influence in their own countries would conduce towards unity and harmony of sentiment and action throughout the entire extent of Her Majesty's dominions.

MEATH.

DEMOCRATIC IDEALS

DEMOS is awakening. he has not yet rubbed the sleep out of his rheumy eyes. And we may rely upon it that he will make huge displacement when once he is stirring. As yet he seems to be no better acquainted with his duties than with his rights. But there is a keen apprehension in the minds of those who have hitherto governed him, that he may shortly understand the meaning of that historic phrase, The spoils to the victors.' On all sides it appears to be taken for granted that, sooner or later, the most advanced nations of Europe will make the experiment called Social Democracy. What, then, I may be permitted to ask, are the principles whereon that new order of things will be established? In the words of Eneas, Quo res summa loco, Pantheu? quam prendimus arcem?

He has staggered to his feet, although

Now I observe at the outset that we are dealing with unknown factors, and with possibilities of no simple texture. The very terms of our equation are waiting to be defined. When I speak, in accordance with a certain well-known usage, of the 'proletariat,' a learned friend imagines that I mean the 'residuum'; while the word ' Democracy' is no less vague. But I have no desire to indulge in claptrap or declamation; and I shall be much obliged to the philosopher who will invent short and easy terms to designate the three classes which at present make up our economic system. The largest, as it is in the social scale the lowest, of these, I shall call the 'wage-earning' class, or the proletariat; and I mean all those who possess no capital except their labour. I say, then, that an Imperial Democracy, wielded by the proletariat so defined, has never existed in any country ancient or modern. That immense Third Estate which we call the working class has not been suffered hitherto, even in America, to shape its own destinies. In our day, at length, the trial seems likely to be made. For the world-wide confederation of labour is becoming solid ground on which the proletarians will plant themselves with confidence; and it is sure to disarray the politics, as in time it must profoundly affect the laws, of every modern State, be its constitution on paper what it may. From this cardinal assumption I shall start, viz. that the wage-earners, conscious of their newly acquired influence, are comVOL. XXXV--No. 207

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