the power to introduce; and it has been practically successful. To reject the financial proposals of a whole year is a very different thing from rejecting a Bill which imposes, or repeals, a single tax.

Nor did the consequences of this momentous change stop here. It affected the right of amendment as well as that of rejection. So long as Tax Bills came up singly or in small batches from the Lower House, they could be, and were occasionally, rejected. This amounted to a power of amending, not indeed a single Bill, but the finance of the year. When all the financial proposals were grouped in a single Bill, the rejection of an item became a "privilege amendment" to that Bill, and was accordingly refused. Thus the policy of 1861 practically took away, not indeed the right, but the power of exercising the right, of amendment which the Lords had hitherto possessed, however sparingly it might be used. We may, and do, regret this; but we can hardly evade the fact.

It might have seemed that the right of rejection implied that of amendment, as the greater contains the less. But in politics we are nothing if not illogical. The constitutional right of rejection is, at least in theory, acknowledged; that of amendment, at all events of substantial amendment, is denied. It is obvious indeed that, while one party can reject, it takes two to pass an amendment. Either House has the power of rejection; an amendment requires the consent of both. Thus the Lower House, while it cannot prevent the Lords from rejecting a Bill, can, by refusing their amendments, prevent them from amending it; and it does. An insistence on amendment on the part of the Upper House is therefore practically equivalent to rejection. It is obvious that nothing short of substan

tial amendments are worth considering in the present case; and these it is certain the Government will not allow. Even if it were willing to accept a compromise in some particulars, it could not accept one from the Lords; precedent and the necessity of maintaining the Commons' privileges stand in the way. Nor can it, returning to an old practice, drop the Bill and bring in another which should include the acceptable amendments; if there were no other objection to this course, there is no time.

The question then resolves itself into a simple choice between acceptance and rejection. Is rejection likely to be for the good of the State? So far as we can judge at this stage, it is not. Granted -which is by no means certain-that the Bill cannot be appreciably improved in committee, granted, for the sake of argument, that it is a revolutionary measure, the consequence of its rejection may be-we do not say it will be a revolution of far greater moment than is contained or implied in the Bill. The inevitable consequence of rejection must be an appeal to the country; and the Lords would be staking their own existence, and with it the welfare of the country, on the result of that appeal. It would be a dangerous experiment. Are we to hazard the chief safeguard of all that is stable, and much that is admirable, in our political system on a single throw?

In the first place, there is an enormous majority to be wiped out. Byelections point, no doubt, to a change of feeling in the electorate; but byelections are apt to be deceptive. The change is not all in favor of Conservatism. In a good many cases Unionist principles have won, or the prospects of Tariff Reform; in others, the results point to an increase of strength or to better organization in the Labor

party, even to a growth of socialism. Hostility to a Liberal Government by no means necessarily implies adhesion to its chief opponents. The Irish party may be relied on, in a question of this kind, to take sides against the House which is the firmest bulwark against Home Rule. Further, we have only too often had occasion to note the electioneering value of a good cry; and what better cry could the Radical party desire than the cry that the Lords are claiming to control taxation, that they are leading a reactionary attack upon the constitution, that they are shielding the rich at the expense of the poor? We can easily guess the variety of mendacious shapes which such a cry would assume, the variety of interests to which it might be made to appeal. It would be shouted from a thousand platforms, and echoed by millions of throats. In such circumstances, all that has hitherto been gained might be lost; and the Radicals might sweep the country a second time.

But,

It is, of course, not impossible that the result of a general election might be to reverse the verdict of the last, or at least to reduce the Liberal majority to a point at which a serious campaign against the House of Lords would be out of the question. supposing a dissolution to take place on the Budget, is such a result probable? It is, at best, but a chancewe cannot but think, a remote chance. If things fell out the other way-and he would be a rash prophet who would assert that they will not-what would be the consequence? It is a comparatively small matter that a Budget far more revolutionary than the present would be forced down our throats; and that a Home Rule Bill would followfor such a Bill would be the prearranged price of Irish support. There would be worse to fear. A determined attempt, with all the prestige

of recent victory, and victory gained on this very issue, would be made to abolish the veto of the House of Lords. The pledge given in 1907 would be redeemed. It must be remembered that the resolution then passed was a resolution in favor, not of the reform of the House of Lords, but of the abolition of the veto, which in grave cases enables it to appeal to the country against a casual majority in the House of Commons. Its passing into action would reduce the Upper House to impotence, and would give us practically a one-chamber constitution. That it was only a resolution is true. But litera scripta manet; it is on record that a huge majority of the House of Commons signed the pledge. This in itself was a great step, a revolutionary step, which a House elected under conditions such as we have sketched would be bound to follow up. No doubt action upon that resolution would require another appeal to the nation, perhaps more than one appeal; but think of the turmoil that would ensue! And in what conditions of external danger might not that disturbance find the country? The question of so great a constitutional change would take precedence of all other questions, even of that of the national defences; and these would suffer at a time when the national existence might depend upon their full and immediate consideration.

It may be urged that this is the occasion to make a stand; that, unless this Bill is resisted, the Radical party, carrying further and further the use of finance as a lever of political change, will introduce all sorts of revolutionary measures under cover of the Budget. But there is surely a limit to so violent a perversion of a constitutional understanding; the sound sense of the nation would rebel against such crooked and illegitimate methods; it would become as impossible to main

tain such an abuse of legislative forms as it was to maintain the trick of "tacking." All financial legislation has, and always has had, indirect political effects of one kind or another. We see no reason to suppose that these will be greater in the future than they have been in the past.

Nor, again, can it be said that, in a case like this, we are urging the Lords "propter vitam vitai perdere causas." They are asked to abandon none of the principles that make life worth living. The abandonment, in the seventeenth century, of control over taxation diminished the power of the House of Lords; it did not destroy its reputation or its utility. Political morality is not in question. There are no pledges to be redeemed, no interests to be protected so sacred as the welfare of the State. It is a question of expediency, the higher expediency. Is it good for the country at large that, in existing circumstances, such a conflict should ensue? Granted that the mischief of the Budget cannot be wholy undone, granted that capital, the life-blood of industry and commerce, will be straitened, granted that certain classes will permanently suffer, these evils are less than those which a defeat at the polls next winter would entail. An injustice to a class, a gross injustice it may be, is preferable to a fatal blow dealt at the foundations of the State. Nor is it an argument to say that, if the Upper House were swept away, a Second Chamber would still be recognized as indispensable; and we might get a better Second Chamber than we have. Who knows? What we do know is that what the Radicals desire is not a better Second Chamber, but the present House reduced to impotence; which would be worse than none at all.

Suppose, on the other hand, that resistance is not pressed to rejection,

what then? How much harm is done? The damage may be serious; most part, at least, is not irretrievable. Suppose the Bill passed; it will be some time before its full effects are felt. We assert that the industrial and commercial interests of the country at large, not those of a particular class, will suffer by the legislation proposed; and we make this assertion in good faith. But it is an assertion the truth of which cannot be brought home to the masses save by experience; and experience, if sure, is slow. The time is not yet ripe; let us have faith in our own predictions. A year hence, or it may be two years, the new taxes will have had time to work, and their general effects may be perceptible. Then we may go to the country with the tangible proof that all classes are suffering; now we can only assert that they will suffer, and assert it on grounds which we can hardly expect the masses to understand. We are doubtless at a certain disadvantage in attempting to judge the question at this moment. During the next two months many things may happen. On the one hand, the complexion of the Bill may undergo a considerable change. On the other hand, events may indicate so great a massing of opinion hostile to the Bill as to make resistance not only feasible but even obligatory. But, with nothing but present facts before us, we are driven to the conclusion that, for the sake of the Conservative and Unionist party, as well as for the good of the State, a Fabian policy is the wisest policy.

The choice, as we began by saying, is a hard one; a harder was never laid on the leaders of the Conservative party. That great pressure will be applied to force them into an attitude of stubborn resistance we cannot doubt. To renounce that attitude will give rise to great dissatisfaction in cer

tain sections; it will require courage to decline battle. Lord Lansdowne and Mr. Balfour are at once courageous and cautious men; and we have the fullest trust in their judgment. We would not appear to advance a confident opinion; nevertheless, with such lights as we have, we cannot

The Quarterly Review.

avoid expressing the hope that, unless circumstances are very different two months hence from what they are now, they will prefer discretion to defiance, and a continuance of useful and vigorous life to the risk of irretrievable disaster.

It has been said that folk-lore and fairy tales are the only stories which are eternally true. This in itself might be sufficient to ensure immortality to Mr. Pickwick, though he figures as the hero of a comedy of manners, for obviously in the "Pickwick Papers" there is much which is in the nature of fairy tale. By way of witness we need seek no further than that assuredly immortal cricket match between the rather ill-matched elevens of All Muggleton and Dingley Dell.

Dickens's knowledge of the noble game was evidently derived from some midsummer's night's dream. In no waking hours did any man ever see such a match. Dickens has suffered the reproach that he is a caricaturist, rather than character-drawer, but it is hardly to be claimed for this cricket reporting that it is caricature, because caricature preserves the beginnings of a likeness; and there is no likeness at all here. However, it makes good reading, which is all that the author cared about. Of rook shooting he knew more, if not much more, and appears to have all his vivid powers of conception awake to realize the sensations of those gentlemen who had the happiness to be the companions of Mr. Winkle and Mr. Tupman in a shooting party.

But though Dickens would unscrupulously draw fancy pictures of that which he did not know, and caricatures

of that which he did, it was inevitable that all the while that he was sketching his incomparable and on the whole strictly veracious comedy of manners, he should be unconsciously giving sidelights on the setting in which he saw it all cast. It would be the depth of folly as well as of ingratitude to criticise the value of that treasure of hume 1 Dickens of his own wit and forethought has set out to give us in these "Pickwick Papers," but even so it may fairly be doubted whether this value is higher than that of the picture unwittingly, and necessarily, revealed of the manners of a certain class of people in Dickens's own time.

This class is the middle class; we might label it the upper middle class. Mr. Pickwick is indicated as a retired merchant; Mr. Winkle is the son of a person in a similar way of life, though the father appears only in a late chapter of the story, if it be a story (of this, however, we may discourse further, shortly). We have the professional element in Mr. Perker, Mr. Bob Sawyer and so on. At its supreme social heights the tale touches the gallant profession of arms, as incarnated in those fire-eating and distinctly fairylike gentlemen we meet at Rochester. At the other end of the scale we become acquainted with the Wellers, father and son, Job Trotter, the pretty housemaid, the fat boy, and the rest of the company below stairs, but these

introduce themselves merely as dependents and incidentals in the life of the principal personages to whom we have assigned their place in the great middle class. Mr. Wardle, probably, as the country squire, must rank a peg higher. His hospitable board might be common meeting-ground for Pickwickians and aristocracy in a day when the divisions of class were drawn rather sharply. It is of some little importance to establish the social position of the travelling members of this immortal club, because the point which is of interest in connection with persons in one sphere would be mere commonplace if they were in another. Thus we may note that through the whole length of this veracious record, dealing with the minute and intricate particulars of human life, we nowhere find mention of such a circumstance as either the illustrious lead

self

or any humble member of his following. indulging in the luxury, which we in a later day are almost disposed to look upon as the occasional necessity, of a bath. In the sphere of relative altitude in which the Pickwickians moved this is a noticeable fact, for it is opposed to the present habit of the same class. But had it occurred in another phase of society it would have no interest whatever. We might view a similar omission of an observance common in the middle classes with no surprise at all if it occurred in the life history of the gipsy, the tramp, or the agricultural laborer. "Circumstances alter

cases."

About the fact-of the bathlessness of the Pickwickians-we may infer that there is no doubt whatever. We have many pleasant notices of Mr. Pickwick's simple toilet, so nicely in accord with his open and ingenuous character, both at uprising and at going to bed. It is nowhere, as it appears, indicated that he wore a nightgown or any other form of nightdress,

but it is distinctly stated more than once that he was in the habit of giving to his benevolent features the amiable crown and setting of a nightcap. In Chapter XXX., wherein is set out, amongst other matters of interest, "How the Pickwickians made and cultivated the acquaintance of a couple of nice young men belonging to one of the liberal professions," it is narrated that Mr. Pickwick inquired, "'Well, Sam,'" as that favored servitor entered his bedchamber with his warm water on the morning of Christmas Day, "still frosty?"

"Water in the wash hand basin's a mask o' ice, sir," responded Sam. "Severe weather, Sam," observed Mr. Pickwick.

"Fine for them as is well wropped up, as the Polar Bear said to himself ven he was practising his skating," replied Mr. Weller.

hour, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, unty"I shall be down in a quarter of an ing his nightcap.

Now here we have at once positive evidence to the existence of the nightcap and negative (which is all that in the nature of the case we could expect) to the non-existence of the bath. We have even an indication of the style of nightcap of the Pickwickian period; it needed untying in the morning, ergo it had strings, ergo, it was of the species which ties under the chin, like a lady's bonnet. We have further information on this important detail in the narration of that very painful incident of Mr. Pickwick's finding himself in the bedroom of the maiden lady in the "Great White Horse" at Ipswich. The deliberate methods of the great man are thus recorded: "He then took off and folded up his coat, waistcoat and neckcloth, and, slowly drawing on his tasselled nightcap, secured it firmly on his head by tying beneath his chin the strings which he always had attached to that article of dress."