Senates and Upper Chambers (Classic Reprint): Their Use and Function in the Modern State, With a Chapter on the Reform of the House of Lords: Their ... of the House of Lords (Classic Reprint) - Tapa blanda

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Excerpt from Senates and Upper Chambers: Their Use and Function in the Modern State, With a Chapter on the Reform of the House of Lords

It may be objected that no valuable comparisons can be instituted, as no foreign Senate or Colonial Upper Chamber exactly resembles the House of Lords; but, even if only contrasts were established, this work would, I believe, be worth the doing. To establish definitely, for instance, that an Upper Chamber in a Federation cannot be properly compared to that of a Unitary State seems to me an important service at the present time. But more positive results can be obtained, for, amid many differences, there are certain broad similarities between the Upper Chambers of Unitary States, and certain general lessons are to be derived from their experience. For example, many Englishmen consider that the reform of the House of Lords, by adding or substituting an element of Nominated Life-Peers, is the true solution of our present difficulty. But the practical working of this principle in those Colonial and Continental Senates (whose conditions most nearly resemble our own) shows that the Elective and not the Nominative principle is the true way of strengthening or reforming an Upper Chamber. This is a lesson only experience can give, and one that is all-important for us at this moment. Again, the gradual decline in the importance of the Upper Chamber before the advance of democracy, during the last generation, is a phenomenon full of instruction and significance.

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