Indeed,
that it had this character was admitted by Lord Grey himself, with no
abatement beyond such mitigation as might be found in the idea that it
was only intended to affect their decision on a single question. So far
it may be said that even while defending it he condemned it; _Habemus
confitentem reum_. But the task of a ruler or legislator is often but a
choice between difficulties, or even between manifest evils. And, even
if an act or course be admitted to be intrinsically evil, taken by
itself, yet, if the evil which it is calculated or designed to avert be
a greater evil still, the defence is complete, or, at all events,
sufficient. And this, in fact, is the principle of the justification
which Lord Grey alleged. He was, perhaps, unconsciously referring to a
passage in Mr. Hallam's great work on "Constitutional History" (then
very recently published), in which, while discussing Sunderland's
Peerage Bill, and admitting that "the unlimited prerogative of
augmenting the peerage is liable to such abuses, at least in theory, as
might overthrow our form of government," he proceeds to point out that
in the exercise of this, as of every other power, "the crown has been
carefully restrained by statutes, and by the responsibility of its
advisers;" but that, while "the Commons, if they transgress their
boundaries, are annihilated by a proclamation" (that is, by a
dissolution) "against the ambition, or, what is much more likely, the
perverse haughtiness of the aristocracy, the constitution has not
furnished such direct securities.
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