In the very case
which had given rise to this discussion he regarded it as certain that
the feeling of the majority of the nation approved of the action of the
peers; and, as what had occurred once might occur again, it was
certainly within the region of possibility that another such emergency
might arise, when the Lords might interfere with salutary effect to save
the country from the evil result of ill-considered legislation; finance
being, above all others, the subject on which a rash or unscrupulous
minister may find the greatest facility for exciting the people by
plausible delusions. There is, moreover, another reason why it would not
only be impolitic, but absolutely unfair, to deprive the Lords
altogether of their power of rejection even in cases of taxation;
namely, that the Commons, when imposing taxes, are taxing the Lords
themselves, as well as the other classes of the community; while the
Lords alone of the whole nation are absolutely unrepresented in the
House of Commons. There is a frequent cry for a graduated income-tax;
and surely if an unscrupulous demagogue in office were to contrive such
a graduation as would subject a peer to three times the income-tax borne
by a commoner, it would be a monstrous iniquity if the peers were to
have no power of protecting themselves in their own House.
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