PREFACE. FOR many years past, the House of Lords has been the object of persistent and unmerited attack on the part of a certain section of the Radical press and the advocates of the new democracy, who have shown a singular ignorance of the real status and composition of our hereditary Peerage, and have even ignored the essential distinction that exists between a Baronage and a Senate. Although these attacks have been usually passed over in dignified silence, the time seems to have come when something in the way of a detailed reply and defence is both natural and justifiable. An attempt, therefore, has been made in these pages to trace the growth and constitution of our existing Peerage; to explain the true position and raison d'être of a Second Chamber; to review and contravene, as dispassionately as possible, the various charges and accusations which have been from time to time so freely brought both against the Peers as a class, and against the Peerage itself as an institution; and, finally, to offer certain practical suggestions for the reform and expansion of the Upper House, which it is hoped may commend |