| Description | Letter written from Bewsey House, Warrington dated 5 December, to the President of the Birmingham Liberal Association, and concerning reform of the House of Lords. Rylands [1820–1887, steel manufacturer and politician; MP for Warrington 1868-1874] was unable to attend a conference which Wright was organising, so he offered his views in a lengthy letter. Rylands states:
'My own opinion is decidedly in favour of retaining the House of Lords...but at the same time I think that its present constitution is highly objectionable. ... The Lords do not respond to public opinion because they are in no sense a representative body, and because in their legislative capacity they are mainly influenced by the prejudices and interests of their own class.'
Rylands goes on to outline the reasons why he thinks that the creation of life peers would not be a suitable solution, and acknowledges that 'the idea of hereditary rank' remains very important. He proposes a compromise solution: 'I would not allow any Peer to sit in the House of Lords by virtue of his hereditary rank, but I would make the possession of hereditary rank a qualification for an Elective seat in the Second Chamber.' Rylands suggests that 150 Peers could be elected out of all of the Peers in the United Kingdom, Scotland and Ireland (about 600 in total). He then proposes that the House of Lords be dissolved when the Commons is dissolved. Looking to the example of the United States (where members of the state legislatures elect the Senate), he proposes that MPs are divided into electoral committees to elect the Lords. Details of how this would be worked out, taking into consideration variations in population size, are given. If a vacancy occurred during the life of a parliament, the electoral committee of that county would fill the seat.
The letter closes with a summary of the advantages which Rylands believes this scheme would bring. Firstly, the Lords would be more in sympathy with the people, and 'it would never unreasonably obstruct the progress of necessary reforms.' Secondly, the peers would be stimulated towards 'the performance of public duty' as they faced election. |
| Publication Note | W. F. Rae, ‘Rylands, Peter (1820–1887)’, Rev. Matthew Lee, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2009 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/24417, accessed 9 July 2013] |