The house of Industry : a new estate of the realm

2 THE HOUSE OF INDUSTRY

It follows, does it not, that before we can understand the structure of society, we must first anderstand national character ?

Now there is one ancient institution in Great Britain that has always found a ready response in English character. It is the House of Lords. Surprising, but true. Equally surprising that whilst this truth has been a commonplace amongst the possessing classes since Lords and Commons were created, the working class movement has always assumed that all citizens look to the Commons for salvation and regards the Lords as the enemy. Nevertheless, the House of Lords has remained constant (I mean in form and composition and not in power, which is elusive and transient) during many centuries, whilst the Commons have changed out of all recognition. There have been movements for the abolition of the Lords, beginning with John Lilburne and the Levellers, revived again by the Chartists, flicked once more into life by the Radicals of the ’Eighties (“End them or mend them ’’). Labouchere’s annual motion for the abolition of the House of Lords was always a Parliamentary event—he worked up all his best jokes for the occasionbut all these movements faded away. They had no vitality; they had the fatal defect that they stirred no angry feelings. That this apparent anachronism has passed practically unscathed through innumerable crises and vicissitudes can only be ascribed to the fact, whether we like it or not, that it appeals to the English character.