[xxxvi. 175]

1822 Aug. 14

Constitut. Code

Supreme Operative

Aristocracy

Lords - worse than Wolves

No advantage bearing reference to the greatest happiness of the greatest number - no

such advantage - did man ever attempt to bring to view in the character of a reason for

a House of Lords - for an assembly composed of members of the privileged order sitting

by hereditary succession or for life

Use /Service/ /Benefit/ to the Monarch yes: use /benefit/ to the Aristocracy, yes: to

the /a/ Monarchy it gives stability: to the Aristocracy in all its parts profit by

encrease of power profit by a share more or less considerable in the profit by /of/

legalized depredation: the House will not let the King have /come in for/ a share,

unless the King will let the House come in for a share

As to the greatest number - as to the great body of the people greater would be the

advantage to them if wolves in equal number or in a number by ever so much greater were

imported from a wolf country and turned out loose into the country: the wolves would in

process of time be shot /killed/, and for every wolf killed there would be a wolf skin

which would be good for something: the Lords though each of them would do more mischief

than many thousand wolves would not be killed, and if they were killed their skins would

not be put to any use.

If this be true for a man to propose a House of Lords is in other words to declare

himself a corruptionist: to the title of Liberal no better

pretensions has he than has the partizan of the most absolute Monarchy. The one is a

declared enemy of the people: the other an undeclared one: audacity is the character of

the one: imposition and treachery, of the other.