The house of Industry : a new estate of the realm

4 THE HOUSE OF INDUSTRY

for the House of Lords.’’ Piety and property are first cousins. In short, it was to the House of Lords that the average Englishman looked to preserve propertied rights and consolidate the economic system that created property.

This instinctive separation of economics from politics, begun by the Barons when they squeezed King John and finding unhampered expression in the feudal system, has been quietly but determinedly maintained ever since through the medium of the House of Lords. This explains the immunity of the Lords and is only understood when we understand the English character.

CAPITAL AND LABOUR MAINTAIN THE TRADITION

THE advent of the Great Industry, with its doctrine of laissez-faire, enormously strengthened the House of Lords in this particular aspect of its constitutional vé/e. The last thing the great industrial magnates wanted was political interference. Most of them were Liberal and Nonconformist, nurtured in a tradition and atmosphere of liberty, but always conscious that their economic protection was the Woolsack and not the Speaker’s Chair.

Labour has obeyed the same tradition, but with a different bias. When Keir Hardie, in the late Eighties, asked the Trades Union Congress to support the legal eight hours day, it was scandalised.