questions of the day discussed from every point of view, and of thus acquiring information and forming a judgment on them which the subsequent extension of the franchise makes it more than ever desirable that he should be able to form for himself.  Every movement in that direction renders it the more necessary to raise the intelligence of the great mass of the people to a level which may enable them to make a safe and salutary use of the power placed in their hands.  And no mode of implanting a wholesome political feeling in the masses can equal candid political discussion:  discussion one ruling principle of which shall be to teach that the greatest differences of opinion may be honestly entertained; that, with scarcely an exception, the leading men of each party, those who have any title to the name of statesman, are animated with an honest, patriotic desire to promote the best interests of the nation; and that the elucidation of truth is not aided by unreasoning invective and the undeserved imputation of base motives.

One of the last topics discussed by Mr. Hallam was the introduction of a bill to limit for the future the prerogative of the crown in a field in which its exercise had previously been unrestrained, the creation of peers;[288] and among the last which we shall have to examine was one of an exactly opposite character, though relating to the same subject, the creation of a life peerage.  In the winter of 1855 Sir James Parke, one of the Barons of the Exchequer, was created Lord Wenslydale, by letters-patent which conferred the title limiting it also to the new peer’s own life.  The professed object of the measure was to strengthen the judicial power of the House of Lords.  But it was not denied that the limitation of the peerage conferred on him for his own life (a limitation which made no practical difference to Sir James himself, since he had no children) was intended to raise the question whether the crown could or could not create a life peerage with a seat in the House of Lords.  A creation so limited was so novel, or at all events so long disused a proceeding, that it inevitably provoked examination and discussion.  And, as it was found that the lawyers in general regarded it as indefensible, at the beginning of the session of 1856 Lord Lyndhurst brought the matter before the House of Lords by a motion for the appointment of a committee of privileges to investigate and report upon it.  There were two aspects of the case which naturally came to be considered in the debates on it which ensued:  the advantages or disadvantages, in other words, the political expediency, of such a form of letters-patent, and their legal or constitutional propriety.  It was, of course, with the latter alone that the committee of privileges had to deal.  And this part of the question was examined with great legal and antiquarian learning, though, as was almost inevitable, it was argued as a party question, except, indeed, by the lawyers.  They, with the exception of the Chancellor, Lord Cranworth, who had advised the measure, were unanimous in their condemnation of it; the Whig peers, Lord Brougham and Lord Campbell, then Chief-justice, being as positive in their denial of the right so to exercise the prerogative as those on the Opposition side of the House, Lord Lyndhurst or Lord St. Leonards.[289]