Let us take one or two familiar instances of the dangers of hasty objection.  Nothing worries the average American visitor to Great Britain more than the House of Lords, and, generally, the national distinctions.  He sees very plainly that the House of Lords no longer represents an aristocracy of ancient descent, because by far the greater number of peers belong to modern creations and new families, chiefly of the trading class; that it no longer represents the men of whom the country has most reason to be proud, because out of the whole domain of science, letters, and art there have been but two creations in the history of the peerage.  He sees, also, that an Englishman has, apparently, only to make enough money in order to command a peerage for himself, and the elevation to a separate caste of himself and his children forever.  Again, as regards the lower distinctions, he perceives that they are given for this reason and for that reason; but he knows nothing at all of the services rendered to the State by the dozens of knights made every year, while he can see very well that the men of real distinction, whom he does know, never get any distinctions at all.  These difficulties perplex and irritate him.  Probably he goes home with a hasty generalization.

But the answer to these objections is not difficult.  Without posing as a champion of the House of Lords, one may point out that it is a very ancient and deep-rooted institution; that to pull it up would cost an immense deal of trouble; that it gives us a second or upper house quite free from the acknowledged dangers of popular election; that the lords have long ceased to oppose themselves to changes once clearly and unmistakably demanded by the nation; that the hereditary powers actually exercised by the very small number of peers who sit in the House do give us an average exhibition of brain power quite equal to that found in the House of Commons, in which are the six hundred chosen delegates of the people; that, as regards the elevation of rich men, a poor man cannot well accept a peerage, because custom does not permit a peer to work for his livelihood; that it is necessary to create new peers continually, in order to keep as close a connection as possible between the Lords and the Commons; e.g., if a peer has a hundred brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, cousins, they are all commoners and he is the one peer, so that for six hundred peers there may be a hundred thousand people closely allied to the House of Lords.  Again, as to the habitual contempt with which the advisers of the Crown pass over the men who by their science, art, and literature bring honour upon their generation, the answer is, that when the newspaper press thinks fit to take up the subject and becomes as jealous over the national distinctions as they are now over the national finances, the thing will get itself righted.  And not till then.  I instance this point and these objections as illustrating what is often said, and thought, by American visitors who record their first impressions.