The second subsidiary action of the House of Lords is even more important. Taking the House of Commons, not after possible but most unlikely improvements, but in matter of fact and as it stands, it is overwhelmed with work. The task of managing it falls upon the Cabinet, and that task is very hard. Every member of the Cabinet in the Commons has to “attend the House”; to contribute by his votes, if not by his voice, to the management of the House. Even in so small a matter as the Education Department, Mr. Lowe, a consummate observer, spoke of the desirability of finding a chief “not exposed to the prodigious labour of attending the House of Commons.” It is all but necessary that certain members of the Cabinet should be exempt from its toil, and untouched by its excitement. But it is also necessary that they should have the power of explaining their views to the nation; of being heard as other people are heard. There are various plans for so doing, which I may discuss a little in speaking of the House of Commons. But so much is evident: the House of Lords, for its own members, attains this object; it gives them a voice, it gives them what no competing plan does give them⁠—