Free Never Give In! by Winston Churchill

to come down and say why the House of Lords, composed as the present House of Lords is, should have the right to rule over us, and why the children of that House of Lords should have the right to rule over our children. – ( Cheers. ) My challenge has been taken up with great courage – ( laughter ) – by Lord Curzon. – ( Groans. ) No, the House of Lords could not have found any more able and, I will add, any more arrogant defender, and at Oldham on Wednesday – you have heard of Oldham – ( laughter ), – so have I. – ( Laughter. ) Well, at Oldham Lord Curzon treated a great public meeting to what I can only call a prize essay on the Middle Ages. . . .
    The claim of the House of Lords is not that if the electors like the sons of distinguished men they may have legislative functions entrusted to them; it is that, whether they like it or not, the sons and the grandsons and the great-grandsons, and so on till the end of time, of distinguished men shall have legislative functions entrusted to them. That claim resolves itself into this, that we should maintain in our country a superior class, with law-giving functions inherent in their blood, transmissible by them to their remotest posterity, and that these functions should be exercised irrespective of the character, the intelligence, or the experience of the tenant for the time being – ( laughter ), – and utterly independent of the public need and the public will. That is a proposition which only needs to be stated before any average British jury to be rejected with instantaneous contempt. – ( Cheers. ) Why has it never been rejected before? In my opinion it has never been rejected because the House of Lords has never before been taken seriously by the democratic electorate, which has been in existence since 1885. They have never been taken seriously because they were believed to be in a comatose and declining condition, upon which death would gradually supervene-Now we see the House of Lords stepping into the front rank of politics; not merely using their veto over any legislation sent up by any majority, however large, from any House of Commons, however newly elected, but also claiming new powers over the whole of the finances – powers which would make them the main governing centre in the State. ( Cheers. ) That is why we are forced to examine their pretensions very closely; and when we have examined them, I venture to think there will not be much left of them. . . .
    Now I come to the third great argument of Lord Curzon. ‘All civilisation,’ he said – he was quoting a great French writer, an Agnostic, Renan – ‘all civilisation has been the work of aristocracies.’ – ( Laughter. ) They liked that in Oldham. – ( Laughter. ) There was not a duke, not an earl, not a marquis, not a viscount in Oldham who did not feel that a compliment had been paid to him. – ( Loud laughter. ) What does Lord Curzon mean by aristocracy? It is quite clear from the argument of his speech that he did not mean Nature’s aristocracy, by which I mean the best and most gifted beings in each generation in each country, the wisest, the bravest, the most generous, the most skilful, the most beautiful, the strongest, and the most active. If he had meant that I think we should probably agree with him. Democracy properly understood means the association of all through the leadership of the best, but the context of Lord Curzon’s quotation and the argument of his speech, which was designed entirely to prove that the House of Lords was a very desirable institution for us to maintain in its present form, clearly shows that by aristocracy he meant the hereditary legislator, the barons, earls, dukes, etc. – I do not mean anything disrespectful by the etc. – ( laughter ), – and their equivalents in other countries. That is what he meant by aristocracy in the argument he employed at Oldham. Well, again I say this has only to be dismissed as absurd. – ( Cheers. )
    ‘All