Excerpt from Second Chambers at Home Abroad: A Comparison and a Contrast Much has been recently written and much more will be written about the House of Lords, its advantages and its shortcomings, its history and constitution and its re-constitution. But there is another aspect to this question of the composi tion and functions of an Upper Chamber, which has not been so much considered, and with regard to which accurate and adequate information is not perhaps very readily forthcoming. The constitution and functions of existing Upper Chambers in other countries afford an amount of valuable subject matter, not only of historical and political interest in itself, but as providing the results of experience elsewhere. The conditions of these countries differ in many respects so widely from our own that it by no means follows that what may have been found good for them would be equally good for us. Indeed in many cases such arrangements as prevail in other Parliaments would be entirely impossible and inapplicable here. But that an effi cient second Chamber is essential in order to prevent hasty and ill-considered legislation is, with the illustrious exceptions Of Greece and Costa Rica, the unanimous Opinion Of all civilised and self governing nations. Even in the cases Of the most recent constitutions and the most democratic. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.