p^^ 
 
 ^"^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 REESE LIBRARY 
 
 OF" TUK 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Received. 
 
 .188/^ 
 
 t. 
 
 . Uccssions jVo. _ /sTi^fM^ _ . Shelf No. 
 


/ 
 
 V' 
 
OEDEE AND PEOGEESS. 
 
LONDON : PRINTED BY 
 
 8POTTI9WOODK AND CO., NEW-STIIEKT SQUAttK 
 
 AND PAULIAMKXT STIIKKT 
 
OEDER AND PEOGEESS 
 
 PART I. 
 
 THOUGHTS ON GOYERNMENT. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 STUDIES OF POLITICAL CRISES. 
 
 BY 
 
 FKEDEKIC HAEEISON 
 
 OF LINCOLN'S INN. 
 
 Society without a Government is no less impossible than Government without a Society, 
 
 , LI P.I J A li V 
 
 I l:^■ ivKUsrrv of 
 CALlKOitNiA. 
 
 LONDON : 
 LONGMANS, GEEEN, AND CO. 
 
 1875. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 

 /i^3 ^1/ 
 
 'iu ^ 
 
TO MY 
 
 |a%r 
 
 I INSCRIBE THESE PAGES 
 
 WITH A LIFE-LONG SENSE OP THE TRUTH 
 
 THAT 
 
 THE PRIMARY SCHOOL OF POLITICS IS 
 
 THE HOME. 
 
PEEFACE. 
 
 This volume, without pretending to be a systematic 
 treatise, is something more than a casual collection of 
 essays. Of the two parts of which it consists, the first 
 is new ; the second contains some essays which 
 appeared in the ' Fortnightly Eeview,' and which are 
 now republished with the courteous consent of the 
 Publishers and Editor.^ These have now been re- 
 arranged, condensed, and revised. I have so little 
 taste for a medley of published articles, that, in spite of 
 constant invitation, I should still hesitate to present 
 them in a permanent form, were it not that those now 
 offered to the public were originally written on a 
 regular plan, to urge a particular policy. I withheld 
 them from collection in a volume until circumstances 
 might permit me to work them into a whole, and set 
 forth the principles on which they were written. This 
 I am now enabled to do ; and, as the spirit in which 
 
 * It is impossible for me to express fully the obligations of every 
 kind which I owe to my friend, John Morley. 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 they originated may not have been apparent when 
 issued separately at long intervals, I have tried to 
 explain this in some connected Thoughts on the 
 Theory of Government. 
 
 With regard to the Second Part, I am very con- 
 scious that nothing can make a collection of political 
 articles a methodical work. They must necessarily 
 contain matters of temporary interest, much that is 
 discontinuous, and a good deal of sameness. The 
 political writer, Hke the pubHc speaker, who thinks 
 he has anything to recommend, must ui^ge his views 
 upon any audience he can find, on every occasion that 
 occurs, and with any illustration he can obtain. 
 These papers were written with a political, not with a 
 literary purpose ; and that purpose may be described as 
 the consideration, independent of party or class, of the 
 sources of efficiency in government. The present time 
 seems especially favourable to reflection upon such a 
 theme. ^ 
 
 There is one construction against which I am 
 anxious to guard my meaning. In advocating vigorous 
 government, I might be supposed to favour arbitrary 
 power ; and in urging energetic legislation, I might 
 seem to exaggerate the sphere of Law. Both are the 
 reverse of my contention. A very vigorous govern- 
 
 ' It concerns mysolf rather than the public, but there are reasons 
 why I take the opportunity of saying that, with the exception of a few 
 papers published many years ago, I have never written upon politics or 
 on anything else without signing my name. 
 
PREFACE. ix 
 
 ment may be scrupulously careful to do nothing in the 
 spirit of violence ; whilst a very vacillating government 
 is often restlessly oppressive. I certainly do not wish 
 to see authority invested with any greater force ; for it 
 is sometimes too harshly exerted, as it is. It is a very 
 different thing to wish that the power of the nation, 
 when used at all, should be guided by decision of 
 purpose and systematic skill. 
 
 Again, as to the sphere of legislative interference, 
 far from desiring to see it extended, there are many 
 subjects which I wish to see wholly withdrawn from 
 government control, and left to their own free growth. 
 It would no doubt be better for all concerned, if the 
 sphere of legislation were much reduced, whilst, what 
 is attempted, were done in a more scientific way. 
 They are far from encouraging the high-handed spirit 
 in administration, or the meddlesome habit in Parlia- 
 ment, who call only for system and efficiency in 
 Government, as well as Legislation. 
 
 March 20, 1875. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAKT I. 
 THOUGHTS ON THE THEORY OF GOVERNMENT. 
 
 CHAPTER PA(HS 
 
 I. Introductory 1 
 
 II. Parliament as Executive 7 
 
 III. The Parliamentary and the Presidential Systems . 16 
 
 IV. Liberal Programmes 22 
 
 V. Carlyle and Comte on Government .... 31 
 
 VI. Principle of a Personal Organ of Government . 44 
 
 VII. Principle of Co-operation of the Governed . . 56 
 
 VIII. The Suffrage 63 
 
 IX. Responsible Appointment 88 
 
 X. Public Opinion . .95 
 
 XI. All Real Government is Personal .... 107 
 
 XII. All Free Government is Republican . . . .116 
 
CONTENTS, 
 
 PART II. 
 !STUDIES OF POLITICAL CRISES. 
 
 Introductory Note 
 
 plaR 
 125 
 
 I. Parliament before Reform, 1867. 
 
 Section I. — The Home of Commons as it icas 
 Section II. — PoptUar Influence on Parlinment . 
 
 II. Parliament after Reform 
 
 Section l.^Immediate Effects of the Reform of 1867 
 Section II. — Possible Effects of Reform 
 Section III. — A Powerful Executive . 
 
 III. The Political Function of the Working Classes 
 
 lY. Administrative Reform 
 
 V. Legislative Reform 
 
 VI. The Conservative Reaction 
 
 VII. Foreign Policy 
 
 VIII. The Monarchy 
 
 IX. The Revival of Authority 
 
 Section I.— The Principle of Authority 
 Section II. — The Principle of Opini&ii 
 Section III. — The RecoiicUintion 
 
 127 
 
 146 
 162 
 
 181 
 195 
 
 207 
 
 242 
 
 254 
 
 268 
 
 282 
 
 .^00 
 
 348 
 
 » 
 
 368 
 382 
 
 y 
 
PART I. 
 
 THOUGHTS ON THE THEOEY OF 
 GOYEENMENT. 
 
J.J i; \i A \! \ 
 
 UN] vj-:i;s rr V o]. 
 rwUKOKNIA. 
 
 GHAPTEE I. 
 
 INTEODUCTORY. 
 
 These essays were designed to invite attention to the 
 conditions which good government must fulfil, rather 
 than to discuss the manner in which pohtical rights 
 should be enjoyed. How to reorganise our govern- 
 ing machinery from within is, I hold, a question more 
 urgent, perhaps it is a question more easy of solution, 
 than how our Constitution shall be reconstructed from 
 without. For almost two generations political activity 
 has exhausted its resources in promoting or resisting 
 projects for the redistribution of power. In the 
 meantime the efficiency of government itself has too 
 often been neglected by both parties alike ; and the 
 things which government ought to do were commonly 
 forgotten, whilst all were contending how political 
 rights should be shared. They who were strugghng 
 for the possession of power had no mind to consider 
 the defects which were all that time accumulating 
 within and around the very prize of contention ; nor 
 did they care to reflect how decrepit a thing that 
 political power might prove when they had finally 
 secured it for themselves. It would be, I am assured, 
 to more purpose, and I think it would be easier, were 
 
 B 2 
 
4 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT. 
 
 our aim to become that of raising government itself to 
 the level of its actual duties — duties which we see to be 
 perpetually increasing in difficulty, for they daily be- 
 come more delicate and yet more complex, whilst the 
 contest as to who shall undertake them is continually 
 increasing in fury. In such a condition of things I 
 think it may be useful from time to time to reflect 
 upon the truths which are covered, and sometimes 
 overwhelmed, beneath the ebb and flow of recurrent 
 poHtical tempests. From time to time I think we may 
 usefully examine the conditions which all institutions 
 must obey, and the primary principles which inform 
 all phases of political life. My object will be satisfied 
 if in these pages there be found any line, which may 
 serve to promote the attention of any reader, towards 
 what seems to me the true, but, alas ! almost obsolete 
 problem in politics — how out of the debris of institu- 
 tions, half-feudal and half-democratic, to construct an 
 efficient engine of government. 
 
 This subject may be handled, one would think, 
 by any man w^ho cares for his country, without the 
 necessity of assuming the traditional badges of Con- 
 servative or Liberal camp. That Conservatism which 
 clings to the names and externals of institutions we 
 need hardly concern ourselves to satisfy. We are not 
 careful to answer those who hold that the machinery 
 of our State administration is as perfect as the theory 
 of the Constitution itself. I shall assume, and I care 
 for no reader who will not so far go with me as to 
 assume, that the ways in which our laws are made, 
 expounded, and administered have in them much that 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 5 
 
 is wasteful and vicious, that Government is constantly 
 inadequate to deal with admitted national requirements, 
 that such political government as smvives goes its 
 course \\ith strange looseness of discipHne, towards 
 aims mostly fortuitous, on a tenure consciously pre- 
 carious. I shall assume that our legislative machinery 
 is unsystematic, our State action uncertain, vacillating, 
 and very often haphazard ; that the whole political 
 atmosphere of the time is one of unstable equilibrium 
 charged with ambiguous elements. They who are 
 satisfied not only with the Constitution under which 
 we live, but also with the way in which its constituent 
 parts perform their functions, who think this England 
 of to-day to be not merely a prosperous and a quiet 
 country, but to present to the world a pattern of 
 political efficiency and social stability, are welcome to 
 salute me by the name of ' anarchist ' or ' absolutist,' 
 or by any other name which they may think more 
 expressive of divergent opinion. I trust not to incur 
 either reproach from those of any political belief, who 
 honestly desire a more scientific engine of government 
 than that which the political conflicts of two centuries 
 have left half shapen in our hands. 
 
 The first step towards any improvement must be 
 to recognise the truth about our actual system. In 
 what is not so much a system as an accretion of ex- 
 pedients, compromises, and adaptations, our obvious 
 duty is to look at the realities behind the veil of 
 convention and usage ; to test the true working power 
 of forces apart from their nominal or official strength ; 
 to gauge the efficient bearing capacity of the venerable 
 
6 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT. 
 
 devices which served as the piers of the original con- 
 struction. The parody of Conservatism, which clings 
 to names as if they were things, which struggles to 
 preserve the fonus of institutions by forswearing the 
 principles they exist to foster, which calls in the spirit 
 of anarchy in order to defend the symbols of order ; 
 this is that dry-rot by which so many States have 
 passed through silent decay, to ultimate ruin. There 
 is nothing destructive in probing the rottenness and 
 dilapidation of old institutions, if our purpose be, that 
 they may be made equal to their actual requirements. 
 Nor, again, is there anything conservative in patching 
 up with gilding and paint the facades of old institutions, 
 which we know to be within, in many a cardinal feature, 
 cumbrous, rickety, and unwholesome. Institutions 
 may often be altered without destruction or harm : the 
 true political evil is the tampering with organic truths 
 which are the life of all societies. 
 
CHAPTER 11. 
 
 PARLIAMENT AS EXECUTIVE. 
 
 The key-stone of our present political fabric, that 
 which now distinguishes it from any other that ever 
 existed, and almost that ever was imagined, is the 
 practical confusion of executive and legislative elements, 
 the nearly unqualified autocracy of Parliament. That 
 a great nation, itself but the nucleus of a vast agglome- 
 rated empire, should be permanently ruled by two 
 co-ordinate Chambers, whereof one is a huge floating 
 assembly of 658 elected members ; that this hetero- 
 geneous crowd, or rather double crowd, should really, 
 if indirectly, administer as well as legislate ; that it 
 should appoint, control, correct, and direct the so-called 
 executive government ; that it should ordain technical 
 rules on the most trivial details of police, the nicest 
 points of jurisprudence, and the mere routine of ad- 
 ministrative organisation ; that these should all be 
 argued about, and often wrangled over, scrambled for, 
 and ultimately decreed, amidst scenes which sometimes 
 remind men of the rival coteries of a club — all this, I 
 repeat, has come by habit to seem so natural, that we 
 take it as a piece of almost revealed wisdom, destined 
 to outlast European civilisation. Yet it is in itself 
 outrageously unnatural, and has never before been 
 
8 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT. 
 
 ventured on by civilised man ; not even in that portent 
 of chaotic usurpation the French Assembly of to-day, 
 (Jan. 1875), where at least the clauses of Bills are quietly 
 discussed in business committees. Nor is even this the 
 measure of our exaggeration of Parliament and its 
 functions. Beyond and over and above the executive 
 autocracy of the House of Commons, itself almost 
 entirely the growth of this century, there has grown up 
 in the nation during nearly the same period an un- 
 written code of artificial doctrines about parliamentary 
 oratory, and the intellectual and practical value of 
 continuous speech. Beneath these doctrines political 
 activity, thought, and energy, of the creative kind, have 
 been largely thrust into the background ; and there 
 has blossomed up a crop of conventional tests of political 
 ca])acity, as little akin to politics as battles on the stage 
 are akin to war. It has come to us all to seem quite 
 natural, of the essence of liberty and progress at once, 
 that Parliament, that is the real government of this 
 country, sliould sit in effect about five months in each 
 year, and should then spend seven months on its ' pri- 
 vate affinrs ; ' that the chief part of the five working 
 months should be devoted to prolonged oratorical tour- 
 naments ; that during these ^\q months the so-called 
 Ministers should stand ready with lance and shield, i.e.^ 
 of course, with reasons, good, plausible, or evasive, as 
 the case may be, to meet all comers according to the 
 rules of the game ; that during the session whatever in 
 the way of governing is expected from Ministers, is that 
 which may win a majority at the precise moment in ques- 
 tion ; that diuring the long recess little can be expected 
 
PARLIAMENT AS EXECUTIVE. 9 
 
 from them at all, except to repair their exhausted energies 
 and their battered Bills, so that they may just work their 
 way eventually amidst incessant criticism. Unhappily 
 the artificial atmosphere of opinion within the walls of 
 Parliament, amidst the glamour of which rhetorical or 
 tactical feats appear as achievements of national import- 
 ance, through infinite pores and the multiplicity of the 
 press, affects the fibre of the body politic. So that we 
 are growing to feel the same passion for these mere 
 spectacles of rival skill, apart from great national im- 
 provement, which the people of the Lower Empire felt 
 for the charioteers in their circus with the enemy at 
 their gates. We talk of the changing of a Ministry as 
 if it was the saving of a nation ; the splendid resources 
 which an eminent debater exhibits in securing his 
 rival's seat, are praised as if they really gave a title to 
 the gratitude of the public ; and the great parliamentary 
 personage is the first of national benefactors. It can 
 never be told how deeply this passion for theatric 
 displays in debating has blinded men's sight for the 
 quality of real executive power ; how distorted men's 
 judgment has become on such questions as these (nor 
 are any questions more momentous) — what Govern- 
 ment should do, how best to do it, by what sort of man 
 may it be done, in what does the political action of 
 citizens consist? 
 
 We hear much within and without the walls of the 
 Houses of the wonderful achievements of recent legis- 
 lation ; and we listen to cries for an era of rest after 
 such stupendous laboiu-s. But he who will shake his 
 mind free from the artificial light in which these labours 
 
lo THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT 
 
 are presented, will acknowledge how little they imply 
 the highest powers of statesmanship. Financial ques- 
 tions, it is true, are the old and natural domain of 
 parliaments ; and in the establishment and completion 
 of free trade a considerable work has been done in the 
 House of Commons for the space of a whole gene- 
 ration. But financial questions are precisely those 
 which it despatches most readily, and those on which 
 the House interferes least with the management of a 
 financier whom it trusts. Financial questions apart, 
 how really moderate are the results of the legislation 
 of a generation ! How vastly has the magnitude of 
 Eeform Acts, Ballot Acts, Disestablishments, Land 
 Acts, Education Acts, Army, Law, and Sanitary Eeform, 
 and the like, been exaggerated by self-complacent op- 
 timism. Most of these measures involved no doubt a 
 principle of some importance, on which it was highly 
 desirable that opinion should express itself in the 
 nation, and essential, according to all our traditions, 
 that formal sanction should be given in Parliament. 
 But they almost all were little more than extensions of 
 a system already at work, and often an extension of 
 infinitesimal value. What is there in all this to occupy 
 the political activity of thirty millions duiing a wdiole 
 generation? Some of these reforms have been well 
 done, some of them ill done. Some of them have 
 resulted in good, some have had no result at all. But 
 they all, on a broad estimate, belong to the sphere of 
 minor administrative improvement, and not to the 
 sphere of high and arduous statesmanship. The prin- 
 ciple once decided (and this, I insist, was undoubtedly 
 
PARLIAMENT AS EXECUTIVE. \i 
 
 a matter for parliamentary sanction), the actual organi- 
 sation of the change, over which sessions were spent in 
 vain, and Niagaras of speech and print were discharged, 
 could have been effected far better by a great admini- 
 strative statesman, in a tenth of the time and with a 
 thousandth part of the labour. In any of the great 
 State organisations — and without turning to the Con- 
 tinent we may find our examples in India — the trifling 
 legislative revisions which appear to our parliamentary 
 imagination such really Homeric battles, would have 
 been treated as the current work of single departments. 
 I repeat again, that they necessarily involved the 
 sanction of Parliament, and I repeat that an arbitrary 
 settlement of them was out of the question. But when 
 we are disposed to sing pasans to the legislative in- 
 dustry of our modern Parliament, let us reflect what 
 trifles are our reforms about a petty local sect, the 
 farm customs of a single province, a handful of officers, 
 the adding new voters, the making them vote in secret, 
 extending the children's schools, rearranging the law 
 courts, and closing taprooms, when these are contrasted 
 with the truly great undertakings of governing genius. 
 Let us compare these with the abolition of serfdom 
 in Eussia, the organisation of the German army, the co- 
 ordination of the German Empire, the transformation 
 and bifurcation of the Austrian Empire, the resettle- 
 ment of India at the Mutiny, the aggregation and 
 unification of the Italian kingdom, the reabsorption of 
 armies and pacification of the United States after their 
 civil war, the reorganisation of the French bureaucracy, 
 finances, army, and municipalities, after the most awful 
 
12 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT. 
 
 catastrophe which ever befell a modern nation. Truly, 
 the men who carried out such tasks as these must 
 smile to hear of the consummate achievements of our 
 parliaments, much as we smile when we listen to the 
 vaunts of eloquent and pragmatical vestrymen. Happy 
 are we as a nation that we have not passed through 
 such tremendous upheaval, and happy that our time 
 is not cast in the midst of such violent crises ! But we 
 have — the more so that our days are prosperous and 
 bright — our own national needs, perhaps the more 
 difficult to supply, as it must be done with a gentle 
 hand. Thus before we boast of our home achievements 
 in Government, let us think what achievements really 
 mean. 
 
 Thinking this, and I will not here anticipate what 
 may be read in some of the republished Essays,^ I 
 have asserted complete freedom in describing all or any 
 of the evils, which I see in the monstrous overgrowth 
 of parliamentarism in our political Hfe, and its modern 
 assumption of executive functions ; and in doing this I 
 have neglected no means at my command to make it 
 appear to others as irrational as it does to myself. If 
 devotees of the parliamentary fetish are scandalised at 
 what they may look on as profane mockery of their 
 venerable institution, I can only remind them that 
 political discussion is not always obliged to be solemn, 
 and that they who have a serious desire for change, 
 and a reasoned scheme of change, are amply entitled 
 to argue by means of a smile. I am far more aUve to 
 the fact that the very fountains of mirth and of satire 
 
 » Part ii. Essays I., II., and IV. 
 
PARLIAMENT AS EXECUTIVE. 13 
 
 may seem to be exhausted on this topic, and that he 
 who writes anytliing on the cumbrous inefficiency of 
 Parliament as an executive organ, can only be thought 
 to re-echo the immortal Latter-day Pamphlet.^ But 
 the inditer of that dithyramb of wisdom and burlesque, 
 which rings through the political arena like the voice 
 of laughter ' holding both his sides,' has poured upon 
 the very name of Parliament a cataract of scorn, and 
 has somewhat diminished the force of his counsel. 
 Practical politicians will at present recognise the fact 
 that the parliamentary system in principle is simply 
 the political evolution of the English people, that 
 nothing but a moral earthquake could suddenly anni- 
 hilate its hold over the English mind, and that for ages 
 statesmen in this island will probably need to work 
 along with, or at least in spite of, this hold, and not 
 altogether without it. 
 
 For my own part I feel as deeply as any man can 
 feel, the glorious roll which history has graven for our 
 Parliament, and how closely its record is entwined 
 with the fibres of character for the whole English- 
 speaking race. Its one unique achievement in political 
 science, the practical solution of the world-old problem 
 as to ' the power of the purse,' is a contribution to 
 social life of really crucial importance. Nor must we 
 undervalue the uses of Parliament as the ultimate 
 judgment-seat of public opinion, so far as public 
 opinion admits of official expression. It is at least 
 
 1 Nor can I omit the trenchant criticism contained in Mr. Mill's 
 Essay on Representative Government, in the pregnant Chapter V. on the 
 Functions of Representative Bodies. 
 
14 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT. 
 
 the House of fmal appeal, and so far a step superior 
 to the final appeal of battle. It can give the casting 
 vote of all debates and controversies ; and though, 
 like the casting vote in most bodies, it is often given 
 neither very ingenuously nor very wisely, even this is 
 better than permanent indecision. Lastly, our English 
 parliamentary customs have taught the world some- 
 thing about the three great virtues in the pubHc ser- 
 vice, Publicity, Economy, and Honesty; in two, at 
 least, of which we may remember we are yet far in 
 arrear of the consummate bureaucracy of Prussia. All 
 these things are of value above price to a nation, and 
 worthy to be preserved at almost any cost. But whilst it 
 is quite true that much has been gained for these ends 
 within the walls of Parliament, it" is equally true that they 
 form no part of the recent usurpation by Parliament 
 of executive and administrative functions, and would 
 in no way suffer were that usurpation to end. On the 
 contrary, these great conquests of our pohtical good 
 sense would be more effectually secured to our chil- 
 dren if the House of Commons became agtiin .what 
 in its grand days it was, a consultative and not an 
 executive body, were it called on to sanction, and to 
 find resources for government, instead of assuming to 
 govern. Were Parliament in this sense to reform the 
 parliamentary system instead of reforming the sufirage, 
 it would be preserving for us the best of its national 
 services ; and would effectually answer the cries which 
 are now being uttered, sometimes with passion by 
 thinkers, and often vaguely amongst masses of citizens, 
 for its absolute displacement by another power. This 
 
PARLIAMENT AS EXECUTIVE. 15 
 
 country differs from all countries in Europe, in that it 
 is committed by the traditions of two centuries to the 
 principle of a parliamentary system. And though an 
 incorrigible course of chaotic misrule might drive the 
 English nation to abrupt breach with their historic 
 system, such a breach of continuity in the life of a 
 nation is one of the w^orst of calamities ; such as 
 no one but a Jacobin by principle would welcome, 
 when tlie gradual reformation and transformation of 
 the system from within is a work both feasible and 
 safe. 
 
i6 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE PARLIAMENTARY AND THE PRESIDENTIAL SYSTEMS. 
 
 We are sometimes assured that whatever be the 
 defects of our parhamentary system, they are still to 
 be cheerfully endured, because they spare us the 
 greater evils of the only possible alternative, a system 
 of presidential election. According to this view, in a 
 State where the real, if not the nominal. Government 
 is ultimately designated by public opinion, no second 
 term can be found between a system, where the 
 executive power is held and administered by a repre- 
 sentative Chamber, and a system where the executive 
 magistrate is directly elected by the suffrages of the 
 entire body of the people. And it is sometimes added 
 or imphed that the method of electing a president as 
 now practised in the United States, with all its concomi- 
 tant evils (resulting in an official corporation, tlie 
 creation of popular elections), forms a natiu-al or inevit- 
 able part of any variety of the presidential system. 
 Certainly the evils of perpetual elections for the cliief 
 magistracy, when one exhausting canvass is hardly over 
 before the next begins, and the very telegraph boys 
 should ' go out with the Government,' may well make 
 one hesitate, if the only alternative to our actual system 
 is that which still exists in the United States to the grief 
 
PRESIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT. r; 
 
 of SO many honest men in the Eepublic. However, 
 there is not the shghtest connexion between the Presi- 
 dential system in principle and those excrescences, 
 which grew out of the grand plan of the illustrious 
 Founders, and under which it is buried by the jealousy 
 or conservatism of the American public. The Presi- 
 dential system exists at present in many communities, 
 and it has existed in times past in many more, without 
 any of the characters or evils which we see in the 
 American republic, and it might easily be developed 
 there under other forms, or recalled to its original type. 
 It has existed in forms and under conditions the most 
 widely various. It exists to-day (January 1875) in 
 faot, though hardly in theory, in Prance ; it existed 
 the other day in fact and in theory in Spain ; it existed 
 in a widely different form in the Commonwealth of 
 England ; yet in all of these cases, whatever evils it 
 had, they were certainly not those which have marred 
 the wisdom, that presided over the foundation of the 
 United States. 
 
 But the truth is that the choice is not limited to 
 two definite alternatives : the Presidential, or the 
 Parliamentary system. There is no specific contrast 
 between them at all. There have been, and there may 
 be, countless modes in which the relations of executive 
 and legislative power may be arranged in States, with all 
 kinds of modification and mixture of plan ; they none 
 of them are marked off from the others by rigorous 
 differences, and they insensibly approach and melt into 
 each other. There may be an Executive perfectly 
 distinct from the Legislature or Parliament ; or the two 
 
 c 
 
i8 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT 
 
 may be inextricably united in one. The Executive may 
 be paramount in importance over the Legislature and 
 directly created by the nation, and this is in great 
 measure the case in the United States ; or the Legis- 
 lature may be paramount, and the Executive may be 
 its creature, as it has been of late years at times in 
 France, and as is every day becoming more utterly the 
 rule in England. Or again, the two may be co-ordinate, 
 as to some extent was the old theory of the American 
 Constitution, and is at this moment perhaps the theory 
 in France, not to speak of England. Or again, there 
 may be arrangements by which all these methods may 
 be combined, balanced, used alternately, played off 
 against each other, corrected, or neutralised ; and in 
 France at this moment they seem almost to have at- 
 tained perfect equilibrium, the point of total indifference. 
 Those who are curious in specimens of ingenuity sup- 
 plied by the past in this great art of Constitution-making, 
 which Sieyes alone of mankind is believed to have ex- 
 hausted, may follow out these endless combinations as 
 fiir as life and human endurance can carry them. This 
 task will not be attempted by the present writer, to 
 whom no result worthy of the labour is apparent 
 therefrom. Suffice it for our purpose that there are 
 not two stereotyped systems of Presidential or Parlia- 
 mentary Government, but a very great variety of 
 systems, in which both elements combine in many 
 proportions. 
 
 Our present purpose in this book lies wholly beside 
 tlu; question of the Presidential or the Parliamentary 
 $} stems; and as in England we have not the least 
 
PRESIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT. 19 
 
 taste for paper Constitutions, we are not about to enter 
 on this formidable speculation, if for no reason, at least 
 for this, that we have got a Parhamentary system, and 
 we have not got the germs or even the conditions of 
 the Presidential system. As a practical matter, what 
 we have to consider is the gradual improvement of our 
 Parliamentary methods. Even were Parliament jeal- 
 ously to retain in the amplest way the power, which in 
 practice it certainly has, of the indirect appointment 
 of the actual Executive, it would be possible without 
 doing more, to change the conditions and authority of 
 that Executive in very signal ways. What is debated 
 in these pages is certainly not any scheme for founding 
 an Executive independent of Parliament by direct 
 popular vote, for such an idea has hardly become 
 intelligible to the nation. What is debated is rather, 
 how out of Parliament itself a real Executive may 
 evolve. What is doubted is, whether an assembly, in 
 calmly assuming to be an executive Government, is 
 not wholly transcending possibilities. It seems to be 
 beyond doubt, that our peculiar Cabinet system has 
 been the machinery, by which Parliament, unseen, and 
 perhaps unconsciously, has gradually incorporated the 
 Executive in itself, whilst all the time professing a 
 spurious veneration for the Throne, so that the most 
 ancient monarchy in Europe has been made the in- 
 strument of unbounded democracy, in the true sense of 
 the term. It serves politicians to represent it as the 
 triumph of the people over royalty : it remains to be 
 seen if it be not the triumph of the aristocracy over 
 common sense and efficiency. 
 
 c 2 
 
20 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT. 
 
 The other day a leading statesman of this country 
 told the American people that, in many important 
 respects, our own Parliamentary system secured a more 
 direct control over the Executive power than the 
 Presidential system, which has created Andrew John- 
 son and Ulysses Grant ; and thus that, on our side of 
 the Atlantic, we had so far carried to greater per- 
 fection, effectually even if unconsciously, one of the 
 cardinal doctrines of the democratic creed. There can 
 be Httle doubt that this leading statesman was right ; 
 and to those who put democracy before efficiency it 
 may seem a satisfactory boast. But it will appear to 
 the reader of these pages, that this claim will not here 
 be treated as any kind of recommendation. The 
 Executive of Parliament into which our Constitutional 
 Monarchy has drifted, is none the less an instance of 
 democratic impotence, that it is exercised by an aris- 
 tocratic or plutocratic assembly, amidst ancient historic 
 pretensions and high popular titles. But none the less, 
 because it is legal, antique, and yet democratic, may 
 the sovereignty of Parliament involve a practical 
 anarchy ; if it so cling to the forms and style of power, 
 that it must keep the very keys and cabinets of State 
 jealously within the grasp of its fingers ; if it decline 
 so much as to nominate an Executive which shall be 
 anything more than one of its own committees ; if it 
 insist that all government shall be carried on, as it 
 were, under its own eye and within its own walls, and 
 constitute itself the real and only Executive, with a 
 few Ministers who are often merely its clerks. The 
 state of things to which we have arrived is really little 
 
PRESIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT. 21, 
 
 more than this — that Parliament is not merely the 
 fountain of government, or the arbiter of government, 
 but the Government itself; that every department of 
 State, with the striking exception of Foreign Affairs, 
 is little but a committee of Parliament ; that the House 
 of Commons is become in effect a huge floating Cabinet, 
 and the first Minister, the real head of the English 
 nation, is the temporary chairman of this leviathan 
 Ministry. In fact, the Cabinet system, which began as 
 an engine of Eoyal Executive, has gradually developed 
 into an engine of parliamentary Executive; nay, it 
 seems going so far, that the Cabinet itself is disap- 
 pearing, as it has done in France, in the larger assembly 
 of which it is now the creature. It is impossible that 
 any nation with the poHtical genius of Englishmen, 
 could have seen with composure their Executive 
 Power swallowed up in the Legislative and Delibera- 
 tive element, unless their eyes were blinded by the 
 imposing fiction of a titular crown. It may well be, 
 that the Presidential system is a thing to be preferred 
 to this. But in any case, without resorting to a change 
 so portentous, much might be done, even under the 
 Parliamentary system, to remedy so vast an anomaly, 
 and at least to recognise the truth that Parliament has 
 constituted itself in our Pioyal Eepubhc, at once the 
 President as well as the King. 
 
22 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT, 
 
 CHAFTEE IV. 
 
 LIBERAL TROGRAMMES. 
 
 It -wiil be already sufficiently apparent, that it is not in 
 the direction of recasting the suffrage, that I look for 
 the true reform of Parliament. There is, to my mind, 
 no panacea, indeed there is nothing tangible at all, in 
 any of the rival projectors' schemes for re-manipidatim; 
 the franchise. None of them, I am persuaded, would 
 have any effects, approaching the measure expected 
 by advocates and opponents alike. The various pro- 
 fessorial devices for regenerating society, by giving 
 votes to minorities, to women, classes, groups, proper- 
 ties, .or acquirements, exhibit to my mind only the art 
 of Constitution-making in its stage of pragmatical 
 dotage. To a pohtician they must appear little better 
 than toys, for the excellent reason that they would 
 make no serious change. The extension of the suffrage 
 in the old w%ay to the rural labourer is no doubt a 
 different thing, because it is a reality and not a play- 
 thing. There can be little doubt about the probable 
 effect upon Parliament, rather by stimulating its activity 
 and its sense of responsibility, than by changing its 
 character ; by making it, indeed, less rather than more 
 democratic; by forcing on greater concentration, 
 rather than by promoting further dispersion in the 
 
LIBERAL PROGRAMMES. 23 
 
 exercise of power. It is, moreover, a measure of 
 justice and even of precaution, and without it social 
 discontent can never be effectually abated ; besides, 
 it is in the destiny of the Parliamentary system. It 
 must be some day conceded ; and as English society 
 now stands, even the widest extension of the suffrage 
 would be no formidable change ; \* hilst, until the 
 suffrage question has been fairly exhausted by the 
 admission of all as competent citizens to nominal 
 power, the true reform of the Government and Parlia- 
 mentary machine will hardly be attempted in earnest. 
 Thus, although I have advocated in these Essays, 
 and still advocate, the extension of the franchise in due 
 course on the sole ground that I believe it will directly 
 tend to better government, I entirely reject the notion 
 that any extension or any reform of the franchise is the 
 grand object to aim at, or that it is capable of produc- 
 ing very large or very lasting benefits. To my think- 
 ing those radical reformers are wrong, who exhaust 
 their strength in seeking such a will-o'-the-wisp as a 
 franchise millennium.^ On the other hand, there are 
 Conservatives who are committing far worse mistakes, 
 in fiercely resisting reasonable changes, which are just 
 
 1 I say nothing, and in the Essays have said nothing, about what is a 
 very ditterent, and I must add a very real matter of Parliamentary Re- 
 form — a redistribution of seats. A redistribution on the scale and in the 
 spirit of the Act of '32 would no doubt exert a very serious influence on 
 legislation — for a season. But schemes for redistributing seats are infinite, 
 and every scheme stands on its own ground. It seems to me, in the 
 present aspect of the Parliamentary question, involving necessarily an 
 immense self-denying ordinance, to be the side of Reform which is far 
 the least easy to carry— indeed, since the failure of Mr. Bright's great 
 pi-oject in 1858, to be recognised even amongst Reformers as beyond the 
 range of immediate agitation. 
 
24 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT 
 
 in themselves and can have but very moderate effects 
 in any way. The real party of revolution is that of 
 the reactionists who, inspired by nothing but the passions 
 of Conservatism, under the hallucinations of mere selfish 
 terror, risk the safety of their country for some worth- 
 less privilege or form. Both extremes may yet come 
 to see, how much less the franchise can effect, than in 
 their hopes or their fears they foretell. This is the 
 spirit in which I have argued against the extravagance 
 of expectation as to the effects of franchise refonii. 
 And in 1875 I can appeal with confidence to the 
 predictions I hazarded in 1867. It is a curious in- 
 stance of the bhndness of party invective that, whilst I 
 was almost ridiculing the importance of the suffrage 
 and the changes then demanded, I was being descril)ed 
 as a suffrage radical of the extreme school, and not 
 only a violent but a theoretic democrat.^ The school 
 of politics in which I have learned, would reject the 
 suffrage altogether as a base of political power. The 
 whole aim of what I have written about Parliament is 
 designed to show, that great and lasting improvements 
 are not to be expected from any variety of franchises, 
 that the powers of the suffrage have been exaggerated by 
 friends and foes, and that any extension of the suffrage, 
 however just and useful, is a temporary expedient of 
 very limited effect. 
 
 ^ It is amusing to me to reflect, what were the grounds upon which 
 this notion was somewhat sedulously fostered by a school of reniarlcuble 
 insight and detachment of mind. If I fail in that political quietism 
 which seems to bo the note of sundry minor Prophets of Culture, I claim 
 to be a humble follower of the party of Authority, and not of Anarchy. 
 
 / 
 
LIBERAL PROGRAMMES. 25 
 
 As with the reform of the House of Commons, so 
 with the existence of the House of Lords, it seems to 
 me that far more is hoped or feared from change, than 
 there is any reason to warrant. To any one treating 
 the House of Peers from the point of view of rational 
 principle, and not of conventional decorum, it can 
 hardly present itself in any other aspect, but that of 
 an historic monument which is also a public nuisance.^ 
 It only supplies an element in the Constitution which 
 is superabundant without it ; and it puts a ponderous 
 drag upon a machine w^hich is hardly able to move by 
 itself. The great estates, the great fortunes, and the 
 chief offices of State, or magnates of society, are so 
 abundantly represented already in the popular House, 
 that we may treat as hardly serious, the claim which is 
 made for the representative value of the Peers. The 
 Upper House is undistinguishable from that portion of 
 the Lower House which sits there by virtue of wealth, 
 rank, or position ; and this is at least the larger moiety 
 of the whole. Except that some questions, social and 
 moral, are occasionally treated in the Lords, perhaps in 
 deference to the Bishops, more seriously than is thought 
 to be business-like in the Commons, and that the 
 freedom from constituents enables the Lords occasion- 
 ally to venture on Foreign Politics, the Upper House 
 in its purely legislative capacity cannot be truly said to 
 add anything but dead weight to the governing machine. 
 On the other hand, the closing of the Peers House as a 
 separate legislative Chamber, would remove but a tithe 
 of the evils, which are to be traced to the maintenance 
 
 1 E.g. Temple Bar, January 1875. 
 
26 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT, 
 
 of a privileged Peerage in the midst of an industrial 
 republic ; evils of a social and a moral, rather than of 
 a political kind. Nay, since it would be impossible to 
 close the one Chamber without adniitting its members 
 to the other, the peculiar characteristics of the Peerage 
 might be exerted more heavily upon the Constitution, 
 after such a change than before it. But the radical 
 attempt to effect the change by party legislation would 
 inevitably lead to a struggle, at least as we now are 
 situated, out of all proportion to the benefit expected. 
 English society and our mild political habits have yet to 
 experience the kind of rally we might see, if a serious 
 struggle were commenced to abolish the House of Peers. 
 A progressive statesman of real sagacity, backed by 
 opinion thoroughly in earnest, will never have any 
 difficulty in managing the least bony part of our whole 
 pohtical organism. We shall not, it is true, have real 
 governing efficiency, until skill or fortune shall en- 
 able our Governments to work, outside of the debris of 
 an hereditary Chamber. A statesman, with the nation 
 aroused and on his side, who was bent on having his 
 will, need only threaten to send in a regiment of life 
 guards — not of course with purposes of military 
 violence, but to take their seats as members. The 
 plan might be a good beginning for the ingenious 
 project of a Lihro d'oro of physical nobility, just now 
 attracting such attention. Seriously, to narrow the 
 aim at good government down to a formal attack on 
 an hereditary Chamber, would doubtless encumber that 
 aim with minor struggles and infinite social acerbities ; 
 and so adjourn the direct purpose for generations. 
 
LIBERAL PROGRAMMES. 27 
 
 In tlie same spirit I have spoken of the Monarchy. 
 The republican system, in the true sense of the word, 
 seems to me not merely the only rational, but now the 
 only possible system for perfectly mature societies. As 
 M. Thiers reluctantly declares it in France, any other 
 form of civilised society is in the long run hopelessly 
 doomed. But then by republic we must understand 
 not democracy, or the direct government of the masses. 
 A republic, we insist, is a state where first, the notion 
 that any man or any family has a proprietary right to 
 dispose of the national resources, has been displaced 
 by the habit of regarding all exercise of power as a 
 duty owed to the service of the public ; where, 
 secondly, no exercise of public power pretends (to be 
 legitimate, unless with the formal ratification of the 
 citizens, and the free co-operation of pubhc opinion. 
 But a commonwealth such as this we already have ; 
 and though we retain an hereditary Crown, an here- 
 ditary Chamber, and many ' hereditary pageantries of 
 all sorts, the essential conditions of the republic are 
 now established amongst us. By all the tests of 
 political science this country is now governed on the 
 republican theory ; and no one of its functionaries 
 acts less in the spirit of privileged right, and more in 
 the spirit of republican duty, than its present First 
 Magistrate. It is most essential to assert the republican 
 principle, and to use every means of giving that en- 
 nobling principle every practical development. But 
 the evils which cluster round the form of Monarchy, 
 and to my mind they are neither few nor small (and 
 the form itself is amongst the chief), are evils again of 
 
28 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT 
 
 the social moral and indirect kind, rather than of the 
 poHtical and direct. The Monarchy, too, has this 
 great merit as a poHtical possibility over the House of 
 Peers, that whilst the leader of a nation could hardly 
 hope ever to convert the Peers into a direct engine of 
 progress, no man can measure the potential forces 
 dormant in the Crown of England, if it should chance 
 to fall upon a combination of persons and circum- 
 stances able to evoke them. If a Sovereign of the 
 order of Victor Emmanuel, or at least of the ' Honest 
 King ' of the popular legend, fell into close reliance on 
 a great popular statesman of the order of Count 
 Cavour, the quaint prerogatives and historic prestige of 
 our Plantagenet and Tudor pageant might rise to new 
 life, and unfold unsuspected resources. In the mean- 
 time a direct attack on the Throne would call up a 
 furious reaction, more extensive and more vehement 
 even, than that which could be awakened in defence 
 of the House of Lords. For the Monarchy is un- 
 doubtedly robed with a real historic attraction ; it is 
 far more personal and familiar as an institution than 
 anything else we have ; it is far more closely invested 
 with sentiment — and sentiment of a plainer kind. A 
 great statesman and a great national party can achieve 
 their practical ends, without risking this unloosing of 
 the floodgates of reaction and Conservative panic ; and 
 indeed the possibility may be imagined, that the 
 Monarchy itself might be made available, and some- 
 thing more than neutral. On the other hand, the 
 liour that political education and public spirit shall 
 have reached that stage of advancement, when the 
 
LIBERAL PROGRAMMES. ^9 
 
 inauguration of the republican form is a matter of self- 
 respect, which the nation shall owe to itself, that hour 
 will be the last of the Monarchy. The republican 
 form will follow, easily and happily to all concerned it 
 may well be, when the republican spirit is fully mature. 
 And thus it is in the name of the repubhc, and to 
 assert the essential principle of the republic, that we 
 must deprecate any crude propaganda against tlie 
 Monarchical form, a movement which would lead us 
 far out of politics into the whirlpool of social recrimi- 
 nation and possible civil war, and for which it must 
 be allowed few parts of English society have the 
 requisite civic education. 
 
 Such are some amongst the reasons to doubt the 
 wisdom of insisting as a ' programme ' on any of the 
 specifics proposed for the repair of our strange Consti- 
 tutional fabric. To make any part of it the object 
 of a special political cry, would, I think, involve dispro- 
 portionate effort, and besides draw us far from the aim 
 of political progress. What political struggles of the 
 active kind lie before us in the immediate future, would 
 appear by all the signs of the times, to belong to the 
 ecclesiastical and educational sphere. The vital issues 
 for this generation are plainly laid in the cause of the 
 freedom of thought and religion from the interested 
 wardship of the State. With topics such as tliese 
 it is no part of the present volume in any way to 
 deal. These pages are confined to the questions which 
 bear on the relation of executive and legislative powers. 
 In this, the temporal sphere of government, — and poh- 
 
30 THOUGHTS ON GOVERXMENT. 
 
 tical government has no other than the temporal sphere 
 —the true aim would be found, as I venture to think, 
 in reform far broader, and less capable of expression in 
 party programmes, than any of the piecemeal reforms 
 propounded to renew the Constitutional apparatus. 
 We have to put vigour into the political tone, and to 
 make government an efficient and scientific engine. 
 Were we ever to abandon the routine of Parliamentary 
 sham-fights, the rhetorical war of party, of which 
 men weary as of the siege of Troy, were we to value 
 the art of governing as highly as we value the art of 
 debating, it would certainly be a vaster reform than the 
 demoUtion, or even the reconstruction, of each part of 
 the Constitutional fabric. There is every ground for 
 believing that such a task would be also far easier ; for 
 it has nothing to do with the traditional watchwords 
 of party. It would be a great change if in place of 
 endless discussions, how the Legislature is to be created, 
 we could settle the question as to what it can safely 
 undertake ; if, instead of augmenting the chaotic 
 autocracy of Parliament, we restored it to its natural 
 place as the Great Council of the nation ; if instead of 
 multiplying its labours as a miscellaneous and unwieldy 
 Executive, we could out of it evolve a substantive Exe- 
 cutive, distinct and national in character. Far from 
 requiring further limitations and checks on government, 
 we need a concentration of government, provided 
 always that it be exerted under the impulse of public 
 opinion ; for safeguards and counsellors we need to 
 substitute personal authority ; for dispersion, centrali- 
 sation ; for complexity, simplicity ; for supervision, 
 responsibility. 
 
LI nil A H V 
 
 IJ.N I VKKSITV ()1- 
 
 I CAiJFOKNIA. 
 CHAPTER Y. ' 
 
 CARLYLE AND COMTE ON GOVERNMENT. 
 
 This it will be seen is much in the spirit of that, with 
 which we are familiar in the teaching of Mr. Carlyle. 
 His heroic fire, glowing with a white heat amidst co- 
 ruscations and fumes wherein his genius loves to work, 
 has burnt in upon the mind almost of our generation a 
 new sense of political duty, and has given fresh mean- 
 ing to the terms Order and Government. For my own 
 part I can avow nothing but grateful admiration for the 
 power with which he has smitten the parliamentary 
 idol, with which he recalls to life old types of governing 
 capacity, with which he asserts the uses of personal 
 authority ; nor shall I be distressed to be told that 
 what I may have said on these heads is no new dis- 
 covery of my own. Pretending to no discoveries what- 
 ever, I willingly claim his authority whenever I can find 
 it available. But it is in the Positive school, whose 
 political motto is the title of this book,^ and not in the 
 
 ^ The criticism of Mr. Mill (Representative Government) on the two 
 terms Order and Progress, which he says are not properly opposed, does 
 not apply to the sense in which they are tised in the title of this book. 
 By Order we understand the normal conditions and correlations of every 
 systematic whole ; by Progress the normal evolution of those relations to 
 tiielr natural result. There is no opposition — hardly any contrast between 
 them. As Comte repeatedly says : ' Progress can be only the develop- 
 ment of Order, whilst Order can only be made manifest in Progress.' 
 
32 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT. 
 
 school of Hero-worship, that these pages have found 
 their sources. The pohtical teaching of Comte comes 
 in effect to results, analogous to, but not the same as, 
 those of Carlyle ; but it reaches similar results on very 
 different grounds and by widely contrasted methods. 
 The two differ as the philosopher differs from the poet, as 
 a system differs from an idea. They agree in rejecting 
 on principle direct democratic government, whether the 
 democracy be that of popular plebiscites or cultured 
 assembhes ; they agree in justifying concentrated 
 government vested in personal hands ; they agree that 
 the type of government is that of a capable head, 
 clothed with ample power and ample trust. The his- 
 torian loves to contemplate, it would seem, as a 
 permanent type, the hero-soldier, the philosopher has 
 proposed for a revolutionary crisis of disturbance a 
 temporary dictator. But whereas the prophet of Hero- 
 worship invests his head as of Divine, at least Super- 
 ' human, Eight with material force, sometimes presenting 
 him as a captain quelling the mutiny of an army, 
 sometimes as a shepherd driving a liock, the founder of 
 Positivism regards the ruler as the minister of Public 
 Opinion, giving form to the national will ; neither 
 above it nor outside of it, and yet not its creature or its 
 slave. If Comte's temporary dictator would be strong, 
 it is only by virtue of his being strictly a representative 
 man, accepted by numbers, trusted by them, and res- 
 ponsible for the mode in which he uses their strength ; 
 
 Politically speaking, the idea implies that the fundamental Principles of 
 civil society must be as religiously observed, as the indispensable Changes 
 must be actively promoted. 
 
CARLYLE AND COMTE ON GOVERNMENT. 33 
 
 but he i^ neither the object of a mysterious consecra- 
 tion, nor is his superiority to the rest at all of necessity 
 unbounded, nor his attitude that of a master or poten- 
 tate. The soiu-ce of his power would be more than 
 consent ; it is the intelligent, continuous, free support 
 of the numerical, or rather the effective, mass of the 
 citizens. The basis of all government, says Comte, is 
 the co-operation of the society governed centred in an 
 organ of government ; and in the final or republican 
 type of society the co-operation is by far the more con- 
 spicuous element of the two. To give that co-operation 
 effect, a central power of specially qualified brains, and 
 ultimately at least in each sphere, of some one brain 
 is necessary ; but the persons or person who exercise 
 these functions are only the ministers in command of 
 the social combination, the directing agents of the co- 
 operation ; nor are they at all required to possess, and 
 certainly they are not permitted to affect, any heroic 
 supremacy over the rest of their fellow citizens. Yet 
 further, lest tyranny and misuse of power which is even 
 worse than obstruction should steal in, the Government 
 would not be entrusted with any power which could 
 long be maintained against the will of the governed : 
 and for this end they must above all things retain the 
 prerogative of sanctioning the existence of any armed 
 force, and of voting all supplies of money. It so 
 happens that in England at least, these two cardinal 
 conditions of a free society are the very warp and woof 
 of oiir political instincts. For any man or any party 
 in this island to aim at creating a military force inde- 
 pendent of Parliament, or to levy taxes not consented 
 
 D 
 
34 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT. 
 
 to by the nation, is a notion as monstrous and abnor- 
 mal in its extravagance, as the notion of a Eoraan 
 citizen during the long history of the Republic aiming 
 to make himself king. We have but to consecrate 
 afresh these central ideas of freedom, to extend their 
 appUcation, and hedge them round with (if possible) 
 fresh protections, and we may dismiss at once the fear, 
 that under auy conceivable form of government a des- 
 potic use of power is possible within this island to any 
 man or any group of men. If an authoritative form of 
 government means despotism, or even the risk of des- 
 potism, not a word more is to be said ; the very name 
 is not likely to be heard in our language. So far as 
 Positivism is concerned, nothing could be more abhor- 
 rent to its social, peaceful, industrial, and repubhcan 
 spirit than sardonic maxims about * thirty milhons 
 mostly fools,' ' whiffs of grape shot,' and all the other 
 apologies for self-will, violence, and personal ambition 
 which may be constructed out of the Gospel of Heroic 
 Lawgiving. With all its nobility of aim at the higher 
 life, and all its rare insight into human character, that 
 Gospel will remain one, which glorifies the individual, 
 at the expense of the social, type of greatness ; which 
 almost cynically repudiates the social source of all per- 
 sonal greatness ; which gives us epigrams, apophthegms, 
 and poems, when systematic science only can avail. 
 Political problems must be approached either in the 
 spirit of practical sagacity, or of philosophical breadth ; 
 they are not to be unlocked by artistic or literary 
 genius. Brilliant analyses of character, historic 
 pictures of distant societies, are but thin equipments 
 
CARLYLE AND COMTE ON GOVERNMENT, 35 
 
 for political action, to armour forth the men who must 
 contend to-day and provide for the morrow. Eequiems 
 over an extinct civilisation belong to art ; they may 
 belong to education, and even religion, but they do not 
 constitute a political philosophy ; for the ordering of 
 modern societies needs plainer lessons than any which 
 may be found in the most stirring blasts of high 
 psalmody to the heroes of old. 
 
 Nor must we forget the very gulf which is set 
 between all that is said of politics by Comte and by 
 Carlyle. With Comte, philosophy is strictly kept in 
 its own defined domain. He has never forgotten that 
 a philosophy can deal with social systems only in an 
 abstract and general way, laying down only funda- 
 mental conditions and governing laws, and leaving all 
 applications and all concrete judgments to the practical 
 wisdom of those who are called on to deal with each 
 case. The question of modification and of gradual 
 adaptation is a sphere wholly belonging to them, and 
 not to the abstract thinker, and the sphere so assigned 
 is on any near view of current situations almost the 
 whole that is apparent. Lastly, the future of political 
 societies is one that depends on the slow collective 
 evolution of the characters and minds of those, who 
 actively compose those societies. They are not to be 
 mechanically recast and regenerated off-hand even by 
 the practical chiefs of action, much less then by the 
 speculative chiefs of thought. In Carlyle, with all that 
 genius of singular insiglit, as free from conventional 
 prejudice as an ancient Saga, it is singular to watch 
 what confusion and violence will result, when a man 
 
 d2 
 
36 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT, 
 
 with heroic temper and astonishing instinct, presumes 
 to fling aside the eternal barriers between the temporal 
 and the moral sphere, the work of the thinker and the 
 work of the statesman, between poetry and practical 
 wisdom, spiritual exhortation and political project. 
 The result is a splendid medley of passion, religion, 
 art, wisdom, extravagance, sophism, and vision, in 
 which the noble social truth of the thinker is often lost 
 amidst the subversive dreams of the reformer, and the 
 immortal truths of practical wisdom lose all their out- 
 line and identity amidst the blaze of literary corus- 
 cation, which plays round them like the summer 
 lightning. With Comte, history and principle form 
 indeed the basis of education, and so the guiding lines 
 of conduct ; but action with him, as with Aristotle, is 
 the field of practical men in practical methods. Of all 
 dreams, that which he most repudiates is the pedan- 
 tocracy, or the attempt to discipline communities by 
 arbitrary authority on ideal lines. And that is a 
 pedantocracy, which attempts by some mighty literary 
 shears to make a tabula rasa of civilisation, and there 
 to plant some spectre of absolutism, brought like the 
 slumbering emperor from his ancient tomb in the 
 mountain side. The only Government which has a 
 chance of life is one that is ever tentative, its atmo- 
 sphere compromise, its code good sense, its force 
 combination. Violence, Utopias, pedantries, revivals, 
 idealism of any sort, are alien to the practical life of 
 societies, which is ordered and organic evolution. Nor 
 is political good to be secured by mere political 
 methods. To the positive philosopher, the best laws 
 
CARLYLE AND COMTE ON GOVERNMENT, 37 
 
 administered by the best men, a perfect Government in 
 the hands of an ideal governor, would appear able only 
 in part to improve even our political world, and could 
 do almost nothing for the moral and the social world. 
 A mere political remedy is, in plain words, an arrant 
 quackery, and no such quackery was ever proposed by 
 Comte. Underneath all social facts, in his eyes, lies 
 the want of a social and intellectual resettlement. 
 Positivism means a regeneration and not a revolution : 
 a regeneration, not in the narrow sense of the old 
 religion, but just as truly in a religious sense. It is 
 only as a corollary of this, and through the agency 
 of this, that political reform is a practical hope. And 
 thus, what political teaching was ever propounded by 
 Comte is but part, and but the lesser part, of a scheme 
 for a comprehensive synthesis or organisation of so- 
 ciety. To the efficiency, even to the existence of his 
 political machinery there must go a previous education, 
 both of the individual citizen and of general public 
 opinion, a new standard of social morality, and the 
 active operation of a set of moral institutions. Group- 
 ing the whole Past as the parent big with the Future, 
 making Progress to be but the bringing to maturity 
 the existing materials, laying the foundations of intel- 
 lectual, practical, and moral advancement, on the one 
 side in history, on the other in man's balanced nature, 
 Auguste Comte has sought to present an organic 
 microcosm of social principle. But his entire teaching 
 remains in the sphere of counsel and not of enterprise. 
 He propounds a method of life, not a plan for recasting 
 
38 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT. 
 
 institutions. It is not a political programme, but a 
 social doctrine. 
 
 It is then most strange to note how the name of 
 Comte, with some of the superficial and the half- 
 informed, has become associated with suggestions of 
 disorder and schemes of violence. With some of these 
 laborious caricaturists he seems to revive the Macchia- 
 velli of the Prince ; with some the prophet of the 
 International League. To say that Comte has insisted 
 upon Order in all forms of human life more urgently 
 than perhaps any writer on social organisation, that he 
 has preached more emphatically the value of all the 
 eternal institutions and relations of human society, as 
 they have existed for ages, that his very mind and 
 nature have affinity for all the really conservative forms 
 of life, and all the really conservative events and names 
 in history — this is to say, by comparison, little of all 
 that might be said. But even were his whole spirit 
 and teaching less conservative than they are, in the 
 higher senses of a noble but abused quality, he would 
 be of all men the least deserving of a charge, whether 
 of tyranny, violence, or anarchy, because he stands 
 almost alone amongst political philosophers in declaring 
 the idleness of philosophy in pohtics proper, and in 
 claiming the whole field of practical life for practical 
 men, making it their first duty to proceed in tentative 
 ways. Hence we find the phenomenon of the founder 
 of a political system, denouncing the attempt to place 
 even that system in the first order of human require- 
 ments, and above all, denouncing the idea of forcing it 
 upon the world as a system at all. Of all the types of 
 
CARLYLE AND COMTE ON GOVERNMENT. 39 
 
 ruler there are few more contrary to every principle of 
 Comte than that which once was famihar to Europe, 
 ' the philosophic despot ; ' whilst, on the other hand, 
 no better syllabus could be drawn of all the proposi- 
 tions, whether political, social, or industrial, which are 
 abhorrent to positive theories, than the actual dogmas 
 of the famous 'International,' as formulated in their 
 communistic, subversive, and terrorist ideal by their 
 great German Lawgiver. It is quite true that Comte 
 is nothing if not an innovator, that his principles mean 
 enormous changes in life, society, and states, and that 
 his principles mean, above all things, action and not 
 theory. Like every religion, positivism means in one 
 sense renovation, and in its pure sense even revolution. 
 But revolution in things human at bottom is as in- 
 evitable and natural as the earth's revolution on its 
 axis ; it is the first and most enduring of the laws of 
 nature, for it is the inherent property of Time itself. 
 And whilst this planet shall revolve, and out of its 
 revolving days and years fresh combinations of cir- 
 cumstance shall ever be evolved, the question for 
 reasonable men is only- — down what paths of good or 
 of ill shall this inexorable revolution shape their lives, 
 seeing that the limits of variation both of Good and 
 111 are fixed, but that the possible alternatives are still 
 of tremendous consequence ? 
 
 Of this at least, in regard to Comte, all men may 
 rest most perfectly assured. To whatever degree (and 
 the degree is almost unlimited) that he contemplates 
 eventual Progress and therefore systematic change, it 
 is most clear, that in things political, he of all men 
 
40 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT. 
 
 is farthest from all that is arbitrary, violent, and sub- 
 versive. He has taught political doctrines, whilst 
 warning men never to rely on political doctrines ; he 
 labours at political theories, the very first of which is, i 
 that practical politics are not the sphere of theorists./ 
 In the whole range of his writings it is rarely indeed 
 that he descends to the concrete application of any 
 theory whatever. From this cause, and from the fact 
 that he shows incessantly how special cases in practice 
 ever admit of special adaptation, the range which he 
 leaves open for practical application is very various and 
 wide. Adherents of positive principles are no more 
 to be debarred from addressing public opinion than 
 the adherents of any other school of thought, and it is 
 most undesirable that they should be excluded. Hence 
 one who, as the writer of these pages, is endeavouring 
 from a basis of general principle to estimate the situa- 
 tion of the day, has a wide field left open for unaided 
 judgment. This extensive limit of variation, and also 
 of potential aberration, is very much enlarged when 
 the very first maxim of his general theory is the im- 
 portance of special adaptation where practical interests 
 demand it. And of all subjects of political inquiry, 
 the world of English politics offers perhaps the widest 
 field for special adaptation, for it is in its essence a 
 very special variety of political phenomenon, abnormal, 
 independent, accidental in the most signal degree. 
 Hence, if it is possible for two minds, both full of the 
 same doctrines, to make very different use of these doc- 
 trines in practice, this is especially true of those who 
 attempt to illustrate or extend into current politics 
 
CARLYLE AND COMTE ON GOVERNMENT. 41 
 
 these positive doctrines, and in tlie highest degree 
 when the subject is the England of to-day. I am not 
 aware that I have undertaken a hopeless or mistaken 
 task in expressing my opinion about public affairs from 
 the ground of my positivist convictions ; but I know 
 no reason for enforcing silence on myself, and I have 
 certainly no other convictions from which to work. 
 At least, I trust that no fair reader will assume, firstly, 
 that every general principle which is here supported 
 in theory, is a scheme which any one is prepared to 
 enforce as an isolated dogma on the England of to- 
 day ; secondly, that every suggestion I may have made 
 about current politics is necessarily an article of Posi- 
 tive doctrine. I conceive that no one can demand 
 more of a public writer than that he should frankly 
 explain the guiding doctrines by which his judgment 
 is formed, and then should examine affairs of public 
 concern with a fearless and dispassionate purpose. 
 For all such judgments the writer is, and he must 
 be, alone responsible. It may very well be that 
 other exponents of positive principles might deduce 
 from them different concrete conclusions. My judg- 
 ments have been formed in the school of Comte ; but 
 it must not be thought that they of necessity involve 
 the other adherents of that school, much less that they 
 necessarily implicate the abstract teaching of the master 
 himself. 
 
 So much has been said of these political doctrines 
 of Comte, often unjustly and hastily, so fully are they 
 the ground of everything contained in these pages, that 
 
42 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT. 
 
 it may be well to treat at greater length some of his 
 leading principles of political science. As we have seen, 
 they form part of a much larger whole, much of which 
 they presuppose as established, and all of which they 
 require as concurrent. A political reconstructicn of 
 society, he says, must follow and cannot ever precede 
 a moral reconstruction. As a consequence the note of 
 political action at present must be the provisional. Poli- 
 tical wants of a certain kind have an urgency in time 
 which many social requirements have not. States and 
 societies must be kept together on pain of tremendous 
 consequences. Governments must exist, for public life 
 cannot be adjourned ; or we may all find ourselves in 
 the midst of material difficulties and confusion, so 
 great that moral or intellectual reforms would be a 
 mere mockery. Hence in things practical, compromise, 
 expediency, adaptation, enter to a degree which is not 
 possible, or not safe, in moral and intellectual things. 
 Until we can settle on a really sound philosophy, we 
 had better not consciously set up an unsound philo- 
 sophy ; but any Government which will secure tolerable 
 order is better than absolute confusion. In things 
 practical, we must act in the best way practically 
 allowed by the circumstances and with the materials at 
 hand. And we must act immediately, just as we must 
 in a ship, in a storm, or a fire. To adjourn the 
 settlement of moral, intellectual, and spiritual difficul- 
 ties, is not to risk the destruction of all that ages have 
 elaborated in attempting to solve them. But to adjourn 
 an efficient Government, is possibly to risk the material 
 achievements, whereby generations have provided for the 
 
CARLYLE AND COMTE ON GOVERNMENT. 43 
 
 safety or progress of the present. The Dutch nation, 
 for instance, might fall into the profoimdest condition 
 of mental and religious anarchy, without losing the 
 prospect of ultimately finding the truth. But if they 
 ever fell into such a state of temporal imbecility or 
 chaos, as to ruin their dykes for ever, there would soon 
 be no Holland, on which truth or justice could find a 
 foothold to revive. Thus amidst all the confusion and 
 transition in which the life of modern Europe is cast, 
 the material dykes, which preserve the existence of 
 nations, must by every expedient be maintained. To 
 be tentative, is the condition of all true political activity 
 everywhere ; to be provisional, is the necessity of all 
 such activity in the present age. And thus, if we 
 abstract for a special purpose political doctrines, which 
 we hold indispensable for the normal state of society, 
 this does not imply that they can be worked out other- 
 wise than by slow degrees and many intermediate 
 adaptations ; much less does it imply the desire to 
 impose them by Jacobin dictation, or to ascribe to them 
 a sort of sacramental efficacy. 
 
44 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT. 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 PRINCIPLE OF A PERSONAL ORGAN OF GOVERNMENT. 
 
 Societies present us ever with two co-ordinate facts : 
 on the one hand, co-operation of numbers to a common 
 end ; on the other, concentration of that action in a 
 jDcrsonal organ. -The former fact, the co-operation, it 
 is now impossible to forget ; that political force is the 
 result of combined efforts, is too obvious in every act 
 of life to be long absent from our thoughts. But it is 
 often regarded as the only element of political force. 
 The second fact, that all joint action requires an 
 individual organ, is apt to be overlooked or under- 
 valued in current thought. We are so much accus- 
 tomed to thmk of the power of numbers behind every 
 action of the State, as to forget that without much 
 more the power of numbers is no power at all.^ The 
 numbers must find a hand to do their will, a voice to 
 express their thoughts, and a brain to give effect to 
 their purpose. Every society as such, displays first, 
 a combination of action; secondly, a distribution of 
 
 ^ See Comte, Positive Polity, vol. ii. chap. 5, where he works out the 
 nphorisin * society can no more exist without a Government than govern- 
 ment could exist without a society,' as being- true of every form of asso- 
 ciation, and as part of the general action of Humanity. This is of its 
 very nature a joint product; whilst it can only exercise its functions 
 through .^ome individual organ. 
 
ORGAN OF GOVERNMENT. 45 
 
 parts. Where there is no distribution, no variety, 
 there is no society ; at the utmost it is an agglomera- 
 tion. Even in the rudest horde some distribution of 
 function begins ; and as societies increase in civilisation 
 the distribution of function, the variety of power, of 
 efficiency, and of office, become more and ever more 
 marked. Diffi^rentiation is the law of growth : and 
 beside it, is that other law, too often undervalued, the 
 increasing reaction or tendency towards combination, 
 ever assuming under organic impulses a more and 
 more systematic form. Hence, since every society 
 exhibits as one element, distribution of parts, ever 
 increasing variety, differentiation ; the other element 
 of society, co-operation, requires for its existence con- 
 centration of many forces in a personal organ. It is 
 impossible to conceive anything that can be called a 
 social action, apart from a personal agent as its em- 
 bodiment. We are so apt to talk (and now even to 
 think) of a free people governing itself, and of laws 
 made by the nation as a whole, that we pass out of 
 sight one of the most elementary truths of human 
 nature, and forget how irrational and false such lan- 
 guage is in its literal sense. Acting individually, 
 neither a million of men nor fifty million of men could 
 make a law of the simplest kind if they toiled for a 
 century. Nor even could a thousand or even a 
 hundred men together make a law. It would always 
 be, quot homines tot leges, if they tried for ever, so 
 long as the real individual thought of each citizen 
 acted in honest independence of purpose. The variety 
 of the human mind, character, and circumstanc3, is 
 
46 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT. 
 
 such, the differentiation of society in a high form 
 presents to each human unit such infinite facets of 
 duty and of truth, that it is impossible for a multitude 
 exactly to issue in identical judgments about any single 
 thing. What these really do is to converge, and that 
 in a very Jiigh degree ; but they are never identical. 
 As the Emperor of old in his monkish retirenaent 
 groaned out, when he looked over his beloved watches, 
 never synchronous with all his care, they all declare 
 the hour of the day approximately, but no two of 
 them are exactly in time. So the consensus of any 
 society may be very great, and its combined power 
 may be potentially vast; but until the individual 
 differences cease to exist, until some one judgment is 
 adopted as that of the body, there is no common will 
 and no possible action. Even material force requires 
 its individual agent. A mere mob passionately stirred 
 against a hated enemy cannot lay hands on him without 
 an organ, the one, or two, or three persons, who put 
 manual violence to him, and if more than one they 
 must act as one ; then they can do nothing with him, 
 unless some voice suggests an action and so decides 
 what to do; some brain must guide, some pair of 
 hands must drag, some opinion must over-master all 
 others, or the mob evaporates and disintegrates, and 
 Sulla, who alone is a concentrated force, stalks home 
 in scornful power. But this is the case of a mere mob, 
 not what we call a society at all ; yet even this form 
 of anarchy may serve to illustrate the truth, of the 
 impossibility of joint action without a personal con- 
 centration of the common force. 
 
ORGAN OF GOVERNMENT. 47 
 
 Again, we may take a form of society in which the 
 maximum of uniformity exists, in which it has been 
 artificially produced by stringent discipline for a special 
 end. There is no society in which the human units 
 are (at least for the special end) so nearly identical 
 as an army. Art and habit have made each soldier 
 more like his comrade, in every military use and end, 
 than ever citizen can be made like citizen. Yet an 
 army cannot march a mile, much less fight a campaign, 
 without a commander. The greatest and finest army 
 that ever stood, even if each soldier were himself 
 Napoleon and Bayard in one, would be as powerless 
 as any mob, until the individuals appeared to com- 
 mand its complex action. Discipline even, implying 
 on one side uniformity, implies on the other classifi- 
 cation of command. Special tactics have each in their 
 degree, their individual chief ; the strategy of the army, 
 as a whole, still more obviously requires it. Councils 
 of war never fight, and could not conduct a campaign 
 for a week. Madness itself, except perhaps in the 
 communal insurrection in Paris, never put an army 
 in commission, much less manoeuvred it by universal 
 suffrage. 
 
 In an extreme case of a disciplined society, such as 
 an army or a ship, it is impossible to overlook the fact 
 that the organic action of the whole is just as incon- 
 ceivable without a person from whom the action 
 radiates, as it would be if there were a centre but no 
 convergent parts. An army, a ship's crew, a com- 
 munity of any kind, has no collective brain, or will, or 
 hand. A parish has no parochial arm to arrest a thief 
 
48 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT 
 
 without a constable endowed with muscular tissue 
 and a human understanding (of some kind, however 
 low). It has no collective will until some individual 
 will is adopted ; it cannot call out the engine or cleanse 
 the sewers (as, alas ! we see), without a substantive 
 luiman intelligence of some sort. Now a whole parish 
 full of separate intelligences, all differing, even though 
 slightly differing, can do nothing, for they are not a 
 substantive mental power, but an imponderable agglo- 
 meration of disparate forces. A body of constables 
 cannot even clear a street, unless each man of the 
 force does things more or less different but converging 
 to one end, whilst one brain conceives and one will 
 desires that co-ordinated end. All this is so trite that 
 we incur the charge of multiplying truism and com- 
 monplace in labouring to prove it. The question is, 
 whether true as it may be, we do not habitually forget 
 it in practice in less obvious instances and in complex 
 operations. Our public life has become so utterly one 
 of polls, assemblies, committees, and boards, so habitu- 
 ally do we fix our attention on the combination of 
 many opinions and many wills which they present, 
 that we are apt to forget how completely all those 
 conform to the same law, how much they screen from 
 us the same inner truth, that all combined action of 
 many implies a personal organ as its agent. Parha- 
 ments in the aggregate do not really make laws any 
 more than nations as an aggregate do; committees 
 delegate their action virtually to individual members ; 
 boards apportion within them the actual work, so that 
 in the ultimate reality, what is done in the collective 
 
ORGAN OF GOVERNMENT. 49 
 
 name of tlie body is the work of one, or, at least, each 
 substantive part is the work of one ; what is undone is 
 that, at which many work without effacing their differ- 
 ences. Public labours even of the lower degrees df 
 complication are, when we reflect, manifestly the result 
 of a single mind in the last resort. The House of 
 Commons could not even pass a common Act, until its 
 members ceased to act as co-equal units, until it let 
 some one draft the Bill, and then some one persuade 
 it to make it law; nay, even a select committee could 
 not of its own motion draw an Act. Much less could 
 a single course of policy, say even so common a thing 
 as a system of drainage, be carried out unless by an 
 individual mind. It is, no doubt, quite compatible 
 with this, that the individual mind directing should 
 take advice, change its purpose, and adopt other views 
 in part or in whole, and in order that the joint action 
 should be lasting and strong, it must be the focus of 
 many minds and wills, the expression of a vast con- 
 sensus, not the average, but the sum of the contributing 
 forces. Yet at the same time, so far as the action is 
 really the expression of the aggregate body, it must in 
 like degree be the energy of a distinct personality as 
 its individual organ. 
 
 It is true that the individual organ may be con- 
 stantly changed even in the course of the same 
 collective act or policy. We may change our generals 
 in a campaign or even in a battle, and defeat or inaction 
 is the usual result. The Athenian prytanes had a new 
 president every morning, and some Greek armies were 
 commanded on alternate days by different chiefs. And 
 
 E 
 
50. THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT. 
 
 80 even the real, as well as the apparent organ of a 
 ])ublic policy or a national government, may be re- 
 peatedly changed, and yet something that can be 
 called a policy or a Government (we see this every 
 session under our own eyes) may, in spite of every- 
 thing, result. Just so, a picture designed by one 
 master might be finished by another; and even in 
 extreme cases, a picture once conceived might be 
 painted by a master's scholars in turn or in parts, and 
 yet be what might be called a pictm-e after all. Yet, 
 as in the one case so in the other, good work can only 
 issue from sustained individual effort ; the more often 
 the organ is changed, the less can the product be 
 called a work. These changes of plan, or of head, 
 should not blind us to the truth. A social action 
 may represent many minds and natiu-es, but it must 
 be at any moment of its production the actual work of 
 OTie mind and one nature. The best work will be the 
 work, which most distinctly bears that individual im- 
 press on it, whilst it is just as truly the expression of 
 the aggregate minds and wills. But government can 
 no more be really the work of many rulers, than a 
 picture can be truly the work of many painters. 
 
 The neglect of this truth, that all social action 
 requires concentration in an organ just as much as co- 
 operation by numbers, underlies the whole range of 
 democratic ftdlacies, and they are a family more pro- 
 lific than is supposed. We are ac€ustomed to turn our 
 attention so exclusively on the co-operation, that we 
 unconsciously grow into the notion, that numbers 
 could co-operate by direct identical action. We 
 
ORGAN OF GOVERNMENT. 51 
 
 might as rationally suppose, that an army of 100,000 
 soldiers would shnultaneously raise the right foot and 
 march in a body upon a given point, or go through a 
 collective campaign, by independent free purpose of 
 each individual soldier, without any officers or any 
 word of command. Practically, it is impossible that 
 societies should act in the pure democratic or universal 
 equality way. The real government or personal organ 
 is disguised, or ignored, or almost smothered under 
 forms, which seem to make the civic co-operation an 
 automatic act of each citizen ; but so far as any real 
 government exists, or any real action results, there is 
 somewhere a person, a mind, and a will, which origin- 
 ates it. At the same time, the current theory that 
 what Governments do is the direct act of a multitude 
 of citizens, has a paralysing influence over all action, 
 and often reduces government to a cypher or a weather- 
 cock. 
 
 The extreme dogmas of the sovereignty of the 
 people, direct government by the nation, in all their 
 forms, whether in the ideal hmit reached in the 
 Athenian republic, where in form all the citizens voted 
 each separate executive act, and high functionaries 
 were appointed by lot and held office for a day, or in 
 the gigantic plebiscites of Napoleonic audacity, or in 
 the artless simplicity of the Swiss referendum — all of 
 these are just as much unreal in fact, as they are vicious 
 in principle. Not only would they be ruinous if they 
 were acted on, but it is a fraud to pretend they ever 
 could be acted upon. They are not only very bad 
 theories of society, but they are perfectly imaginary 
 
 E 2 
 
52 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT. 
 
 theories. They are false if regarded as explanations 
 of what bodies of citizens do, and they are misleading 
 if regarded as what citizens should do. The gift of 
 judging what would profit a society or a state is a very 
 rare quality of mind, the instinctive sense of what a 
 society or a State does or can be brought to strive at, 
 is a very rare quality of character. And it would be 
 a paradox to maintain, that these two rare powers of 
 mind and of character can be found combined in the 
 first comer amongst millions of citizens. Even if they 
 were universally present in all, they would still have 
 in each citizen different forms, and issue in different 
 objects. And so action would still be suspended, until 
 the one judgment and the one form which would 
 satisfy all could be found. 
 
 This extreme form of the democratic monomania is 
 now hardly heard. That the infinite multiplication of 
 unwise or moderately wise judgments can make one 
 wise or supremely wise judgment, that aggregates of 
 individual ignorance generate of themselves a new 
 collective wisdom — has but little support in our day, 
 for it has been befooled and beshowered with Homeric 
 peals of inextinguishable mirth by our venerable 
 Teufelsdrockh. We are fond of thinking that our own 
 system at least is free from this sophism, that our 
 representative apparatus evolves a collective, national 
 wisdom in Parliament; that committees, boards, 
 cabinets, three readings of Bills, and three estates of 
 the Eealm, correct, winnow, and eliminate the judi- 
 cious from the injudicious thing. The question we 
 seek here is rather, if this very sophism does not cling 
 
ORGAN OF GOVERNMENT. 
 
 S3 
 
 to the smaller as much as to the larger body, if 
 parliaments and even committees are not too often 
 assumed to be able, to distribute their work and divide 
 their wisdom over their whole body of members, too 
 often to the neglect of the truth, that every collective 
 group, large or small, can only work through personal 
 organs ; that is, round centres organically, and not 
 atom by atom co-equally. There may be as much of 
 the democratic dispersiveness in an assembly as in a 
 w^hole nation, and it mav be sometimes there is more. 
 Parliaments and committees are often more torn by 
 dissension than a people ; they have more difficulty 
 in evolving their organ or representative, and exhibit 
 more obstinately the essence of anarchy, individual 
 dogmatism. The French Assembly, wdiich met at 
 Bordeaux in 1871, and which has survived in a state 
 of bootless internal conflict for years, has exhibited 
 within itself the evils of abstract democracy in a more 
 violent form than any nation or community of our day, 
 more even than the communal insurrection of Paris. 
 Indeed, nations, cities, and classes of men do often, 
 when the mass is heated through and through, generate 
 an organic centre for themselves with electric sudden- 
 ness, whilst the heavier, more argumentative nature of 
 the smaller councils struggles into organic action after 
 much heaving and yearning, or even then somewhat 
 feebly and fitfully. 
 
 For such reasons, we say that direct government is 
 not really within the power of a^semblies of any sort, 
 large or small, any more than within that of a wdiole 
 people ; that assemblies run often greater danger than 
 
54 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT. 
 
 nations of being paralysed by democratic dispersion ; 
 that political action, whether its source be an electoral 
 or an elected body, can only take shape through some 
 personal brain and nature, and cceteris paribus will 
 take the best shape, when that personal organ is most 
 free and most permanent. That is to say, the typical 
 nature of all social government is personal govern- 
 ment, in the true, not the special meaning of the word. 
 If we strip off disguises and come down to the essence, 
 there is no other kind of authority but personal au- 
 thority. Even two really co-equal rukrs can no more 
 co-ordinately govern the same State in the same sphere, 
 than two poets can make one poem, or two com- 
 manders conduct a campaign. Wherever any of these 
 appear to be done, either they take different depart- 
 ments, or one virtually yields to the other, or nothing 
 is accomplished. Much less can a community really 
 have a hundred, a thousand, or a million co-equal 
 rulers at once. If we look only to the efficiency of 
 the social action, and put aside for the moment all 
 considerations of co-operation by the community, the 
 condition is everywhere the same in all forms of human 
 association, viz. the maximum freedom for one directing 
 head. In crises of every kind this truth is instinctively 
 recognised. Where efficiency alone can save a com- 
 munity, common danger ensures the passionate co- 
 o})eration of all, in a nation's struggle for existence,, 
 and still more in a revolution ; in an anny, and still 
 more in a battle ; in a ship, and still more in a wreck ; 
 the autocracy of one is a matter of course. The free 
 command even of a moderate capacity is felt to be 
 
. ORGAN OF GOVERNMENT. 55 
 
 better than the divided councils of a superior com- 
 mittee. The maximum force of a community is seen 
 to be obtained only in centralisation. The same holds 
 true in more normal times, though it is not so strik- 
 ingly manifest. Political efficiency is everywhere 
 identical with unity of power. Suffrages, constitu- 
 tions, parliaments, and committees have other uses, 
 but they do not contribute to the excellence of the 
 control by a central organ. 
 
56 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 PRINCIPLE OF CO-OPERATION OF THE GOVERNED. 
 
 So far as the discussion has yet gone, this may seem to 
 be nothing but the old doctrines of Absolutism, Im- 
 perialism, and the Gospel of Drive-the-giddy-sheep- 
 with-tootli-and-crook. Benevolent readers and un- 
 benevolent critics will alike exclaim, that we have 
 taken the fiery poems to the Canning or Able Man, and 
 have done them into bare prose without the dramatis 
 personce of the great tragi-comedy. But be it re- 
 membered that we have been treating only of one side 
 of the question, the efficiency of Government, not its 
 representative and co-operative character. We are 
 not defending any one of the Absolutist doctrines, all 
 of which, even the most poetic of them, that of the 
 Hero King, are doctrines of rights, turn on privilege, 
 not duty, and think more of him who wields, than of 
 those who make, the collective power. On tlie con- 
 trary, we do as we have said, heartily abjure the 
 Gospel of Hero-Kingship and all its works ; its apo- 
 theosis of the one, is as much repugnant to real social 
 affection, as its distrust of the many, is opposed to true 
 social philosophy. It is just as arbitrary and therefore 
 as anarchical as Jacobinism itself. 
 
 Society, we said above, exhibits two co-ordinate 
 
CO-OPERATION OF THE GOVERNED. 57 
 
 fkcts, always present in every social act. We have 
 hitherto been looking only to one, the personal organ. 
 We now turn to deal with the other element, the co- 
 operation of the community. 
 
 The weight of any social force whatever is due to 
 this, that it is a real combination of a multitude of 
 individual forces which, if not always present in it, are 
 always apparent in reserve. If many operations of 
 the public authority display hardly any element of 
 force, the reason is, that civilisation has taught even 
 the lawless habitually to feel the force held in reserve. 
 A mere barbarian might wonder to see, how a powerful 
 ruffian is quietly arrested by a policeman in the midst 
 of his desperate companions, and how criminals are 
 condemned to prison and execution w-ithout the thought 
 of a rescue. The policeman and the magistrate have 
 millions of arms behind them, on all of which, if 
 needful, they can depend. And the same thing holds 
 good elsewhere. The subjective or potential con- 
 currence of numbers is the secret of all social force. ^ 
 
 The habitual reference of all authority to its primi- 
 tive and low type, that of mere physical command, 
 begets in us a tendency to think of authority, as a force 
 of compression rather than one of accumulation. In 
 reality, even tlie power of a general in absolute com- 
 mand of an army is ultimately, not a power over his 
 own soldiers, but the joint power of his own soldiers, 
 articulate, as it were, and intelhgent in him. In mere 
 affairs of war, the one critical purpose is so dominant, 
 and the nature of the effort is so simple, that the assent 
 
 1 Positive Polity, vol. ii. chap, v, 
 
58 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT. 
 
 of each member of the army is apt to be thought of, as 
 a merely passive obedience, and not an active voHtion. 
 But, in truth, in all kinds of human society, even in an 
 army, government is at bottom, the co-ordination of 
 a multitude of wills into unison, and not the suppression 
 of many wills before one. In all the higher kinds of 
 association, and in such industrial societies as that of 
 modern Europe, the activities are of an infinite variety 
 and inconceivable complication, government is almost 
 exclusively the focus of myriads of convergent energies, 
 the centre of gravity of a coherent mass of wills, and 
 not a power superimposed upon the body ah extra. 
 Government is thus entirely the creation of the body 
 governed, and can be nothing but its highest w^orking 
 efficiency, even though, as we saw before, it be em- 
 bodied in a personal centre, and in favourable cases 
 represents the body governed at its best and by its 
 finest element. Government may be and ought to be 
 the best faculty in a State. But in any case, in nations 
 such as ours, the Government can be nothing disparate 
 to the State itself, and the individual members of it can 
 contain nothing of a foreign sort, whether inferior or 
 superior in nature. If the power of a ruler (we are 
 not saying the skill of a ruler) be not the collective 
 power of a multitude of wills dexterously attuned to 
 one, whence does the power of a ruler come ? Singly 
 no man has any power. Even intellectual superiority 
 is only an agent to form men's wills ; it has no direct 
 control over them ; and certainly the muscular and 
 moral power of a man, or a gi'oup of men, is nothing in 
 comparison with that of the community, until it repre- 
 
CO-OPERATION OF THE GOVERNED. 59 
 
 sents their will. If, on the other hand, we suppose 
 that the power of a ruler is derived, not from the union 
 of many wills in one, but from the surrender of all wills 
 to one, the governed contributing to the Government 
 a mere deadweight of material force, we get a picture 
 not of a society at all, but of a slave community, 
 such that we could expect nothing from the servile 
 uniformity of the members. No one ever yet dreamed 
 of seeing an effective army composed of slaves. Such 
 an army would be driven, into rout, as in the Eussian 
 story, by the whips of a band of freemen. Much less 
 could a State even of the lowest type exist on such a 
 basis. A society such as this would not only be in- 
 capable of anything higher than the building of a 
 pyramid, but it would be upset the moment any 
 portion of its slaves began to be developed into men. 
 So that, instead of representing permanence and force, 
 a government based on the annihilation or prostration 
 of all wills but one, would be utterly feeble and in- 
 herently unstable. 
 
 This is the truth which is forgotten in the various 
 theories of the Eegal kind, all of which regard Au- 
 thority as a new external power, giving society some- 
 thing unlike anything it has within it, a force coercing 
 it, not an organ evolved by it. They are fond of 
 imagining godlike personages of a different order from 
 their fellow beings, using a loving force to drive men to 
 ends which they are themselves too bhnd to see. The 
 good shepherd with his colley and his crook keeps his 
 own counsel, as, amid much barking and hard blows, 
 he forces his silly flock into the mode of life, which 
 
6o THOUGHTS ON G0V£RNMEA^7\ 
 
 eventually elevates them into mutton. And from the 
 point of view of the shepherd it is a beautiful picture. 
 But as a political theory it has the defect of being 
 merely adapted to sheep. 
 
 Beings different in kind from the society, even if 
 any were forthcoming, would not be competent to rule ; 
 for they could only order and not represent the various 
 forces of the community ; and their very superiority, 
 if it separated them from sympathy with the body 
 would be a hindrance and not an advantage. As a 
 fact, power, even in some extreme and abnormal forms, 
 is really the associated power of a majority impersonate 
 in one, and not the mere power which material circum- 
 stances or individual qualities may confer on that one. 
 When we analyse apparent cases of personal tyranny 
 we shall find that the tyranny is the force of a majority, 
 more often the effective, than the numerical, majority, 
 represented by the authority of one. For this reason, 
 attacks upon an individual tyrant are so proverbially 
 abortive. They only hit the symbol, and not the force. 
 And even if they did succeed in hitting an organ of 
 singular power, the force of the community, if it still 
 remained a force, would soon find a new organ. The 
 ruler even at his highest moment is only the dwarf 
 upon the shoulders of the giant. It may be, that it is 
 the eye and brain of this dwarf which alone can enable 
 the giant to direct his steps aright ; it may be that this 
 eye and brain are of matcliless quality, and cannot be 
 replaced. But for all that the dwarf is not the giant ; 
 and without the giant as a vantage ground the dwarf 
 would be powerless. 
 
CO-OPERATION OF THE GOVERNED. 6i 
 
 Hence there is something of more importance in 
 the ruler even than high capacity, and that is close 
 correspondence with the body he rules, without which 
 the highest capacity would be worse than useless. 
 Unless he truly expresses the convergence of wills he 
 does not rule at all. I^or does this imply that he 
 expresses some mere mechanical average of all, that 
 he is a measure of mediocrity, as far from the best as 
 from the worst opinion in the community, an arith- 
 metical symbol of the mean term of the majority. 
 The effective will of any social unit, that which will 
 unite them in common action, is, as we all know in 
 daily experience, a force too subtle to be expressed in 
 any formula whatever. That which men think, that 
 which they desire, they think and desire with the most 
 different degrees of energy, and one energetic thought 
 or desire has the power to carry away with it numbers 
 without limit. It is not that their own thought or 
 desire is extinguished by the new ; it is expanded and 
 vitalised in the new, sometimes becoming lower, more 
 often higher, in quality, but always gaining fresh 
 precision and stability. It is needless to analyse 
 further, and it is hardly possible to analyse at all, 
 this subtle process, with which we all are so familiar 
 in practice, how the wishes of bodies of men become 
 incarnate, as it were, in one typical will to which they 
 give strength ; whilst, in turn, it infuses into them its 
 own elevation and intensity. 
 
 The secret of those who possess this faculty in high 
 degree is very distinct from bare intellectual vision, it 
 resides much more in sympathy of nature and breadth: 
 
62 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT. ■ 
 
 of moral tact. In one sense it is with all its works at 
 the opposite pole to the speculative power, whicli, in 
 its abstract form at least, so long as it can retain the 
 thread of the higher thought of ages, works most 
 potently when detached from contemporary activity 
 about it. To the man of action, the activity of those 
 about him is at once the atmosphere he needs fur 
 breath and life, the pabulum of all his ideas, the object 
 of all his labours ; and without it he is not only de- 
 prived of his principal function, but is reduced to a 
 mere schemer. 
 
63 
 
 M nUA iry ^- 
 
 CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 THE SUFFRAGE. 
 
 If power over men be only the representation of men, 
 and not the forcible control over them, at least in 
 modern industrial societies, what, then, are parliaments, 
 elections, and the like? Is there no such thing as 
 government by representatives, or by popular votes, no 
 constitutional government at all ? What is the value 
 of the Suffrage ? The answer would appear to be, that 
 these institutions one and all, and every other offspring 
 of the Suffrage, are first, a more or less complex 
 machinery for discovering, and then for rec^istering 
 opinions ; but are not per se direct means of governing 
 or a source of government. There are cases where 
 the state of public opinion in a commonwealth is so 
 easy for a ruler to ascertain, and the fact of his repre- 
 senting it is so capable of demonstration to all the 
 world, that no machinery whatever is required either 
 for discovery or for sanction. During the latter part 
 of his Presidency, Abraham Lincoln represented the 
 effective will of the Northern States, and was recognised 
 as its expression so completely, that no elective ma- 
 chinery whatever could have done anything, either to 
 enhghten him as to what that effective will in its broad 
 features was, or to invest him with more formal au- 
 
64 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT 
 
 thority as its exponent. On the contrary, almost any 
 suffragial machinery would only have tended to em- 
 barrass him ; on the one hand, by suggesting crudely 
 the opinions of casual majorities more or less artificially 
 concocted ; on the other hand, by diverting attention 
 from the effective to the numerical force of the nation. 
 In cases not quite so simple as that of the American 
 civil war it is no easy thing, either to learn what the 
 nation desires, or to prove that any person or policy 
 adequately represents its desire. And it is to meet 
 this want, that all the subtlety and ingenuity of modem 
 times has been exhausted in devising? various forms of 
 apparatus, wherewith to focus the national will in the 
 first place, and then to legalise the authority which 
 expresses it. Where public opinion is irregularly 
 formed and becomes articulate with difficulty, ap- 
 paratus of this kind is indispensable ; but the progress 
 of material appliances diminishes at each step this 
 difficulty until, in a life amply provided with com- 
 munication such as ours, the apparatus often gets 
 hopelessly behindhand, and even misleads instead of 
 informing us. In truth, the interchange of thoughts 
 is in our day so complete, and the elasticity and multi- 
 plicity of public opinion is so vast, that any mechanical 
 method of distilling it into an essence must be illusoiy. 
 All political machinery of the kind has this double de- 
 fect. In the first place, it can evolve nothing but the 
 crude numerical symbol of a highly spiritual force ; in 
 the second, it is liable to be disorganised by innate de- 
 l)ravation or artificial perversion. All comitial schemes 
 whatever are liable to maladies of electioneering, mala- 
 
THE SUFFRAGE. 65 
 
 dies of infinite variety and subtlety, whereby the 
 machine which is to express opinion is distorted so as 
 to make it utter something quite different. In the 
 classical land of elections ' caucusing ' has become an 
 art of astonishing potency and elaboration ; so much so, 
 that in spite of many noble examples of political worth, 
 the word ' a politician ' vulgarly implies a professional 
 intriguer. And as civilisation advances and the arts 
 of communication become developed, the facilities of 
 electioneering grow, so that, j ust as elective machinery 
 becomes less necessary as a means of manifesting 
 opinion rightly, it becomes more liable to express it 
 falsely. 
 
 The Suffrage is so important a part of all popular 
 notions in politics, and in all our thoughts about it 
 we are so deeply influenced by habit and so far from 
 theoretic analysis, that it may be useful to work out a 
 few plain truths about the\ Suffrage in principle, even 
 though they are obvious enough to sound like truism. 
 
 Eeflection will show us the following qualities 
 inherent in the Suffrage pure and simple : 
 
 1. It is a power of veto or selection, not a power of 
 
 initiation. 
 
 2. It is an enumeration of opinions, not a measure 
 
 of forces. 
 
 3. It gives the average, not the best, opinion. 
 
 4. It is liable to be artificially falsified in the working. 
 
 To consider each of these in detail : 
 
66 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT. 
 
 Proposition 1. — The world has got so much accus- 
 tomed to regard voting as a method of freely eliciting 
 the independent opinions of each individual in a com- 
 munity, that we are apt to forget how completely a 
 figure of speech this is. In the first place, almost 
 everything depends on the authority which takes the 
 vote, that is, which proposes the question. When a 
 city or a nation votes, it does not really express its 
 opinion upon what ought to be done, but it gives or 
 withholds its assent to a man, or to a party which pro- 
 poses something to be done or not to be done. And 
 the critical point always is, who is it that proposes^ and 
 ichat is proposed ? This has been already decided before 
 the voting begins by those who ' hold the election.' It 
 cannot be otherwise. If 10,000 citizens without 
 concert were privately to write down their separate 
 opinions on question of State policy, and silently to 
 deposit the papers in a ballot box, then and only then 
 would the individual voice of each citizen be freely 
 evoked. But as the result, though it might be the 
 only pure type of democracy, would be somewhat as 
 if all the newspapers of the civilised world were tossed 
 into a vast pyramid, very little could be made of it. 
 In fact, no voting can begin until the free expression of 
 individual opinions is forborne, and some single narrow 
 issue — yes or no — A or B — has been chosen by some 
 authority (that is ultimately by some man), and has 
 been accepted as the issue at stake. Assemblies 
 casually collected under excitement, and this espe- 
 cially when they consist of educated people, amusingly 
 illustrate how impossible it is to vote anything without 
 
THE SUFFRAGE. 67 
 
 a recognised authority to determine what shall be voted 
 upon. Hundreds of able persons stormily propose a 
 hundred questions with striking ability, and after all 
 they storm in vain. To take a vote at all there must 
 be a government to propose some question, or a party 
 to propose some man, or nothing is done. The history 
 of plebiscites may instruct us how easily any result is 
 obtained by any one, who at the moment commands 
 the only important point in the process — the power to 
 frame the question of appeal. 
 
 When Suffrages are cast not for a policy but for 
 a representative, and when theoretically every citizen is 
 free to propose himself or his neighbour, it may seem 
 at first sight that the vote is the expression of indi- 
 vidual opinion. We know, however, that in practice 
 it is not so ; that there can be no voting until candi- 
 dates are reduced to one or two groups, that is to say, 
 until the ascendency of two or three leading characters 
 or knots of men has been accepted by the rest. It is 
 difficult to conceive how few may be the persons who 
 really do often force a candidate on a constituency : 
 very often it is a single person, not himself even a 
 voter. Elections, even mider our system of local dis- 
 persion and class segregation, never exhibit the true 
 choice of the electors, but only the pohcy, party, or 
 personality, which forces its way to the front and gets 
 accepted. About every candidate there is more or less 
 of the jpis aller ; usually he is little else but an em- 
 bodied pis aller \ he is not the man whom his sup- 
 porters individually choose, but the man whom they 
 collectively accept. If we take even so complex and 
 
 P 2 
 
68 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT. 
 
 accidental a process as an election in England, we find 
 something of this kind occurs: some small knot of 
 political notabilities in the constituency, of course itself 
 directed more or less unconsciously by a single notable, 
 and he, it may be, at a distance, proposes and at length 
 imposes a candidate, and gets him accepted by their 
 ])arty; the candidate does not profess any policy of 
 which he is the author, but that which his party ac- 
 cepts; the party, again, does not elaborate its own 
 party, because a party as such can have no policy 
 except such as it accepts from its leaders ; its leaders, 
 again, have no policy but what their own secret or 
 avowed chiefs may propound. And thus, if Mr. Glad- 
 stone in the silence of his study conceives a scheme 
 for disestablishing the Church in Ireland, his followers 
 accept it as a programme, the Liberal party adopts his 
 followers and his programme. Liberal candidates repeat 
 more or less wilhngly, more or less intelligently, the 
 watchword of their party, the local managers retail the 
 views of their party, the constituencies believe the 
 local managers, and within a few months of the hour 
 when the great truth was borne in upon Mr. Gladstone, 
 politicians will be toiling for an end, to which, till that 
 hour, one half of them were more than indifferent; 
 candidates will be pledging themselves to support a 
 measure which many of them barely understand, and 
 some of them almost detest; and millions of quiet 
 citizens will be sacrificing time, money, and peace, 
 shouting themselves hoarse, and here and there break- 
 ing each other's heads, in order to do something (not 
 yet resolved upon) to an Institution of which many of 
 
THE SUFFRAGE. 69 
 
 them never before heard, for the sake of an end which, 
 till now, few of them heartily promoted. 
 
 I guard myself here from misconstruction. I am 
 far from disparaging the Liberal party or its leader, 
 or the policy in question. Precisely the same thing 
 results when Mr. Disraeli in his study determines to 
 bring in a Eeform Bill ; the Conservative party acts 
 just like the Liberal party ; and if they ever do take 
 heart to commit themselves to any great measure again, 
 precisely the same process would be gone through. 
 As to the design of Irish Disestablishment, it was, 
 I emphatically repeat, a wise and just measure ; its 
 adoption as a policy did honour to the party and the 
 man who made it a national question ; and the tone of 
 the nation which accepted it from them was thereby 
 elevated and improved. Still less would I suggest that 
 the measure was dictated to the party or to the nation, 
 or was in any way the result of anything but deliberate 
 and even enthusiastic decision of the majority. Mr. 
 Gladstone's project was not the cause but the occasion. 
 The majority and the party were in a condition to 
 adopt such a policy, and they adopted it vehemently, 
 when proposed by a statesman in close correspondence 
 with the prevalent temper of his time. Mr. Gladstone 
 was but the nucleus of a floating body of opinion, long 
 gathering and still to gather round such questions ; the 
 purpose which a generation or two had held in solution 
 rapidly crystallised around the point presented by his 
 initiative, and the whole movement followed, the 
 national will taking form in the energy of one repre- 
 sentative brain. 
 
70 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT 
 
 This illustration forcibly points to the truth that in 
 every free elective process, and at every stage of it, a 
 real power of veto exists; that any initiative of an 
 uncongenial kind, addressed to a community not pre- 
 pared for it, is ejected and not assimilated. On the 
 other hand, it is equally true that the initiating organ 
 may be a very poor organ in itself, constantly changing 
 within and constantly changed from without. Thus, 
 any group of active politicians will be directed only by 
 the influence which at the time possesses their confi- 
 dence ; a party or a constituency will refuse ' to be 
 dictated to,' and finds another candidate more in 
 harmony with it ; and a nation, as we saw the other 
 day, will give surprising answers to those who appeal 
 to it too confidently. And it is also quite a diiferent 
 thing to be able to say, who is at any moment the 
 particular organ of a party or of the national will. We 
 may be able to show that it is always somewhere in a 
 personal form, though the actual person maybe difficult 
 to detect. But difficulty in perceiving the organ must 
 not lead us into denying its existence. On every side 
 Ave may see proofs of the truth that the suffrage is a 
 method of ratification, a means of giving formal adop- 
 tion to measures and men already widely accepted, but 
 it is not a means whereby measures or men are evolved 
 out of the free initiative of the voting body. A vote 
 can give authority to a policy or to a statesman. It 
 cannot originate a policy or produce a statesman. And 
 the essential character of every decision by vote is 
 determined by those who settle the question to be 
 submitted to the voters. 
 
THE SUFFRAGE. yi 
 
 Proposition 2. — Such is the first corrective we must 
 make to the notion, that a vote is the absolutely 
 free expression of individual opinions. Its really im- 
 portant feature is decided, not by those who give, but 
 by those who take the vote. But there are other cor- 
 rectives to be considered besides. A vote professes to 
 be the formal register of the will, or opinion, of each 
 individual who votes. It is called the gauge, or mea- 
 sure of the body voting, and parliaments are called the 
 mirror of the nation. But as a measure, or as a mirror, 
 every system of voting has this immense defect ; the 
 gauge or the reflector is homogeneous and takes no 
 account of degrees, whilst the thing measured or to be 
 reflected is made up of degrees and is highly hetero- 
 geneous. Votes are exactly equivalent, in secret voting 
 absolutely so ; of 10,000 ballot papers each one is of 
 exactly the same value as every other. But the will 
 or opinion registered in each paper differs enormously ; 
 no two are of exactly the same value ; one represents 
 a great force, another represents mere helplessness or 
 mere chance. It is an old sarcasm that the vote of the 
 wisest and the vote of the silliest member of the com- 
 munity stand each alike for one. But this is the least 
 part of the anomaly, because a vote professes to express 
 the will of the body voting, not so much its wisdom. 
 But, in fact, in no degree can it be said to express its 
 effective will. For in every way in which we can 
 regard them, the wills of different persons mean totally 
 different forces. One man scarcely has a will ; his 
 feeble impulses at most take shape in a doubtful pre- 
 ference. Another man has a will before which that of 
 
72 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT. 
 
 thousands yields. We never in practical life regard 
 men as having equal force of nature, nor do we account 
 vague tendencies as equivalent to resolves. It is the 
 same with opinions. The opinion of one man is a 
 thoughtless fancy, of another it is a reasoned convic- 
 tion. In practical affairs we allow for all this. If we 
 are dealing with a body of people, we pay more regard 
 to the vehement will and solid convictions of ten, often 
 even of one, than to the shapeless impressions of 100 
 or even 1,000. We value the former and neglect the 
 latter ; we know that the former is a force and the latter is 
 not ; and we assume that in time, or whenever strength 
 is tested, the former will carry its point. Wherever 
 men meet, in politics, in business, or in society, we 
 assume as a matter of course, that the leading wills and 
 the solid beliefs outweigh the rest. In any way in 
 which forces can be tested, we find this result, and we 
 expect to find it ; the collective action of any com- 
 munity, be it club, association, constituency, city, 
 nation, will be determined by those members who 
 relatively to the rest are, not the cleverest or the best, 
 but the strongest and the most tenacious of their own 
 aims, and most apt to lead others to their aims. And 
 we should all be ruined publicly and privately if 
 we neglected this truth. But this is precisely what 
 votes as such can never indicate for us. Of 10,000 
 votes each is exactly equivalent. How many express 
 courageous will and indomitable persistence ; how 
 many express habit, accident, irresolution, or indiffer- 
 ence, we can never know ; nor are we informed how 
 many express ignorance, prejudice, and thoughtlessness, 
 
THE SUFFRAGE. ^i 
 
 and how many the mature conviction of knowledge. 
 Yet these are precisely the facts w^e need to know, if 
 we are to measure the forces which the voting body 
 possesses, if the vote is to be a real test of the balance 
 of forces, and not an enumeration of heads. If of two 
 armies of the field we simply counted their muster 
 rolls, and neglected to consider their relative powers 
 of collective action, what should we know? We 
 might suppose 500 men of the Black Watch no more 
 than the match of 500 Ashantees. Just so, if without 
 weighing, we crudely register the votes of 10,000 
 citizens in a community, we shall be glaringly misled 
 as to what these very citizens will really desire, and 
 will actually do, when the time for action arrives. If we 
 want to learn what they will really do and what they 
 practically want, we must weigh the relative force of 
 their opinions and not count their number. Yet votes 
 can only count heads. 
 
 So great is the defect of every suffragial contrivance 
 as being a fixed mechanical expression for a mobile force, 
 so enormous is the difference between political forces 
 truly weighed and votes crudely registered, that no one 
 would ever have resorted to the expedient of voting at 
 all, but for one practical use of it. As a matter of fact 
 voting, as practised, usually does give us a rough esti- 
 mate of political forces, whilst we can prove distinctly 
 that in theory no mere voting can give any, even ap- 
 proximate, measure of force. How is this? The 
 reason, no doubt, is that whilst mere or cold individual 
 voting can give no measure of force, in practice the 
 electoral contest that precedes the voting has really 
 
74 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT 
 
 balanced and tested the forces, so that the poll is the 
 bare register of a result previously attained and usually 
 already manifest. The will and opinions of each voter 
 have been modified by the leading natures and minds 
 about him, and thus the poll comes near to expressing 
 roughly, how the forces would be distributed when it 
 came tp action. The electoral contest has been a re- 
 hearsal or trial of an actual contest. It bears the same 
 relation to a civil war that a sham fight does to a battle. 
 The forces on both sides have displayed some of the 
 qualities, and in some degree shewn the relative weak- 
 ness and strength they would shew, if they had decided 
 the question in a real appeal to force. But then it is 
 the election agitation and contest, not the election, 
 which has shown the balance, and if there were no 
 election agitation, the election would show nothing of 
 the true distribution of force ; whilst, where the agita- 
 tion has run its fair course, an actual poll is hardly 
 needed to indicate where the forces lie. The votes, in 
 fact, of 10,000 persons, voting individually as units, will 
 present an utterly different result to the votes of the 
 same 10,000 persons voting organically, as a com- 
 munity in a contest. In the one case we shall have 
 10,000 opinions, without any means of judging which 
 of the number express force and which express feeble- 
 ness ; in the other case, if a full and free political agi- 
 tation has been possible, the forces will already have 
 proved their relative strength by modifying the votes. 
 If we silently ask 10,000 persons for their views, and 
 register their answers, we get a product which is per- 
 fectly useless, for it gives us no clue to know what those 
 
THE SUFFRAGE. 75 
 
 persons as a political body will in action desire, do, and 
 suffer to be done. If we give them full scope for poli- 
 tical movement, that is let them collectively fight out a 
 particular question, and then take the votes as of an 
 organic force, w^e may perhaps get a rough measure of 
 their will, but we shall have got it for most practical 
 purposes before the voting begins. It is the ' turmoil 
 of the election contest,' not the election, which really 
 indicates political forces. 
 
 It is on this ground that all plans for a discrimi- 
 nating franchise, for minority suffrages, ' fancy fran- 
 chises,' and above all ' personal representation,' are in 
 my judgment pre-eminently futile. In one way or other, 
 all of them eliminate from the voting process and from 
 the result of the vote, just that one feature, the agita- 
 tion and contest in the collective body, with its verdict 
 of practical force, which gives to the voting process 
 any reality at all. Personal representation collects the 
 scattered votes of units, who do not and cannot act 
 together politically, for they are widely separate in 
 space, and do not even know each other. For these 
 reasons they have no collective or organic energy, and 
 consequently are not political forces. They may be 
 musters of highly intelligent persons, but the more 
 intelligent the more likely they are to diverge in 
 opinion. /It would be as wise to assure us that the 
 only way for an orchestra to render true music is for 
 the various players to perform separately their own 
 favourite composition. The result of the vote might 
 give us a mine of valuable views, an inexhaustible 
 ' bluebook ; ' but it would not give us force, or any 
 
76 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT. 
 
 Other ponderable political energy. It would give us. a 
 catalogue of opinions, without the one thing, the 
 previous collective agitation, which can make votes in- 
 structive and correspond to reaUties. The members 
 (say) for Birmingham are citizens of no mean city, who 
 roughly express the collective will and temper of a 
 political aggregate of men with all the following con- 
 ditions. They are capable of acting together politi 
 cally ; they are capable of acting on the whole series 
 of national questions ; and lastly they are a real force 
 habitually affecting our national policy (a force which 
 once resolved to march visible in arms upon London). 
 Now for purposes of national government, and the 
 direction of actual power, we need to get at the real 
 forces, not the metaphysical forces, we need something 
 to measure those forces, which act not on details, but 
 on the whole sum of national considerations. But the 
 personal representatives of (say) the Contagious- 
 Diseases-Acts Abolitionists would express at most a 
 very vehement opinion on a detail of army administra- 
 tion ; but would represent no political aggregate 
 capable of entering into the daily and organic life of 
 our nation as a whole ; and on every topic of national 
 interest such representatives might be buffoons or busy- 
 bodies. They would be nominees of a casual list of 
 men and women who, apart from this special grievance, 
 had nothing to bind them together, no means of joint 
 political action (except ad hoc), no force (except as 
 obstructives), and no liaison d'etre, beyond the lofty 
 principle they profess. It is quite true that their 
 opinions, and by every sign they are opinions of intense 
 earnestness, ought to be heard in political life. But 
 
THE SUFFRAGE. jj 
 
 are they not heard as it is ? If the believers in every 
 canse, big or little, were entitled each to a few repre- 
 sentatives of their own, every free citizen had better be 
 his own member at once according to the Arcadian 
 plan of Znrich ; and we may meet all difficnlties as to 
 representation by a perpetual application of the Swiss 
 referendum. The fallacy of personal representation 
 consists in the enormous assumption that electors 
 think ; that they know what they think ; and that 
 they know whom they would choose to represent their 
 thoughts. It is mere hallucination which supposes 
 that masses of average citizens have a tabulated scheme 
 of political views, and keep ready-made lists of the 
 public characters who exactly reflect their minds. 
 Academic essayists and political logicians may do 
 something of the kind ; but nothing can be more alien 
 to the actual facts about ordinary Englishmen. Even 
 cultivated men in an active political contest could 
 hardly name more than a dozen candidates with whom 
 they actively agree ; and if the average elector, after 
 twenty public meetings, tavern discussions, and torrents 
 of newspaper articles, can make up his mind honestly 
 that he thinks A would make a better parliament- 
 man than B, the average elector has done quite as 
 much as we can expect. But in order to do this he 
 will need, and he ought to have, the rivals A and B 
 engaged in public contest under his eye, that he may 
 watch how each of them deals with men in organic 
 masses. This is political life; but writing on a 
 paper names of persons whom you never saw, is more 
 like the voting for candidates at a club or a charity. 
 In practice, personal representation could result only in 
 
78 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT. 
 
 the triumph of confederacies or of cliques. It may 
 possibly be the carrying out of a principle, it has been 
 said, ' to almost ideal perfection ;' but in the idealism 
 all reality disappears. It is a masterpiece of that 
 Nephelo-coccygic wisdom in which the ingenious re- 
 former goes out of his way to show mankind how not- 
 to-do-it^ and it w^ould realise the hypothesis just stated, 
 that of taking suffrages silently and individually, which 
 is the reductio ad absurdum of all voting. If the 
 object of voting be to discover, not where political 
 force may be found, but where it certainly cannot be 
 found, if the representatives of a constituency are to 
 represent, not the wills of political aggregates, but, a 
 heap of heterogeneous projects, if our aim is not to 
 measure the force of the citizens, but to form a museum 
 of crotchets, where the schemes of all the cliques, 
 pedants, and fanatics in the community may be col- 
 lected and preserved like a wax- work show — we may 
 find what we seek in Personal Eepresentation. The 
 scheme is a monument of the length to which invete- 
 rate habits of syllogising in the air can carry acutely 
 argumentative minds, parading with drums and colours 
 along the broad and trampled highway that leads to 
 the great region of — Nowhere.-^ 
 
 Proposition 3. — With the third qualification to the 
 
 * 1 do not consider the new project of Proportional Kepresentation, 
 for the followinp^ reasons : — So far as it is a scheme for redistribution of 
 power — and it clearly is this on the largest scale — it is wholly beside my 
 present purpose. It is a matter full of difficulty to decide what precise 
 effect this proposed Redistribution might have. So far as the new Bill 
 embodies, and is akin to, personal representation, so far I think it would 
 fall under the criticism contained above. 
 
THE SUFFRAGE. 79 
 
 Suffrage as the ultimate Sovereign power, we need 
 not be long detained. Since the days of Moses and 
 Aaron, wit and experience have exhausted their arts 
 in decrying the unwisdom of the many, their prone- 
 ness to set up vain men as their chosen leaders in 
 place of the appointed ruler, and the ignorance and 
 presumption of mere democracy. We need not oc- 
 cupy ourselves with this objection, because, as was 
 just now said, it is common to reply that the end of 
 voting is to express the aggregate will of the voters, 
 and not to elicit the wisdom to be found amongst 
 them. There is, however, another partial reply to the 
 veteran sarcasm about the voices ' of thirty millions 
 mostly fools,' and that is, that in voting as we are used 
 to it, the advice of those w^io are thought worthy of 
 giving advice has been very abundantly offered, and in 
 some sense has been previously taken, so that w4mt 
 practical wdsdom exists in a body of electors or is 
 capable of influencing them (practical wisdom is not 
 political wisdom unless it can influence men) has al- 
 ready made its mark by effecting the votes. In this 
 way, after a thorough and free development of opinion, 
 the practical mass is often leavened by its abler minds ; 
 and a rough expression of the best current ideas is in 
 practice obtained. But this is as much as to say, that 
 the best uses of the Suffrage only result where the 
 ascendency of the best men begins to be accepted, and 
 the will and opinion of the individual voters is pro tanio 
 surrendered, which is the authoritative rather than the 
 democratic theory. And even this must be qualified 
 by the proviso, that it is only in favourable cases that 
 
8o THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT. 
 
 tliis happy influence of intelligence over the voting 
 mass will result, that happy state of things when noisy 
 unwisdom is unable to thrive, and unselfish sense can 
 make itself heard and respected. There are classes 
 and communities of which this is fairly true. And of 
 them it may be said that suffrages give evidence of the 
 better opinion of the commimity, though they do nothing 
 to form it. The general result is, that the true use of 
 voting is the ratification, not the formation of a political 
 authority. Although satire has grown commonplace 
 in exposing the impossibility of ever evolving wisdom 
 by any contrivance of voting, that satire has never been 
 answered, nor is it ever Hkely to be answered. 
 
 Proposition 4. — Lastly, the usefulness of the voting 
 process, even as an instrument of ratification by public 
 opinion, is unfortunately much diminished, by an in- 
 cident to which every known scheme of voting is more 
 or less exposed. The moment any machinery is re- 
 quired to appeal to the voters, and in every complex 
 and large society some machinery is required, skill in 
 using the machinery acquires so important a place as 
 very often to outweigh every other fact ; and the result 
 is determined, not by the influence of eminent character, 
 not by the real wishes of the voters, but by the tech- 
 nical mastery of those who work the canvassing ap- 
 paratus. This is an incident of every method in wliich 
 voting bodies can be appealed to, and the more complex 
 the body, and the more elaborate the voting apparatus, 
 tlie more important becomes skill in managing the 
 apparatus. Where the electing body is very small and 
 
THE SUFFRAGE. 8i 
 
 very heterogeneous, as in an English ' family borough,' 
 electioneering skill, wealth, and influence, usually work 
 through channels too secret to detect by any care, and 
 too subtle to prevent by any law. Where the body of 
 electors, as in a French department, is almost homo- 
 geneous and under official discipline, pressure can be 
 directed upon them scientifically and on a grand scale. 
 Where the electing body, as in an English or American 
 city, is both huge and unorganised, it can only be 
 reached by expedients which develop special ingenuity 
 and usually demand immense resources. And the more 
 elaborate the conditions of the suffrage are made, the 
 more will expedients and resoiurces tell on the result. 
 Fiction, journalism, and election petitions have made 
 us all familiar enough with the incredible proportions 
 to which have grown the arts of ' caucusing,' ' wire- 
 pulling,' 'jerrymandering,' and the various resources 
 of the political manager, of which the names may be 
 exotic, whilst the things are indigenous. As we all 
 know, these arts have developed a special profession 
 equal at least in acuteness and versatility to any pro- 
 fession of our day. Th.e immortal exploits of ' Men in 
 
 the Moon ' and other ' gentlemen from the Club ' 
 
 are believed to belong to our Ante-Eeform era ; but 
 the enormous influence of the ' agent ' is most con- 
 spicuous, when men of undoubted reputation work a 
 constituency on strictly legal methods. It is hardly an 
 exaggeration to say that to secure a first-rate ' agent ' 
 in a contested election is of more vital necessity than 
 to secure a first-rate jockey in a horse race. A really 
 eminent ' agent,' who receives ' carte blanche ' with no 
 
 G 
 
82 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT. 
 
 instructions except to add two letters to the style and 
 address of his client, is almost certain, as we know, to 
 win for him a seat in parliament, and that without 
 violating law. When a general election is held, what 
 the issue may be depends more on some score or two 
 of accomplished agents, whose names are known to no 
 one but candidates, than on the great leaders of the 
 various parties ; and grand manifestoes of ministers 
 are oftener due to the councils of professional agents 
 than to those of responsible statesmen. It will pro- 
 bably be found that Mr. Disraeli in designing hi^ 
 Eeform Acts owed his immense superiority in accurate 
 forecast of their results — a superiority he alone had, 
 not only over the whole of the opposing parties, but 
 over every member of his own party — not more to his 
 own genius, than to his having relied on the minute 
 and accurate information as to electioneering secrets 
 supplied to him by consummate adepts. His oppo- 
 nents of one school or other relied on theories and 
 dogmas about the Suffrage. Having coolly, like von 
 Moltke, weighed these masses of acciu-ate survey into 
 the dispositions of the enemy who were making heroic 
 addresses, Mr. Disraeli was able to defeat them, as 
 easily as the Prussian strategist outmanoeuvred Gari- 
 baldi's magnanimous followers. That the all-important 
 ' agent ' does not more often and more distinctly make 
 and unmake governments is only, because on most 
 occasions he is to be found evenly distributed in both 
 camps ; but if any party could secure every professional 
 agent and experienced electioneerer in the country to its 
 own side, the contest would be like a battle between 
 
THE SUFFRAGE. 83 
 
 disciplined troops and an untrained militia, and it 
 would probably make a difference in the House of 
 Commons of at least 100 votes. 
 
 But if all forms of voting of necessity invest with 
 great influence mere technical skill in working the 
 election machinery, it does not follow, as some pro- 
 found cynics would have it, that there is no use at all 
 in voting, and that all elections are matters of brokerage 
 or trade. It is not to be forgotten that skill in securing 
 a seat is itself a form of political force. The energy 
 and discipline of the party which carries an election is 
 the result of some kind of conviction and desire, and 
 it is very much the same energy and discipline which 
 would secure that party an ascendency, of whatever 
 kind the political struggle might be. Putting aside 
 mere cases of surprise, fraud, or open bargain, the 
 election secured by vigorous electioneering represents 
 a real force, which would in all cases carry the com- 
 munity with it ; and if we often see a mere cypher 
 returned by the force of wealth or position, we may 
 remember that wealth and position are forces, which 
 do often at present secure to a cypher both solid 
 advantages and real power. If, therefore, an election 
 conforms to the same rule, the election only reflects 
 the actual distribution of forces, and though it adds 
 nothing to the State in the way of political wisdom, it 
 tells us much that is useful as to the balance of political 
 weight. 
 
 Many of the defects natural to the voting process 
 in all its forms are somewhat reduced or corrected by 
 the part played by the sufirage in our own system. 
 
 G 2 ' 
 
f 
 
 84 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT. 
 
 The voters are called on to elect persons, not to vote 
 upon policies ; the elected are representatives, not 
 delegates ; for the most part they obtain their success 
 at the poll by reason of their recognised influence, and 
 do not obtain influence simply by their success at the 
 poll. ) The unwritten rules of the constitution and the 
 prejudices of party tradition, the feeling against direct 
 appeals to the nation, against new popular favourites 
 and against limiting the discretion of the representative, 
 all increase the tendency to treat the election as the 
 acceptance of a personal governor rather than as a 
 direct exercise of governing authority. So far our 
 practice is a distinct derogation from the logical con- 
 sequences of voting, and from the abstract integrity of 
 the suffrage. And our democratic party are consistent 
 in attacking, and our conservative party are consistent 
 in defending, this qualified use of the suffrage as the 
 public adoption of men rather than the direct initiation 
 of measures. The ' Americanising ' of our institutions, 
 which is so much feared, would no doubt involve a 
 much stricter use of the suffrage as an engine of go- 
 vernment \ but it would intensify nearly all the defects 
 which we have just asserted to belong to the suffrage 
 in principle; So long as elections are held at long 
 intervals, are held exclusively to choose representatives 
 not to pass plebiscites, and whilst the representatives 
 enjoy almost unlimited discretion, the multiform 
 changing forces of the constituency can be reflected in 
 an organic, and not in a mechanical way, through the 
 mind of a representative as the deputed organ of public 
 opinion. It cannot be denied that in thus relying for 
 
THE SUFFRAGE. 85 
 
 long periods upon a personal interpreter of the general 
 voices, instead of having recourse to the suffrage con- 
 tinually to declare it, in thus leaving the representative 
 free during those periods to go counter to the general 
 voice, with no machinery either for recalling his com- 
 mission or for imposing upon him an ' imperative 
 mandate,' our system practically discards the theory 
 that the Suffrage is the real engine of government, and 
 is throwing itself more into the theory of personal 
 Authority. And then the question presents itself, if 
 this formal election of a multitude of official mouth- 
 pieces of public opinion does not often obscure, retard, 
 and distort the true expression of public opinion, Avhich 
 the statesman of insight could measure much more 
 truly for himself by direct but informal ways ? 
 
 When the method of electing representatives prac- 
 tically becomes a means of electing a government, the 
 original vice of every form of election comes into 
 special prominence. Theory can never make good the 
 claim of the governed, that is of the inferior, to choose 
 the governor, that is the superior. And they, who 
 contend that in practice it can be done successfully, 
 must not forget how completely the process of selecting 
 a government is usually disguised, and how very seldom 
 any body of voters freely select a government to rule 
 them, or do more than accept the government which 
 offers itself to them. So far as they really select or 
 set up a rule of their own independent motion, they 
 are forming what must of necessity be an average or 
 mediocre government, very much short of the best. 
 So far as they are adopting that organ of government 
 
86 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT. 
 
 which comes out as the natural centre of the common 
 life they tend to establish a high class and efficient 
 government ; but then jpvo tanto they are derogating 
 from the high prerogative of the democratic Suffrage. 
 
 We may therefore sum up these several features of 
 the Suffrage thus : — 
 
 By no kind of Suffrage apparatus in strict theory 
 can government be directly carried on, or even be 
 permanently inspired. By no kind of Suffrage appa- 
 ratus can a personal organ of government be created, 
 or even directed. By no kind of Suffrage apparatus 
 can governing efficiency be produced that was not 
 already active in the community, nor even be invested 
 with ascendency if it has no ascendency before. That 
 is to say, the Suffrage cannot give us the first of our 
 two elements of government, the governing organ ; nay, 
 it can hardly give efficiency to the governing organ, 
 though it may do very much to diminish its efficiency. 
 The real part of the Suffrage entirely belongs to the 
 second element in government — the co-operation of 
 the governed. In this its function is rather declaratory 
 than formative. It does not discover the will of the 
 community, but it registers it on authority. Thus, 
 where this will is so far balanced as to be doubtful, 
 where its numerical expression is the only appeal to 
 which men will submit, the suffrage is the only issue 
 from a deadlock short of civil war ; and not only may 
 be a useful, but it is an indispensable expedient. By 
 it in favourable instances the co-operation of the com- 
 munity governed may be disciplined, and, as it were, 
 
THE SUFFRAGE. 87 
 
 organised into a real, though a concurrent, source of 
 authority ; and though the personal organ of govern- 
 ment can neither be created by the suffrage nor in- 
 vested with ascendency ah initio., still, where a personal 
 organ is already found and already has made its as- 
 cendency felt, the suffrage can add a new meaning to 
 the personal force by investing it with formal authority, 
 and may give an enormous extension to an already 
 latent ascendency. But this is only to say that it is a 
 machinery whereby public opinion takes form and 
 definite expression. And as such, not only can it add 
 nothing to the force of pubhc opinion nor go beyond 
 it or transcend it, but it is liable to defects and short- 
 comings, to which a true estimate of public opinion 
 is hardly exposed, by virtue of the fact that the Suf- 
 frage is a complex piece of mechanism, admitting of 
 countless failures and aberrations, through accidental 
 error, and deliberate distortion in the working of the 
 apparatus. 
 
88 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT * 
 
 LliiK A 1»^ V 
 
 I N 1 \' Ki;s \'\\ OF ii 
 
 li 
 
 ( A!JK()i:\l\. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 EESPOXSIBLE APPOINTMENT. 
 
 It seems to me important, when discussing the theory 
 of pohtics, that we should keep in view these defects in 
 the very essence of all elective machinery, even where 
 we recoo^nise the demree to which its use is established 
 as a second nature, and also the present impossibility of 
 replacing it. [I have not attempted to make, what in this 
 country at least is to my mind utterly futile, any crude 
 proposal for giving up our system of electing to political 
 office, much less any yet more crude proposal for a new 
 political apparatus. / All the schemes for improving the 
 machinery of the suffrage (and I do not except the 
 Ballot, voting-papers, three-corner constituencies, female 
 suffrage, and every ' fancy ' whatsoever of the kind) 
 seem to me to labom* under the double defect, first, 
 that they aim at giving a theoretical improvement to 
 that which is inherently fallacious in itself, secondly, that 
 they introduce changes which are thoroughly changes for 
 the worse. These improvements, as they are called, are 
 irresistible indications, I think, of a growing sense that 
 our suffrage theory is unsound. Nothing, I admit, can 
 be stronger than the positive arguments so trenchantly 
 urged in favour of nearly eveiy one of these new 
 projects. If the task before them were only to make 
 
RESPONSIBLE APPOINTMENT. 89 
 
 out their special case, it must be held that every one 
 of these schools of reform have trimnphantly established 
 their own. Nothing can be more cruel and more de- 
 grading to the public, than those evils of coercion, for 
 which the Ballot was proposed. Eepresentation of 
 minorities has in logic a tremendous case. The argu- 
 ments for personal representation establish the most 
 glaring vices in the present system. Nor do I doubt 
 that a large number of women are as competent to vote 
 as masses of actual electors. Every one of these parties 
 have proved, at least to my satisfaction, defects and in- 
 consistencies of the most glaring kind in the Suffrage, 
 as we know it. I cannot agree, notwithstanding, that 
 their claims should be admitted. In politics we must 
 ever distrust logic, and look at results organically and 
 always as a whole. On the balance, would the State 
 be better for these changes ? I think not. What 
 their advocates have proved is, that the Suffrage is 
 based on an insoluble fallacy, which no amendment 
 can make rational. The Suffrage, it appears to me, is 
 at present at least an unavoidable necessity ; and the 
 less we think of ideal improvements, the greater may 
 be its provisional usefulness. | Whilst disclaiming any 
 arbitrary attempts to secure these ends at all costs, 
 our only aim should be to make the Suffrage as far as 
 possible general, as far as possible uniform, and to the 
 last point simple in application. 
 
 On the ground of the special conditions and history 
 of English political life, I have not examined at length, 
 what is undoubtedly the most characteristic, and I 
 think the most important, of the political axioms of 
 
90 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT. 
 
 Comte. From the point of view of political theory he 
 condemns the Suffrage altogether, as an engine for 
 creating Authority, on the double groimd, first, that it 
 implies the appointment of the superior by the inferior ; 
 secondly, that it hands over to numbers that which is 
 the function of a competent organ. Consequently he 
 substitutes the principle of direct nomination of the 
 inferior by the superior to every public duty, in the 
 last resort the outgoing holder of office nominating his 
 own successor. It is not my purpose here (and it 
 Avould require a volume to itself) to w^ork out this 
 theory in its proper applications ; especially as it 
 applies to the Executive not the Legislative side of 
 politics. It may easily be supposed that no reasonable 
 man would have proposed it, unless with a multitude 
 of surrounding conditions and corollaries, without 
 which it is impossible, or utterly evil. The actual 
 arrangement he conceives as befitting the normal state 
 of society is this : — That public appointments should 
 be made on the sole authority of those to whom 
 directly or indirectly the holder of the office is sub- 
 ordinate ; that the nomination should be at first 
 provisional and subject to approval, for a definite 
 period ; that during that period public opinion should 
 consider the nomination, express its approval, or in 
 extreme cases its repudiation of the nominee ; again 
 not by voting, but by a personal organ of expression. 
 For the highest function the holder would be required 
 to nominate for public approval his own successor in 
 his lifetime, gradually associating him, and giving a 
 trial of his powers, in the work of government. It 
 
RESPONSIBLE APPOINTMENT. 91 
 
 will be understood that this normal state of things 
 implies (1) a pure Eepubhc and no hereditary privi- 
 leges of any kind, (2) much smaller political societies, 
 (3) an habitual sense of religious duty in governed and 
 governor, (4) no standing armies, (5) an immense 
 development of the power and intelligence of the 
 people, and (6) a religious body actively concerning 
 itself with practical life. I do not enlarge on this 
 subject for two reasons, first, that it would need a 
 volume to explain it adequately ; secondly, that it 
 belongs to an ideal state of society, wholly outside of 
 practical questions. But I have thought that candour 
 demanded some notice of what is undoubtedly the 
 most distinctive of Comte's political doctrines. If one 
 asks, how is it to begin, we ask how the world or the 
 Constitution began. 
 
 As I have not now the opportunity of meeting all 
 the obvious objections, I place myself under a consi- 
 derable disadvantage in stating, as a general principle, 
 w^iat, without long explanation, can hardly seem other- 
 wise than crude. I will simply ask the reader to 
 remember that the accidents of our English world do 
 not make a general principle less true, because we do 
 not see our way to reducing it instantly to practice. 
 It must be remembered that this principle forms part 
 of a whole, the aim of which is, a rehgious, moral, 
 intellectual, and industrial reorganisation of society ; 
 that its acceptance would imply the acceptance of new 
 education, new ideas of duty, new habits of life, and new 
 institutions. I will say nothing more upon the principle 
 but this : that any scheme of electing governments by 
 
92 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT. 
 
 the governed necessarily implies the selection to the 
 most arduous tasks by a majority of those who can 
 know little about it. Our grandest disquisitions on the 
 wisdom of representative government can never dis- 
 place this preliminary truth. Nor have they shaken 
 one stone of the position, that the selecting of fit men 
 to fill public duties is one of the highest attributes of 
 governing genius, and one which the average citizen is 
 of necessity but poorly qualified to perform. In all the 
 associations of fife we recognise and act upon this prin- 
 ciple. To use our constant illustration (and the imme- 
 diate risk of destruction and death has a potent use in 
 dispersing cant, prejudice, and sophistry), no army 
 could exist which elected its own officers, or ship, of 
 which the captain was elected by his crew. In -indus- 
 trial life none but socialists propose that a business 
 or a mill should be managed by universal suffrage ; 
 and even where in companies the vote is retained in 
 theory, in practice we know it is formal or unimpor- 
 tant. In every department of practical life, but one, we 
 recognise the principle that the ruler cannot safely be 
 appointed by the votes of those whom he rules, and to 
 reject this principle is to destroy the basis of property. 
 In things political, for the public government of states 
 or communities, the dangers of violent abuse of power 
 have driven us to accept a widely different principle. 
 And although it is plain that this inversion of the 
 source of Power, and the triumph of the Suffrage, have 
 won results to freedom which could not have been dis- 
 pensed with, it does not follow but that. in a future 
 stage of society we may be able to resort to the true 
 
RESPONSIBLE APPOINTMENT. 93 
 
 and healtliier principle. It would seem that in 
 struggling for the recognition of popular consent and 
 of Public Opinion, we have consecrated as the sole 
 source of Authority that which is only the sanction and 
 complement of Authority. But to resort to the ancient 
 and true source of competent government, several con- 
 ditions (unhappily far from attained) are previously in- 
 dispensable. In the first place, the sense of public 
 duty in every office, public or private, must have habi- 
 tually superseded the dictates of personal ambition. 
 In the second place, society must be in such a condi- 
 tion that the fulfilment of duties has practically super- 
 seded the assertion of rights. In the third place, 
 pubh'c opinion must be sufficiently strong to destroy 
 the possibility of despotism. Lastly, there must be 
 institutions capable of correcting any probable abuse 
 of power. When all these conditions w^ere present, it 
 would be found possible that the appointment to public 
 offices might safely be entrusted to the same persons 
 to whom the holders of the offices are actually respon- 
 sible : — provided it w^ere done (1) with ample pub- 
 licity, (2) with a provisional or probationary interval, 
 and (3) subject to public acceptance. Such in fact is 
 the spirit of systems upon which great and glorious 
 communities have lived, and conspicuously that which 
 is perhaps the brightest epoch in the entire history of 
 government, the Eoman Empire under the age of the 
 Antonines. Nay it must not be forgotten that at 
 present this principle of personal appointment, w^ith a 
 few recent and petty exceptions, is the sole principle 
 which is known to the theory of our Constitution, in 
 
94 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT. 
 
 every sphere but that of the Parliamentary franchise. 
 But though, in theory, the principle of appointing to 
 public ofTice by responsible authority is dominant, and 
 the counter theory belongs only to a single element in 
 the Constitution, in practice our habit is tending to 
 regard no Sovereignty as legitimate save that which 
 rests upon Suffrage. Although our society is far from 
 being prepared to dispense with the Suffrage in 
 practice, and is scarcely prepared to discuss its defects as 
 a theory, there remains the principle, indefeasible and 
 applicable to every human community, that the true 
 source of all efficient government is direct nomination 
 by a competent authority^ responsible to public opinion^ 
 and under the sanction of public approval. 
 
95 
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 PUBLIC OPINION. 
 
 If the intelligence or mind of all government depends 
 upon the person who is its organ, on the other hand, 
 "the volume and force of all government depends on 
 its expressing Public Opinion. Our criticism of the 
 Suffrage has turned entirely on this : — not because it 
 represents Public Opinion so well, but because it repre- 
 sents it so imperfectly. It is on the full development 
 and organisation of opinion that the future of republican 
 institutions depends. We have already so often insisted 
 on the part played by co-operation in every social force, 
 and it is so completely bound up with all our ideas of 
 civihsation, that it is needless to enlarge on this the 
 most obvious of all political truths. The consensus of 
 the society in the work of Government is no cold assent 
 or indifferent submission ; it implies a positive and 
 vigorous collaboration on the part of the mass. To all 
 the familiar yet indispensable commonplaces as to the 
 consent of the people and unlimited freedom of speech 
 we will give a hearty welcome ; and, having done so, 
 leave them as beyond the need of illustration or defence. 
 It was indeed a perverse attempt, that of rehabilitating 
 the principle of Authority by denouncing the no less 
 indispensable principle of Public Co-operation, and even 
 
96 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT. 
 
 by disparaging the liberty of Opinion. A far simpler 
 and easier solution lies open to us in the combination 
 of the two principles, in making Authority the leader, 
 but not the mouthpiece of Opinion, and freedom of 
 speech the inspirer but not the master of Authority. 
 
 The truth which at present would seem the most in 
 need of attention, is the subtle and complex nature of 
 the force we call Pubhc Opinion. We are too apt to 
 regard the opinions of a gToup of persons as a series of 
 so many definite propositions, capable of being arranged 
 in so many classes, and there likely to remain in perma- 
 nent proportion. If we put a hundred witnesses in the 
 witness-box, or a hundred students in an examination, 
 we can extract a hundred views {valeant quantum) of 
 a definite kind upon any subject of inquiry ; and they 
 will be such as can be classified in groups of opinion. 
 But the action of a political community endowed with 
 poUtical life is something essentially different. With 
 them the opinion will tend from the first to be more or 
 less con-joint, or organic ; there will, in fact, be nothing 
 that can be really called opinion in the majority, until 
 combination and political agitation have begun, and 
 have welded a more or less collective opinion. Till 
 this has been done, the attempt to wring out substan- 
 tive opinions from every member will be illusory and 
 quite artificial. Masses unendowed with political life, 
 or deprived of liberty of speech, if forced to expression 
 of opinions, can only act from indifierence or subser- 
 viency. But when full political development exists 
 witli real liberty of mind, an organic outgrowth of 
 public opinion results, with modes of action curiously 
 
PUBLIC OPINION. 97 
 
 difficult to calculate, and of singular elasticity and 
 mobility. We have already spoken of the intense 
 difference in force between the opinions of different 
 persons, how one opinion is a real social power and 
 the other a simple cypher. But this is far from being 
 the measure of the complex phases of opinion. There 
 are some kinds of strong wills, which tend to accumu- 
 late more or less passive wills round them, some 
 which inspire a kindred will in others near them, and 
 some which, though respected in the sphere of thought, 
 tend to rouse up a weight of resistance when they pass 
 into the sphere of action. These kinds of will differ in 
 each community, and in each community they differ 
 from day to day ; and likewise the effects which they 
 produce differ in each place and in each season. That 
 which men do, will often differ widely from that which 
 they say they wish done ; and what they will suffer to 
 be done, differs immensely from that which they would 
 do themselves, and still more from what they say 
 should be done. Bodies of men, large or small, from 
 a nation to a railway board, will permit an energetic 
 leader whom they trust to do things in their name, or 
 to commit them to things, which the majority would 
 themselves shrink from, and which even at the moment 
 if a vote were taken they would probably reject. Yet 
 even, whilst doing what they imperfectly understood 
 or even disapproved, they would be conscious of full 
 responsibility for the action, and would be acting 
 entirely as free agents. And this ascendency of a lead- 
 ing character in a group large or small, either as 
 powerful statesman, or as chairman of a committee, is 
 
 H 
 
98 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT, 
 
 a perfectly legitimate ascendency, and is compatible 
 with vigorous life in the body which submits to its 
 force. The error of almost all theoretical plans for 
 improving the Suffrage springs, it seems to me, from 
 the assumption that the object is to get at the indepen- 
 dent opinion of individual voters. / Now I submit that 
 only the minds of the logical temper, and those are far 
 from the best political intelhgence, have an independent 
 opinion ; and even if we could get this sort of opinion, 
 we do not want it. It is a poor thing in itself, and 
 could not be used in politics. \ In politics we want the 
 organic opinion of masses : what they will ultimately 
 and jointly approve, not what they originally and 
 separately think. [ Where the judgment of those in- 
 fluenced is surrendered, or where opposition has no free 
 play, there it is true, Opinion is suppressed and all the 
 evils of forcible rule are imminent. And where this 
 pressure of any ascendency is long continued, tyranny 
 in some form is already estabUshed. 
 
 But in the healthy working of free institutions of 
 whatever kind the influence of the leading character or 
 group of leaders will never be more than temporarily 
 in advance of the majority, and even then will always 
 have their passive if not their active concurrence. 
 This is the quality of Opinion, this capacity to grow 
 and fashion itself with immense rapidity from within, 
 changing the balance of parties, and transforming its 
 whole aspect with strange elasticity, which is the key- 
 }iote of Opinion in political aggregates, and which 
 makes it so impossible to reflect it by any mechanical 
 suffrage. This Opinion, which democratic theorists 
 
PUBLIC OPINION. 
 
 99 
 
 desire to stereotype and reflect by periodical votes, is 
 itself one of the most subtle and elastic of all vital 
 forces. It takes new shapes and undergoes enormous 
 organic development almost from hour to hour ; and 
 if it could ever be adequately presented in votes, the 
 votes woidd need to be perpetually registered anew i 
 for it has more moods than the Ocean, and it takes new 
 aspects more quickly than the cloud like the man's 
 hand on the horizon can gather into the thunder- 
 storm. 
 
 Throughout these pages we have spoken of the 
 effective or real majority in force, as distinct from the 
 numerical majority in mere numbers. And the dis- 
 tinction seems one which is all-important in politics, 
 though it is the tendency of votes to conceal it from us. 
 The efiective majority is that section of any community 
 or social aggregate which, for the matter in hand, 
 practically outweighs the remainder. This it may do 
 by virtue of its preponderance in numbers or in in- 
 fluence, or in force of conviction, or in external re- 
 sources, or in many other ways. What constitutes an 
 efiective majority will obviously difier in each com- 
 munity, and at each season. And it will also difier 
 according to the question proposed, or the end in view. 
 For some purposes, as for instance in matters of 
 taxation, no party can long remain an effective ma- 
 jority if it be a numerical minority, but in many 
 matters, even of national concern, the effective majority 
 may consist of excessively few persons ; as for instance 
 in certain reforms in the law, administration, or the 
 like ; for this very small body may unite nearly all 
 
 H 2 
 
TOO THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT. 
 
 those in the community who have any effective opinions 
 on the subject at all, and they will outweigh, and justly 
 outweigh, an enormous majority of those who have no 
 opinion on the subject, and who can have none, as it is 
 beyond their reach. Almost all great things are done 
 in communities by minorities not by majorities. But 
 then they must be effective majorities, that is, have the 
 real preponderance of the social force with them, 
 together with this other condition, that they can, at 
 the moment, lead the numerical majority in passive 
 adhesion, and before long can convert that passive 
 adhesion into reasoned concurrence. The ke/-note of 
 an effective majority is that it is always becoming a 
 numerical majority ; or at least is always drawing more 
 closely with it the numerical majority. What it is 
 that constitutes at any moment this effective majority, 
 is one of the most subtle and incalculable of all social 
 facts. It is one of those powers which are more or 
 less invisible and imponderable to any but the born 
 politician. It can be weighed accurately and con- 
 tinually by the kindred soul of a statesman — but by 
 no n^echanical expedient in the world. 
 
 Hence, when we set up such a machinery as a Par- 
 liament to be the paramount organ of Public Opinion, 
 there is an ev-er present danger that our machinery 
 will get out of order, whilst at the same time it diverts 
 \\^ from independent judgments. In the course of ages 
 an institution like Parliament develops an artificial 
 world for itself, imperium in impeno, a fashion, a 
 morality, a constitution of its own, in which its original 
 })urpose is more or less forgotten. It becomes a law 
 
PUBLIC OPINION. loi 
 
 unto itself, with a whole corpus of traditions, and a 
 code of practice accumulating around it. In a society 
 like ours, deeply imbued with aristocratic instincts, a 
 Parliament insensibly learns to affect the tone of some 
 High Council of Notables, a Junta of the rich and 
 great, descending not seldom to the tone of a fashion- 
 able Club. This character it has retained after two 
 great Eeforms with undiminished energy ; and strangely 
 our democratic Eeformers do not yet despair, but trust 
 that annual elections, and manhood or womanhood 
 Eranchise, will purge the House of its exclusiveness, 
 just as they once trusted to the Ballot. It seems far 
 more likely that no conceivable changes in the me- 
 chanism of the Franchise can materially alter the 
 'personnel of the House, so long as English society is 
 not in revolutionary fever. Whilst Parliament is a 
 great, indeed is the only power in the State, to be of 
 it or to control it, will be with us the highest social 
 ambition; and whilst the great and the rich retain 
 their effective ascendency with the English public, they 
 will keep the control of the English Parhament, what- 
 ever it cost them in money, effort, or concession, and 
 whatever be the checks by which the Eadical Eeformer 
 may think to 'oust them from the polls. Thus the two 
 Houses, until (it might be) displaced in a storm by some 
 national convention, must ever remain more or less in 
 an artificial world of their own, profoundly inspired 
 with the aristocratic temper, and seeing things through 
 a halo of wealth and rank. But in any case a Par- 
 liament which is a traditional estate, nay almost a 
 nation in itself, can never see the movement of opuiion 
 
102 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT. 
 
 but in a somewhat artificial light, nor will it represent 
 opinion but by a somewhat unreal voice : for it is ever 
 thinking more of its own consistency and dignity than 
 of the changes in the world without it, and is ever 
 looking more to the high class which it reflects than to 
 the nation Avhich it represents. This would be so, 
 more or less, even were the suflrage an instrument less 
 treacherous than it is, as a correct index of the will of 
 a nation, and if political art could succeed in filling 
 those walls at Westminster with simple mandatories of 
 the phases of national thought in place of the leaders 
 of English society and industry. The usurpation by 
 Parliament of Executive Government has had in this 
 way a destructive efi'ect upon its representative cha- 
 racter, for the qualities needed for Government, or 
 which succeed in securing a place in Gov^nment, are 
 not always those which serve best as the exponent of 
 others' opinions. Hence, on the assumption that 
 Parliament is best fitted to govern by its containing 
 the men foremost in power and of the most com- 
 manding nature, it is thereby departing from its office 
 as a mirror of the general wants and mouthpiece of 
 the common thought ; and the more completely it 
 assumes to be a sovereign assembly, the less does it 
 become a typical representation. So there grows up 
 an opinion of Parliament in place of the opinion of 
 the country ; and statesmen imagine that they have 
 understood the people, when they have listened to a 
 few party speeches ; and that they have satisfied the 
 people, when they have secured a majority of the votes 
 of members. 
 
PUBLIC OPINION. 103 
 
 ' Now what is needed is to place the Executive more 
 apart from Parhament, and more directly face to face 
 with the nation ; that it may study public opinion at 
 first hand, weigh it instinctively without the apparatus 
 of an imposing machinery, and cease to place exclusive 
 reliance on Parliament as the mouthpiece of the people. 
 The day has passed when any great assembly is the 
 only channel by which to bring to the ears of the State 
 the local grievances or wants of the nation. In former 
 days Knights of the Shire and members for the 
 boroughs actually informed the central Government of 
 states of feeling and conditions of things which they 
 otherwise had no means of knowing. Now the won- 
 derful facilities for conveying inteUigence, the meetings, 
 newspapers, commissions, deputations, petitions, and 
 correspondence, which never cease, mirror the per- 
 petual heaving of thought far better than any Parlia- 
 ment could do, and the greater part of this energy is 
 directed to inform Parliament itself, and to induce it 
 to listen to the remonstrances, it is supposed to be sent 
 to express. Parliament has long ceased to be the 
 moving instrument of progress or an initiating force of 
 any kind. It assumes the attitude of a resisting force. 
 That which the nation requires, has to be wrung out of 
 it sometimes by protracted agitation, and sometimes by 
 party expedient. And its most ordinary office is that 
 of acting as a sort of shield or breakwater to Govern- 
 ment by neutralising much of the pressure which 
 would otherwise be directed upon Government ; and 
 by concealing from it ciurrents of opinion, which 
 Government would otherwise perceive- 
 
I04 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT, 
 
 I have not examined at length the various provisions 
 which, in the system from which I am arguing, would 
 be made for the development of Public Opinion, and I 
 pass them over for the reason given above, that they 
 imply a society different from ours. They imply an 
 immense development in the intelligence and general 
 influence of the entire working classes, and they 
 involve the habit of constant public discussion, and the 
 duty of all public men to give weight to the opinion so 
 expressed. Under the most evil times of the despotism 
 invented by the late French Empire, in spite of an 
 army and an administration of the most oppressive kind, 
 the workmen of Paris undoubtedly controlled the will 
 of the Emperor, and even amidst the prison-like silence 
 of his rule, forced their voice upon him to more pur- 
 pose, than the voice of the English workman can often 
 force itself upon the House which parades so loudly 
 its privilege of popular representation. None of the 
 arguments I have used as to the defects of democracy 
 or the fallacies of the Suffrage, have at all shaken my 
 conviction that in the free and continual expression of 
 Opinion by the great labouring masses the true states- 
 man is to find his ideas and inspirations, his real 
 problems and his purest critics ; not by servilely 
 adopting their demands or crudely attempting their 
 j)rojects ; but by ever watching them directly and with 
 sympathetic insight, to learn what are the tasks most 
 pressing for solution, how his plans work in effect, and 
 where he has ftiiled to relieve an evil. 
 
 This opinion is not properly reflected in the House 
 of Commons ; nor do I believe that any change could 
 
PUBLIC OPINION. 105 
 
 ever cause it to be so. As an ultimate appeal or 
 formal test of opinion, where two policies are openly 
 contending in the nation, Parliament has its office as the 
 best machinery for any mechanical measure of opinion 
 and parties that we have in our hands, and in any case, 
 as better than actual strife. But if Parliament remain 
 as the natural sanction of Governments and the formal 
 arbiter of p6licies, we must never forget the conse- 
 quences, now that it is really the Executive council, of 
 relying upon it as the exclusive medium of public 
 opinion, or lose sight of the defects which are inevitable 
 to its work as the organ of the general wants. Some 
 defects of the kind are natural to any medium whereby 
 the ideas of the public can find an expression. Even 
 the Press, in its multiplicity and perfect freedom as 
 we know it, is after all but a very imperfect instrument 
 for estimating the true state of the public mind. 
 Journalism like every other fixed institution has its own 
 traditions, its own world, its standard of opinion, its 
 prejudices, its limits, all the Idols of the Cave where it 
 dwells and toils. Enormous indeed are the functions 
 which are thrown upon it in the absence of great 
 popular statesmen, of high public education, and the 
 abdication of all Churches from the care of daily life ; 
 and it needs every assistance it can find in its high task, 
 as the one organised spiritual power for counsel, 
 progress, and justice. It can hardly be doubted that 
 the enormous preponderance in the State, with which 
 the House of Commons has gradually invested itself, 
 has overshadowed journahsm, and has converted it into 
 something which is called a fourth Estate but is really 
 
io6 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT, 
 
 an appendage of the Commons. The connection of the 
 two is so close, the interests and energies of the leading 
 journals are so deeply identified with those of parlia- 
 mentary parties, that freedom of criticism and inde- 
 pendence of view cannot otherwise than suffer. We 
 can all see, in States where the Executive is more or 
 less distinct from a legislative chamber, and where a 
 Parliament is not in paramount ascendency, how much 
 more keenly a government will watch public opinion, 
 and with what directness of force that opinion is ex- 
 pressed. Opinion in short is a power which must be 
 seen in many aspects and through a multitude of 
 channels, which no single institution can exclusively 
 express, and which is best felt by the instincts of a 
 (Competent statesman, when brought face to face with 
 it directly, and responsible to it immediately. 
 
I07 
 
 CHAPTEE XI. 
 
 ALL REAL GOVERNMENT IS PERSONAL. 
 
 We thus again come back to the truth, that govern- 
 ment of every kind is really personal in its essence, 
 however much it may be also popular in its spirit. 
 There can indeed in the strict use of lano^uaore be no 
 Other government hut personal government. This per- 
 fectly elementa.ry condition is not at all peculiar to 
 government ; it applies to every practical sphere of 
 life, and in short to every act. Collective government 
 by the entire nation, in its literal meaning, is not only 
 not a good thing but it is an impossible thing. If a 
 man's leg is to be amputated it must be done by a 
 surgeon — ^skilful or unskilful it may be : but the 
 operation cannot be performed by the whole College of 
 Surgeons. Nay, if the College of Surgeons, with all its 
 skill, merely stand by, and suggest plans and criticise 
 the operator, the patient will probalDly die under the 
 knife. Every joint work of himian activity, be it only 
 the mending of a road, must be directed in the doing 
 by some one capable of converging that activity on an 
 intelligible result. To assume that this activity will 
 spontaneously converge by the force of collective 
 wisdom is a phrase not an argument. In practical 
 things we are perfectly ready to accept this fact, ami 
 
io8 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT. 
 
 even in a gigantic Eailway company, with the revenues 
 and the administration of a small State, where all our 
 habits of public life come into play, it never was pro- 
 posed to carry on the undertaking by means of collec- 
 tive wisdom. Votes, except formal votes, are not often 
 taken at all, even in the select meetings of the Board. 
 The collective wisdom of the shareholders exhibits 
 itself by suffering, or rather requiring, the Chairman 
 to direct the policy, the Manager to organise the 
 trains, and the drivers to work the engines on the 
 rails ; and if the members of the Company do occasion- 
 ally intervene to put in a veto, they never propose to 
 manage the Eailway themselves. If a rebellious group 
 of shareholders in a moment of indignation insist on 
 pushing even their veto dangerously far, they are 
 almost torn in pieces by the business instincts of the 
 body of the proprietors. I wish to draw no forced 
 analogies between the management of a Eailway 
 and the government of a State ; but it seems certain 
 that in our practical affairs of every kind we use 
 language and forms which really correspond with facts, 
 whilst in affairs of state or politics we use language and 
 follow customs, which can only correspond with the 
 facts, if these facts are at the mercy of imbecility and 
 confusion. The attitude which we formally expect our 
 statesmen to assume, and their own uniform tone, 
 would imply that whatever be the subject, the true 
 governing element is in the entire nation, or in selected 
 constituencies, or in assemblies, boards, or committees, 
 of some kind, never in persons ; that it would be a 
 kind of treason against the public that any man should 
 
PERSONAL GOVERNMENT. 109 
 
 pretend to a governing position ; and that of all 
 political curses personal government is the one most to 
 be abominated. In practice no doubt this peculiar 
 attitude is put off; for political societies could not go 
 on if it were not. But it cannot be doubted that the 
 prevalence of this tone vitally affects the creative 
 energy and leading power of our statesmen, and makes 
 the public suspicious of the slightest indication of gifts, 
 which are simply the test qualities of the real ruler. 
 The historic accidents of our oft-converted constitution, 
 pieced and adapted as it might be some feudal fortalice 
 that had been transformed into a railway terminus, 
 have all helped to engender the idea that personal 
 government is national treason, until the man capable 
 of it is regarded with the horror reserved in some 
 ancient republics for the public enemy who was aiming 
 at a ' tyranny.' Men who, as shareholders, expect the 
 Directors to maijiage their affairs for them, as citizens, 
 expect the government to be a mere reflector of 
 current opinion. And it must be admitted that the 
 most restless spirits and most arrogant of statesmen 
 are in this country careful to assume no more. But 
 there is no difference in kind between the management 
 of great concerns and the government of a State. The 
 direction of a cotton mill or a landed estate is a real 
 assumption of government ; calls out very much the 
 same qualities in those who lead and those who follow ; 
 and can only be properly administered upon kindred 
 methods. Struggling as we have done for centuries 
 to enforce respect for the national consent,' and to con- 
 secrate the element of public co-operation in govern- 
 
no THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT. 
 
 ment, it may be that we have grown into the habit of 
 regarding the co-operation as the government itself, 
 and the consent as the initial power. Not merely is it 
 our habit to treat the nation collectively, as governing 
 itself ; but in every public department and work we 
 trust in meetings, chambers, commissions, boards, 
 conferences ; never in men. Our whole idea of pubhc 
 business culminates either in the assembly or in the 
 committee ; the large, public, oratorical, and combative, 
 form of collective wisdom, or the smaller, secret, 
 practical, and compromising form of collective wisdom. 
 And then we often wonder why we find so few men of 
 governing power. The answer would seem obvious 
 that we do not give them the atmosphere in which to 
 grow ; nay rather that we create a public sentiment 
 which makes them impossible. There is no magic 
 which makes democracy dangerous in a mass, but 
 salutary in a selected body or representative assembly. 
 The democratic principle is the same whether it be 
 applied to a Parhament, a committee, or a cabinet. 
 Work which must be done by some qualified head will 
 never be done at all, if we never dare trust anything 
 but a Board or a Chamber. And whilst we will 
 recognise the attributes of sovereignty only in these, it 
 will not often befall us to breed them in men. 
 
 This jealousy of men, it must be said, centres round 
 the theory and practice of parliamentary Sovereignty. 
 It has grown up along with the development of the 
 Houses, and its worst consequences are becoming ap- 
 parent, now that the last touches have been given to 
 the practical autocracy of the Commons. The Whig 
 
PERSONAL GOVERNMENT. Hi. 
 
 theory which began in a nobler way, has ended in 
 this as a pubhc profession, with large understood 
 reserves of personal exemption. The Tory theory has 
 simply surrendered to the Whig, becoming in practice 
 distinctly more democratic. The result is that from 
 our public men comes loudest, this eager disclaimer of 
 personal ascendency, this apotheosis of Ballots, Com- 
 mittees, and Boards. And it will be found that this 
 constitutional horror of freely trusting a qualified man 
 to do a definite work, is common only in the classes 
 who are most addicted to the high electoral ritualism. 
 It is rarely found to the same degree amongst the 
 artisans and labouring classes. We find them usually 
 displaying a very great readiness to accept personal 
 leaders ; and one of the charges the oftenest made 
 against them is, that they are prone to act in masses 
 at the bidding of a popular manager. What by a 
 gallicism is sometimes called the democracy is usually 
 very much less democratic in its method of action than 
 the aristocracy or the plutocracy. If we take the 
 present assembly of Versailles (January 1875) as the 
 maximum standard of pure democracy (or, ' every man 
 his own government '), then a vestry, or the Liberal 
 Party, or a clerical synod will stand very high in the 
 scale, whilst the Union of Amalgamated Engineers, or 
 a great meeting of workmen will stand quite at the 
 opposite end near zero. Whatever I said diu*ing the 
 agitation for parliamentary suffrage was said in the faith 
 which I still retain, that the admission of the political 
 sections of the working class to a real share of power 
 must be a measure that would strengthen, and not 
 
112 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT. 
 
 weaken the ascendency of personal capacity, and that 
 they would infuse a new spirit of concentration into a 
 political system, enfeebled by perpetual dispersion of 
 all authority. It was in that sense that I addressed to 
 the London Trades Council and its friends the Lecture 
 which may be read in these pages, and which they 
 adopted in the spirit in which it was offered. It per- 
 haps is the truth, that the actual reform effected was 
 so manipulated for party purposes and so bereft of its 
 natural complement, a real Eedistribution of Seats, that 
 instead of frankly admitting a new class to a share of 
 power, it artfully enlisted new recruits into exactly the 
 old ranks, and carefully subjected them to exactly the 
 old discipline. 
 
 For the thousandth time men ask, how is your 
 capable man to be secured? And again the only 
 answer is, that he will be secured when the society is 
 in a state, first, to produce a capable man, and 
 secondly, to know his value and use him when he is 
 produced. If there were any machinery by which 
 capable men could be produced or even discovered, 
 there would be very little need for what might be just 
 as well turned out when wanted as a new steam-engine. 
 It is just because there is no machinery possible where- 
 with to concoct capacity, that it is of such value beyond 
 price. The very putting the question — by what formula 
 are we to evolve our leader? — shows that the questioner 
 is just in the frame of mind when moral forces are 
 thought to be generated from mechanical contrivances. 
 The Good Time cometh not with observation ; nor 
 can we predict further, than that the Capable man will 
 
PERSONAL GOVERNMENT. 113 
 
 appear when the society is ripe for his work. We 
 / have got so superstitious a reverence for ballot-boxes, 
 representative assemblies, and party organisation, that 
 we are struck dumb with astonishment when these 
 sacred emblems of orthodox freedom fail to elaborate 
 great men. "We are getting now quite irritated, as we 
 find, that not even repeated Eeform Bills and reiterated 
 measures to secure purity for the secret practice of the 
 electoral rite, have yet succeeded in supplying the de- 
 mand for men. Like the simple races who scourge their 
 gods in a storm, we are falling upon the institutions, 
 which, in spite of continual repairs, seem to rob us not 
 only of the breed of leaders, but also of the faculty of 
 being led. It is no doubt unjust to accuse the times 
 of barrenness, or to disparage the powers of the men 
 who stand before us. It is plain that as fine abilities 
 are created in our day as in any other age ; we have at 
 least as much force of industry and activity ; and we 
 are not lacking in imagination, public spirit, and power 
 of organisation. We may fairly assert that in faculties 
 of exposition and general humanity of fibre om- public 
 men were not surpassed by their immediate ancestors, 
 even if they were equalled. Cynical attacks on the 
 statesmen of our age appear to me peculiarly unjust ; 
 and it is to be deplored that a great genius should have 
 set the tone of disparaging our public servants. It is we, 
 rather than they, who are wanting. We have amongst 
 us now, as ever, mute inglorious Pitts, or Cromwells 
 guiltless of their country's greatness. We may be 
 confident that it is not men who fail us, but the 
 situation favourable to bring out all their strength. If 
 
 I 
 
n4 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT. 
 
 we trust too much to institutions, and are for ever 
 revising our machinery, we are closing the avenues 
 through which the true statesmen appear.-^ 
 
 To the real King, at any rate, there never was any 
 royal road. But the republican ruler whom we want is 
 not by any means the divine and unique being, of whom 
 sometimes we are told, that the Fates Ostendent terris 
 tantum. Great as are the requirements of a competent 
 statesman, and high as we rate his qualities, there can be 
 no difficulty in our modern world in finding abundance 
 of men qualified adequately for every public trust 
 which is ordinarily needed. But Julius Cassar himself 
 could do nothing in a world where every other man 
 felt it a privilege to wear a ballot-box on his shoulders. 
 All that we can do to promote the advent of the man 
 or men we need, is to raise and clear the tone of public 
 life, to extend political education in its true sense, and 
 to extirpate worn and enfeebling superstitions. We 
 need not pull down, we need not even remodel, oiu* 
 institutions, if we only learn to shake oiu-selves free 
 from the stifiening hold they have upon our minds. 
 Our institutions will at once shape themselves to our 
 
 ' T do most emphatically disclaim as my meaning any general depre- 
 ciation of the services and capacities of the best of our public men. The 
 system under which they work is, I think, enfeebling, and their position 
 frequently a false one ; but their efforts, merely within that sphere are 
 often very eminently skilful as well as entirely patriotic. Some of our 
 departments of State, where not under the spell of Parliament, such as 
 our Judicial system, the Exchequer, the Post Office, the India Office, 
 the Police, &c., &c., are, I believe, conspicuous examples of successful 
 administration. When we pass quite out of English habits and routine, 
 as in the government of India, the Abyssinian war, the Ashantee war 
 (I speak now solely of skill), we see the British race able to put forth 
 the highest qualities of command and of discipline. 
 
PERSONAL GOVERNMENT. 115 
 
 new attitude — they are very elastic, and have shaped 
 themselves often hke a glove to the hand that wears 
 it — so soon as a vigorous hfe from within inspires 
 them with new pohtical ideas. Pubhc men, classes 
 and orders of men alike, may all have to learn a new 
 tone of pubhc responsibihty and political duty ; but it 
 may well be, that the best of the working classes will 
 have to learn less than others. It results, then, that 
 pohtical education is the one thing needful. If public 
 men come to bear themselves like men fitted to com- 
 mand, the pubhc will come to second them as such 
 men ought to be seconded. Yet it would seem as if 
 at present both were alike agreed, that such a relation 
 is neither endm-able nor possible. 
 
 i2 
 
Ii6 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT 
 
 CHAPTEE XII. 
 
 ALL FREE GOVERNMENT IS REPUBLICAN. 
 
 But this again is but half the truth, and perhaps the 
 half with the smaller power of separate life. If we 
 were to stop at the point of personal ascendency as the 
 source of government, we shall place ourselves just 
 back in the world, which it has cost the people for 
 generations such sufferings and efforts to shake off. If 
 there is nothing more to be done than to give our rulers 
 free power and then to submit to their decrees, any of 
 the despotisms of our day or our friend the Shah of 
 Persia will serve for an excellent model. And there is 
 nothing more to be said in the way of political teaching, 
 than that it is much to be wished our despots should 
 be wise and mild. It is not reassuring to find that the 
 various schools or counsellors, who have undertaken 
 to defend the principle of Authority, have had little 
 enough to say which amounted to more than this. 
 From the profound passion of De Maistre, to the 
 mechanical formulae of the Syllabus ; from the majestic 
 despair of Burke's last years, down to the artificial 
 savagery of our historic Hero-worshippers ; and so on 
 down to the bitter-sweet which distils from the ciu-led lip 
 of modem Culture and Art, we have heard only of the 
 blessings of Authority or of the judgments which await 
 
REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT, 
 
 117 
 
 all who hesitate to bow the knee. The bare principle 
 of Authority alone is the old-world claim of Tyranny, 
 which if anything is finally settled, is pa«t and irrevocably 
 judged. However much men come to think, and they 
 are now thinking, that the dogmas of pure democracy, 
 or the constitutional formuke we inherit, are far from 
 a satisfactory code of political wisdom, one must indeed 
 be an idealist to dream that these dogmas are without 
 an eternal foundation of truth. It may be that they 
 contain in too absolute a way imperishable truth ; whilst 
 they only contain one side of it and deny the other. 
 Wherever we tiu*n in modern Eiurope, we see these 
 doctrines of the nation disposing of its own destinies, 
 often defeated and distorted it is true, but always in 
 the long run winning fresh groimd ; whilst the moral 
 causes in which they spring broaden daily with civili- 
 sation itself. Those agencies of general enlightenment, 
 those habits of social co-operation, that development of 
 labour, which everywhere in modern Europe gave birth 
 to the claims of the people to power, are everywhere 
 increasing and not diminishing, and day by day grow 
 paramount. If there be one thing in which the rational 
 mind can rest with entire confidence, it is that the 
 future of government in Europe must be in spirit 
 essentially popular. It must be so, because every 
 element which we can trace in societies as co-operating 
 to found the passion for popular government, is not only 
 deepening but broadening by every step which our 
 civilisation takes; nay, it has afready reached a 
 supremacy where it exists almost without rival. 
 
 We must go farther even than this. The future of 
 
ii8 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT. 
 
 political society is not only necessarily popular, but it 
 is profoundly republican. It is so simply because the 
 future society is essentially an industrial society. 
 Whatever may be doubtful in the course of human 
 progress, it is certain that the development of industry, 
 the organisation, the knowledge and the cultivation 
 which industry requires, are the key-note of what at 
 least the immediate futiure has in store. But the 
 development of industry involves the advance of the 
 republican principle, and the gradual dilapidation of 
 all the feudal, warrior, caste, institutions, however 
 adapted or transformed. Industry is essentially 
 republican ; for its life is the free co-operation of 
 intelligent masses ; nor is industry more visibly 
 destined in every modern society to eliminate every 
 remnant of slavery itself, than it is certainly destined, 
 to disintegrate every stone of the feudal fabric. Slavery 
 dies out before the sight of free Industry ; the military 
 types of society, with Caste, Privilege, and Idleness, 
 blazoned on their shields, may parley and treat with 
 it long ; but in the end Industry will slay them too. 
 An industrial world is a republican world : and a repub- 
 lican world is one in which the State belongs to all, 
 exists for all, and lives by the help of all. It undoes 
 the rest to add — ^which is ruled by all. 
 
 The forms and degrees of this society are many ; 
 and we axe to-day in one of the most complex of all 
 its varieties. But it is in the genius of institutions to 
 develop into their normal type. And the normal 
 type of the republican world is unmistakable. It 
 implies (and this, its minor condition is too often 
 
REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 119 
 
 thought to be the essential condition) the gradual 
 disuse of the heraldic and pompous element in State 
 function, as incompatible with the serious, intellectual, 
 and popular spirit of republican magistracy. No chief 
 of a great army in mid war ever cumbered himself 
 with the trappings of Xerxes, Crassus, or Louis ; and 
 the real servant of the much-enduring masses should 
 blush to be an actor in theatric ceremonials. But these 
 are but small things after all. The essentials as we 
 have said are these : first, that in the State life no man 
 shall bear himself as master, that nothing of the public 
 power shall belong to any class or family of right, that 
 the common advantage of all be the sole object of 
 pubhc action, and personal fitness the sole title to public 
 function ; secondly, that all public resources, treasury, 
 army, police, material, shall exist only by direct con- 
 sent of the people, and shall be administered only by 
 their active participation and continual co-operation. 
 And if on all these latter things our practice carried 
 out our professions, there would be httle more to be 
 said. 
 
 It being thus an indispensable condition that the 
 spirit of our modern societies shall be more and more 
 truly republican, the problem which the future has to 
 solve is simply how to combine with this basis the res- 
 ponsible leadership of qualified men. The two elements 
 of the case are : first, that the nation feel the necessity 
 for accepting capable guidance as fully as it prizes the 
 duty of asserting the force of opinion ; secondly, that 
 the leaders feel the necessity of public co-operation as 
 deeply as they recognise their own duty of assuming a 
 
I20 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT. 
 
 free initiative. The alliance of the two principles is 
 difficult, for it is the goal of social harmony, but 
 it is not impossible ; and it is often now for a 
 time secured in practice. It is an alliance which can 
 only be worked out in practice ; it would be pe- 
 dantry to propose any formula? or instruments for 
 securing it. They of all others would seem to be 
 furthest from it who ask by what institutions and 
 contrivances we can manufacture it. By none, but j 
 by sound education and a diffusion of true poHtical I 
 axioms. We have to educate the public to accept re- / 
 publican statesmanship, instead of claiming democratic 
 inefficiency ; we have to educate statesmen to use 
 power without ever degenerating into force. Public 
 power is only the concentration of public opinion, but 
 public power not inspired with a mind and will, con- 
 sistent and sustained in itself, is Httle more than the 
 power of a mob. It is not beyond the range of hiunan 
 sagacity to invest in men by consent immense collective 
 power ; whilst providing that it shall not have force to 
 coerce the public consent. It is not beyond the range 
 of human sagacity, to impel an intelligent and free 
 people to a course of sustained activity, without ever 
 presuming to do violence to their judgments or their 
 wishes. When we are asked to formidate the process 
 in acts of parHament or legal propositions, we must 
 once more fall back on the illustration of the great 
 trading company. Tell us by what legal propositions 
 the direction of a vast Kailway or Bank succeed in 
 impressing their policy on the development of 
 the business, without forcing the shareholders against 
 
REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 121 
 
 their opinion or consent, and we will then tell you 
 by what formulae something of the kind is done in 
 States. The methods are not to be told in theory; 
 though in practice the result is familiar enough. 
 All we can say is, that in sound concerns with 
 intelligent and business-like proprietors, and a su- 
 perior Board of Management, the thing is done every 
 day. And in a healthy State with wise statesmen some- 
 thing not wholly dissimilar has been done before, and 
 may be done again. Though they be not so alike as 
 to suggest any puerile comparison, there is enough in 
 common between the State and the trading Company, 
 to make many lessons of the lesser most useful for the 
 larger association. There is no mystical consecra- 
 tion about the State to exempt it from the practical 
 rules which apply to all other associations, where men 
 combine for definite material objects. The State is no 
 metaphysical or theological entity, but an industrial 
 corporation for the improvement of our active life. 
 Nor is there any reason why principles, which we hold 
 essential to the success of all other corporations, should 
 in politics be replaced by magnificent sophisms about 
 self-government, personal equality, and the rights of 
 free citizens. Free citizens have the same rights as 
 free shareholders ; the true question for both is the 
 wisdom or folly of asserting particular rights in given 
 ways. And that should not be held to be impossible 
 for the State, which is matter of daily practice in other 
 practical communities. The old maxim of constitu- 
 tional hypocrisy was, that the Head of the State should 
 reign but not govern : the new maxim of repubhcan 
 
122 THOUGHTS ON GOVERNMENT. 
 
 reality may be, that the Head of the State should 
 govern but not reign. Should not reign, either in the 
 old sense of royalty, or in the military sense of imperial 
 tyranny, hereditary or elective, nor even in the arbi- 
 trary sense of the Dictator, podesta, or Protector, who 
 is forced into absolutism by civil or foreign war. He 
 should govern in the spirit in which the great rulers 
 of a free people have often directed their destinies, 
 without suppressing their influence, or defying their 
 will. History will show that this has been done, when 
 the fit man appeared in the competent community. 
 And political theory can do no more than assert that 
 it is a natural and possible combination of things. To 
 reconcile the indispensable leadership of capacity, with 
 the indispensable co-operation of the public. Authority 
 with Numbers, a powerful Executive with a free Ee- 
 public, is the great work that awaits us. For my own 
 part I think something will already be done to secm-e 
 it, when it is acknowledged as a political axiom ; when 
 the public instinct has felt that these two imperishable 
 principles can be reconciled, and must be combined. 
 
PART II. 
 
 STUDIES OF POLITICAL CRISES. 
 
INTRODUCTOEY NOTE. 
 
 In the second part are collected some Essays which were 
 published at intervals between the years 1867-1874, and 
 which may be taken as the application to current politics of 
 the principles treated in the former part of this volume. As 
 I find no change of any moment in the principles contained 
 in the first part as compared with those which were the basis 
 of the following Essays, so I find nothing of any moment 
 in the Essays which I have any occasion to withdraw. They 
 were written, it will be seen, at times of very keen political 
 excitement, of great expectations, and great discontent ; such 
 as in days of political lethargy it is almost difficult to recall. 
 They must therefore be read as being, what, in fact, they 
 were, addresses upon practical questions, then passionately 
 debated, in a highly-wrought state of public opinion. If in 
 form they share the prevailing warmth of discussion, I do not 
 find that in substance they differ from any deliberate judg- 
 ment I may have formed in the calmest of seasons at some 
 distance of time. I prefer therefore to retain them, in the 
 form in which they were written, as studies of current ques- 
 tions and crises, amending them only on sundry points of 
 language, and omitting allusions of merely ephemeral kind. 
 Some notes and explanations have been added; but in the 
 text of the Essays, though much is omitted, nothing has been 
 added ; the alterations concern matters of form. 
 
 The first Essay appeared in March 1867, at the time 
 when the Conservative party, having defeated the Eeform 
 project of Mr. Gladstone, was proceeding with an air of the 
 most singular indecision to settle the question by means of 
 
126 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 Resolution. It was the epoch when Mr. Disraeli was edu- 
 cating his party and its leaders, and probably was trying 
 experiments to discover the minimum point which Reformers 
 would accept, and the maximum point which the House 
 would concede, with a kind of vague hope that chance, 
 ingenuity, or time, might stretch these maximum or minimum 
 points till they met. It was an epoch when perhaps almost 
 everything depended on a few persons, of whom Mr. Disraeli 
 and the late Lord Derby were the chief. No one expected, 
 and certainly the essayist did not, that anything like a Reform 
 Bill would at that time pass into an Act. The ' Cave,' with 
 the secret or open approval of a great majority of the House 
 had effectually supplanted the party (or, almost we should 
 say, the knot of politicians) who honestly desired a serious 
 Reform. Nor had the signs of popular agitation attained 
 any serious dimensions. In a few months, whether by the 
 genius of Mr. Disraeli as a tactician, or by the ugly look of 
 popular discontent, or by one of those sudden panics which 
 befall armies, parties, and classes, in fact the maxirifiUTn con- 
 cession and the Tninimum of demand were brought to meet, 
 and an Act was passed. As will appear from the second 
 Essay, this never seemed to the writer to be much more than 
 an exceedingly clever re-lining of the existing system, with 
 possibly ultimate consequences yet to be seen. It would 
 have been strange if the Conservative party had deliberately 
 put power into the hands of the masses. And certainly they 
 did not do so. 
 
 The Parliament here described was, it will be remembered, 
 the Parliament of the Palmerstonian epoch, the Parliament 
 which had just intrigued away the Whig Reform; which, 
 except on questions of finance, where Mr. Gladstone was 
 supreme, had done almost nothing of lasting importance since 
 the days of Peel ; the Parliament, lastly, which year after year 
 had discussed, evaded, or smothered almost every one of the 
 leading changes which have been passed since the Reform Act 
 of 1867. 
 
127 
 
 ESSAY I. 
 
 PARLIAMENT BEFORE REFORM, 1867. 
 
 Section I. — The House of Commons as it was. 
 
 ' The hypocrisy inherent in English Constitutionalism can never be 
 effectually suppressed without the intervention of the people.' 
 
 Atjguste Comte. 
 
 ' Tell us/ says the ' Times/ echoing the new champion 
 of our ancient institutions, ' tell us what the House of 
 Commons has done that it ought not to have done, or 
 left undone that it ought to have done.' No question, 
 it must be allowed, can be more reasonable ; and in 
 the answer lies the whole key of the Eeform problem. 
 As yet no answer is forthcoming, or rather is not forth- 
 coming in Parliament. Perhaps the grand vice of 
 Parliament, in a word, is a splendid unconsciousness 
 that it has any vices. It takes good care that it shall 
 not be rudely reminded; for it is ill disparaging a 
 great personage to his face, and easier for him to find 
 flatterers than counsellors. 
 
 After all that has been said, it may be doubted if 
 full justice has been done to the speeches of Mr. Lowe. 
 In our memory it has not been known that the ar- 
 guments of one independent speaker have accomplished 
 
128 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 SO much ; checked the current of constitutional deve- 
 lopment, roused the upper classes to resistance, terrified 
 the middle classes into hesitation, and stung the 
 working classes into action. Ministries change and 
 measiu-es fail from very slight causes. The set of 
 political ideas does not. Before Mr. Lowe spoke the 
 aristocracy were secretly averse to change, the middle 
 classes openly undecided, the people in excellent 
 temper and in no haste. He spoke : and he gave to 
 the first a cause to fight for ; to the second, much food 
 for doubt ; to the last, the indignation which knit tliem 
 into a power. There was some new thing which 
 moved all three. It was this. Into very cultivated 
 and not unthoughtful brains, long silently uneasy, there 
 flashed a keen disHke of the social idea by which 
 Eeform was claimed, a vision of the possibility of ex- 
 tinguishing it as an idea. The opposition to Eeform 
 was wide and deep before ; but it was inorganic. It 
 had neither principle nor audacity. And suddenly 
 there burst on it a rallying cry, in which it could hear 
 both. 
 
 The speech was marvellous in its results rather 
 than its quality. Great it was ais an intellectual effort, 
 but not quite unapproachable. In logic it has been 
 matched by Mr. Mill ; in wit by Mr. Bright ; in in- 
 tensity by Mr. Disraeli ; whilst it had nothing of that 
 sjnupathetic charm with which Mr. Gladstone sweeps 
 his way into men's hearts. It was a powerful 
 argument put Avith masterly skill, and not devoid of 
 sincerity or courage. But its prodigious effects must 
 have been due to something else. They were due to 
 
PARLIAMENT BEFORE REFORM (1867). 129 
 
 a certain potent truth which underlay the whole ; im- 
 mortal though misused, trenchant though perverted ; 
 but which gained a startling and unmerited success by 
 the rottenness of the theories to which it was opposed. 
 Mr. Eobert Lowe is not exactly Demosthenes ; and if 
 a speech of his has deeply modified political thought, it 
 seems not unnatural to conclude that it did this by 
 virtue of a solid political truth. 
 
 That truth is that the exercise of political power is a 
 function, not a right ; that the beginning and end of it 
 is good government ; that it cannot be an end in itself. 
 This doctrine, stated with philosophic precision, urged 
 with fearless logic, and illustrated with refined wit, 
 came like a revelation upon the flabby minds of uneasy 
 Conservatives. For years, we may almost say for cen- 
 turies, English pohticians had constantly assumed that 
 a vote was a right, a very precious right, and that apart 
 from any consequences which might arise therefrom ; 
 and Conservatives and Liberals were agreed to argu-e 
 on thoroughly false issues. The hypocrisy inherent in 
 our Parliamentary system is such that questions are 
 rarely contested in that arena upon their genuine ends. 
 The reasoning of the leading reformers was crippled 
 by this radical sophism. The ' Christian ' argument for 
 the extension of the suffrage ; the ' flesh and blood ' 
 argument ; the ' fathers of families ' argument ; the 
 ' tax-paying ' argument ; the ' gross income ' argument ; 
 the ' industry ' argument ; the ' ancient lines of the con- 
 stitution ' argument ; the arguments from the numbers, 
 the wealth, the progress of the people ; the famous 
 argument about the ' burden of proof,' — all arguments, 
 
130 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 in short, which make the suffrage a privilege apart from 
 its practical results, are only forms of one and the same 
 fallacy. 
 
 Mr. Lowe had an easy time of it whilst he tore to 
 pieces this well-meaning clap-trap. As he showed 
 triumphantly, all these arguments contained a double 
 fallacy. They proved a great deal too much ; and they 
 proved something wholly beside the point. It was the 
 oldstory of Ambiguity in the Premiss and Ignoratio Elen- 
 chi. On the one hand the whole male population — and 
 for that matter, on scriptural warrant, the whole female 
 population — are ' our own flesh and blood ; ' a very 
 large number are parents ; and a fair percentage are 
 Christians ; paupers, idiots, and felons augment the in- 
 direct taxes ; and the veriest boor has often worked 
 hard, and kept the Ten Commandments. So far as 
 these arguments go, they are arguments, if for anything, 
 for universal male and female suffrage, and very poor 
 arguments for that. 
 
 In the second place they prove, if anything, that 
 very desirable qualities exist in large portions of our 
 countrymen, but not the qualities in point. The fact 
 that numbers of unenfranchised people pay a large 
 proportion of the taxation, possess and produce great 
 collective wealth, and conduct themselves like worthy 
 citizens, is a good reason for holding them as an im- 
 portant element of the State, for its providing for their 
 well-being and their wants in every way ; but it is no 
 argument for their assuming the control of the State, 
 imless some distinct advantage is proved to arise 
 thereby. That the working classes do so much to 
 
PARLIAMENT BEFORE REFORM (1867). 131 
 
 create the prosperity and wealth of England is a very 
 poor argument by itself for a change, the result of 
 which might be to enable them to ruin that prosperity 
 and squander that wealth. It is the last thing which 
 we need fear to follow from Eeform. But the argu- 
 ment is mere straw without proof of their aptitude 
 for government. That a ship's crew are sober and 
 laborious is an excellent reason for raising their wages^ 
 or increasing their grog. It would be a strange reason 
 for putting them, or some of them, in command of the 
 ship. 
 
 In fact, every claim to the suffrage as a right is 
 only a poor echo of a very different thing. There is 
 but one such claim that has any logic or consistency in 
 it — ^the right to universal suffrage. The doctrine of 
 Eousseau and the ' Eights of Man ' is at least not self- 
 contradictory. The doctrines of our constitutional re- 
 formers as to electoral rights are nothing but timorous 
 and cloudy repetitions of this. As theories, they are 
 open to every objection to which the full theory of 
 rights is exposed. They blunt its force by their 
 cowardly misgivings. They lack that noble faith in 
 collective humanity which half redeems the generous 
 sophism ; whilst they but exhibit the mongrel origin of 
 our constitutional ideas, for they are nothing but the 
 glorious old error of the Eevolution confused, enfeebled, 
 and misconceived. 
 
 But though as a critic and in offensive war Mr. 
 Lowe enjoyed an easy victory, it is not at all clear 
 that he did not commit precisely the same fallacies 
 
 K 2 
 
132 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 himself. Like an able dialectician, he kept the weak 
 side of his own case in the background, and left it to 
 the inferences of others. But none the less did he 
 prove too much, and prove something wholly beside 
 the point. He proved not only the proposed, but the 
 existing, system of representative government to be 
 irrational and rotten. He showed that to do something 
 was open to risk ; he did not prove that to do nothing 
 Avas safe, or even possible. His warning voice came 
 too late. If a moderate extension of the suffrage would 
 ruin the constitution, the discovery should have been 
 made before it had been six times attempted by minis- 
 tries and once or twice by himself. 
 
 He established, at least to his own satisfaction and 
 that of a House not insensible to adulation, that Parlia- 
 ment is already the perfection of human wisdom, and 
 gives the people everything that is good for them. It 
 maybe so ; but this is not exactly the basis on which Par- 
 liament is popularly supposed to exist. It is perhaps the 
 first time in our history that the theory of a paternal oli- 
 garchy has been so nakedly stated ; or that the House 
 of Commons has stood forth in the new part of the 
 Benevolent Autocrat. We have always gone on the 
 idea that the function of that House was to represent 
 truly the will of the people. There was an old notion 
 that the people s money could not be taken without the 
 people's leave. It is no answer to this old — it may be 
 mistaken — doctrine to assure us that it is good for the 
 people to have their money taken ; and that it is wanted 
 for purposes which wiser heads than theii's think 
 riizht. 
 
PARLIAMENT BEFORE REFORM (1867). 133 
 
 Then again, he showed how very great, and good, 
 and wise the House now is, and how very mean, and 
 vicious, and foohsh the new class of voters would be ; 
 what awful things would happen if majorities retiu-ned 
 a House of Commons ; how the executive would be 
 dislocated by a numerical representative system. Well 
 — but the bulk of the present constituencies are exactly 
 the narrowest, least public-spirited, and most corrup- 
 tible class in the country. The small tavern-keeper 
 and tenant-at-will has his virtues — chiefly economic and 
 domestic ; but you might ransack Europe for a class 
 less fit to control a great nation's destiny. Now this 
 sort of people at this moment forms three-fourths of 
 the voting power ; and for purposes of jobbery, 
 bungling, bigotry, and obstruction generally, they are 
 actually paramount. A Benevolent Oligarchy may be 
 a noble thing ; but not plus the most debased shape 
 which popular representation can take. Men who are 
 in earnest, and are quite alive to the sophisms of the 
 pure democratic platform, are sick of a system which 
 has become an Organised Dead-lock. The present 
 system combines all the evils of a thorough class-rule 
 with all those of a spurious representation. 
 
 It has been said that Mr. Lowe's speeches form an 
 indictment against the English people. In fact, they 
 form an indictment against the English constitution and 
 parhamentary institutions. If the notion that the suffrage 
 is a right of full citizenship, or that paying taxes is a 
 reason for controlling expenditure, or that ministers 
 should be responsible to the nation through its chosen 
 organ, if these notions are so ruinous — and Mr. Lowe's 
 
134 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 argument logically leads up to this — what in the name 
 of logic is the meaning of constitution ? what is the 
 value of the parliamentary power of the purse? what 
 sense is there in ministries depending on parliamentary 
 majorities? It is impossible to have it both ways. 
 Either the suffrage is wonderfully narrow, or else the 
 functions of Parliament are cm-iously wide. The 
 House of Commons cannot have as its chief glory 
 that it represents the people ; and as its chief excel- 
 lence that it is not elected by them. 
 
 If, after all, the key of Eeform be not the rights of 
 the unenfranchised, but the efficiency of Parliament, it 
 is a great gain to have the matter put upon this distinct 
 issue. Let us heartily admit that the great, the sole 
 ground for an extension of the franchise is this, that 
 the existing House of Commons performs its task ill, 
 that by the proposed change it will perform it better. 
 
 Now in the first place the House of Commons is 
 not charged with sins of commission, but of omission. 
 It is very easy to show triumphantly that it neither 
 robs, oppresses, nor silences any English citizen. Those 
 658 well-bred gentlemen are no tyrants, and nobody is 
 likely to say so. They happen, however, to have the 
 absolute control over this nation, boundless oppor- 
 tunities, credit, and prestige, no difficulties, and no 
 antagonists. They have inherited the most splendid 
 political opportunity of modern times ; the wealth, the 
 confidence, the force of a free people, might be theirs 
 without a rival. And their sin is to be wasting this 
 precious birthright in doing nothing. Few governments 
 have had such a field. Few have ever so well sue- 
 
PARLIAMENT BEFORE REFORM (1867). 135 
 
 ceeded in duping their people, in degrading their 
 political tone, in stifling public activity. 
 
 No difficulties, I have said ; and by this is meant 
 no difficulties other than those inherent in all modern 
 statesmanship. They are not like the statesmen of 
 France, of Germany, of Italy, of Spain — placed in the 
 centre of revolutionary struggles, threatened with inter- 
 national perils, inheritors of despotic or decrepit prede- 
 cessors. They have every chance, and no obstacle 
 without. Grave and deep difficulties they have, such 
 as beset every ruler of every European people. Great 
 social wants, all within the due sphere of legislation, 
 we have like our neighbours, — greater even than our 
 neighbours. Our people are ignorant below the 
 standard of any civilised race north of the Alps. Our 
 pauperism is the most colossal and corroding. Our 
 public administration and our legal machinery the 
 most chaotic ; our municipal and sanitary system the 
 most cumbrous ; the state of our great cities and our 
 labourers' homes the most utterly heartrending ; the 
 state of Ireland the shame and despair of our policy. 
 On every one of these subjects legislation can do some- 
 thing — can do much.^ Over every one our legislation 
 mumbles and fumbles in vain session after session. 
 Verily, if vast opportunities for improvement be mea- 
 sured against urgent wants of improvement, all that it 
 ought to do and might do, set beside the nothing that 
 it does, the mighty task it claims to perform, weighed 
 against the chaff of words with which it wearies 
 
 ^ It has been hard at work on all these subjects ever since 1868 — let 
 us trust with results. 
 
136 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 expectation, this Parliamentary government must be 
 set down as one of the worst that modem Europe has 
 known. 
 
 It is a poor plea that they form an orderly assembly, 
 that they are mostly gentlemen, kindly, and sensible. 
 It would be strange if they were not. They are 
 industrious, it is said. True ; they talk for ten hours 
 a night without a pause, and muddle over 500 bills 
 which come to nothing. True, there is the private 
 business, in which monopolies are scrambled for by 
 schemers and money-lenders. True, there is no 
 ' lobbying ; ' but there are committee-rooms where 
 speculators traffic and wrangle over many a public 
 right and private interest. It must be allowed that 
 there is nothing too small for that House to consider ; 
 but, on the other hand, there is nothing small enough 
 for it to accomplish. It is true that many flowers of 
 rhetoric flourish in its soil, that it utters often very fine 
 sentiments, and still retains much of its historic repu- 
 tation. But historic reputations are not eternal. To 
 possess vast power, to owe that power nominally to the 
 people, is no merit when the power is wasted and 
 popular origin is nothing but a mask. With the 
 greatest of all tasks before it, and the grandest of 
 opportunities, it gives us nothing but wearisome talk 
 and profitless busying, deluding a great people to think 
 that that is the type of government and freedom. 
 
 What is it that this great institution, charged with 
 almost unlimited power, and absolutely without an 
 opponent, has effected within a generation? The 
 answer to this question is usually the eternal common- 
 
/ 
 
 PARLIAMENT BEFORE REF0R%I:{m7). •'' €37 
 
 f 
 
 place about the Eepeal of the Corn Laws; an,act, be* /\ 
 it remembered, forced on the House of Gommons'^ ^ 
 the price of revokition, by the statesman and the, party 
 whom it now reviles. The House of Lords once passed 
 the Catholic Emancipation, and Charles I. put his name 
 to the Petition of Eight, but neither of them are thought 
 to be very much distinguished by the deed. And who 
 made these corn laws? They did not grow. They 
 were simply imposed by the fathers of the very men 
 who now boast of having repealed them. It is no such 
 stupendous act of wisdom in men to have had wrung 
 from them the redress of a flagrant instance of selfish 
 misrule, for which their immediate predecessors are 
 responsible. More than a generation ago they passed 
 some acts of criminal law reform, by which our brutal 
 code was brought up to the standard of other civihsed 
 nations. Many of the worst barbarisms in our legal 
 and administrative system were redressed. But these 
 are arguments for Eeform, for they certainly would 
 never have been achieved without the movement of 
 1832. However, since the splendid act of patriotism 
 in repealing (under compulsion) the oppressive laws 
 which their own fathers had made and fought for, 
 what has the House of Commons done ? A few petty 
 legal changes, a few minor administrative changes, a 
 useful financial reform, the legitimate consequence of 
 Free Trade, one which has been more or less carried 
 out equally by continental states, by imperial France, 
 by bureaucratic Prussia, by struggling Italy; one 
 which still leaves England the most unequally taxed 
 of all European countries; the only state which has 
 
138 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 no real land-tax, because the state in which land- 
 holders bear most paramount rule. Twenty precious 
 years were passed without an obstacle : — no national 
 education, no efficient poor-law, no reorganised army, 
 no law reform, no contented Ireland ; the ancient 
 iniquity of game-laws unabated, the laws of landlord 
 and tenant, of master and servant unredressed ; men 
 who care for public good wearied out, till no man is so 
 desperate as to venture to force anything through this 
 jungle of obstruction ; practical improvements un- 
 touched from very despair of their ever becoming 
 practicable; — twenty years of laborious indifference, 
 and apathetic commotion, two thousand nights, twenty 
 thousand hours of discourse, bills, resolutions, blue- 
 books, and returns by square miles ; and what is the 
 result? — tons upon tons of spoiled paper, and the 
 memory of some fluent talk ? How far would England 
 have been, other than it is, had ' the voice of a free 
 people' returned to St. Stephen's 658 articulating 
 machines ? ^ 
 
 To most pohticians of the older schools all this 
 must sound wild and unmeaning accusation. Of course 
 Keform is needless to any but a Eeformer. To change 
 the Parliamentary system on the ground of abstract 
 right, for the sake of symmetry, or to stifle a claim, 
 would indeed be a wanton distm-bance. The sole 
 justification of Eeform is the accomphshment of definite 
 changes. 
 
 ^ Immediately upon the Reform Acts coming into operation at the 
 end of 1868, measures were passed on almost all these questions, which 
 had simply been talked about for more than twenty years. 
 
PARLIAMENT BEFORE REFORM (1867). 139 
 
 Those to whom these changes are bad things must 
 necessarily admire the system which postpones them. 
 Of course, none can see the vices of Parhament but 
 those who desire what it exists to stave off. To the 
 rich man, especially to the rich landowner, the present 
 social constitution of this island offers almost as much 
 as modern civilisation can possibly give him. He is 
 no tyrant and no enthusiast. He really has no wish 
 to oppress his neighbour consciously ; and does not 
 dream of a golden era with a privileged class exempt 
 from taxation. But modern society once granted, it 
 is hard to say how he could make himself more 
 thoroughly comfortable, if he were endowed with the 
 power of creation. Of course, therefore, as he surveys 
 the system — behold, it is very good in his eyes. He 
 wants nothing, and to him the great merit of a govern- 
 ment is that it does nothing. The science of govern- 
 ment for him attains to absolute perfection when it 
 leaves this stable equilibrium of his personal comfort 
 quite undisturbed, whilst parading a resultless activity 
 under the name of self-government, freedom, and 
 progress. To such an one the grand glory of Parlia- 
 ment is that it does nothing — and does that nothing in 
 a highly clubable, yet patriotic and constitutional 
 manner. 
 
 Let us take each great duty of Government in tm-n. 
 The national education of England is confessedly in- 
 ferior to that of Germany, France, and America. The 
 vices of our petty and incoherent method are allowed. 
 The people craves a better system, no real obstacle 
 opposes, nothing but inveterate prejudice. The Enghsh 
 
I40 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 traveller in America is humiliated when he sees what a 
 kindred people, free from the curse of privileged classes 
 and Churches, can do. It is admitted to be the first ot 
 all social wants. It is felt to stand at the root of all 
 further progress. Yet for a generation Parliament has 
 perorated and procrastinated. It might do so for 
 another generation with as small result. Every 
 hopeful movement is smothered or jostled aside. Each 
 fresh scheme is met with the cant of self-government 
 or a shriek of superstition. JSTo grand national measure 
 can so much as get a hearing. The best friends of the 
 cause are driven to timid and paltry demands. The 
 grand Obstructive paralyses all political energy. Pa- 
 tient of the bigotry of priests and sectaries, it is nothing 
 to them that our people is a laggard in the first quality 
 of modern civilisation — that they themselves are but 
 an engine in the hands of obscurantism — ^in the name 
 of Freedom and Eeligion. The gods of Epicurus he 
 beside their nectar, heedless of an ancient tale of wrong. 
 It is possible to be at once omnipotent and lethargic.^ 
 
 Pauperism. — One-tenth of our revenue, one- 
 twentieth of the population, sunk in this abyss. The 
 question is wider than one of administration. It con- 
 cerns the pauper cancer in all its forms in city and 
 hamlet, the desperate sloth, the abject abasement, the 
 horrible misery, the hopeless future which weighs on 
 artificer and laboiu-er — that portent of modern life 
 
 ^ Inspired by the success of Mr. Disraeli in making Reform a Con- 
 servative instrument, Mr. Forster succeeded, in 1870, in passing an Edu- 
 cation Act, which was in many ways a valuable gain, but which the old 
 clerical obstacles to education soon saw to be capable of becoming nn 
 Ecclesiastical instrument. 
 
PARLIAMENT BEFORE REFORM (1867). 141 
 
 over whicli economists despair and moralists sicken — 
 that burden on this nation our legislators touch not 
 with the tips of their fingers, content to wrangle over 
 details of administration. And what a spectacle is that 
 administration — ^with the abominations of the work- 
 house, the anarchy of rule, the selfishness and indolence 
 of boards, the monstrous inequality of burden. All 
 these things are known and admitted evils, yet Parlia- 
 ment in a generation has done nothing — nothing but 
 moan and resolve. Here and there some petty abuse 
 is removed, some detail of management improved. 
 Nothing is done to meet the evil at its seat, nothing 
 comprehensive, nothing bold. Every fi:esh minister 
 comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. The 
 meanest local gang or parish despot can defy a minister 
 and intimidate a House of Commons. For the fellow- 
 feeling of class interest makes the country landlord 
 wondrous kind to the town guardian, and the House 
 of Commons quails before a vestry as every class power 
 will quail before unfaltering selfishness. It will talk 
 and resolve and intend, whilst Pauperism and Bumble- 
 dom, the scandals of our age, mock at its half-hearted 
 attempts, knowing well that no quarter in that limbo 
 of abortions is better paved with good intentions.^ 
 
 Take the case of Ireland. Politicians of all shades 
 agree that it is the great problem of our imperial 
 system. England and all Eiu:ope have just been 
 startled by finding that we are still in the era of latent 
 rebeUion, that Irishmen still feel like an oppressed 
 
 ^ Since this date how much has been done by men of popular fibre 
 and earnest determination who have honestly set themselves to the task! 
 
142 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 race, not like fellow-citizens with us. The Established 
 Church, the landlord system, the educational system 
 in Ireland, remain still confessed and pressing ques- 
 tions, crying aloud for reform.^ Yet generation after 
 generation sees the English House of Commons 
 tolerant of every abuse in them, heaping on them a 
 few vain discussions, vigorous only in some critical 
 work of repression. Year after year goes on : Ireland 
 plots, murmurs, languishes ; Eiu*ope accuses and sneers ; 
 English liberalism protests and invokes ; but Parlia- 
 ment — the strongest pohtical power in the world, by 
 its history and titles the most bound to redress so great 
 a scandal to modern civilisation as the state of that 
 country, the victim for ^ve, centuries of English mis- 
 rule — this noblest of human institutions has nothing to 
 offer but acres of blue-books and libraries of Hansard. 
 Of late it has dropped even this, and prefers to wait 
 till the Irish race shall have worn itself out, and be- 
 come quiet by the remorseless process of emigration 
 and decay. 
 
 There is the Eeform of the Law. For a generation 
 the public, and even the profession, have been crying 
 out for this work. The consolidation of our laws into 
 an intelligible whole is the want of theorists and prac- 
 titioners, of common sense and cultivated judgments. 
 It is no impossibility, for most civilised people but 
 ourselves have accomplished it. But no civilised people 
 but we are governed by an absolute Euler — a Roi 
 Faineant^ whose great prerogatives usurp the whole 
 
 1 Measures of 1869, 1870, 1873. 
 
PARLIAMENT BEFORE REFORM (1867). i ]3 
 
 sphere of action, and whose invincible irresolution 
 uses it only for inaction. For the twentieth time 
 within a generation the Sisyphean labour is about to 
 be renewed; again the spell-bound giant begins his 
 futile toil.^ 
 
 Nor is the re-organisation of the Military and 
 Naval system less an admitted want. The scandalous 
 waste of pubhc money, of human life, of practical 
 efficiency there, is the by- word of politics and the jest 
 of Europe. Commission after commission discloses 
 the corruption of the chief administrators, the abuses 
 of the purchase system, the oppression of the privates, 
 the inefficiency of their officers. Every year brings its 
 crop of scandals and jobs. These are not the com- 
 plaints of demagogues, but the notorious convictions of 
 men and journals pledged to conservatism in every- 
 thing else.^ 
 
 Taxation is thought to be one grand glory of the 
 House of Commons. No doubt the system which Mr. 
 Cobden and his friends forced upon it and the convic- 
 tion of the country, has been of very great service, and 
 is thoroughly wise. But it must not be forgotten that 
 it is a system which has made its way through the 
 opinion of the Continent — one in which the govern- 
 ment of the Emperor Napoleon has spontaneously 
 accomplished more difficult tasks. But after all, after 
 taking off taxes on corn and sugar, and from more 
 than a thousand articles of commerce — a very desir- 
 able thing — the taxation of England still remains the 
 
 1 Measures of 1873, 1874, 1875. 2 Measure of 1873. 
 
144 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 most inequitable extant. It would be difficult, perhaps, 
 to find in Europe a country in which the land-tax was 
 so thoroughly a mockery, or the tithe system so un- 
 reasonable. It amounts very nearly to a practical 
 exemption from taxation on the part of the landholder. 
 Until the land-tax produces at least ^vq times its 
 present amount it will not be a reality. At present, 
 like most other things in our political system, it acts as 
 a mask. It is a fashion to say that a land-tax would 
 not be a tax on proprietors. Very well ; let us see 
 what they will say when it is tried. 
 
 On the conduct of the House in all matters of 
 foreign policy, a man with pride in his country can 
 hardly trust himself to speak. Liber avi am mam 
 meam} For fifty years under its control our national 
 credit has been sinking into a by- word. For fifty 
 years it has clung to the Austrian alliance when that 
 represented all that was rotten and baleful in Europe. 
 It suffered Hungary to be crushed by Eussia, against 
 the protests of the nation, and then conducted the war 
 with Eussia which its folly had made necessary, in a 
 mode which thwarted all the demands of the nation. 
 It suffered our armies to waste ; it rejected Poland ; it 
 half rejected Italy ; it betrayed Denmark. It was no 
 ministry that did these things — for ministers are but 
 the secretaries of Parliament.'^* As each European 
 question arose it resisted the will of the nation, and in 
 
 ^ In a book called Quettions for a Reformed Parliament. 
 
 "^ The House of Commons rarely interferes in the details of foreign 
 questions, and now hardly ever alludes to them. But the enormous 
 pressure of its silent influence is felt by every foreign minister alike, 
 lieform did certaiulv not mend matters here. 
 
PARLIAMENT BEFORE REFORM (1867). 145 
 
 each case was wrong. In the greatest of modern civil 
 wars, the American rebelhon, it was perversely counter 
 to the instinct of the people from the first to the last, 
 and from first to last it was utterly and fatally wrong. 
 It has thus reduced our foreign policy to total check- 
 mate. The initiative of the people it refuses to follow. 
 Its own tendencies and proclivities it is powerless to 
 carry into act. It has brought our name into contempt, 
 and the influence of England within half a century from 
 its maximum to its zero. No English minister dare 
 undertake anything ; no foreign minister either fears 
 or trusts his words. For his words are certain to be 
 disowned by that power of public opinion which alone 
 can give them effect. English diplomacy at last cover- 
 ing its discomfiture with such phrases as it can, has 
 practically retired from Europe, content if it can wring 
 from us a murmuring assent to its violent designs upon 
 Eastern or half-civilised races, and wdn the sinister 
 favour of mercantile cupidity.^ 
 
 Such is this House. False to its origin and to its 
 end, obstructive of progress, and indifferent to its office, 
 not a real representation, but the mask only and 
 symbol of it ; not a House of Commons, but a House 
 of Interests ; not a national Parliament, but the Great 
 Council in our Venetian Constitution. 
 
 ^ Compare the tale of the Black Sea Treaty with Abyssinian and 
 Ashantee wars. 
 
146 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 Section II. — Popular Influence on Parliament. 
 
 Nothing is more true than that the faults of the exist- 
 ing House of Commons are in themselves no argument 
 for the extension of the franchise. The sole justifica- 
 tion for change is that the existing system is bad, and 
 that the proposed change will make it better. Ee- 
 formers, therefore, have proved nothing, until they 
 have shown that their Bill will produce defined results. 
 Even then the argument requires some proof that the 
 result will not be attained at the price of corresponding 
 evil. The onus of proof which reformers must under- 
 take is very extended and complex, but it is not one 
 from which they need shrink. It is of paramount 
 need to the State that certain laws be passed. Those 
 who now hold power will not pass them. They feel 
 them to be contrary to every interest, prejudice, and 
 instinct they possess. They will cabal, agitate, pro- 
 crastinate, and fight to the death, rather than pass 
 them. Those who have not power will pass these laws. 
 They know them to be entirely for their interest ; they 
 have set their hearts on them ; they are the natiu-al 
 guardians of the cause. They will work and move 
 until these laws are passed. The obvious consequence 
 is — ^let power be taken from those who have it, and 
 given to those who have it not. 
 
 It being established that certain measures are indis- 
 pensable, and that the existing class of rulers will not 
 
PARLIAMENT BEFORE REFORM (1867). 147 
 
 pass them, it is not difficult to show that another class 
 will do so when it has the power. The masses actively 
 desire a really national education. It has been put 
 in the front of a thousand meetings throughout the 
 country. But even if they care very little, and know 
 less, about the question, to give them power would be 
 to establish national education. If they do not actively 
 desire it, they have no antipathy to it. They have no 
 sectarian, class, and party objects. They care nothing 
 about the Established Church, and are entirely neutral 
 in the great questions of parish priest and parish squire. 
 They are as free from local, as they are from clique, 
 prepossessions. If their point of view is not strictly 
 statesmanhke, it is at least national. 
 
 They come to the question with open minds. Now 
 there are a hundred men in England who are abun- 
 dantly able to devise a satisfactory scheme of Education, 
 and to force the nation to recognise its importance, if 
 they only had a fair field and no ingrained prejudices 
 to uproot. The mass of the people — and they alone — 
 could give them such a hearing and the requisite 
 support. They would find all the men, whom in 
 other matters they trust, active in the same cause. 
 They would judge of a proposed law for itself, and 
 without originating good laws they would assent to 
 them. Being without class prejudice, they would be 
 open to conviction. Being numerous and strong, they 
 would carry conviction into act. And the end would 
 be obtained.^ 
 
 ^ The Education movement was launched on this wave of popular 
 desire, by the minister who most definitely represented the popular 
 feeling. It was characteristically caught up and utilised by a sect. 
 
 L 2 
 
148 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 Just SO it would be with all the rest. No one but 
 a fanatic imagines that the people have very distinct 
 views as to the mode of reforming the law, or the army, 
 or the pauper system, or have had revealed to them 
 the true specific for the maladies of Ireland, or the key 
 of the Eastern question. 
 
 But what of that? Did the ten-pounders of the 
 
 Bill of 'o2 know all about Fines and Eecoveries? Had 
 
 they studied Smith and Malthus? Were their views 
 
 very profound about Irish bishoprics and grants in aid ? 
 
 Yet the introduction of ten-pounders was the direct 
 
 and immediate cause of a whole system of invaluable 
 
 changes in the law. There are plenty of people in this 
 
 country quite competent for these tasks if they only 
 
 get the motive power behind them. Once find the 
 
 national force to insist upon the end, and it will have 
 
 abundant and capable instruments to efiect it. These 
 
 reforms, the consolidation of law, the revision of the 
 
 pauper system, nay, the condition of Ireland itself, are 
 
 not such mysterious problems as need an angel fi-om 
 
 heaven to solve them. Other nations have accomplished 
 
 tasks as gigantic without a visible interposition of 
 
 providence. The way is not inscrutable where there is 
 
 the will. Now the people, and they alone, have that 
 
 will ; and wiser heads than theirs will find the way. 
 
 To give a man a vote is not to make him a cabinet 
 
 minister. It is to give him an influence over the spirit 
 
 of legislation, not to require him to draw acts of 
 
 Parliament. What is wanted in the mass who vote 
 
 is the desire for the right result, freedom from selfish 
 
 motive, and willingness to trust in wise guidance. The 
 
PARLIAMENT BEFORE REFORM (1867). 149 
 
 clifficulties of execution are for the trained few who 
 ^ govern. The immediate result of a real Eeform "Bill 
 would be to bring into the house some ten or twenty 
 genuine representatives of working men, and some fifty 
 or hundred more who would enable Mr. Bright, Mr. 
 Mill, and Mr. Gladstone to carry out some of the 
 reforms with which they are identified. The diffi- 
 culties do not at all transcend human capacities, if 
 interest and passion be curbed. And interest and 
 passion can be balanced, not by a class, but only by a 
 1 people. 
 
 No worse nonsense is talked than what we are told 
 as to the requisites for the elective franchise. To listen 
 to some people it is almost as solemn a function as to 
 be a trustee of the British Museum. No one, we are 
 told, should possess it unless he has a fund of moral 
 virtue and refined cultiu'e ; one would think that this 
 island could only produce here and there a sort of 
 typical sanctified grand elector, painfully trained up on 
 the works of Hallam and Adam Smith. What you 
 want in a body of electors is a rough shrewd eye for 
 men of character, honesty, and purpose. Very plain 
 men know who wish them well ; and the sort of 
 thing which will bring them good. Electors have not 
 got to govern the country. They have only to find a 
 set of men who will see that the government is just 
 and active. They are so ignorant, says one. More 
 ignorant as electors than certain members are as 
 legislators ? So venal, cries some hireling lawyer. So 
 drunken, say men whose grandfathers were habitually 
 drunk, and made maudlin speeches to a drowsy Parlia- 
 
I50 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 ment. All things go b^st by comparison, and a body 
 of men may be as good voters as their neighbours, 
 without being the type of the Christian Hero. 
 
 Perhaps the very silliest cant of the day is the cant 
 about cultiure.^ Culture is a desirable quality in a critic 
 of new books, and sits well on a professor of ' belles 
 lettres ; ' but as applied to politics it means simply a 
 turn for small fault-finding, love of selfish ease, and 
 indecision in action. The man of culture is in politics 
 one of the poorest mortals alive. For simple pedantry, 
 and want of good sense, no man is his equal. Any 
 quantity of ingenious arguments, based on wholly 
 fictitious premises, he will give you. No assumption 
 is too unreal, no end is too unpractical for him. But 
 the active exercise of politics requires common sense, 
 sympathy, trust, resolution, and enthusiasm, qualities 
 which your man of culture has carefully rooted up, 
 lest they damage the delicacy of his critical olfactories. 
 Political helplessness is only found at complete zero 
 amongst the class of men who pick out the ' blots ' in 
 the last Eeform Bill. Perhaps they are the only class 
 of responsible beings in the community who cannot 
 with safety be entrusted with power. 
 
 So far from being the least fit for political influence 
 of all classes in the community, the best part of the 
 working class forms the most fit of all others. If any 
 section of the people is to be the paramount arbiter in 
 
 1 It seems necessary to say that these words were not directed 
 against mental cultivation or literary grace, much less against a poet and 
 writer whom to speak of these qualities is to name. My complaint was 
 of a /)oZ/^/c«/ faction, who brought to a great national struggle nothing 
 but the bitterest reaction and trivial criticisms of the academic sort. 
 
PARLIAMENT BEFORE REFORM (1867). 151 
 
 public afiairs, tlie only section competent for this duty 
 is the superior order of workmen. Governing is one 
 thing ; but electors of any class cannot, or ought not, 
 to govern. Electing, or the giving an indirect approval 
 of Government, is another thing, and demands wholly 
 different qualities. These are moral, not intellectual ; 
 practical, not special gifts ; gifts of a very plain and 
 almost universal order. Such are — firstly, social sym- 
 pathies and sense of justice; then openness and plain- 
 ness of character ; lastly, habits of action, and a practical 
 knowledge of social misery. These are the qualities 
 which fit men to be the arbiters, or ultimate source 
 (though certainly not the instruments), of political 
 power. These qualities the best working men possess 
 in a far higher degree than any other portion of the 
 community ; indeed, they are almost the only part of 
 the commimity which possesses them in any percep- 
 tible degree. In political fitness the unenfranchised 
 are, as a body, immeasurably superior to the enfran- 
 chised. In all that makes a man w^orthy of the suffrage, 
 an average city mechanic stands at one end of the scale, 
 and the. ' cultured ' critic and the small shopkeeper at 
 the other. 
 
 Besides, the working class is the only class which 
 (to use a paradox) is not a class. It is the nation. 
 They represent, so to speak, the body politic as a 
 whole, of which the other classes only represent special 
 organs. These organs, no doubt, have great and indis- 
 pensable fimctions ; but for most purposes of govern- 
 ment the State consists of the vast labouring majority. 
 Its welfare depends on what their lives are like ; its 
 
152 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 institutions, its agents, its servants, exist for them. 
 They know, by hourly experience, they only know, 
 what social sufferings exist. By suffering, their social 
 sympathies are stimulated ; by necessity, their practical 
 instincts are developed. They are free from the rest- 
 less egoism which is the curse of all who accumulate 
 wealth ; from the self-indulgent indecision which is the 
 curse of those who live in idleness. Theirs are the 
 brightest powers of sympathy, and the readiest powers 
 of action. When the social system is wrong, it grinds 
 them first ; it grinds them hardest, and it forces itself 
 home on them. For these reasons none are so fit to 
 ratify and watch the action of the State, and this is the 
 end of the Suffrage. All this is far from giving them 
 any fitness for the direct exercise of power, unless in 
 some temporary crisis. Evil is the day for the State 
 when any class has unlimited power, or when the 
 untrained mass usurp the direct functions of govern- 
 ment. But for the controlling power of opinion — the 
 corner-stone, that is to be, of all rational government — 
 the working body is the fountain and the life. And 
 the Suffrage is but a lame and primitive contrivance for 
 giving to Opinion a measure and form. 
 
 If, therefore, by any political contrivance, you 
 could give a permanent control over Public Opinion in 
 the State to the working class, you would obtain an 
 immense gain. The reason is twofold. In the first 
 place, you would give an immediate legislative impulse 
 to those who alone wish to carry those measiu-es which 
 are needed. In the next place, you would give it to 
 those who, in the natural state of things, are best fitted 
 
PARLIAMENT BEFORE REFORM (i86f)./> 153 
 
 to possess it. But, unhappily, even if you wished, yqfu . 
 cannot by any pohtical contrivance, anfd'' c^grtainly not ' ; 
 by a Whig Eeform Bill, or even a Kadical BilJ, ene^t 
 this transfer of influence from one class to ahdther. ^/r' 
 Universal Suffrage would go some steps in that direc- J' 
 tion — but only some steps. ' '" 
 
 The constitutional figments have given so curious a 
 twist to men's minds, that we have a habit of supposing 
 that political power can be weighed out at so much a 
 pound. The future of England is supposed to hang 
 upon the wording of a clause. A 7/. franchise, and 
 the constitution fives ; a 6/., and all is lost. But 
 Eeformers have very little with which to taunt Con- 
 servatives in this. Tory, Whig, and Eadicals combined 
 to exaggerate the practical effect of any bill. To men 
 who look on any Eeform Bill, even the widest, as a 
 very partial and very temporary expedient, this vehe- 
 mence common to the three parties is simply incom- 
 prehensible. If this represents the average of political 
 opinion in the educated classes, parliamentary and 
 journalistic cant have certainly done their work. 
 
 In an old country, where an organised social regime 
 exists in full vitality, as it emphatically does in England, 
 the pofitical form counts for very little, and the social 
 system for very much. England is an aristocratic 
 republic, simply because the richer classes have a 
 disciplined social power, in spite of a monarchic consti- 
 tution and a popular franchise. Aristocratic Eepublic 
 it will and must remain, until the roots and fibres of 
 that social fabric are dissolved. Wealth, habit, tradi- 
 tion, skill, every form and influence which governs 
 
154 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 daily life gives to this* real, but ill-defined class, a real 
 but ill-defined supremacy. You cannot destroy all 
 these by an Act of Parliament, a form of suffrage, or a 
 ballot-box. The real power is infinitely subtle, per- 
 vading, and elastic. The political form is crude, 
 limited, and rigid. In its influence upon a nation, the 
 set social system will count as ten, whilst any pohtical 
 method will count as one. Arguments from America, 
 Australia, the French "Revolution, ancient Athens, and 
 the Hyperboreans, are unworthy of a serious answer. If 
 the social system is almost everything, and the pohtical 
 form almost nothing, to compare political forms and 
 take no count of the corresponding social system, is 
 utterly puerile. Arguments from the politics of Laputa, 
 Brobdingnag, and Lilliput, would be more valuable. 
 Americans differ from us because they have a totally 
 different social regime^ not because their constitution is 
 different, for the second is a consequence of the first. 
 The practical effect of universal suffrage is utterly 
 different in Paris and in Melbourne, because the social 
 conditions are utterly different. Post hoc ergo propter 
 hoc is a fallacy more venerable even than the British 
 Constitution. Societies and their pohtical expression 
 rarely coincide, and the first are remotely influenced 
 by the latter. A man's education undoubtedly in- 
 fluences his political bias. But you cannot give a 
 man a good education simply by changing his political 
 party. Nor could you alter a nation's character by a 
 millennium of Franchises and an apotheosis of the 
 Ballot-box. 
 
 Can men on either side of the House be serious 
 
PARLIAMENT BEFORE REFORM (1867). 155 
 
 when they chant jeremiads or jubilees over the sug- 
 gested change ? Was it ever known in this world, or 
 rather in this country, that legislative results even 
 remotely corresponded to constitutional franchises ? 
 Constituencies exist on paper, and their numbers are 
 set forth in the book of Dod. But in practice they melt 
 like defeated armies in a campaign. At the present 
 moment the small shopkeepers and the small farmers 
 form three-foiurths of the electors. On paper they 
 utterly swamp all other classes put together. In 
 actual fact, they are almost ciphers. If a popular 
 franchise swamps property, intelhgence, culture, and 
 independence, they are fathoms deep already, for the 
 destinies of our country are numerically in the hands 
 of the dullest, rudest, most servile, and nearly the 
 poorest class now. But we all know that the nu- 
 merical power is only a form ; that the real political 
 power remains with the real social power. The 
 Eeform of '32 was (on paper) just as much a swamping 
 measure as any other. It gave the poorest class of 
 the electors an overwhelming majority. Conservatives 
 shrieked out that the end of all things was at hand. 
 Yet the moment they had recovered their senses, and 
 the generous ardour of the Whigs had burnt out, this 
 utterly democratic franchise (as indeed on paper it 
 really was) was so manipulated as to return a Parlia- 
 ment of birth and wealth. The suffrage is, to political 
 result, something like a lever inverted — every ton 
 applied produces but a pound of effect.^ 
 
 ^ As we saw in 1874, a large extension of the Suffrage, the Ballot, 
 and new Bribery Laws returned a triumphant Conservative majority. 
 
156 STUDIES OF CRISES, 
 
 It is hence very difficult to devise any Constitutional 
 Eeform which could make any serious and direct 
 effect. Certainly no mere extension of the suffrage 
 could do so. It would be easy, provided it were done 
 in a quiet way, to estabhsh Manhood Suffrage itself, 
 with an ornamental Womanhood Suffrage thrown in to 
 boot, and a whole train of graceful Fancy Franchises 
 in attendance, without materially affecting the nature 
 of the House, certainly without doing more than lead 
 to some useful administrative changes. There are 
 perhaps now not fifty real constituencies in the 
 kingdom. And in half of the remainder you might 
 give the vote to every man, woman, and child without 
 very seriously changing the character of the represen- 
 tatives they return. Five millions are rather more 
 difficult to manage than one million ; but the holders 
 of the real power are a trifling minority in the latter 
 case as well as in the former. So long as things run 
 smooth, votes are ciphers. The solemn absurdity of 
 supposing that votes are the arithmetical equivalent of 
 men or minds strikes us at once when we scrutinise it 
 abroad. Here (except when we are electioneering) 
 this absurdity forms our political gospel. 
 
 A vote may be everything or nothing. Its value 
 wholly depends on the state of the political atmosphere. 
 Universal suffrage in an easy time would produce far 
 less visible result than a narrow franchise in an excited 
 time. It is the heaving of minds and the strain of 
 purpose which produces the end, not the machinery 
 of expression. The effort necessary to carry a legal 
 change produces far more result than the change itself 
 
PARLIAMENT BEFORE REFORM (1867). 157 
 
 The great and useful results whicli undoubtedly suc- 
 ceeded the Bill of '32, were effected by the movement 
 which carried it, not by the Bill itself. We can see 
 now what a poor affair it was in itself. A mere 
 dummy Eeform Bill, over which both sides grew hot, 
 and which both believed to be decisive, would produce 
 twice the result of a sweeping measure which passed 
 unobserved or undisputed. Eeactionists who awaken 
 agitation by resistance are actually creating that con- 
 vulsion of opinion which a reform would effectually 
 stifle, and which in itself produces more practical 
 results than any reform. Those who desire real deep 
 and solid changes in the State have everything to fear 
 from a plausible reform of the constitution. The great 
 danger of true reformers is 'a settlement of the 
 question.'^ 
 
 No doubt, when opinion is thoroughly fired, and a 
 social convulsion has set in, a wide suffrage may 
 become a tremendous reality, and, for a moment, a very 
 marvellous instrument in its hands. But what then ? 
 When the social convulsion exists it can and certainly 
 will produce these results, with or without the legal 
 machinery. A legal form corresponding to its needs 
 may do much to defer and moderate that convulsion. 
 Men who deny their fellow-citizens legalised power, for 
 fear they may use it ill whenever they grow mad, 
 will not find them more tractable when they do become 
 mad, for having never known what legalised power is. 
 Should the working classes ever really take it into their 
 
 ' A lesson enforced on them in January 1874. 
 
158 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 heads to divide the property of the rich amongst them, 
 or commit the other horrible excesses which disturb 
 the dreams of alarmists (who talk as West Indian 
 planters do of a negro insurrection), they are not at all 
 the more hkely to do so, but rather the less likely, by 
 becoming responsible citizens in the State. Should 
 they ever be wound up to Confiscation, it will be of 
 little consequence if they have votes or not. 
 
 The behef in the vote as a constant and measurable 
 thing is the root-sophism of this reform debate. It 
 reaches its limit in the child-like and beautiful form of 
 faith, known as personal representation. No honest 
 man can feel anything but respect for the really noble 
 intellects and characters which have given this theory 
 its power, with some of whom it rests on a profound — 
 but as I hold, a ruinous political and social theory — 
 the theory of individualism ; but it is impossible here 
 to omit it, or to speak of it with gravity. It is in the 
 view here put forth, the pedant's paradise, the millen- 
 nium of ideologues, the zero of poHtics, the reductio ad 
 ahsurdum of representation. Of course it is the strict 
 logical result of the theory of representation. But no 
 one, till now, has been guileless enough to take that 
 theory in earnest as a fact. To assume that each 
 Member of Parliament expresses, or ever in this world 
 can express, the dogmatic convictions of his particular 
 constituency, is like the notion of an intelUgent Man- 
 darin. Political force in a free people is a power in- 
 finitely subtle, sympathetic, elastic, intangible, electric. 
 It is hke life or health in the body. Can you measure, 
 
PARLIAMENT BEFORE REFORM (1867). 159 
 
 weigh, or bottle up vital force ; or parcel it out at so 
 mucli a pound for each organ ? Eepresentation is a 
 rude mechanical contrivance for fixing the most magi- 
 cal of moral forces. You need at present this clumsy 
 expedient, as you may need a crutch ; though it is a 
 test of civilisation to be independent of any mechanical 
 crutch. But to sit down and invent solemn rules and a 
 labyrinth of mathematical formulse for the use of the 
 crutch, when what you want is to learn to trust to your 
 legs, is, in this writer's opinion, worthy only of some 
 professor of Laputa. It is to teach our Bourgeois how 
 to talk prose. The hfe and soul of representation in 
 practice is the contact of man with man, the thrill of 
 social vibration, the ascendency of visible character. 
 Personal representation, where constituencies are formed 
 of scattered units, is but the corpse of representation. 
 It is to anatomise the parent in search of the pro- 
 geny. It is the old method of harmonising opinions, 
 by fitting every man with a new occiput, an infallible 
 specific, said the Professor in the Plying Island, if the 
 operation be performed with the requisite art. Were 
 it estabhshed to-morrow with a wide franchise, its first 
 result would be to let all the unions, friendly societies, 
 and benefit clubs, burial clubs, ' bands of hope,' tee- 
 totallers, and volunteer regiments nominate members 
 straight oiF. In a year or two a house would be 
 returned chiefly by a gigantic pohtical clearing- 
 house, and the entire first return would consist of Mr. 
 Beales, Mr. Spurgeon, Mr. Charles Dickens, Mr. Bright, 
 Mr. George Potter, Mr. Disraeli, Mr. Martin Tupper, 
 
i6o STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Charles Kean, and Lord Eanelagh, 
 each elected by fifty or a hundred constituencies.-^ 
 
 But enough of this and similar nostrums. It will 
 be a sad end for the Constitution, which at least has a 
 great historic past, that in its latter days it should be 
 handed over to the experiments of every projector. 
 Personal representation, plural representation, minority 
 representation, female representation, intellectual re- 
 presentation, equilibrium of interests, and reflection of 
 classes. Magna Charta improved by the Binomial 
 Theorem', the infinitesimal calculus of human wills, 
 government by compensating automaton machines, and 
 every man his just rights according to the Eule of 
 Three. Working-men, who know how social masses 
 Hash into action and reveal their Chief, hear what toys 
 and tricks amuse the sole depositaries of political 
 sagacity ! 
 
 Endless are the webs that can be spun out of the 
 representative aenigma, for the whole conception 
 involves a fallacy at its root. It is useless to point out 
 the ' blots ' of this or that artful mechanism for se- 
 curing perfect representation. The great blot consists 
 in devising any mechanism for an insoluble problem. 
 Each successive Eeform Bill of the season is only 
 another solution of the quadrature of the political 
 circle. And if it is wasting time to discuss theories of 
 Eepresentation, it is worse' to discuss the petty subtle- 
 ties of this or that Bill. The Bill of last year would 
 not have altered the balance of power by one per cent. 
 
 1 I adhere to thisj but how * the bubble reputation* rises and falls I 
 
PARLIAMENT BEFORE REFORM (1867). i6i 
 
 The Bill of this year may alter it somewhat the wrong 
 way, but cannot alter it the right way more than one 
 hundredth per cent. What is wanted is, not to give 
 men votes, but to give them power. The grand object 
 of the ' constitutional ' and ' culture ' factions is to 
 contrive a Bill which shall appear to create a great 
 many new votes, but really create no new influence — 
 an exceedingly easy thing to do, and one which they 
 have at last certainly accomplished.^ The only test of 
 a good Eeform Bill is this : what result would it have 
 in a division on such critical questions as the transfor- 
 mation of the Irish Church, of Irish landlordism, of 
 the game-laws, of long entails. No Eeform Bill is a 
 Eeform Bill unless it would transfer one or two hundred 
 votes from one side to the other in such test questions. 
 To double or treble the existing constituencies, and 
 then to redistribute in a popular spirit about a hundred 
 seats, might do this. But even this would be effective 
 only for a time. 
 
 ^ And worked it to perfection (1874). 
 
 M 
 
1 62 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 ESSAY II. 
 
 PARLIAMENT AFTER REFORM. 
 
 [The following Essay was published in April 1868, when the 
 English Eeform Act of 1867 had been passed, and at a time 
 when the Conservative Government were preparing the Scotch, 
 Irish, and supplementary measures. It was a season when 
 the most extravagant expectations were uttered, by Liberals 
 as well as Conservatives, as to the tremendous consequences 
 of Mr. Disraeli's Act, when three eminent Conservatives had 
 left the party in terror, and when the Cave factions were 
 assuring the world that the end was at hand. Events have 
 proved, I think, that the view submitted in these pages was 
 the true one. I have found nothing to add, and nothing to 
 alter. What I wrote (see Essay VI.) after the Conservative 
 triumph of 1874 is almost identical with what I anticipated 
 in 1868.] 
 
 Section I. — Immediate Effects of the Reform of 1867. 
 
 When, after many strange turns of fortune, the Bour- 
 bons were borne back to power by the recoil of the 
 revolutionary wave, the astute Talleyrand put into the 
 mouth of his master the reassuring mot^ invented by 
 the ingenious Beugnot ; ' Eien n'est change. II n'y a 
 qu'un rran9ais de plus.' So when the tumult of the 
 Eeform tempest was abating, one heard, as it were, 
 our modern Talleyrand, with courtly yet superior 
 
PARLIAMENT AFTER REFORM. 163 
 
 smiles, 'educating' his party to repeat, 'Eien n'est 
 change. II n'y a qu'iin million (i.e. electors, sovereign 
 people, &c.,) de plus/ 
 
 There is food for sad mirth when we watch the 
 discord of opinion which the new Eeform has stirred 
 amongst the wisest of our public guides. ' It is a flea- 
 bite,' cried the jaunty Chancellor of the Exchequer, to 
 whom 800,000,000/. sterling of debt or a few millions 
 of electors have no longer any illusions. ' We have 
 only made their existing majority a little bigger,' 
 growled the heir-apparent of Conservatism, with his 
 incorrigible good sense. 'Ah! Middle Class, Middle 
 Class ! so good, so great, so unselfish ! ' wailed out like 
 Cassandra the great soul of Mr. Lowe ; ' educate, 
 educate this sovereign mob, and at least soften the 
 ferocity of our new masters.' ' Traitor! God will yet 
 save the Throne and the Altar ! ' muttered the Quarterly 
 in its wrath, mingling prayers with curses. ' Niagara ! 
 Beales and ragamuffins ! Pit of Tophet ! and Chaos- 
 come-again ! ' shrieked forth that old prophet — old 
 prophet now grown unpleasingly shrill and, indeed, 
 unpleasingly rude — not at all the ' politest of men.' ^ 
 And even Culture, hke the dying swan, hath sung a 
 dirge, and, smoothing her ruffled plumes with conscious 
 art, awaits the crack of Anarchy and Doom. ' See,' 
 
 ^ Few things in this controversy have been more foolish and unjust 
 than the coarse abuse of a true-hearted and cultivated gentleman who 
 sympathises with the people, one who has done more than any living 
 man to keep popular excitement within constitutional and out of revolu- 
 tionary lines. The people even in this country have never had a more 
 honourable, a more gentle, and a more educated leader. He is as much 
 above his assailants in knowledge and moderation as he is in chivalry of 
 nature (1868). 
 
 M 2 
 
i64 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 wails that transcendent bird, ' this sad canaille wants 
 to be up and doing. Adieu authority, philosophy, 
 criticism, and art! Farewell the grand manner, the 
 air of distinction — great Style is dead ! ' ^ 
 
 Which of all these is the truth ? Is it nothing, or 
 is it the Deluge ? Is it a party manoeuvre, or is it the 
 grand climacteric of the British Constitution? This 
 question it is now proposed to consider apart from the 
 conventional dogmas of party. Let us rid our minds 
 for a space of the cant of journalism and Parliament 
 about representation and party, and ask ourselves 
 quietly. What does it really mean? The wonderful 
 contradictions between our public authorities as to the 
 results of the Act are made still more wonderful by the 
 fact that they are all contradicting themselves. It is 
 Toryism which is so triumphant over a Eadical change, 
 and Liberalism which is dismayed at the fulfilment of 
 its dearest hopes. The men who should be the first to 
 suffer by the change are the least alarmed, and those 
 who have got their desires are the most dissatisfied. 
 The performers have all changed parts, so that we 
 hardly recognise our oldest favourites. The position 
 of the author of the Act, which has enabled him to 
 ' ruin the country,' he originally obtained by the belief 
 that he was the one man who could avert that ruin. 
 
 ^ Culture, the great critical, artistic, and literary movement of our 
 age, somehow took fright at the Ilefonn movement, and, why I never 
 could understand, imagined that tlie enemies of the Constitution were 
 aiming a blow at her. At any rate she threatened to take flight from 
 this noisy world altogether. I trust, with the Constitutional Party safe 
 in power, she will stay to delight us in poetry, religion, and taste. What 
 yhe had to do with Reforms, or Reform with her, I never saw, and cannot 
 yet see (1875). 
 
PARLIAMENT AFTER REFORM. 165 
 
 Most persons think that the old prophet has been 
 rather slow to recognise his aptcrros, and has done a 
 good deal in his time to bring him into contempt ; and 
 it is a quaint conceit of Culture to restore Authority by 
 majestic patronage of the unenhghtened 'Barbarian.' 
 The noble savage has a chance yet, it appears. 
 
 Let us try calmly to consider the actual political 
 situation. It will be quite unnecessary to enter into 
 calculations as to the effect of the new Eeform in towns 
 or counties, the mysteries of personal rating, and the 
 minority conundrum. The astute gentlemen, the par- 
 liamentary agents, who work the stage tricks and sub- 
 scenic trap-doors of the British Constitution are the 
 only people who know anything about it, and even 
 they do not know much, because, after all, electors are 
 not bricks and mortar, and it is more difficult to 
 calculate householders than to calculate houses. It is 
 quite certain that a very large addition has been made 
 to the constituencies, all from the wages-receiving class, 
 which, with those previously on the roll, will give that 
 class a clear numerical majority ; or if well-informed 
 persons insist that the small householders will not 
 obtain a place on the register, this is, after all, a ques- 
 tion of time and a matter of detail. Whether the new 
 Eeform is to give us half a million or a million of new 
 electors, whether it is to come into practical operation 
 in '69 or in '79, is a question of minor importance. 
 The important matter is that, in the political balance, 
 the working classes are legally in possession of a great 
 numerical preponderance. 
 
 The point to consider is, what does this imply? 
 
i66 STUDIES OF CRISES, 
 
 Because nothing is so certain a test of ignorance as to 
 confound in politics numerical with practical force. 
 In problems of pure mechanics it is usual to eliminate 
 the question of friction ; in political and social problems 
 it frequently counts for from 50 to 90 per cent. What 
 must be allowed for friction in the working of the new 
 electoral machine ? ^ 
 
 Let , us take the various items of the problem in 
 tiurn, duly setting down jpro and con. There can be 
 no doubt that working men are not likely to arrive 
 instantaneously at the mysteries of the sixty-one clauses 
 and seven schedules of the Act which the House of 
 Commons found it so hard to follow, and crowds of 
 potential electors will not come into the register at all. 
 This, however, is a question of time and of party 
 organisation alone. As soon as the working of the 
 Act is properly understood, and when any adequate 
 object is open as the prize of electioneering energy, the 
 new engine will be exerted to its highest pressiu*e. 
 If the strength of the old ramparts lies only in the 
 chance that the invaders may overlook the breach, the 
 impregnability of the fortress can hardly be looked 
 upon as permanent. 
 
 But the real question is, how will the new electors 
 act when they get to the poll, for thither by a short 
 course or a long course they will infallibly come at 
 last ? To suppose that the chosen representatives of 
 the new constituencies will be the mechanical reflex of 
 their individual minds would be gratuitous pedantry. 
 It never has been so, and it never will be. Elections 
 are decided, not by numbers, but by forces ; they are 
 
PARLIAMENT AFTER REFORM. 167 
 
 won like battles by strokes of fortune and energy, not 
 like competitive examinations by the mere summation 
 of marks. It would be more true to say that members 
 are returned by spontaneous and variable groups or 
 knots of men, over which the constituency, as a whole, 
 has at most the right of veto. It is so wherever the 
 opinion of a body of men takes shape, whether as the 
 audience of a theatre, as the panel in a jury-box, or as 
 guests at a dinner-table. We see one or two energetic 
 natures or social superiorities modified by accident, 
 misconception, or intrigue, determine the result. Men 
 never meet together anywhere. Convocation always 
 excepted, without deciding like an organic whole, and 
 not like an aggregate of atoms. And perhaps no single 
 member of the House of Commons, unless it be a 
 member for an University, truly reflects the average 
 mind of those who elect him. It would need a book 
 to trace the modes in which these forces act. Now 
 power, now prestige, discipline, enthusiasm, wealth, 
 loyalty, luck, and stupidity from time to time enable 
 a party to carry their man under favourable conditions. 
 But of all these, except the last, the most constant 
 influence after all is that form of power which is the 
 necessary attribute of wealth when it has wide ramifi-^ 
 cations, and holds numbers of men in its grasp. 
 
 If these forces have always moved the decisions of 
 masses of men, and if the most permanent of these 
 forces be the power of wealth, what earthly cause will 
 prevent their continuing to operate hereafter? The 
 Eeform Bill has abolished the famous compounder, but 
 it has not abolished human nature. Wealth and its 
 
i68 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 public influence will always be felt in any society, and 
 it is quite right that it should be so. How much more 
 in a social system so complex and well knit as ours? 
 Every one who has looked attentively into the prospects 
 of at least the forthcoming elections sees how very 
 strong wealth and rank are certain to prove. So long 
 as it is at all fair sailing, the bulk of the men who sit 
 in St. Stephen's will be the same hearty and sensible 
 gentlemen who now give the tone to that distinguished 
 Club. And so long as that is the case, the pit of 
 Tophet and Chaos-come-again will be adjourned, at 
 any rate, till this day six months. 
 
 Then there is what in the language of the day is 
 called the residuum. No doubt at all exists but that 
 a large number of the possible new electors are at 
 present much below the intelligence of the average 
 town workman, and may be moved by corruption, 
 coercion, or ostentation. Perhaps for one election or 
 so it will be found that the Bill has rather widened 
 than diminished the area of bribery ; and it is far from 
 impossible that by their energy, lavish expenditure, 
 and the personal popularity of many Tories of wealth 
 or rank, a Conservative majority may be seated in '69. 
 Watch the strength of the party even in the great 
 northern towns, in Leeds, Liverpool, and Birmingham. 
 Study the history of the last election at that model 
 people's borough of Bradford. Eeflect on that strange 
 partisanship of visible power which the untaught poor 
 so readily put on — half schoolboy, half-menial, as 
 when a crowd on a racecourse cheers the colours of 
 a popular nobleman. 
 
PARLIAMENT AFTER REFORM. 169 
 
 So far pro the theory that things are not much 
 changed by the Bill. There is, however, some- 
 thing to be said fer contra. The great fact of the 
 new franchise is this, — one which has been too per- 
 sistently ignored. The class admitted essentially differ 
 in kind from the old. The old constituencies stopping 
 short below the small shopkeepers, just took in the 
 classes who form a recognised part of the social body 
 from the capitalist point of view. They all had, and 
 they were there by virtue of having, at least some 
 small amount of realised wealth. They all employed 
 some others. They all belonged to the officer class 
 of the social army, even though the bulk were only 
 sergeants or corporals. They all had a native vene- 
 ration for property, and all the notions, superstitious 
 or rational, which our social history has accumulated 
 round that idea. You could not point the moral of a 
 duke's deer-forest without making the cheesemonger 
 wince. 
 
 All this is changed now in the constituencies. 
 There is now not only a large number, but a great 
 majority of the electors who have no property at all. 
 Many of them have not half-a-crown on a Saturday 
 morning. They are simply full privates in the rank 
 and file, and not even corporals. -They employ no one, 
 but are all employed by others. They never have 
 been admitted as full members of the responsible part 
 of society. The theory has been, that the State took 
 care of them ; not that they took care of the State. 
 They would talk over the duke's deer-forest upon 
 general principles, as they might discuss Divine Eight 
 
I70 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 or the feudal system, without any sense of profanity or 
 indecorum in handhng such a delicate topic. It is a 
 wild calumny in those who pretend that the working 
 classes are hostile to the institution of property, or will 
 destroy it the moment they obtain the power. They 
 have a deep and healthy respect for it in itself— indeed, 
 a truer and nobler sense of its functions than any other 
 class, for they recognise its duties. But the gross 
 superstition in which its worship is siurounded here 
 they do not share, that superstition which Mr. Mill so 
 justly finds to be barely intelligible. They venerate 
 property ; but they venerate still more social well- 
 being, of which it is the creature and the instrument. 
 They have never .been reared in that fierce, jealous, 
 absorbing, and blind devotion to property, in all its 
 accidents and phases, as a holy and inefiable mystery, 
 such as w^e find it in those who have breathed from 
 childhood the aristocratic or commercial atmosphere of 
 this island. They have not been nursed from their 
 cradles in the ever-present sense of its beneficent 
 mercies. To acquire the true British dogged instinct 
 of property you must be, as it were, ' to the manner 
 born/ 
 
 As it is with property, so is it with the other grand 
 pillars of our social system. The working classes have 
 a real regard for our Queen ; but, as an institution, 
 the monarchy is to them a fact, not a dispensation. 
 They are not disaffected towards the Constitution, but 
 they have no vital and saving faith in it, and they never 
 will have. They accept the status quo^ and that is the 
 end of it. The Chiurch and the rest follow in the same 
 
PARLIAMENT AFTER REFORM. 171 
 
 manner. The beautiful mechanism of our glorious 
 Constitution ; the subtler mysteries of our adminis- 
 trative and parliamentary organism ; the wheels within 
 wheels of self-government, which our cheesemonger 
 feels down to the sacred independence of his own 
 weights and measures ; the grand ideal of the parish ; 
 the knotted torso of our colossal law ; and all that 
 which culminates in the jury-box of our Saxon an- 
 cestors, — these are venerable things which the workman 
 half- admires and half-wonders at, like the objects of 
 antiquity in the British Museum, understanding here 
 and there. They are things which he has never been 
 called upon practically to work, and of which he has 
 never in person realised the blessings. Thus he has 
 none of our cheesemonger's abiding sense of personal 
 interest in the ' system.' He accepts the system, but 
 he is not of it. The ' system,' if you come to argue it, 
 is with him an open question. 
 
 Now the want of a very definite enthusiasm for the 
 British constitution would not be of any singular im- 
 portance if the moral and intellectual tone of the new 
 electors were at all the same as of the old. But they 
 are utterly unlike. There is no greater break in our 
 class hierarchy than that between the lowest of the 
 propertied classes and the highest of the non-proper- 
 tied classes. In all that makes political force, in 
 breadth of view, in power of combination, in social 
 spirit, and in loyalty to their leaders, the latter are 
 superior. It is just this difference in moral qualities 
 between the two which men persist in forgetting. The 
 trader, whatever his rank in his own class, by the 
 
172 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 conditions of his life is absorbed in petty economic 
 details, is harassed by the anxieties of traffic, trained 
 to ceaseless competition ; jealous, cautious, self-con- 
 tained, and intensely and narrowly practical. These 
 are just the qualities which make the fortune, but un- 
 make the politician. What helpless puppets in Par- 
 liament are those keen men of business, whose wary 
 genius has amassed fortunes! What a spectacle of 
 mean stupidity is the typical cheesemonger crowing on 
 his own vestry ! The w^orkman, whatever his rank in 
 his own order, makes a type just the reverse — impru- 
 dent, generous, social, and imaginative. The only 
 occupation for his brain is the study of public questions ; 
 his only strength is in combination ; his ignorance of 
 all the instincts and habits of business makes him prone 
 to visions, Utopias, doctrines ; whilst his moral nature 
 having no true opening except in domestic and social 
 feeling, his whole strength is given to unreflective and 
 unsystematised ideas. Half the bitterness with which 
 the battle of Unionism rages between the employing 
 and employed classes is due to the fact that the workman 
 cannot conceive men seriously choosing to live under 
 the system of competition, and the capitalist cannot 
 conceive men honestly preferring the rule of combina- 
 tion. Both systems and both these characters have 
 their great merits, and both are indispensable to the 
 welfare of society. But political vigoiu* belongs to the 
 social, more than to the individual type. 
 
 The workmen of course have their special failings, 
 looseness of thought, credulity, ignorance, and a naif 
 readiness to settle things offhand which makes thought- 
 
PARLIAMENT AFTER REFORM. 173 
 
 ful men shudder. These would make them ver}^ bad 
 administrators or senators, no doubt. But they are 
 not exactly political weaknesses. On the contrary, 
 they just lead them to that temper of enthusiasm, 
 energy, and faith in themselves which make a set of 
 men formidable. The result is that they are fired by 
 ideas to a degree that no other class in the community 
 are; and then they act with a decision which is 
 startling to men accustomed to the intricacies of 
 business. In place of that stony impenetrability to 
 mere doctrines which marks the whole business class, 
 the workmen have an overabundant proneness to them. 
 It is the fashion to talk of the English impatience of 
 mere ideas, and this phrase is just an instance of this 
 stony impenetrability itself. It is the mark of the 
 governing classes and the commercial classes proper, 
 and of them alone. The great English brains, the 
 poets, the thinkers, and the moralists are pre-eminently 
 gifted with ideas, and the bulk of the English people 
 have at least their fair share. The typical wooden 
 ' practical ' man represents only about a tenth of our 
 people, — -just the classes which have been saturated 
 with Constitutionalism and Protestantism. The brains 
 and the hands are perfectly free both from cause and 
 effect. When the practical Englishman stumbles against 
 what he concludes is an idea, he at once cries out that 
 it is a French importation, just as some persons denounce 
 morcellement if any one speaks of the land. The 
 capacity for political ideas is not French, it is only 
 democratic. We call it French because the democracy 
 in France is more in the ascendant than here. But it 
 
174 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 belongs to the democracy of Europe, and to the English 
 as much as to any. 
 
 The English democracy, in fact, are acutely sus- 
 ceptible of ideas — indeed, are the only large class in 
 England who are — and capable of heartily combining 
 to carry those ideas into practical result. But it is not 
 merely a capacity for ideas : it is a capacity for gener- 
 ous sentiments which marks their aim. The ideas 
 which dominate them are ideas of social good, of a 
 higher order of life, of mutual help, not always very 
 wise, but usually vigorous. Along with this is a 
 spontaneous turn for combination, organisation, and 
 adhesion to leaders, — a quality eminently un-English, 
 if nothing is English but what is middle class — but 
 eminently English, if it is possible to be at once English 
 and republican. In spite of all the merriment which it 
 may occasion to some sprightly persons, I deliberately 
 repeat that the upper orders of the workmen possess 
 higher and stronger social capabilities than any other 
 class. This is not identical with political wisdom, but 
 it is identical with political force. The point is really 
 a matter on which mere literary criticism can give us 
 nothing but hons mots. Those only who have known 
 in personal friendship the better as well as the average 
 men of this order can fairly estimate their value. The 
 conditions of public agitation in England are unusually 
 dangerous to the prominent agitators of all classes, and 
 the working class, like the rest, would suffer unjustly, 
 if judged by all those who profess to speak in their 
 name. It is usual, moreover, to forget how completely 
 the artificial training of the educated pubhc imposes a 
 
PARLIAMENT AFTER REFORM. 175 
 
 conventional restraint of manner on all that they do, 
 and that uneducated workmen are wholly unskilled in 
 the art of casting a plausible veil over their weaknesses. 
 The jealousies, the vanity, the intrigues to which 
 statesmen give high constitutional names, are seen in 
 the people in their crude and naked deformity. 
 Nothing but long habit and study can enable us truly 
 to estimate a class which society regards in effect as 
 something hke another nation or race. And opinions 
 not based on such knowledge may be excellent epi- 
 grams, but they are not evidence. 
 
 It is this proneness to general ideas, this instinct of 
 falling into discipline, and active sympathy with leaders, 
 which marks off the workman so distinctly from the 
 shopkeeper. They differ more completely than men in 
 the same nation living side by side often do. Consider 
 the intense enthusiasm which men like Mr. Gladstone, 
 Mr. Bright, and Mr. Mill awaken in the mind of the 
 working class. It may give them some day a force 
 before which the vestries will wither up like tow. The 
 writer was the other day exploring a coal mine, and 
 chancing to ask some grimy bare colliers, hewing away 
 in the dim air, in what part of the workings we were, 
 they told him with some pride that they called it the 
 ' Mill End,' after the member for Westminster. A trifle 
 this, but a matter for thought, that those rough hewers, 
 groping all their night of days in those choking cells of 
 coal could be thinking of the author of a ' System of 
 Logic ' and of the pamphlet on the Condition of 
 Ireland. Perhaps it is right to add, that the colhers 
 were not drinking champagne. 
 
176 STUDIES OF CRISES, 
 
 Again, the argument respecting the residuurtt must 
 not be pushed too far. No doubt the lower strata of 
 the new constituencies, chiefly in the small boroughs, 
 have very dubious pohtical vktues, and may for one or 
 two elections prove very tractable indeed. But what 
 a fool's paradise to trust in as a permanence ! As the 
 small constituencies are disfranchised, and the growth 
 of education advances, and the power of the working 
 class becomes consolidated, it is inevitable that work- 
 men of all classes will more or less amalgamate. In 
 ordinary times there would be much to keep them 
 distinct. Great is beer, especially seductive whilst 
 men are tolerably comfortable and have bread to eat 
 with the beer. But let us see a great national panic or 
 passion ; wait till some fixed idea seizes on the popular 
 mind like a religion, and where will the power of beer 
 be then ? 
 
 The desperate attempt of the opponents of Unionism 
 to stir up the lower strata of workmen against the 
 higher has proved a complete failure. It is very well 
 for the governing classes to rely on the residuum now, 
 but what will it be when the people are violently 
 aroused — the time when you really want your residuum ? 
 King Bomba relied on his residuum — the lazzaroni of 
 Naples ; and they did him good service before the 
 earth began to rock beneath him. But on which side 
 were the lazzaroni when Garibaldi came ? 
 
 This being true of the new electors, the old ways of 
 managing constituencies must be somewhat revised. 
 All the old influences of self-interest, habit, prestige, 
 great as they will be, will not carry the weight they 
 
PARLIAMENT AFTER REFORM. 177 
 
 have hitherto done. The governing classes will have 
 to learn a new style of governing. In stepping from 
 the wages-giving to the wages-receiving class, they have 
 passed into a new moral and social atmosphere. The 
 old principles of human nature and our social order 
 will be the same, but the system will be essentially 
 modified, and subject to very new and remarkable im- 
 pulses. 
 
 In fact, the change which has been made is one 
 which, from its nature, cannot be immediately tested. 
 It is not that a great revolution has been effected, but 
 that great possibilities of revolution have. Until the 
 fountains of the great deep are opened, all will remain 
 very much as before. Power and wealth will control 
 elections ; the rich governing class will furnish nine- 
 teen-twentieths of the members. The corrupt boroughs, 
 the bribery system, the nominee system, the jobbing 
 system will perish hard and slowly. Eank will exert 
 its time-honoured spell, petty interests will divide 
 constituencies as of old, and Beer will be king time 
 and again. The Millennium that the Eadical hails, the 
 Chaos that the Tory dreads, are alike the creation of 
 delusion or of panic. The whole thing is in embryo as 
 yet. The workmen are capable of great transforming 
 ideas, it is true ; but the ideas are not forthcoming — 
 they have yet to be framed, or at least to be promul- 
 gated. They have a great sense of adhesion to their 
 chiefs ; but great revolutionary chiefs are in their 
 cradles, or at school. The workmen have a native 
 instinct for vigorous action. But the social force of 
 
 N 
 
178 STUDIES OF CRISES, 
 
 Conservatism is at present quite paramount.^ Hence, 
 with ideas still incoherent and unset, without imme- 
 diate leaders of any genius, and a dense phalanx of 
 material opposition before them, the new electors are 
 certainly not likely to sweep the board ; and to all 
 appearance we may say that nothing is changed, but 
 that there are a million of new electors, more or less — 
 nothing, that is to say, on the surface. 
 
 Has nothing, then, been done? and have the 
 rhetoric and the vigils of so many sessions been in 
 vain ? Yes ! an immense work has been done. By 
 transposing the legal balance of power from the wages- 
 paying to the wages-earning class, a great moral change 
 has been effected. The new power will slowly con- 
 solidate and feel its strength, and will be long in doing 
 so. But in the meantime the barriers and outworks 
 which fenced about the arcana of State are gone. The 
 veil of the temple (reared by the Whigs in '88) has 
 been rent asunder, and priests, acolytes, and worshippers 
 are mingled together in a mass. The elaborate system 
 of checks and counter-checks by which the great and 
 good men who have governed us for two centimes kept 
 public opinion at bay is all gone, at any rate in strict- 
 ness of law. Formerly, what a jungle of pubhc meet- 
 ings, of deputations, of parliamentary resolutions, of 
 press eloquence, of battling in committees, and lobbying 
 of members did it need to pass a single acknowledged 
 reform into law ! Now, as by law is ordained, the 
 people have only really to wish a thing done, and to 
 
 * As was overwhelmingly proved, six years after this was written, in 
 February 1874. 
 
PARLIAMENT AFTER REFORM. 
 
 179 
 
 mean to have it done, and it will be done. They are 
 not likely to attempt it, but the process is infinitely 
 simplified if they did.^ The old British Constitution, 
 as invented by the savioiu-s of society at that great and 
 glorious era, resembled nothing in the world so much 
 as the famous automaton chessman. In that ingenious 
 toy the amazed spectator was shown a multitude of 
 wheels, cranks, and pulleys ; saw the clockwork 
 elaborately wound up, and heard it move with a 
 strange and rumbling sound. The pieces, we know, 
 were all the time really worked by a concealed player 
 behind, who viewed the board through the sleeve of 
 the figure, behind which sleeve he no doubt occasion- 
 ally laughed at his dupes. Mr. DisraeH now, who 
 loves a surprise, has simply opened the doors, discarded 
 the clockwork, and shown us the man. The wheels 
 and the pulleys are not needed now ; we shall hear nO' 
 more that strange and rumbling sound ; we see our 
 man, and we sit down to play a simple game of chess — 
 king, bishop, knight, and pawn — and no legerdemain 
 for the future. 
 
 To sum up then the various features of this great 
 change, we may say that they are indirect, not direct ;. 
 future, not immediate ; latent, not on the surface. In 
 a word, it is a moral change ; a new power, a new 
 tone, new possibihties exist. The old class of men,, 
 or men very hke them, for the present will continue 
 to sit in the House, but under very different con- 
 ditions, and with an altered sense of responsibihty. 
 
 * I must admit that there are no signs of this as yet (1875). 
 
 N 2 
 
i8o STUDIES OF CRISES, 
 
 When the legal supremacy in the State is vested 
 in an order of men in whom, at least, is latent 
 motive power so vast — men craving for something to 
 be done, capable of blazing up some day if they 
 find nothing done — perhaps something will be done. 
 The victorious soldiers of Cassar are no longer on 
 the Ehine or the Ehone, separated by half a con- 
 tinent from a majestic senate at home. They have not 
 biurst in upon the State, but they stand beside the 
 Eubicon, whilst our conscript fathers anxiously deli- 
 berate in the Capitol. 0, conscript fathers, be wise in 
 time, for there is little to keep them from crossing that 
 historic stream ! 
 
PARLIAMENT AFTER REFORM. i8i 
 
 Section II. — Possible Ejects of Reform. 
 
 Having thus tried to weigh the force of the new element 
 which has been brought in, let us turn to the condition 
 of the old elements which remain. For it will be of 
 small consequence that the invading force is strong, if 
 the defending retains undiminished strength. But does 
 it ? It is impossible to get over the impression that the 
 Great Surrender of last year has in it the character of 
 panic. Explain it as men will, there was about it 
 the air of irresolution, of distrust, and disorganisation 
 which mark a retreat. Now in a retreat it is the first 
 league backwards which is decisive, and is never taken 
 till all morale is gone. The trumpets of the besiegers 
 gave no sound so overwhelming — indeed, many thought 
 it somewhat discordant and thin — and lo ! the walls of 
 Jericho fell, to the astonishment equally of those within 
 and those without. A party which thus ' turns its back 
 upon itself with no adequate motive, and with every 
 appearance of not intending to do so, has given fatal 
 symptoms of deep-seated weakness within. 
 
 It is a very striking, and from any point of view a 
 very ominous fact, how feeble the various forms of 
 authority are growing in this country. Ministers, 
 Governments, ParHaments, parties, all yield to a mere 
 push, squeeze with a slight pressure, collapse mys- 
 
1 8a STUDIES OF CRISES, 
 
 teriously without warning. A ministry now dare 
 hardly bring in a bill to touch a corporation. If the 
 corporation struggles, a cabinet trembles down to its 
 subordinates, and yields, procrastinates, or compro- 
 mises. Governments are plainly unable to keep a mob 
 in check, and are afraid to try unless they have twenty 
 thousand shopkeepers as special constables to back 
 them. The whole House of Commons dares not face 
 a committee of indignant pork-butchers. A cabinet 
 minister has a poor chance with a vestryman. And a 
 gas company can flout King, Lords, and Commons. 
 The very principle of Authority for good ends as well 
 as bad has been put to scorn by the weakness of men 
 in authority. They do not believe in themselves, and 
 they do not believe in each other. 
 
 Now the serious side of the loss of 'prestige to 
 authority is that in this country it is practically de- 
 nuded of real power. The Emperor of Eussia might 
 very safely inaugiu^ate universal suffrage ; and the 
 Emperor of the French can hold his own in spite of it. 
 The master of eighty legions has always his material 
 strength to fall back on, if he gets the worst of an elec- 
 tion or a debate. A centralised bureaucratic system 
 gives a great resisting force to the hand that commands 
 the Executive. Our Executive has nothing to fall 
 back upon. There are practically no reserves. The 
 few bayonets and sabres here and there are perfectly 
 powerless before the masses, if the people really took it 
 into their heads to move ; beside which it is an instru- 
 ment that they dare not in practice rely on. A few 
 redcoats may be called on to suppress a vulgar riot ; 
 
PARLIAMENT AFTER REFORM. 183 
 
 but the first blood of the people shed by troops in a 
 really popular cause would, as we all know, make the 
 Briton boil in a very ugly manner. There are only 
 the pohce, hardly a match for the 'roughs,' as we 
 know to our cost. The Government would be mad 
 which seriously attempted to face an angry people on 
 the strength of seven thousand police staves. It was 
 very easy to abuse an unlucky set of ministers about 
 Hyde Park. But what were they to do ? To have 
 used the army would have been the end of the British 
 constitution. There were seven thousand policemen, 
 but what are they among so many ? ^ The Executive 
 in this country has absolutely nothing to fall back upon 
 but the special constable, the moral support of the 
 cheesemonger and the pork-butcher. Eeal and power- 
 ful so long as the pork-butcher is in good humour. 
 But wait till the windows of the pork-shop are being 
 smashed, and all about a quarrel to keep you in office, 
 and you will see the ungrateful pork-butcher turn and 
 rend you like one of his own herd. 
 
 Executive system (if system it can be called) is in 
 this country so utterly disjointed and weak that its 
 material forces in resistance are almost nothing. Pro- 
 perty has, no doubt, an enormous social and moral vis 
 inerticB. But Government, as such, has singularly 
 small material forces. Our greatest soldier in this age 
 saw it perfectly, and so did Lord Derby last year.^ 
 
 * The Force has been happily increased, and in spite of evident cor- 
 ruption in its legal relations, is no doubt better organised. But one can 
 hardly think it yet at all adequate for the tremendous duties it might 
 have to perform. Soldiers are for political reasons useless in England. 
 
 ^ There can be little doubt now that the famous Hyde Park riot was 
 
l84 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 The fact is that our pohtical organism of the consti- 
 tutional type was based on a totally different theory 
 from that of force at all. The governing classes never 
 pretended to rely on force. They trusted to maintain 
 their supremacy by their social power, and their skill 
 in working the machine. Local self-government, re- 
 presentation of the people, civil liberty, was all the cry, 
 until at last the tone of English public life became 
 saturated with ideas of rule by consent, and not by 
 force. Very excellent theories of a certain kind — but 
 you must abide by them, and never dream of force, for 
 you have cut yourself off from the right to appeal to 
 it. The least suggestion of force puts the governing 
 classes in an outrageously false position, and arrays 
 against them all the noble sentiments of liberty on 
 which they based their own title to rule. Club blus- 
 terers jeering at trades' unionists in Pall Mall may talk 
 about grapeshot and dragoons, but men with heads on 
 their shoulders know that an appeal to force would be 
 
 an unpremeditated chance medley, arising out of an idle crowd eager for 
 a frolic. I now know positively that the League never anticipated any 
 violence, and Mr. Beales did not hear of any violence having occurred till 
 late at night. After the riot very dangerous elements really appeared. 
 There was the complete preparation for a grand street fight. I know of 
 men of good position who travelled up to London from the North to 
 fight, and that clerks in business houses had their rifles beside their 
 desks. But all this was after the suppression of the riot, and simply its 
 consequence. The rails were shaken down by an idle crowd, with no 
 political purpose or instigation, as a mere piece of street mischief. After- 
 wards political forces of a fighting kind came on to the scene, or rather 
 behind the scenes. The Reform Act was partly the result. It is diffi- 
 cult to see what else the Government of Lord Derby could have done, 
 the mistake having been made originally of closing Ilyde Park, without 
 adequate force. Whatever the critics may say, was it worth risking 
 blood and fire in London for the sake of a petty change in the electoni 
 system ? 
 

 PARLIAMENT AFTER REFORI^: '' 1,85 
 
 the end of English society ; and what, is^^even Inere to , j 
 the purpose, that there is no force to^4pP^^l''^^ 
 Hence it comes that so many proud fortresses "of Con- '; • 
 servatism have been surrendered at discretion '1:|y^ ^-^y^ 
 commanders who felt with a pang that their magazines / 
 were absolutely empty. During the American war the 
 Northern armies were long kept at bay by some tre- 
 mendous earthworks bristling with cannon. One night 
 the trenches were silently evacuated, and the terrible 
 pieces were found to be painted wood. So for years 
 the governing classes had kept Democracy at bay 
 behind some imposing ramparts. But one day the 
 Eeform League discovered that they were mounted with 
 canvas and logs. 
 
 So that however feeble the forces of progress may 
 be, they can hardly be feebler than those of Conser- 
 vatism. But this feebleness in material strength is 
 nothing to the feebleness of motive principles and 
 ideas. In the days of Burke or Pitt, nay, of Castle- 
 reagh and Canning, there was a potent and deep en- 
 thusiasm for the system as a whole, and a real faith of 
 its resting on truth and reason. Who has any enthu- 
 siasm for the system now? A few clever men find 
 their account in defending it with purely professional 
 zeal. But as a rule the men of brain are heartily 
 weary and ashamed of it. In fact, the intellectual class 
 is cordially disaffected. They despise the whole appa- 
 ratus, they dislike it intensely, and they resent its thrall. 
 The constitutional, Protestant, mercantile imposture 
 they can in their hearts endure no more. The rehgion 
 of Parliament, Bible, and Free Trade has degenerated 
 
1 86 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 into a self-seeking cant. They feel in how many things 
 this system falls short of much that is seen in every 
 continental system, how much more it fall^ short of any 
 decent ideal. It is this stony impenetrability to ideas, 
 of which the British middle class have made a sort of 
 gospel, and in which the aristocratic class (who ought 
 to know better) please to encourage them, that so 
 revolts a man of any cultivation and a grain of imagi- 
 nation. Where is such an one to be found, not abso- 
 lutely absorbed in politics or business, who is not 
 visibly mocking at the whole apparatus in his heart ? 
 A lively writer of this class has opportunely trans- 
 planted the German name of Philistine. This happily 
 describes that insiurrection of the brain against the 
 official and mercantile thrall which has driven those 
 who believe in the force of ideas into closer sympathy 
 with the people. 
 
 If there be anything in this, it is clear that the rule 
 of this country will have shortly to be carried on under 
 very altered conditions. There is nothing to drive any 
 one into a paroxysm of alarm. It would be most un- 
 reasonable to accuse the present or any other writer 
 who tries to examine the facts as they are, of incendiary 
 designs. We do not create this state of things ; we 
 only point to its consequences. This is obviously not 
 the language of demagoguism, but of criticism. The 
 fact remains. The Government of this country has 
 hereafter to be carried on under new conditions. 
 
 Now let us cast om- eyes back for a few generations 
 over the history of oiu- actual parhamentary Govern- 
 ment. In form and in name, since the 'great and 
 
PARLIAMENT AFTER REFORM. 187 
 
 glorious ' era, the elected representatives of the nation 
 have ruled this country. But no man in his senses 
 really beheves that a motley crowd of 658 (or whatever 
 else be now the magical number) have really governed 
 anything. The grand commercial and colonial develop- 
 ment of the last century, the Indian empire, the 
 tremendous duel with the French Ee volution, the great 
 Liberal policy which culminated in free trade, were 
 not carried out by an executive mob. Practically the 
 governing class, a true aristocracy, possessed the entire 
 control over Parliament and the executive machine. 
 Like every other aristocracy with any life in it, they 
 followed the great houses, and the great houses put 
 forward and supported capable administrators. The 
 Government accordingly was really and essentially an 
 aristocracy ; not in itself the highest type of govern- 
 ment, as this w^as far from being the pinkest type of an 
 aristocracy, but still a form of government quite capable 
 of ruhng a great country's destinies with some initiative 
 and some vigour: and if with no great foresight, at 
 least wnthout collapse. 
 
 But of late the popular element admitted to Par- 
 liament by the Eeform of 1832 has been steadily 
 growing in extent, until their effective hold over Par- 
 liament and the Executive has almost slipped from the 
 governing class. England is now hardly an aristocracy 
 except socially, and for purposes of resistance. Pohti- 
 cally, the governing class hold office, but they do not 
 rule. What they did to the monarchy has been done 
 to them. They reign, but do not govern. They can 
 prevent anything being done, but they cannot do any- 
 
1 88 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 thing. Their power of initiation is reduced to a 
 minimum ; their power of compulsion to zero. It has 
 gone so far that they forswear as an odious imputation 
 the suggestion of ever dreaming to initiate anything or 
 compel any body, and real government impKes initia- 
 tive as well as compulsion. Hence a House of Commons 
 and a Government which talk, and cozen, and pro- 
 crastinate, and compromise, and smother everything in 
 turn. In fact, under the constitutional regime., govern- 
 ment was only possible because the practice did not 
 correspond with the theory; and now they have 
 changed it so that the practice must ultimately corre- 
 spond with the theory. 
 
 Unluckily, however, this silent crumbling of the 
 governmental edifice (forsooth as raised by the great 
 and good men of '88) occurs just at the very epoch 
 when a vigorgus working machine is particularly 
 needed. Direct parliamentary government is a potent 
 institution in its own sphere. There are many things 
 which it can effect in a very spirited w^y. The re- 
 moval of ancient feudal abuses, the redress of sanguinary 
 or effete laws, the abolition of monopolies, the destructive 
 and equalising process of government, it can very pro- 
 perly undertake. The great and legitimate triumphs of 
 parliamentary government have been all of this class. 
 The conduct of commercial wars, imperial aggrandise- 
 ment, the reform of our murderous code, the greater 
 equalisation of taxation, the abolition of slavery, of 
 intolerance, and of protection, are all works of this 
 negative kind. 
 
 The tasks set to this age are very different. We 
 
PARLIAMENT AFTER REFORM. 189 
 
 have now to face the constructive problems of govern- 
 ment, the remedial process of rule — problems of curious 
 difficulty, impossible to anything but concentration and 
 genius. Now these are just the questions for which 
 direct parliamentary action is extraordinarily unfit. 
 Om- social and industrial system, under the expansion 
 which followed the removal of its fetters, has thrown 
 out new and appalling forms of misery, strife, and 
 anarchy. There grows, festers, and reproduces itself that 
 dismal pauper population, filling half counties, quarters 
 of cities, a huge tumour in the body politic, which it 
 eats up with its parasitical swarm. There is the housing 
 of our crowded poor, forced by the palaces of wealth 
 into closer and more poisonous quarters. How long 
 is society to continue inactive in the presence of a 
 disease so odious and so dangerous ? The great sani- 
 tary question at which we have as yet but timidly 
 nibbled, the whole question of preventing epidemics 
 and providing the first necessaries of health, grows 
 ever more pressing and more difficult. Then there is 
 the vexed question of the land. It is no use disputing 
 it, the people have made up their minds that the soil 
 of this country shall no longer be held on its present 
 irresponsible tenure. Certain it is that the agricultural 
 labourer is in a condition in which he ought not to be, 
 and in which he will not long consent to remain. The 
 reorganisation of oiu: national education, both primary, 
 secondary, and superior, requires skill and care of the 
 highest kind. The reconstruction of the whole legal 
 system is a task at once gigantic and indispensable. 
 Lastly, the state of Ireland is one not for trumpery 
 
I90 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 revision of details, but for great and creative states- 
 manship.^ 
 
 These are the problems which await this age. 
 No one but a few zealots with a theory, no politician 
 worthy of the name, seriously believes they are ques- 
 tions which are wholly beyond the sphere of govern- 
 ment. It is certain that they are questions which 
 Government cannot long neglect. For as civilisation 
 gjyes us the increased knowliedge and sense of duty by 
 which great problems may be solved, it deepens and 
 extends the violence of the disorders with which we 
 have to deal. But these are problems of the highest 
 order, requiring profound sagacity to ehminate their 
 causes, patience to distinguish complicated symptoms, 
 concentration to grasp the depth and reach of the 
 problem, an instinct for adaptation to special condi- 
 tions, a freedom from interruption to carry out a 
 system of action, power to apply the remedies with 
 force, and a recognised mastery of the situation. 
 
 Such being the conditions of the task, could human 
 ingenuity devise a machine for solving it more im- 
 practicable than the current type of parliamentary 
 administration? Let us clearly make it understood 
 that there is no question here suggested as to the con- 
 stitutional supremacy of the House of Commons. That, 
 as a practical matter, is an admitted basis. The 
 question is whether real government of this order can 
 be looked for unless by a great modification in the 
 
 * It is a little curious that the various subjects of this paragraph all 
 form topics mentioned in the Queen's Speech as part of the Conservative 
 Programme for 1875. So little is the real difference between Liberal and 
 Conservative administrations. 
 
PARLIAMENT AFTER REFORM. 191 
 
 course of parliamentary procedure. The system of 
 debating (originally one would presume a mere aid to 
 legislation) has grown out into a principal object, a 
 great end in itself, with a special set of rules and 
 notions which have no connection whatever with 
 efficient law-making. Men are made ministers, under- 
 ministers, and secretaries, judges', ambassadors, go- 
 vernors, consuls, anything in the world, by more or 
 less readiness in putting together a few adroit sentences, 
 or in just hitting the conventional temper of a crowd 
 of men possessed with a sort of jealous common sense, 
 and very moderate statesman-like capacity. The thing 
 is too ancient a by-word to be dwelt on here. All 
 that is now suggested is the doubt if the system has 
 not been abused almost till it bursts. Can any qualities 
 of mind or character be less like those which are 
 needed to carry through the most arduous of political 
 tasks ? The pettiest detail of local administration may, 
 at any moment, form the basis of an eloquent debate, 
 and a corrupt beadle or a naughty midshipman may 
 be the hero of a grand party field-day. Peddling little 
 bills, just timidly designed by a practised draftsman to 
 worm themselves in between the crannies of interests 
 and prejudices, are solemnly brought in and fought 
 over, and sometimes do come out as laws all mangled 
 and distorted at the end. But what makes them one 
 thing more than another, what effect they may have in 
 practice, depends almost exclusively on the accident of 
 party fight, or the adroitness with which the wires have 
 been pulled by those interested, or the ' business ' 
 power — i.e. the manoeuvring skill — of the member who 
 
192 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 chances to promote it. The probabilities of a measure 
 becoming law are very like those of a horse winning a 
 race, and are decided usually by analogous arts of the 
 jockey. 
 
 The leading backers, who are usually called minis- 
 ters, have to spend their time, not in studying the 
 matters they have to administer, but in meeting in- 
 cessant onslaughts of factious invective. No one of 
 them dreams of proposing what he thinks the best for 
 the case in the abstract, but tasks his ingenuity in 
 finding what will collect together the strongest body of 
 partisans. The atmosphere of the legislature is pre- 
 cisely that of a club when feuds in it run extravagantly 
 high, and members spend their lives in canvassing to 
 blackball sets, or to turn out the committee. The 
 usual occupation of a ministry during the session is 
 simply that of such a committee moving heaven and 
 earth for re-election. The committee, of coiu-se, are 
 not so imprudent as to introduce changes, or seriously 
 consult the good of the club. They dare hardly dis- 
 charge a drunken waiter or change a newspaper in the 
 reading-room, lest it make another malcontent. To 
 carry through the House even a simple and useful 
 measure, and even for a popular minister, is a feat 
 which tasks enormous powers, both physical and 
 mental, utterly disproportioned to the result achieved, 
 and almost no part of which is expended in the labour 
 of devising the measure itself. The passage of a gas 
 bill consumes about as much outlay of brain as might 
 suffice to govern tlie Indian empire for six months. 
 To carry an act is like submitting to the punishment 
 
PARLIAMENT AFTER REFORM. 193 
 
 of running the gauntlet in a Eussian regiment. It will 
 need a tough constitution if one is to reach the end 
 alive after every man along the line has delivered his 
 blow. Our great caricaturist gave us last year a picture 
 of our first hvmg conjuror in this line performing his 
 wonderful ' egg-dance ; * and we saw him deftly planting 
 his agile toes, ever grazing and yet not cracking the 
 scattered eggs upon the stage. That was a picture — 
 a true picture — of what is now called a consummate 
 statesman carrying a great constitutional change. 
 Statesmanship is now dancing between eggs ; and they 
 win who crack the fewest. 
 
 It is plain that when such are the conditions to 
 which legislation must conform, very few really states- 
 manhke minds will stoop to such a game, very few 
 characters can retain their vitaHty, and no grand results 
 can by possibility issue. The whole atmosphere, spirit,, 
 and end of the system are artificial and alien to legis- 
 lation. It is merely the mockery or parade of legis- 
 lation, and not legislation itself. It is as vain and 
 degenerate a form of the art of statesmanship as ever 
 tournaments were of the art of war. The pride with 
 which it is now celebrated and pursued by the men 
 of the tongue and of the pen will sound some day as 
 childish as the later chronicles of the tiltyard sound to 
 us. To mature a comprehensive and radical reorgani- 
 sation of any of the great problems of State would be 
 simply a matter for speculative interest ; in the House 
 it would be lost in the bottomless depths of parlia- 
 mentary talk. To look for a sustained and expanding 
 system of pohcy would be futile ; for policies mean the 
 
 o 
 
194 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 watching the tempers of ever-shifting parties. To dream 
 of a great ruler arising in that atmosphere would be 
 indeed a dream ; for rulers are so now only by flat- 
 tering the caprices of an assembly. Unity, perseverance, 
 energy, responsibility, are all impossible where all is 
 rivalry, change, obstructiveness, rhetoric, and sub- 
 serviency. 
 
 It is the fashion now to accuse the people of all the 
 ' vices of democracy.' In Parliament, however, is the 
 true democracy ; there are its worst vices. Democracy 
 does not consist in poverty, nor even in numbers. The 
 vices of democracy may exist without the excess of 
 ignorance, or the excess of passion. A democracy 
 exists when an inorganic crowd seeks to grasp sovereign 
 power ; when each man in it holds himself as wise a 
 ruler as his fellow ; when offices are won by flattering 
 their prejudices and ignorances ; when mere gifts of 
 tongue and powers for intrigue can sway such a body 
 to the right or to the left ; when what they determine 
 one hour they undo the next ; when government is a 
 scramble, open to every glib talker; when mastery, 
 and unity, and continuity of action are hopeless from 
 the jealous and vain-glorious agitation of units. These 
 are the true evils of democracy, which may exist quite 
 truly without fustian coats or platform speeches ; and 
 they exist, more truly than in any assembly of the popu- 
 lace, in the assembly of the British House of Commons. 
 
PARLIAMENT AFTER REFORM. 195 
 
 Section III. — A Powerful Executive. 
 
 Let men of all parties ask themselves if they honestly 
 believe that efficient government can much longer be 
 carried on upon terms like these. Those who have 
 long felt it, as most Conservatives and as many Liberals 
 have (views which have been admirably summed up 
 by Mr. Lowe), fell into the natural mistake of supposing 
 that the admission of the people to power would only 
 add to the confusion. If I thought so, I should be, 
 for one, the most resolute of Conservatives. But it is 
 a mere misconception of the character of the people. 
 The admission of the people will infallibly strengthen, 
 and not weaken the executive efficiency of Govern- 
 ment and Parliament. Paradox apart, the spirit of the 
 working class is essentially, in the true sense of the 
 word, less democratic than that of the capitalist class. 
 They have less of the instinctive thirst for each man 
 having his own way, which is the true sign of demo- 
 cratic ideas. They are accustomed to act in masses, 
 and to act with concentration. They trust their leaders 
 often blindly and obstinately, and thrust their whole 
 collective power into their hands. They systematically 
 delegate all business details to those whom they trust, 
 and- confine themselves habitually to the decision of 
 principles. They are jealous of opposition when they 
 
 2 
 
196 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 have made up tlieir minds, and warmly impatient of 
 private obstriictiveness. Look at them in the action 
 of their Unions : whether we hke it or not, we must 
 admit that they have struck out a way of combining 
 vigorous co-operation with practical efficiency, great 
 delegated power to the minister with real responsibility 
 to the society. Without saying that this is always 
 the truest political virtue, it is force, and it is not 
 democracy. It is republicanism ; whilst beside it, 
 the aristocracy and commercial class have become so 
 demoralised by constitutional pedantry and rhetorical 
 ambition that Parliament has grown as unstable a power 
 as the democratic Diet of the old Polish nobihty. 
 
 The introduction of this republican element — for 
 such it really is — will enable Parliament, if it chooses, 
 to modify its system, and will modify it in its own way 
 if it does not choose. It is for the sensible men of all 
 parties to see that the time has come to reform pro- 
 cedure within St. Stephen's ; and it rests with them to 
 use the new electoral power for that end. If not, it 
 will inevitably at last use them. From whence the 
 leaders come in this movement is of no special moment. 
 This is no party question, and Tories as well as Whigs 
 may seize the occasion. If the historic aristocracy of 
 England yet has vitality in it, it will adapt itself to the 
 position, and again } rove the right to that rule of 
 which it now bears little but the ancestral dignities. 
 ' If the English patricians,' wrote Comte, ' can effect 
 the requisite recasting of their system, they may yet 
 escape passing under the yoke of tlie workmen.' It is 
 far from improbable tliat one of the governing houses 
 
PARLIAMENT AFTER REFORM. 197 
 
 might yet produce a man with the nerve and capacity 
 to become a powerful and popular statesman. It would 
 smooth many difficulties and accord best with our 
 traditions if it were so. But in default of this, should 
 the governing classes throw up no competent chief, in 
 coirrse of time the people will discover one for them- 
 selves. To this it must ultimately come. For all the 
 conditions of the situation, and every instinct of their 
 lives, point to a rally round a capable Head. Slowly 
 or swiftly, smoothly or roughly, we are tending towards 
 a State with powerful chiefs, disciplined supporters, and 
 real legislation. 
 
 Unscrupulous criticism, after its kind, may affect to 
 see in this argument a plea for revolutionary violence 
 or democratic imperialism. Those who choose to see 
 in an opponent's language anything they please, are 
 not to be denied that gratification by elaborate dis- 
 claimers. But a word to those who are willing to 
 admit that a political writer may mean what he says. 
 The whole change which has been described might be 
 brought about without affecting the legal supremacy of 
 Parliament, and without any constitutional enactment. 
 It is a matter of practice, not of law, and can be 
 properly accomplished only by the assent and efforts of 
 Parliament itself. Any one who carefully examines at 
 the close of the year the ponderous mass of the legisla- 
 tion of the session will at once perceive that nineteen- 
 twentieths of its bulk consist in purely administrative 
 enactments, such as properly belong to a responsible 
 executive : — ' An Act for amending the law with 
 respect to the Accounts of the Eeceiyer for the Metro- 
 
198 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 politan Police District, and for other Purposes relating 
 to the Metropolitan Police.' Conceive our 658 fore- 
 most men dividing and haranguing about that ! ' An 
 Act to allow warehoused British Spirits to be bottled 
 for home Consumption.' An Act to ' Amend the Act 
 to regulate the Keeping of Dogs.' ' An Act to regulate 
 the Court and Office of the Lyon King-of-arms.' 
 conscript fathers ! with what sauce shall this imperial 
 turbot be served up ? 
 
 It is no answer to tell us that under our great and 
 glorious system of liberty it is the proud boast of a 
 Briton to carry self-government down to the cut of a 
 constable's coat-collar, and that, until the Constitution 
 is altered, even these details require the seal of Parlia- 
 ment. But, in truth, the part of the Legislature in 
 these matters is far more than formal : these and a 
 hundred such measures during a session are actually 
 debated and overhauled, go into committee, and go 
 out, and pass through the whole apparatus of revision 
 which an Act to amend the Constitution would receive. 
 Amendments are proposed, faction fights are taken, and 
 every device of obstruction is employed. Nay, the 
 very bills are drawn with a view mainly to their passing 
 this ordeal, and are first mutilated and diluted with a 
 view to pass, and then are mutilated and diluted a 
 second time in the act of passing. Few people with 
 a grain of practical instinct would deny that adminis- 
 trative legislation of this kind would be effected in a 
 manner far more satisfactory by a thoroughly competent 
 minister under full responsibility to Parliament as to 
 the results of liis ministry. How can purely executive 
 
PARLIAMENT AFTER REFORM. 199 
 
 details be successfully worked out by a crowd of men, 
 four-fifths of whom know nothing of public business, 
 and each of whom is subject to incessant personal 
 solicitation and pressure ? 
 
 The evil would be endurable if it simply affected 
 the details of trivial measures — Acts about dogs and 
 Lyon Kings-of-arms. But the same evil extends from 
 the trivial measures to the great. Measures which, in 
 principle, can be carried and are carried ten times over 
 in the House, in application are as regularly defeated 
 by the enormous leverage which the forms of procedure 
 put into the hands of obstruction. The abolition of 
 Church rates and of Tests is annually determined by 
 great majorities of the House, and as often rejected by 
 dexterous manoeuvring of parties and forms. A mere 
 resolution for the disendowment of the Irish Church, 
 apart from questions of cabinet and party, could be 
 carried by a powerful majority. But Parliament, if 
 left to itself, will be twenty years before it can 
 accomplish this obvious and popular reform.^ Where 
 the number of the legislators is great, the legislation 
 must necessarily be petty. 
 
 Again, even this process of legislative trivialities 
 only employs a fifth part of the actual labour of Parlia- 
 ment. Four-fifths of it are occupied by incessant 
 struggles between rival parties, and real or fictitious 
 attacks on a minister. Whether these succeed or not, 
 they produce such an incessant wear and tear, and such 
 
 ^ It was seen in 1869, how by the impetus of a Reformed Parliament, 
 and the unrivalled mastery of detail possessed by Mr. Gladstone, a rather 
 timid measure was carried. 
 
200 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 an excessive timidity on the part of the minister, that 
 he is practically imfit for serious legislation or real 
 administration. The puerile arrangement of offices, by 
 which it is understood that each of the stereotyped 
 parties are to take their turns in frequent succession, 
 and each of the prominent performers in debate are to 
 have their innings in due course, excludes any notion 
 of government itself. Diu'ing the last century Govern- 
 ments have been changed every three years, and some- 
 times every three months. And this at a time when 
 patient and long-continued attention and labour are 
 essential for the statesman in any high sense. The 
 restless democracies of Athens or Florence never 
 devised a more wretched scheme 'for making office a 
 prize for the holder, and not a function for the public ; 
 and the class which passes its life in this ignoble game 
 can thank God that they are not such as place-hunting 
 democrats, or even as those Americans ! 
 
 Every one of these evils could be remedied by a 
 change in the temper of the House of Commons, with- 
 out any dictatorship, or even constitutional change. 
 Meddling in executive details, party fights over clauses, 
 and constant succession of ministries, are not inseparable 
 properties even of parliamentary government. They 
 are only its diseases and excrescences. The House of 
 Commons was once free from them, when it won its 
 supremacy in the State, and it might free itself from 
 them again. All that would be necessary would be 
 that Parliament and public opinion should succeed in 
 establishing in all administrative details absolute minis- 
 terial freedom with stringent responsibility in the 
 
PARUAMENT AFTER REFORM, 201 
 
 minister ; for the macliinery of legislation, an intelligent 
 decision upon principle, with a delegation of practical 
 application to the highest competent authority ; lastly, 
 for the permanence of ministries, to accept the possi- 
 bihty of continuing an able minister so long as his 
 strength and efficiency continued. 
 
 Some such modification of the parliamentary system 
 is not alien to the history — even to the recent history — 
 of our House of Commons. During the long ministry 
 of Pitt, and to some extent during that of Peel, the 
 Government of the country and its practical legislation 
 were virtually the work of a statesman, and not of a 
 clerk ; a statesman responsible to ParHament, but not 
 hampered by it, and really accountable to the nation. 
 The governments of Lincoln and of Cavour, in other 
 countries, have shown us how possible it is to place in 
 the hands of a great and popular administrator vast 
 executive power, whilst making him in practice the 
 instrument of a legislative assembly, and intensely in 
 sympathy with public opinion.^ Nor can any reason 
 be produced why the people should not force Parlia- 
 ment in the same way to recognise the ascendency of a 
 
 ^ I should now in some aspects add, the Government of Bismarck. I 
 abhor very much in the ends he sets to his action, and in the spirit in which 
 he performs it \ but in many respects he realises the type of great govern- 
 ing power informing public opinion. The opinion, however, of Prussia 
 has three cardinal defects, arising, first, from a gigantic military system, 
 secondly, from an over-grown bureaucracy, and lastly, from the educa- 
 tional centralisation in the absolute control of the Government. Prussia 
 is accordingly now the country where free opinion is most rigidly sup- 
 pressed, or most systematically corrupted- Were free opinion developed 
 in the nation, in a measure at all proportioned to the development of its 
 Government efficiency, Prussia would present, I think, a high political 
 type. As it is, it does so, I believe, only on special occasions. 
 
:2o2 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 capable ruler, to give him its hearty co-operation and 
 support, and, without surrendering an instant its right 
 to displace him upon manifest failure, or its own 
 absolute control over the national purse, to watch, 
 advise, stimulate, and support him, without harassing 
 him with ignorant interference. 
 
 Visionary as such a proposal may appear to those 
 to whom ' Parliamentarism,' has become a second 
 nature, they ought at least to remember that ' Parlia- 
 mentarism,' as known to us now, is a special product 
 of this age and country, and is absolutely unknown and 
 has never yet had life in any civiUsed society or in any 
 other era than this. It is a piurely artificial system, 
 under which no sort of men ever yet have lived. The 
 great body of the new electors have absolutely no taste 
 for it, and no understanding for it. It cannot be 
 understood in idea except by a special education in 
 itself. It would be a profound evil if the recent reform 
 has but brought another class under the influence of 
 this unnatural system. Such a fear, let us trust, is 
 groundless.^ The instincts and habits of the people 
 all tend towards some of the more ordinary and more 
 direct forms of political government. If Parliament 
 will frankly accept this necessity, the issue will be 
 fortunate. If it do not accept it, the movement will 
 go on in spite of it. Should a great popular states- 
 man ever arise, like Cromwell he will desire to govern 
 with a ParHament if it will let him, but, like Cromwell, 
 he will not be tolerant of a Parliament of Barebones. 
 
 * I am afraid this will be the more probable result of a mere exten- 
 sion of the franchise, carried out in the most guarded and dexterous way 
 to promote consen'ative interests. 
 
PARLIAMENT AFTER REFORM. 203 
 
 It would require a volume to answer or even to 
 state all the possible objections that can be urged 
 against this proposal, which amounts, in fact, to no- 
 thing more than this — that Parliament should consti- 
 tute itself an ultimate appeal and control in legislation, 
 and withdraw^ from the direct assumption of ministerial 
 duties. There are grave objections possible to every 
 proposal in politics. But in this case, as in others, it 
 turns on a balance of advantages and evils. There are 
 those who set store by the direct control whicli ParHa- 
 ment exerts over the servants of the public. It is a 
 balance of advantages. You cannot make two autho- 
 rities simultaneously responsible. If Parliament chooses 
 to be its own Home Minister, it robs the minister of all 
 sense of duty and responsibihty, and reduces him to 
 the place of a clerk. What would become of the army 
 in Abyssinia if Sir Eobert JSTapier were obhged to spend 
 his nights in justifying every petty order of the day to 
 a supreme military council, or what would become of 
 us, if Sir Eichard Mayne could not arrest a Fenian 
 without a party fight in an assembly of 658 metro- 
 politan inspectors of police ? A minister who has to 
 wrangle out every administrative detail and every 
 turn of a clause is necessarily not a minister, but an 
 attorney. 
 
 It is much the fashion to console ourselves with 
 thinking that our system of parliamentary procedure, 
 cumbrous and dilatory as it may be, insures that the 
 uttermost dregs of opinion shall be stirred and sifted ; 
 that nothing can become law until the most perverse 
 objections of the most ignorant obstruction have been 
 
204 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 ground to powder beneath Alps and Andes of accumu- 
 lated talk, until not the darkest corner in the thickest 
 brain in the community remains yet to be enhghtened. 
 It is a proud boast, but it seems simply another mode 
 of saying that Government shall always be in arrear of 
 the dullest mind in the nation. So, too, the verdict 
 waits till the obstinate juryman gives in. So the 
 democratic aristocracy of Poland had each man his 
 liberum veto. 
 
 All these objections in the main resolve themselves 
 into one — the claim of every citizen to have his part 
 in the management of the State. This, however, is 
 simply democracy, which in its true form is equivalent 
 to government by the incompetent, and government 
 by talk. Beautiful in theory and fascinating in practice 
 as this is, the object of this paper is to ask if it may 
 not be bought at too high a price. The task before 
 the Government of this country is growing each day 
 more serious. This island is in a position less assuring 
 than any which she has held during the present century. 
 Most of the other nations of Em'ope, with no doubt 
 much that is oppressive, have at least an efficient 
 machinery of government of high scientific complete- 
 ness. Into their civil system, as much as the mihtary, 
 arms of precision have been regularly introduced. 
 Into our civil system they have not been introduced. 
 Our cumbrous Parliamentary Executive is the Brown 
 Bess of government, which veterans and martinets of 
 the service may admire, but which really leaves us at 
 the mercy of the improved system of the age. Or if 
 in other nations the governing machine is still in- 
 
PARLIAMENT AFTER REFORM. 205 
 
 effective, they have not lost, as we have, the very 
 tradition or taste for efficient government. We never 
 needed it so much. The difficulties before us, both 
 within and without, were never so great. They cannot 
 be touched without a hand at once strong, trained, and 
 inflexible. The disease will yield to nothing but force, 
 and a resolute use of the knife. The quacks are they 
 who boast that they can draw the most obstinate teeth 
 without the slightest pain. The gospel of laissez-faire 
 is exhausted. Separated in Europe from any serious 
 alliance or bond with any of the nations, and with the 
 gigantic preparations of the great empires for the im- 
 pending struggle (1868), there is scarcely a single object 
 in Europe, not even the protection of Constantinople, 
 for which this country could make her will felt.^ Our 
 vast inorganic empire beyond seas has been estabhshed 
 with marvellous vigour, and administered not without 
 success. But India alone strains our capacity to the 
 utmost. Like the rest of our empire, it will now have 
 to be held under somewhat new conditions. The 
 suppression of a people in latent rebelhon in Ireland 
 continues, but without relief, and they are sanguine 
 who think that time, bayonets, and laissez-faire are 
 sufficient to suppress them. Each year America is 
 growing in material strength, and a few years only will 
 make her an irresistible rival to England in material 
 resources. Nor can the risk of war be forgotten. 
 Thus perils and difficulties are gathered from every 
 
 ^ This was indeed proved true during the great war of 1870-71, and 
 the contemptuous repudiation bj Russia of the Black Sea treaty obliga- 
 tions. 
 
2o6 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 side. Without allies, with a scattered empire, with 
 latent enmity in America, one of the three kingdoms 
 in permanent rebellion, the social diseases to be dealt 
 with acquire a fresh importance, and the future of 
 England is not safe in the hands of parliamentary 
 cabals.^ 
 
 If the great aristocracy whicli has governed this 
 country for two centuries has any life in it, it will look 
 to these things, and seriously consider how the safety 
 and greatness of England are for the future to be 
 secured. They must know in their hearts that by feats 
 of parliamentary gymnastics that end is not much longer 
 attainable. There is now an intellectual and a material 
 solvent which have combined their forces. Parliament, 
 under this impulse, might resume its true functions 
 under the constitution as the deliberative council, the 
 representative of opinions, the ultimate appeal, the sole 
 source of pecuniary supply. The assumption of actual 
 executive sovereignty is an anomaly, an absurdity, and 
 in these days a danger. The accession of the people 
 to power, untainted Avith the passion for parliamentary 
 distinctions, just gives the material leverage which 
 makes action possible. 
 
 ^ This perhaps is now (1875) of more pressing moment than it was in 
 1868, although the great American difficulty has been in the meantime 
 settled by the skill or the subserviency of Mr. Gladstone's Alabama 
 diplomacy. It is satisfactory to feel it is over, even at such a price. 
 Factum valet, Ji&i'i non debet. But feeble prudence is perhaps better than 
 feeble insolence. 
 
207 
 
 ESSAY III. 
 
 THE POLITICAL FU^^CTION OF THE WORKING CLASSES. 
 
 [The following Lecture was delivered on March 25, 1868, at 
 the request of the London Trades Council to a public meeting 
 convened by that body, and was subsequently printed and 
 published on their behalf. The Lecture, with omissions, is 
 printed as it was uttered. It will sufficiently appear that the 
 Lecturer, at least, did not advocate Democracy to the London 
 workmen.1 
 
 On the eve after some great battle it is but seldom 
 that its meaning and result are manifest to those who 
 have been most closely engaged. The true issue of a 
 battle turns not on the material loss of the wounded 
 and the slain, but on the moral condition of those 
 who survive. As night came down upon the field of 
 Sadowa, when for once and all the North German met 
 the South German, how few there were that night 
 in either host who really knew what had been done. 
 Thousands had fallen on both sides ; two vast armies 
 were, for the moment, almost equally crippled ; the 
 Austrians were still at the first line of their defences, 
 with their great empire untouched behind them, and 
 their famous fortresses unshaken. The master of three 
 kingdoms and twenty provinces, and of half a million 
 of brave and disciplined troops did not seem absolutely 
 
2o8 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 at the mercy of his foe. But those who could have 
 looked forward into the future, if any there were, 
 might have seen that in fact it was so. That one day 
 of battle had really decided the rivalry of centuries, 
 and the future of Germany. Not by the blood and 
 treasure which had been poured out upon the field, 
 not by the skill of a general, or the influence of 
 chance, but by the temper in the Prussian army and 
 people, the determination to conquer, the conviction 
 that they must conquer, the knowing distinctly how 
 and why they meant to conquer. For armies conquer 
 not by their numbers, but>y their morale ; and they 
 only win victories who,imow how to use victories. 
 
 Something of this kind must occiu* on the morrow 
 of the great battle of Parliamentary Eeform. It was 
 not in the midst of the dust and din of conflict, that 
 the true issue could be seen by the combatants or 
 their leaders. It is not even now that it can be seen, 
 when the very authors of the change will speak of it 
 in the most different language ; and one man calls it a 
 Conservative idea, and the other calls it a Eevolution. 
 Nor is it indeed merely that the issue is difficult to 
 foresee. The issue is not yet determined. It can be 
 determined only by the temper of those who are en- 
 gaged. It rests with you to answer that question. 
 As you act, so will the result of Eeform eventually 
 prove — almost nothing if you waste your opportimities ; 
 virtual revolution if you use them. For you have won 
 no franchises unless you have wisdom to use them. 
 
 And therefore it is that I take it as one of the 
 healthiest signs of the times, that everywhere the 
 
FUNCTION OF WORKMEN 209 
 
 political associations which agitated for the Bill have 
 been holding conferences, drawing up a basis of future 
 action, and meeting to exchange ideas in council- 
 room, or lecture-hall, in order to satisfy their minds of 
 what it behoves them to do. And thus it is that I 
 have come forward with very great pleasiu*e at the 
 request of your Council to add my mite to the ex- 
 change of ideas. I shall not ask your leave to speak 
 my thoughts on this subject with perfect openness, for 
 I feel sure that in inviting me here, you have imposed 
 that upon me as an obligation. But I must ask you 
 for a patient hearing, if some things I say may appear, 
 as I am afraid they must appear, strange and distaste- 
 ful. I speak only for myself ; I can compromise no 
 one ; I have not been asked to come here to take one 
 side or the other. Having steadily held aloof, and 
 intending to hold aloof, from all direct political action, 
 what I say must necessarily lack much of that unity 
 and force which belong only to men who work heart 
 and soul with a party. I have had no part in the 
 great movement which has given you the suflfrage, 
 and therefore I am not the best person perhaps to do 
 ample justice to that movement. Take your practical 
 plans for the campaign from those who have so boldly 
 led you to victory. And bear with me if I seem 
 wanting in heart in the cause, whilst I humbly but 
 very frankly submit to you the thoughts which strike 
 the dispassionate eye of a bystander. 
 
 Now first let us ask ourselves soberly and critically, 
 like sensible men who do not care to deceive them- 
 selves, what has the Eeform Bill done ? Let us avoid 
 
 p 
 
2IO STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 all throwing up of caps, and what they call ' bun- 
 combe ' on the other side of the Atlantic. I am not 
 about to disparage the great change which the Bill has 
 introduced. Still it is obvious that that which has 
 filled a Tory Government with pride and hope cannot 
 be quite so unmitigated a triiunph of the people. It 
 is no doubt certain that very large numbers of working 
 men will be brought upon the register by means of the 
 act. Perhaps it is true that if they all polled, and all 
 voted unanimously, they would command a clear 
 majority not only in the constituencies of the kingdom, 
 but in the House of Commons itself But Eeforms, 
 like battles, are won not by numbers but by wills. 
 When we reflect on the mysterious force which social 
 influence and wealth command, the monstrous ine- 
 quality in the distribution of seats, the skill of the old 
 parties in managing elections, we may well pause 
 before we indulge in very extravagant vaunts about a 
 numerical majority. Eemember all that has yet to be 
 done, in revising the miserable ratepaying clauses of 
 the Act, in dealing with the shameful system of 
 bribery, in reducing the franchise in coimties, in pro- 
 tecting the independence of the voter, in really grap- 
 phng with the distribution of seats, and it seems as if 
 a fresh hfetime of agitation in Electoral Eeform were 
 still awaiting a new generation before us, as if all had 
 to be done over again, and the franchise itself were 
 but a toy. ' Our new masters,' cry some to you ; ' a 
 clear majority of the seats are yoiu-s,' say others. Well 
 it may be so ! but I think you will be satisfied if for 
 the present you return but a tenth part of the People's 
 
FUNCTION OF WORKMEN. 211 
 
 House consisting of pure and bona fide men of your 
 choice. How many men of your own order do you 
 expect for the present to send up to Westminster? 
 How many years yet do you think it will be before 
 constituencies are divided into equal electoral districts ? 
 How long yet before a rich man and a poor man will 
 stand at the hustings on an equal footing ? Truly for 
 our new masters your expectations are most moderate^ 
 most modest. 
 
 No ! I beheve and trust that those who hear me 
 have too much sense to be indulging in any extrava- 
 gant notion that they have suddenly been thrust into 
 thrones, and are absolute masters of the British Con- 
 stitution. Do I mean to imply, then, that no change 
 has been made? A great change in many ways. 
 There is, first, the great fact that even now, according 
 to the law, in strict theory you are a real working 
 majority ; and if you all knew your own minds, and 
 were resolved to have your way, nothing could hinder 
 you from having it. Theoretically I say, because as 
 a rule people do not know their own minds, and are 
 always meeting other people who kindly undertake 
 that task for them. But still this plain fact is a great 
 deal, even though it exist in theory and is not hkely 
 to exist in practice. There it is — your strict legal 
 right and power to modify the frame of law from top 
 to bottom. And if you ever did by a miracle resolve 
 as one man, resolve as Cromwell's men did, that the 
 Irish Church,^ or the EngHsh Church, or the system 
 
 1 The majority did resolve as to the first, and did it in 1869. The 
 other two adjourned »me die. 
 
 p 2 
 
-1-" am i 
 
 ^ 
 
 212 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 of entail in land should be abolished, the law would 
 take its course, and abolished they each and all would 
 be. 
 
 Now if we put all these elements together to what 
 do they amount ? They point I think to this — that a 
 g:eat moral result has been produced, though not, I 
 am inclined to think, a great material success — a result 
 not perhaps very easy to define — the value of which 
 has yet to be worked out by yoiu-selves, and which 
 from its very natiu:e can be estimated only in the 
 future, and not in the present. 
 
 I am thus careful to insist that the change which 
 has been made is chiefly one affecting the tone of public 
 affairs, because it seems to me that if this is not effected, 
 little worth having has been gained. For my part, if 
 I thought the old machinery of legislation was to go 
 on hereafter in the same conventional mill that we 
 have known, I should think all that has been done 
 towards Eeform was a positive nuisance. How do you 
 thjnk you would be profited by the barren name of 
 elector, by returning members from unwieldly con- 
 stituencies, if all else is to remain much as it was before ; 
 if reckless outlay in elections, or local jealousies, are to 
 bring but a new class into the area of corruption ; if 
 the same palsy is to fall on men in office ; if the in- 
 tricate game of parliamentary debating is still to be 
 played, with the addition only of a few novices to share 
 it ; if local interest and the sham freedom of local self- 
 government is to make all social legislation imprac- 
 ticable ; if Cabinets are still to play lackey to parlia- 
 mientary parties, and parliamentary parties are still to 
 
FUNCTION OF WORKMEN. 213 
 
 play lackey to powerful houses, - or some disciplined 
 band of self-seekers ; if the weary swaying, back and 
 fro in committees is to be permanent; if the art of 
 government is to consist in the art of inventing excuses ; 
 if Parliament is to be a mere prize competition for 
 speech makers ; if public hfe is to remain the mere art 
 of getting on in life, by saying as much as possible and 
 doing as httle as possible ?' Of all delusions into which 
 the new electors could fall the greatest would be this, 
 that they, or any direct representatives of theirs^ are at 
 once to prove adepts at that ingenious parliamentary 
 game in which honourable and right honourable mem- 
 bers have been trained from birth for generations. 
 Once accept and try to adapt yourselves to that arti- 
 ficial system which I will call ' parliamentarism ' ; and 
 you will be as powerless in the State as the small 
 farmers as a class are now. Do you not suppose that 
 they will beat you at the game — both you and your 
 leaders ? Do you not see how completely parlia- 
 mentary manoeuvres have become a matter of speciasl 
 art, how thoroughly the governing classes have studied 
 the trick of hand, how if a member wishes to be heard 
 he must before all things ' catch the ear ' of the House, 
 that is, school and practise his mind exactly to the 
 conventional type of plausible good sense : and then 
 after studying how to be judicious for many years he 
 may at last catch the tone of official life, and when he 
 is minister he must catch the tone of parties, and 
 judiciously bring in his neat, safe little measures? 
 What a famihar picture to us is this life in the House 
 of Commons. A question of great public interest has 
 
214 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 been talked over for years and years, and every one 
 knows perfectly what should be done. At last some 
 judicious aspirant embodies it in a judicious little bill 
 just timidly nibbling at the question, and hedging it 
 round with all sorts of qualifications. And then he 
 goes round to several judicious persons in the House, 
 one of whom tells him that the ' House ' will be afraid 
 of that clause, and another that this clause is unpre- 
 cedented, and then that this clause is rather too sweep- 
 ing. So the poor Httle Bill gets docked, and twisted, 
 and pulled about, and all the Httle life in it is squeezed 
 out ; and then some very judicious speeches are made 
 'pro and ton., and everybody declares it is a most 
 important question, and ought to be considered, and a 
 great deal of clever talking at each other goes on, the 
 whole subject being utterly ignored all the while ; and 
 then it goes into committee, and more talking and 
 paring and compromising goes on upon the clauses ; 
 and then the lawyers or the publicans, or some other 
 meritorious class, discover that their interests are pre- 
 judiced by the bill, and they shall oppose it to death. 
 So then members are caught in the lobby and warned 
 that if they vote for the bill they will lose the lawyer 
 or the publican interest at their next election, and then 
 somebody succeeds in getting the House counted out, 
 and the minister of the day, in sweet constraining 
 phrases, suggests that this important subject should 
 be referred to a select committee upstairs ; and then 
 upstairs they go, and ten times more lobbying, and 
 paring, and compromising, and talking goes on than 
 ever went on below, and the lawyers and the publicans 
 
FUNCTION OF WORKMEN. 215 
 
 are quite menacing, and hang about the galleries like 
 savage dogs, and the poor legislators get very much 
 harassed by the London season and the constant 
 goading of the lawyers and the publicans, and then it 
 gets very hot and uncomfortable in town, and some 
 one whispers into the ear of the promoter of the Bill 
 that he will be thought ' impracticable ' in the House 
 if he goes on, and ' impracticable ' is an awful word, 
 enough to damn any man in the House of Commons ; 
 and then members get up and ' implore ' the hon. 
 member to withdraw his bill at this late period of the 
 session, as if the hon. member were doing something 
 quite improper ; so at length the poor little Bill, all 
 mutilated and wrangled over, is withdrawn, and the 
 hon. member goes off to shoot on the moors, quite 
 proud of having been so judicious and of having shown 
 so much business-like capacity, with a lurking satisfac- 
 tion to think that his poor httle bill will do over again 
 just as well next session. Now, they call that legisla- 
 tion, and that is parhamentary government. Do you 
 think that you or any real representatives of yours 
 are ever likely to be adepts at that art? Do you 
 think you or they can ' catch the tone ' of the House, 
 and be true to yourselves still ? Is that the kind of 
 legislation, is that the type of government which 
 satisfies you? Truly I think you do not so much 
 need to ' catch the tone of the House ' as utterly to 
 transform it. 
 
 Now it rests with you, and you alone to purge the 
 Constitution of this country from this deep-seated 
 disorder of ' Parliamentarism.' No one here I trust 
 
2i6 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 will imagine (I daresay persons outside will be very- 
 ready to suggest it) that I mean anything so pre- 
 posterous as the destruction of the power of the House 
 of the Commons, and its position in the Constitution. 
 But I say that around Parliamentary Government 
 there has grown up an artificial system of procedure 
 which has well nigh crushed all the life out of it. 
 And if Parliamentary government is to become a 
 reality, ' Parliamentarism ' must be extinguished. 
 Parliament from a mere deliberative assembly has 
 developed a whole code of rules, ideas, and ways 
 which bear no relation to the art of government what- 
 ever. The other day I saw a list of the various 
 administrations for a little over a century past. They 
 number thirty-six, which is about one every three 
 years. Is not that one single fact enough to stamp the 
 whole system with unreality? For real government, 
 such as complex social difficulties require, years and 
 years of continuous labour by the same mind, a life- 
 time of thought and watchfulness would barely suffice. 
 No man with only three years of office before him 
 would dream of dealing with truly national questions. 
 Yet for more than a century, the average of office is 
 but threie years, and sometimes it is httle more than 
 three months. Does not this alone explain the help- 
 lessness and stagnation of Government? But what 
 were they doing during these three years of brief 
 official enjoyment? Governing? Zealously prepar- 
 ing measiures of pubhc utility ? No ! for the most 
 part wrangling "with each other, battling from side to 
 side, like advocates in a court, arousing the excitement 
 
FUNCTION OF WORKMEN. 217 
 
 of factions, and winning party triumplis by well-timed 
 mancBuvres of State. ^ 
 
 Does it not strike you that the whole system is a 
 mere excrescence upon Government, and exists simply 
 as a happy hunting ground for lawyers, rhetoricians, 
 and tacticians, where they can run down their game 
 according to the rules provided, and which has nothing 
 to do with your welfare, or that of the country? 
 What makes a man Under-Secretary of State? 
 Debating power. What makes a man minister? 
 Debating power. And what makes a man Premier ? 
 Debating power. And what good is debating power 
 to you ? what has it ever done for you or for England ? 
 The system has created a special profession, called 
 public life, for one artificial order — the governing 
 classes. It bears the same relation to governing, that 
 tournaments did to fighting. When the knights of the 
 middle ages were being supplanted in the battle field, 
 they took to fighting tournaments, and a very pretty 
 kind of sport they invented, to which many of them 
 devoted their lives, gained great glory, and won many 
 prizes, with no conceivable result but that of gratifying 
 their own vanity and vain glory. So when Parlia- 
 ment became the real supreme power in the State it 
 soon began to develop a very elaborate sport, a sort 
 of pohtical tournament, which only the special class 
 could acquire, and in which the performers could win 
 great fame and profit, without the remotest good to 
 
 1 This is strong language, but it will be remembered it was used in 
 1868 hefore the great moral change caused b.y the Reform. Such lan- 
 guage was true of the old epoch. 
 
21 8 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 anybody. But the Paradise of carpet knights has come 
 to an end, as the Paradise of talkers must end also 
 some day. You tolerate no longer the sport of mili- 
 tary tournaments. How long will you tolerate political 
 tournaments ? 
 
 Those who have hitherto held power and who have 
 been brought up under this state of things are so 
 little conscious of its worthlessness, and are so pro- 
 foundly interested in watching or joining in the game, 
 that little chance of amendment can ever be expected 
 from them. But I trust that those who have been 
 excluded from the system, are not yet quite bewitched 
 by its attractions. Your part is to see that the work 
 of practical government shall be made bolder, broader, 
 and more energetic. Insist that this endless wrangling 
 and debating shall cease. Deliberation up to a point 
 to satisfy the mind is essential, but discussion for the 
 mere sake of the discussion, with the mere view of 
 showing how beautifully men can discuss, and such are 
 ninety-nine hundredths of Parliamentary speech-making, 
 is of all things the most destructive of action and of 
 work. Insist that this mystifying and dreary revision 
 of details shall end. Details of course there must be, 
 but the work of revising details is the last work in the 
 world that can be properly carried on by a crowd, or 
 what is even worse, by a large talking assembly. A 
 body of men, large or small, may be a very proper 
 power to determine principles and to clothe acts 
 with authority. But it is the first condition of real 
 business — of aU business, not of pohtical business alone 
 — that to give efficient form to predetermined principles, 
 
FUNCTION OF WORKMEN. 219 
 
 the concentration and persistence of individual minds 
 is absolutely needed. Three-fourths of the business 
 of the House of Commons is just that which it ought 
 never to undertake, and thus it comes that a trumpery 
 gas bill, or poor rates' bill, which a responsible 
 minister could properly dispose of in a week, occupies 
 the House during all the session, fills cartloads of 
 reports, and comes out mangled and distorted at the 
 end, as it pleased some powerful interest to alter it, 
 or as some dexterous debater has managed to make it. 
 And whilst the House has been debating and shifting 
 the clauses of the gas bill, the precious time has been 
 lost in which great Imperial questions could be dealt 
 with, the very power of dealing with them has been 
 lost at the same time ; and with the well-known 
 phrases about ' This late period of the Session,' and 
 ' the press of public business before the House,' the 
 very suggestion of dealing with them is bowed out of 
 Court. 
 
 What you have to impress upon political action is 
 that this enfeebling system of detail and compromise 
 shall end. It must be yours to insist on a greater 
 individual responsibihty. A principle once adopted, 
 proper instruments must be found to work out all its 
 consequences, and embody it in technical form, swiftly, 
 and systematically, on the personal responsibility of the 
 agent employed. It must be yours to see that great 
 national questions shall be no longer shirked, or 
 glossed over, or nibbled at, but faced and solved. 
 Year after year the great questions of education, or of 
 the Irish Establishment, or of Irish land-laws are 
 
220 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 talked about, dallied over, and disposed away. They 
 have occupied of dehberation and discussion probably 
 as much mental activity as sufficed to govern the 
 whole Eoman Empire of the Antonines for a genera- 
 tion. And they are all just as far off efficient settle- 
 ment as ever. Once speak the word, like men who 
 will not be gainsaid, and they will all be settled in 
 three months.^ 
 
 Throughout the whole sphere of legislation insist 
 that action be vigorous, complete, and real. If no 
 action is possible, if further knowledge is required, 
 wait, do not act at all, think, but do not talk. But 
 when the time for action has come, act with a will and 
 a heart. If you see that a thing should be done, do 
 it in the name of common sense and don't play with it. 
 Don't go on, or suffer anyone to go on as if all that 
 was necessary was to seem to do it. Above all, if you 
 find a party manoeuvre brewing up to thwart it, or a 
 private interest standing in the way, crush it out 
 mercilessly as you would a beetle. Never mind ' the 
 right honourable gentleman's feelings,' or ' the temper 
 of this or that side of the house,' don't be frightened 
 by the ' large and important interests ' at stake, or that 
 the measure is ' unprecedented,' or ' uncalled for.' 
 Don't refer it to a select committee, and above all 
 things don't let it go before a Eoyal Commission. But 
 if you think it is not right — leave it alone. If you 
 think it is right — do it, or have it done. 
 
 I would sum up in a word, the element which it is 
 
 * They were, after a fashion, settled in two sessions, 1869 and 1870, 
 entirely under the impetus of the popular Reform. 
 
FUNCTION OF WORKMEN. 221 
 
 your part to bring into English politics — it is the 
 Eevolutionary element. Now I use this word in its 
 ' true sense, not as meaning violence or anarchy, or 
 disorder of any kind, but the vigorous adaptation of 
 old social elements to new conditions. The materials 
 of our whole social and political fabric have long been 
 growing more and more disorganised. They are 
 unworthy of their tasks. Let it be yours not to 
 destroy them, or to ignore them — but to recast them. 
 Question after question has been gathering up and 
 waiting for its answer in vain. Church estabhsh- 
 ments, the work of education, the condition of the 
 poor, the tenure of the land, the state of the rural 
 labourer, the growth and incidence of taxation, the 
 standing army, the whole framework and administra- 
 tion of law, the sanitary administration, the manage- 
 ment of public works, — these are all matters in which 
 the old machinery is used up. These great matters of 
 pubhc necessity are accumulating a burden of duties 
 and of tasks to be performed. They cannot be 
 touched but by a hand that cannot be resisted, and 
 
 fthat will not be turned. They need swift, energetic, 
 uncompromising efforts. There is not here any old- 
 fashioned grievance to be rid of, it is not a chartered 
 monopoly, or a bit of class privilege to be abolished. 
 These were the tasks of the old times and these were 
 the triumphs, and the legitimate triumphs of the 
 parhaments of the past : our difficulties are those of 
 construction, not of destruction. We have no mere 
 nuisance to extinguish, but new and appropriate con- 
 ditions to be found for deep and complicated diseases 
 
222 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 of the State. To deal with such are needed broad, 
 comprehensive, deep -searching, yet rapid and potent 
 remedies. Such changes in State policy are called 
 revolutions — revolutions it may be most orderly, most 
 beneficent, most moderate, but revolutions because 
 effecting vast complex and permanent changes. And 
 from whom can come the impulse for such changes, if 
 not from you ? 
 
 Now the question is in what way you can best 
 introduce this new spirit into politics. I sum up the 
 answer by saying, — through increased power accom- 
 panied by increased responsibility. Choose the best 
 men you can find for your representatives, and then 
 trust them heartily, and strengthen their hands. If 
 you are satisfied that Mr. Mill or Mr. Bright are really 
 capable of serving you, stand by them like one man 
 and make them a power in the State. Let no petty 
 criticism on details, let no local divergence of opinion 
 draw you off the main point. Choose men who know 
 their own minds, and then give them their head. In 
 politics you cannot have a truly superior leader, whom 
 you are to check and criticise and tutor at every step. 
 Nor can you have one who is simply the mouth-piece 
 of every noisy clique. For if this were so, he would 
 cease to be a superior man, and would be simply one 
 of ourselves. The dense Conservative party knew this 
 long ago. They have trusted Lord Palmerston, and 
 since then Mr. Disraeli, for years. They differed from 
 both of them on many points. They could not under- 
 stand them altogether. But they trusted them and 
 made them predominate, and thus it comes that for 
 
FUNCTION OF WORKMEN. 223 
 
 one long administration a sort of Conservative- 
 Liberalism, and since then a sort of Liberal-Conser- 
 vatism has been absolute master of the situation.^ 
 Now do you find out patiently, critically, and thought- 
 fully your own natural leaders and guides, and having 
 found them, stick by them, accept them, and make 
 them strong. Not let me say blindly and slavishly. 
 If you feel that they prove false or weak, cast them off 
 sorrowfully but resolutely. But whilst they prove 
 true take them as a whole, grapple them to your 
 hearts with links of steel, and follow them as soldiers 
 on a campaign follow the captains whom they trust. 
 
 Choose the best Parliament you can, and having 
 chosen it, trust it. So long as you find it seriously 
 determined to talk no longer, but to act, vigorously 
 bent on honestly settling great national questions, 
 stand by it and strengthen its hands to the utmost. 
 Forbear to be constantly fretting the mouth of the 
 horse that carries you. Help the Parliament to ex- 
 tinguish the wearisome criticism of details. If parties 
 try to lead it into false issues, sweep them away. If 
 personal interests crop up to embarrass it, silence them. 
 Keep constantly before the great council of the nation 
 the great questions. Force them to choose energetic 
 ministers. Force those ministers to carry out measures 
 to an issue. Let details of administration, and the 
 practical application of principles 'be entrusted to the 
 most honest and capable men of action you can find. 
 Leave them free and give them power. See that their 
 work is honestly and thoroughly done, and when you 
 
 1 And yet again (1875). 
 
224 STUDIES OF CRISES, 
 
 are satisfied that it is so done, ratify and enforce it 
 without another word. 
 
 But whatever else may be done, insist first that 
 that power which claims to govern in this country, 
 whether it be Parliament, or Cabinet, or class, shall 
 really take in hand the pressing questions which 
 concern Government. You are the first to feel the 
 great wants of the country. Make them felt by 
 society. Make them urgent matters for the State. 
 Wrangling over gas bills, and tripping up right 
 honourable gentlemen out of their own speeches in 
 Hansard may be a fascinating game to those who 
 play it. But you want measures, and should insist 
 on measures being found. When the first national 
 assembly of the great French Eevolution were 
 perorating daily and nightly about privileges and 
 rights, the starving women of Paris broke into the 
 astonished house with the cry of ' Bread ! Bread ! not 
 so many long speeches.' To substitute the action of 
 opinion for violence, and acts of Parliament instead of 
 bread, you may in a metaphor suppose yourselves to 
 be knocking at the doors of Parliament and crying 
 ' Measures ! measures ! not so many long speeches.' 
 
 You should be, by your habits and institutions, the 
 class who are the most fitted to see and act upon this 
 truth. In your trade societies, and your other associa- 
 tions you have found the necessity of acting in large 
 masses, of standing legally by the majority, of acting 
 with decision, concentration and responsibility. You 
 have acquired the instinct of trusting your leaders, of 
 clothing them with free powers of action in order to 
 
FUNCTION OF WORKMEN 225 
 
 place them under a more real responsibility. You 
 know how the success of every movement depends on 
 the double action of the mass and of the agent, the 
 mass supplying breadth and energy of principle, your 
 agent giving it concentration and unity. Carry the 
 same temper from your unions into the region of 
 politics. And let your watchwords be ' confidence in 
 tried leaders,' and ' loyal co-operation each with all.' 
 
 You who have had practical experience of its 
 results are not likely to be caught by the cant which 
 is so dear to the commercial and a portion of the 
 literary class, the cant about self-government and non- 
 legislation. Local self-government is a very grand 
 thing in theory, but in practice as here understood, 
 it comes as you all know, to obstructiveness, jobbery, 
 no responsibility, and no government. What has self- 
 government ever done for you ? How are you 
 profited by local parochial and municipal self govern- 
 ment because a number of men in professions and 
 trades, most of them as individuals unfit to govern 
 anything more important than their own counting- 
 houses, have made themselves active for a little self- 
 interest, or vain glory ? Of what good is it to you or 
 to your neighbours that a certain knot of busy bodies 
 in your parish have manipulated tlie rates as best 
 suited themselves, starved the paupers down to the 
 last basin of gruel, and jobbed and intrigued with con- 
 tractors, builders, companies, and agents. Local self- 
 government, as at present practised, is but too often 
 local oppression, and local fraud. From the nature of 
 the thing it must fall into the hands of pushing men of 
 
 Q 
 
226 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 capital and business. You have enough to do in 
 deahng with them in your private relations with them. 
 Beware of entrusting them also with the absolute 
 control over the building of your cities, the protection 
 of your health, with the maintenance of your poor and 
 your infirm, with the management of your public 
 works. For real and efficient control over this, look 
 to the State. Fear not over-legislation. The name of 
 local self-government stands but too often for local 
 mis-government and local no-government. Far better 
 (to have one incapable ruler than fifty incapable rulers. 
 
 pFrom the State at least you can expect a higher 
 experience and skill, national publicity, greater con- 
 
 i centration of power, a more Imperial aim and spirit, 
 
 ] and far more true responsibility. 
 
 Still less is it likely that you will be deluded by 
 the strange paradox of some minds, the grand principle 
 of no-government. Keep order they say, and leave 
 everything else to unrestricted competition and self- 
 management. Leave the weak at the mercy of the 
 strong, leave the ignorant to teach themselves, leave 
 the pauper to feed himself, leave the holders of 
 privileges the free enjoyment of their rights, leave the 
 administration of justice in its time-honoured confusion, 
 leave Ireland to starve and rebel, rebel and starve, leave 
 the peasant in his misery, leave every one who profits 
 by a corrupt system to make the most of it for him- 
 self. It is not true that everything which has to be 
 removed by legislation is already destroyed. Our 
 system is most artificial, every side of it is the creation 
 of old class law. We live in a perfect network of 
 
FUNCTION OF WORKMEN. 227 
 
 legislative trammels which the past has imposed upon 
 the present ; trammels the more obvious parts of which 
 have been thrown off by the middle class themselves ; 
 whilst the parts which reach down to the depths of 
 society have still to be examined and recast. 
 
 I can quite understand how distasteful much of this 
 will seem to those who cherish the principle of pure 
 democracy. But if pure democracy mean the direct 
 management of public affairs by the people themselves, 
 I confess myself no democrat. I prefer to call myself 
 republican, by which I understand the devotion of the 
 services of all citizens equally to the common welfare 
 of the State. By republicanism I mean the most 
 efficient governing power which the State can produce. 
 By democracy, the weakening of that efficiency by in- 
 competent control. If I thought that the tendency of the 
 recent changes or of future changes was to be to throw 
 the conduct of government into the hands of the 
 masses, I should regard it as a change for the worse. 
 The bitter cup of pure democracy (and by that I mean 
 the direct interference of a whole multitude or order 
 in government) has been drunk to the dregs, first by 
 the aristocratic and then by the middle class. There 
 are such things as noble as well as trading democracies, 
 of which Poland of old and Florence were the pro- 
 minent types. They each in their turn have reduced 
 government and progress to a dead-lock, each in- 
 dividual, each clique, each citizen, each class alternately 
 claiming to regulate affairs. Do you profit by the 
 warning they give. Prove yourselves superior to the 
 small vanity and wilfulness of insisting on direct 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 interference in legislation. ' The people shall manage 
 their own concerns ' is the dull stereotyped dogma of 
 the middle class radical. I trust it will never be 
 yours. I have been warned with pathetic and almost 
 paternal remonstrance that I run the danger of seeming 
 to flatter the people. I am not going at any rate to 
 flatter now ; for I tell you plainly, that in my opinion 
 if the people were to manage their own concerns they 
 never would be worse managed. Manage your own 
 concerns for yourselves ! Do you ever make yoiu- own 
 boots and shoes, or turn your own engine-driver on a 
 railway, or cut off your own leg when amputation is 
 inevitable ? If we all managed our own concerns for 
 ourselves we should be reduced to a state of the 
 merest savages. Civilisation simply means the adjust- 
 ment of parts to the most efficient hands — putting the 
 round men in the round holes. We get our law done 
 by men trained all their lives to the work. We get 
 taught by professed teachers, we have our armies led 
 by experienced and scientific generals. And if in all 
 things of life great and small we rely on men of special 
 gifts and attainments, and know that even they can do 
 us no good service unless we entrust them with full 
 freedom of action and concentration of power, how 
 can we venture to dispense with these advantages in 
 the greatest and most difficult art of all — the art of 
 government? What would be the result if the pas- 
 sengers in a train insisted on turning this or that 
 handle of the engine in the course of the journey, if 
 we insisted on substituting one drug for another in a 
 physician's prescription, if the operations of an army 
 
FUNCTION OF WORKMEN. 229 
 
 in the field were directed by the votes of the rank and 
 file ? Yet these are comparatively easy to the art of 
 government, especially in these days. Of all quacks 
 distrust most those who tell you that it is an easy thing 
 to govern such a country as ours. The government 
 which we require consists in the work of recasting an 
 immense accumulation of effete laws, and devising 
 appropriate remedies for complex and deep-seated 
 evils. What task can be harder, or require more 
 undivided attention and special qualifications ? Take 
 an individual instance. The whole system of law and 
 justice awaits consolidation and revision. What pos- 
 sible means have the people of doing this for them 
 selves .^ No one of them alone would venture to draw 
 his own lease, or plead his own cause on a trial. But 
 what special gift of prophecy will enable a crowd of 
 such men to accomplish it together? Then there is 
 the tenure of land and the whole system of entail in 
 this country and in Ireland. How could the people 
 efficiently direct the required modifications, a system 
 which but one man in a thousand could technically 
 explain, and not one man in 10,000 can trace out 
 into the practical results ? Take each one of the tasks 
 of the practical statesmen — the vexed problems of our 
 social sj^stem. Which of us is prepared to profess 
 himself a competent master of the subject? And in 
 what way is collective wisdom to result from the 
 accumulation of individual ignorances? If one un- 
 lettered man cannot do a sum in arithmetic, is it likely 
 that 50 or 50,000 unlettered men can do it? 
 
 It has been a trite objection to extending the 
 
230 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 franchise that it would extend the evils of pure 
 democracy. This is simply impossible. The evils of 
 pure democracy have been already pushed by the 
 classes who have hitherto held power until it is 
 absolutely impossible to extend them any further. 
 Democracy consists not in the wealth or rank of the 
 ruling class, but in the meddling by a crowd of incom- 
 petent persons in affairs for which they are unfit. I 
 trust that the present movement will be a great step 
 back from democracy. I look to the people to feel the 
 vital and pressing necessity for great and radical action, 
 to recognise the necessity of effecting it by the instru- 
 ment of tried and trained ministers, to have sufficient 
 self-control and discipline to join in vigorous sympathy 
 with those leaders when they find them. 
 
 You will not misunderstand me (however I may 
 be misrepresented) that I mean to counsel you to a 
 slavish surrender to an Imperial will. We are not 
 capable as a body of efficient administration of affairs. 
 But they can be administered only by our constant, 
 intelligent, and earnest co-operation. Once more I 
 repudiate the reforms of a beneficent despotism, for 
 they can be but momentary if they are forced on a 
 reluctant people. At every step and stage I urge you 
 to keep a watchful and enlightened guard. Find your 
 leaders for yourselves, keep them firm to the objects 
 that are needed, be one with them on all th^ principles 
 at stake, follow and sift and test them at their 
 work, exact from them an unqualified responsibility. 
 Strengthen their hands so long as you feel you caa 
 
FUNCTION OF WORKMEN. ^31 
 
 trust them ; and when you feel that you cannot, replace 
 them by better men. 
 
 Your function, in a word, is not to rule but to 
 supply the motive to rule. Not to control methods, 
 but to insist upon results ; not to dictate to mere tools, 
 but to follow the lead of the men of your choice. In 
 the old days of the English Eevolution, when in the 
 turmoil of the long wars the Court of Chancery was 
 blocked by arrears of untried causes, and suitors were 
 groaning over the delays and technicalities of the 
 judges of the old system, the great Cromwell, our true 
 type of a revolutionary statesman, chose out the ablest 
 lawyer he could find, directed him to try all causes in 
 Chancery with immediate despatch, and by his side he 
 set two keen and stalwart majors of horse, to see that 
 the business was done. The great lawyer had the sole 
 responsibihty in determining the law, but lest he should 
 be somewhat dilatory in his way of giving judgment, 
 his military assessors were there to refresh his activity. 
 The gallant officers did not meddle with the judgments, 
 but they took good care that judgments were given. 
 A type this, I sometimes think, of the revolutionary 
 method. And you, too, I sometimes think, may in 
 these days not unfitly play the part of those military 
 assessors. Find the best man you can to do the 
 administrative work ; leave him free and make him 
 responsible, but sit, the embodiment of force, beside 
 him, tell him the work he has to do, see that he does it 
 to the best of his power, and make his work respected 
 when he has done it. 
 
232 STUDIES OF CRISES, 
 
 You will gather from what I have been saying that 
 I would counsel the people to devote their political 
 energy not so much to the machinery as to the results 
 of legislation. There are those whose sole idea of 
 popular participation in the State consists in an endless 
 vista of agitation to perfect the process by which 
 members of Parliament are returned. An extension 
 of the franchise they say is nothing without the ballot, 
 the ballot must be followed by equal electoral districts, 
 and this by Triennial Parliaments — and then perhaps 
 the representation of majorities is after all only to pave 
 the way to the representation of minorities, the reflect- 
 ing of every sect in the country, and perhaps of every in- 
 dividual mind — and then ultimately in the far distance 
 we are promised a vision of a Promised Land, a Paradise 
 in which manhood suffrage itself is to become a horrible 
 and tyrannical abuse, and the hon shall lie down with 
 the lamb, and widow, wife, and spinster shall stand 
 upon a platform of equal human electoral rights. 
 Thus, politics become an everlasting kaleidoscope of 
 new combinations and ideals, all of which are but to 
 prepare the way for an absolutely perfect representa- 
 tive machine. But in the meantime what is to become 
 of the great evils for which this machine is only the 
 means ? I am far from saying that there is not very 
 much which is required to complete the reform of the 
 suffrage, without a real redistribution of seats, a real 
 change, such, for instance, as should give a pre- 
 ponderant part of the representation to the great towns 
 and entirely abolish the small towns, and, at the same 
 time, without stringent measures to prevent bribery, 
 
FUNCTION OF WORKMEN ^ |. ii^,^ j 
 
 f I ' ''^ 
 
 corruption, and intimidation of the vo^eriC^' witholi'^^ I . 
 some such measures as these the Eeform Am/yill *^/. ^ \ 
 prove a mockery. But whilst we determine to noi3/ ^ 
 to these, let us concentrate our efforts on the great \ / /> 
 ends we aim at. Let us not forget that the most / 
 
 faultless piece of political machinery is little better than 
 clockwork when compared with a wise and powerful 
 public opinion, that it is through their influence or 
 opinion that the force of the people is felt, and that it 
 is in forming opinion that their true function consists. 
 In every form of government conceivable the great 
 power will always be actually exercised (whatever 
 the institution in force), first by those who make 
 pohtics a profession, and then generally by the class 
 which has wealth, leisure, and cultivation. But of 
 all modern forms of government, of all institutions 
 almost in history, our owm system is perhaps that 
 which by its complexity, its artificial and traditional 
 character, and the extraordinary development of the 
 rhetoric of Parhament, gives the largest field to the 
 professional politician, to the rich aristocracy of this 
 country, and makes it most difficult for the people 
 to take the working of it into their own hands. But 
 not only is this influence on opinion far the most avail- 
 able mode in which you can control politics, but it is 
 also by far the most healthy in its effects. Practical 
 agitation, the struggles of parties, and the exigencies 
 of administration, necessarily involve a certain sacrifice 
 of principle, a certain personal interest and passion, 
 which, however much we may disguise it, is ruinous 
 to the highest sense of pohtical duty. The practice 
 
234 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 /of political agitation is ever tending to degenerate 
 
 into intrigue. The exercise of public opinion is ever 
 
 \ tending to expand into the truly rehgious feeling of 
 
 \social obligation. 
 
 I take one striking instance of the ease and the 
 power with which your influence might instantly be 
 brought to bear. In the course of last autumn it 
 began to be understood that this country had been 
 silently committed to a distant and costly war with an 
 African people of whom we knew nothing^ but the 
 name. It was a war of which ministers, journalists, 
 and people had up to that time scouted the very idea, 
 which no one but a few soldiers desired, for which no 
 one really saw the necessity until the word to see it 
 was passed round the official world — a war for a cause 
 in which we were originally wrong, in which we had 
 wilfully blundered, and for which this country had no 
 single legitimate interest. A war more wanton, more 
 wasteful, more hypocritical, even this country has seldom 
 undertaken, this country which has its opium wars in 
 China, and its silk wars in Japan, and its massacres of 
 negroes in Jamaica, at least once in a generation — a 
 war promoted solely by professional soldiers thirsting 
 for distinction, supported by officials amongst us 
 with some vague hope of sustaining the Imperial 
 prestige, and justified and advocated to the nation 
 by the sophistry and cant of parliament and the 
 press. Well ! had we done our duty then, and con- 
 sidered if this war were not a crime, a cruel aggression 
 
 ^ The Abyssinian war. I adhere to this, and should hold somewhat 
 similar language about the Ashantee war (1875). 
 
FUNCTION OF WORKMEN. 235 
 
 on a half-civilised race whom we must deliver over to 
 anarchy if not to bloodshed, if your voice had been 
 heard plainly and strongly, wherever men met in 
 their workshops, in their homes, in their gatherings, 
 and had made their government feel that it should not 
 be, just as the French people at last made Napoleon 
 feel that his Mexican aggression must cease, can any 
 of us suppose that with a deep undercurrent of popular 
 opposition, a vacillating ministry and pliable parliament 
 would have dared to have added to the risk of possible 
 humiUation in arms, the certainty of wasting million 
 after million of our treasure, and all that our Indian 
 Zouaves might have something to keep their hands in. 
 But we did not form our opinion, we were talking 
 about politics, but we were not talking politics and this 
 wanton aggression went on. 
 
 So, too, throughout the whole sphere of our foreign 
 policy, the influence of your opinion might be vast, 
 immediate, and beneficent. Of all departments of 
 State there is perhaps none in which so much free 
 action must be left to the responsible minister, but yet 
 there is none in which the general spirit of his action 
 can be more efficiently guided by opinion. Form 
 your own opinion and then make it felt upon the 
 whole question of the aim of that Imperial System in 
 the East. Ask yourselves seriously, how far is the 
 interest of England, how far is it good for the human 
 race, how far is it just to continue that policy of 
 aggression on the Oriental races, breaking up the 
 ancient monarchies of China and Japan, these endless 
 wars first for one object and with one excuse, then with 
 
236 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 another — excuses are never wanting, a flag trampled 
 on, a merchant's clerk killed, a meddling consul put 
 in prison, (who ever knew that Ahab wanted a good 
 excuse against Naboth, or at any rate if he were 
 in doubt, when did not Jezebel come in and find one 
 for him ?) Speak out plainly that this system of 
 extending commerce at the cannon's mouth is pro- 
 foundly repugnant to your sense of right and wrong, 
 that your true interests have only to suffer by wild 
 bursts of manufacturing expansion, withhold your 
 money and blood from these unholy wars and they 
 must cease. Speak out boldly and clearly too in 
 favour of a policy in Europe of peace, of non- 
 intervention, and non-aggression. Protest against any 
 association of this country with the old schemes to 
 bolster up the balance of power. Above all insist 
 on friendly and fair dealing with the people of the 
 United States, that republic of your brothers — 
 brothers from whose close and just union with each 
 other the future of the world has so much to hope, 
 from whose enmities it has so much to fear. 
 
 Then to pass from foreign questions to home 
 questions, the very first matter which stands awaiting 
 your impulse is that of a national primary education. 
 You are they to whom the vital necessity of this 
 measure is daily brought home ; it is your children who 
 are growing up untaught and unimproving ; it is from 
 you alone that the force can be obtained to overcome 
 the opposition of sectarian and local narrowness. Here 
 again look to the State, and not to sects or orders 
 within the State. Put not your trust in the churches, 
 
FUNCTION OF WORKMEN. lyj 
 
 or the squires, or the guardians. Let us have the first 
 elements of knowledge as the very conditions of the life 
 of the citizen freely supplied by the State, uniform and 
 completely co-extensive with the nation, under a central 
 and responsible director, and open to the people 
 without distinction of creed. The condition of the 
 agricultural labourer, the irresponsible tenure of land, 
 the abuses of the settlement system, of the tenant-at- 
 will system, of the game laws — these are all matters 
 on which you must formulate yoiu: opinion and insist 
 on that opinion being carried into act. 
 
 I refrain from enlarging on these points here, 
 because there is a yet more pressing and vital question 
 before you, one in fact in which all these which I 
 have mentioned are contained, the question of the 
 day — the state of Ireland. It rests with you to insist 
 that the settlement of those questions which have torn 
 Ireland for centuries shall at last be boldly faced. The 
 old spirit of ascendency by which a conquering 
 minority have age after age held a nation in subjection 
 is still strong and confident ; the traditions of the 
 English government, rich in memories of nothing but 
 forcible repression and the maintenance of their own 
 national system, are still too strong to give way ; the 
 devotion of the English middle class to its own 
 economic dogmas and its trading interests, its intense re- 
 pugnance to touch with the lightest fingers any one of the 
 sacred privileges and ornaments of property, are stiU so 
 inveterate that, in the words of Mr. Mill, 'There is no. 
 people in Europe who are so blind to the cause of Irish 
 discontent as ourselves.' You who have had no part 
 
238 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 at any rate in the landed system of the conquerors, or 
 the exclusive system of the traders, who have no vested 
 interest in State churches, or in laws of settlement ; 
 you who as a people have felt, if less lightly (yet more 
 widely), the same bad laws and evil institutions which 
 have ground your Irish brethern to the dust, and 
 goaded them into rebellion ; you who know what 
 there is of national self-respect in the desire of the 
 Irishman for recognition of the existence of his country 
 as a nation — do you, now in this crisis, when the 
 governing and commercial class of this country are half 
 terrified by the spectre of rebellion into a step towards 
 justice, are half stung by it into a spirit of sullen 
 resistance — do you now in this crisis make your voice 
 felt strongly on the side of justice ; insist that the 
 ancient imposture of the Established Church there shall 
 fall to its prayers and prepare for a short shrift before 
 it ceases to exist, as the earnest of a better time ; insist 
 that the method of settling the discontent of the Irish 
 cultivator by the sardonic process of depopulation 
 shall cease ; ask for the Irish peasant and the Irish 
 farmer the means of enjoying that which is his birth- 
 right, the full sense of property in the soil he tills ; 
 reject with indignation the cynical suggestions of 
 rivalry between you and your Celtic brethren, respect 
 their great qualities and many virtues, and honour them 
 rather than accuse them for that undying love for their 
 long-suffering country. 
 
 The Irish question has entered on the phase of dis- 
 cussion, and unless you make up your minds, and 
 express them somewhat clearly, in the phase of 
 
FUNCTION OF WORKMEN. 239 
 
 discussion it will long remain. There are not wanting 
 critics to carp and cavil at every practical solution of 
 a political problem. In politics there are always ad- 
 mirable reasons to be given for and against almost every 
 conceivable proposal. And, in the House of Commons, 
 there are always people ready to make admirable speeches 
 even on the very worst of all reasons. So that as far 
 as the material of discussion is concerned, it is quite 
 capable of going on until Doomsday. There are those 
 there who can take advantage of every vein of the preju- 
 dice and ignorance of men, and raise a shallow laugh at 
 every suggestion of improvement, and one great organ 
 of the press which daily exhausts the arts of sophistry 
 in crying peace where there is no peace. Do you 
 believe that there is peace or that there is likely to be 
 peace ? Do you beheve that that island never was so 
 prosperous, never so happy, never so well governed ? 
 Do you believe that a chronic rebellion of centuries is 
 the work of American colonels, of Mr. Bright, of Mr. 
 Mill .^ Sweep away these sneers with one strong word 
 of common sense, retort the name of quack upon those 
 who pretend to cure an obstinate disease with words, 
 send up a new Parliament to Westminster, and give 
 them this instruction — that they hold an Irish Session 
 for the settlement of Irish grievances. Tell them to act 
 and not to discuss. Tell them to make Ireland pros- 
 perous and contented ; and if they cannot, to leave her 
 destinies in the hands of the Irish people themselves.^ 
 
 ^ If there was anything clear in the national mind of 1868, it was 
 that these Irish questions should be settled — the upas-tree cut down. 
 Had Mr. Gladstone been entrusted with the duty freely, it would perhaps 
 
240 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 One word more and I have finished. Anxious as I 
 am to impress on you that vigorous, real, and immediate 
 legislation is required especially for Ireland now, I 
 would not be supposed to be looking for overmuch 
 from any political or legislative remedy. The great 
 evils which we have to contend against are those of 
 society, are those of our own shortcomings and igno- 
 rance, in a word, are moral and not political. It is the 
 spirit in which we educate oiurselves and our children, 
 the temper in which we deal with our fellow-men, the 
 sense of pubhc duty which animates us throughout 
 our lives, which really determines the greater part of 
 the life of our neighbours and ourselves. Political 
 movements, institutions, laws, and governments, after 
 all, determine but the smaller part, and that part, for 
 the most part, the least important. Sm'ely your posi- 
 tions and your lives ought to teach this truth to you 
 more powerfully than to any of us. What to you can 
 compare with the health, comfort and good training of 
 your families, the social feeling of your fellow workmen, 
 the standard of intelligence and civilisation in the 
 country you are citizens of? Yet in all these things 
 how small must be the part which governments or laws 
 can make or unmake. PoHtical duties we all have, 
 but moral and social duties we have of a far deeper and 
 higher sort, and we shall perform our political duties 
 best in so far as they are inspired and directed by those 
 
 have been done ; but the blight of *■ Parliamentarism ' was too powerful ; 
 and the measures were cut down into timorous contrivancfw, the most 
 earnest Reformers we have had for years were exhausted, and a fine 
 wave of popular justice spent its force. 
 
FUNCTION OF WORKMEN. 241 
 
 social duties. And of all the modes in which we may 
 misread our political duties and bring them to naught, 
 the surest is to exaggerate the effect of political reme- 
 dies and to imagine that mankind can be made wise, 
 or prudent, or brotherly, by acts of Parliament and 
 political agitation. 
 
 It is quite right that we should put in the first rank 
 of national necessities a broad and national system of 
 education. But let us reflect for a moment how little 
 even this, the first of political necessities, can affect us. 
 It is a thing in its nature for the future, for the next 
 generation, not for ours. It cannot teach us, it cannot 
 affect adult men with the work of their daily lives be- 
 fore them. No ! our education must come from our- 
 selves, not from the State, from within not from without. 
 Without it we cannot use the political power we have 
 obtained, or take one step in future with safety. With 
 this thought, and it embodies in a sentence all that I 
 have to say, I bring this rambling discourse on things 
 in general to a close, and I say that the political func- 
 tions of the people consist for the most part in the for- 
 mation of a living public opinion on the social and 
 national questions of the day, and for that formation of 
 pubHc opinion the very first necessity is a patient, a 
 constant, and complete self-education. 
 
242 STUDIES OF CRISES, 
 
 ESSAY IV. 
 
 ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM. 
 
 [Between the date of this Essay and the preceding a period 
 of more than five years had elapsed. It was a period of great 
 organic changes, associated with the Liberal administration 
 of 1868. These repeated efforts had exhausted the party, 
 without satisfying the nation. The Eeaction had begun. 
 The Essay expresses this general dissatisfaction. It was 
 published in December 1873.] 
 
 November, we are told on the best authority, is sacred 
 to the conceptions of the Cabinet ; and few Novembers 
 have ever had so critical a meaning for the Liberal 
 party as that which has just concluded. There are 
 two futures yet open to that Liberal party — a possible 
 revival, a possible decay. On the one hand, the great 
 tide of enthusiasm which bore Mr. Gladstone to power 
 has long spent its force. In the reaction of lassitude, 
 the discontented and the disenchanted are raising 
 angry remonstrance. The victorious Liberal majority 
 of 1868 had to compromise as well as to adjourn many 
 a cause dear to its component sections, and now the 
 causes which were compromised or adjourned are 
 again setting up their claims. On the other hand, 
 the great Conservative Eevival is not yet installed. 
 The recent borough elections, the municipal elections. 
 
ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM. 243 
 
 the School Board elections, do not show the Liberal 
 party to be absolutely dead. Like the Ministry, it 
 has suffered a heavy blow ; it is not what it was, but 
 it is still 'a going concern.' The majority of eighty 
 is a thing of the past, but it will take many a Tory 
 triumph to convert it into a minority, at least in this 
 Parliament. 
 
 Li this balance of forces everything depends on 
 the energy of the leaders. It is possible yet to give 
 to Liberal legislation a fresh term of life. The legisla- 
 tion of the last five years, if its fruits are at present of 
 no gigantic proportions, has been cast in the mould of 
 good purpose. It has served to keep alive the spirit 
 of hope, and its failures have been due to pettiness 
 and cowardice in tactics rather than to total want of 
 strategy. The Government, as a whole, has shown 
 too much of that temper which Mr. Kinglake attributes 
 to Napoleon III. — a restlessness to attempt grand 
 designs joined to a timorousness in the hour of execu- 
 tion. It has had its Mexican expedition into the 
 education question, but it has not yet met with its 
 Sedan. Tout pent se reiablir it may say, in a sense 
 perhaps more true, and not so hopeless. There is yet 
 time for recovery, but it is certainly the last time. If 
 the process of disintegration goes on for another 
 session, the Conservative Eeaction will be an inevitable 
 reality, and to all appearance it will be a long reality. 
 It is not very dreadful to contemplate except to those 
 whom it personally concerns ; but when it comes the 
 Conservative innings must be a very substantial thing, 
 and few Liberals are likely to find it a very satisfactory 
 
 R 2 
 
244 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 thing. If we can predict anything in politics, it is safe 
 to say that the plans of the Liberal party, within the 
 next few months, will decide the whole future of that 
 Liberal party for many a long day. 
 
 Now what is it that marks so fatally the weakness 
 of that which is called the Liberal party? It is a 
 thing which is tacitly admitted by all members of the 
 party alike, and so loudly is it proclaimed by the other 
 side that it is rather a truism than a secret. In fact, 
 as we all know, ' the great Liberal party ' is cut in 
 half. It consists of two sections but moderately 
 welded together, with a joining, which every jerk and 
 strain bursts open afresh. There are three parties 
 in politics and not two ; and the three are. Conserva- 
 tives, Whigs, and the People. The latter two, when 
 united, are completely a match for the first ; but it is 
 certain that singly each is the weaker. The great 
 Conservative world is the world of all that pride and 
 wealth and self-complacency, which in such a society 
 as ours is certain to be a very large world and a very 
 strong world. If it has no high hopes it has little ill- 
 will. It has not the least desire to set the world right ; 
 and no wish at all to trouble its neighbours. It is 
 satisfied with the social system as it is, and its aim is to 
 keep it as it is. It is plain that this is a very powerful 
 force in such a country and such a time as ours. 
 It possesses, and must possess, a vis inertice which it 
 requires a national heave to move. 
 
 But the second party which takes in the whole of 
 that official Jiberalism, that professional liberalism, that 
 propertied liberahsm, which is by reason convinced 
 
ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM. 245 
 
 that to keep things as they are is the plainest sort of 
 revohition, — this party is not to be lightly put aside. 
 It has given the Liberal movement its disciphne, its 
 administration, and its knowledge. One must be a 
 democrat of a foreign type to think that English 
 democracy at any rate could have dispensed with its 
 official leaders and its middle-class front rank. 
 
 But what, on the other hand, can these do alone ? 
 Conservatism falling back on the power of wealth, 
 position, and comfort is a quite intelligible thing. But 
 Liberalism doing this is a mere negation, a parody, 
 and a contradiction. We are told that a great gulf 
 is opening between the two ends of the Liberal party, 
 that the Liberal of rank and wealth can have nothing 
 in common with the mere privates of his own party, 
 whom he looks on as Eadicals ; and he is urged with 
 a candour only too transparent to clear himself at least 
 from this degradation. He can clear himself, indeed, 
 on very simple terms, but only of one kind. He can 
 become a Tory, but that is all. He can of course 
 sink, if he please, into the nameless ruck of the Squire 
 Westerns and the Squire Alworthys, the masters of 
 hounds, and the worthy justices, as the case may be, 
 but there life for him ends. A Liberal magnate, a 
 great Whig, who has lost the confidence of the nation, 
 and ostentatiously cuts himself off from the people, is 
 indeed a ridiculous being. For what does he exist, 
 what does he want, whom does he lead ? Whigs, be 
 it said without offence, are only cunning Tories. They 
 may want at heart much the same thing ; but they 
 are far too practical to invite a contest. Like the 
 
246 STUDIES OF CRISES 
 
 king who supplanted Wat Tyler, they come out in a 
 noble free-handed way and say ' We will be your 
 king ! ' But what will become of the Whigs who 
 should say, ' I have nothing for you, my good men? ' 
 
 Official Whiggery, middle-class Liberalism, must 
 have, or seem to have, the people at their back, or 
 they are nonentities. What is the real strength of 
 that aristocratic elite which feels itself superior to the 
 blindness of its order? What of that long-headed 
 respectability whose last word is compromise ? In 
 itself it is little enough. The long-headed and the 
 superior ones are a very decided minority, and 
 comfort, wealth, cowardice, and fashion, are ever 
 hardening the well-to-do into practical obstructives. 
 If, surrounded by such a host, the officer class of 
 Liberalism are not visibly followed by a popular army, 
 they are nothing. And on what easy terms can they 
 gain the confidence of the people. Never hardly in 
 any country or in any age have the political demands 
 of the masses been so moderate, so just, so free from 
 extravagance as those of the English people of this 
 very day. The rhetorical panics of Conservative 
 prophecy, the shrill epigrams of quarterly antipathy, 
 get no support in facts. The notion that oiu* working 
 classes of any kind cherish designs against society and 
 property, is the very delirium of ill-will and ignorance. 
 There was never in England a generation, there is in 
 Eiu:ope no laboiuring community, to whom ideas of 
 ' social liquidation ' are so utterly foreign. The Inter- 
 national, which has numbered adherents by hundreds 
 of thousands in other countries, cannot find its him- 
 
ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM. 247 
 
 dreds here. The whole scheme of violent reconstruc- 
 tion by political centralisation fails to make a dint in 
 the Enghsh mind. Did any reporter or observer ever 
 tell us that he had heard in any genuine gathering of 
 workmen, serious attacks on any single right of 
 property.? Is there a party in this island, amidst a 
 hubbub of free speech, which in this day advances a 
 programme remotely akin to violent revolution ? 
 Eevolution is a ready phrase on the tongues and the 
 pens of Conservative rhetoricians. But when squeezed 
 into common sense, it means only that which Con- 
 servatives do not like, or reluctance to accept the 
 Conservative elysium. In its destructive sense, revolu- 
 tion is an idea as alien to the political aspirations of our 
 people, as the word is alien to their language. Go 
 where you will amongst workmen in town or country, 
 in trades unions, in clubs, and ' mass meetings,' and 
 their talk is about Bills and Petitions and the sections 
 of an Act, commissions of inquiry, and deputations to 
 ministers. They are saturated with the Parliamentary 
 dye, and an indignation meeting of costermongers will 
 be sticklers for all the formulae in Hansard, and will 
 call ' order ' and stand by the chair. The great social 
 change which is involved in the spread of agricultural 
 unionism has stirred deep feelings enough, has re- 
 vealed suffering enough, and thrown up problems 
 enough to have called up all the revolutionary passions 
 if they lay in the genius of our age. But throughout 
 the struggle, momentous as it has been, in a section of 
 our people so little prepared, not a breath has ever 
 stirred on those deep waters, of political insurrection, 
 
248 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 nay, not a vision even of a political solution. The 
 unions of labourers, like the unions of the workmen, 
 have talked, not of politics, but of political economy ; 
 have attacked no class and no government, have called 
 for no laws, have denounced no property, and have 
 asked for no help. The effort has been intense and 
 bitter, but from first to last it has not roused a trace of 
 political agitation, much less of incendiary socialism. 
 The whole seafaring world, the mining world, and the 
 railway world, and they are large worlds with us, have 
 been stirred to passion by the tale of suffering and 
 slaughter which the most guarded of official reports 
 undoubtedly reveal. Yet all this indignation has 
 taken no revolutionary form. The ' moaning of the 
 wind ' is but a blatant metaphor of the 'Eevolutionary 
 Epic' They have neither cast their sufferings on 
 property, nor do they look for salvation to the State. 
 Stormy meetings of sailors ask only for a few new 
 clauses in an Act ; and a union of a hundred thousand 
 miners have agitated for years for a few more stringent 
 provisions as to truck, weighing, and inspection. In a 
 few weeks there will meet in much-maligned Sheffield 
 a parliament chosen by 700,000 skilled artisans, and, 
 amidst many things which the rich disHke exceedingly, 
 there will be heard what in that ParHament has been 
 heard before, neither visions about reconstructing society, 
 reforming property, or regenerating the State, but a 
 solid attention to business, a discussion of Bills and 
 Acts, and of bringing certain facts to the knowledge of 
 Parliament. It may be well-done, or ill-done; but 
 there will be nothing about ' social liquidation.' 
 
ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM. 249 
 
 It is said that Clive, in the midst of his defence 
 against his accusers, broke off when he told the tale of 
 his opportunities and his temptations. ' Good God ! 
 Mr. Chairman/ he cried, ' I wonder at my own modera- 
 tion ! ' Some such wonder the vast mass of our 
 people might well feel if, as with one mind and in one 
 glance they could sum up the bitter suggestions of 
 social pressure around them, the wild counsels not 
 seldom flung among them, the furious Utopias of some 
 countries and some ages, and they could hear the 
 calumnies with which they are assailed, whilst holding 
 on with astonishing patience to the strictest path of 
 legaHty. Let any one fairly ask what would be the 
 nature of a vast agrarian agitation in some countries, 
 what the language of a single union of colliers which 
 united 120,000 men, say in Belgium or France ; what 
 w^ould be the attitude abroad of a congress sent by 
 700,000 men, all enrolled and organised as exactly as 
 a German army ? And this vast association, which no 
 Government in Europe but our own could look on 
 without fear, is moving Parliament in the most con- 
 stitutional way, towards what are, after all, mere 
 questions, of detail ; is asking nothing of the State, but 
 the modifications of three or four measures of mere 
 police, which they say are made use of against them 
 by their rivals in an economic struggle. That injustice 
 is too often worked is admitted by parliaments and 
 ministries. What besides these are the immediate 
 wants of the working classes are questions of adminis- 
 trative detail, matters for parliamentary committees, 
 with nothing in the shape of insurrection, or sociahsm, 
 
250 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 or even democracy about them, measures for pro- 
 tecting life and health, for inspecting dangerous ships, 
 fiery mines, adulterated food, measures which may be 
 wise or may be unwise, but which are simple matters 
 of working machinery. Not one word in all this to 
 justify the inflated terrors of Conservative leaders, not 
 a trace of menacing ' Society,' nor a tone that could 
 alarm Property. If ever there was a moment in 
 modern politics when official Liberalism had much to 
 gain and nothing to lose by honestly throwing in its 
 lot with the working millions, when their political aims 
 were moderate and their political alliance safe, the 
 present moment is of all that went before, and of all 
 perhaps that will come after, the critical hour of 
 choice. 
 
 Honestly to renew or retain that alHance requires 
 no great thing. It means no doubt the clearing out 
 the Home Office from that laborious lumber of 
 ' favourable considerations ' which now chokes up its 
 doors ; it means the giving up of that system of official 
 trickery by which demands that cannot be gainsayed 
 are slily muddled away ; it means no more of the 
 back-stairs bargains with sects and churches. But to 
 ask for straightforward and efficient work is not asking 
 so much. There is perhaps little need for any heroic 
 measures. Those who would counsel Mr. Gladstone 
 to reopen his House with startling novelties, who call 
 out for some stroke of sensational legislation are not 
 the wisest friends of Mr. Gladstone or the Liberal 
 party, l^on tali auxilio. Mr. Gladstone assumes the 
 air of a man who thinks he has done his great work ; 
 
ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM. 251 
 
 his immediate followers most certainly have that air, 
 however little they assume it. The generation of 
 which Mr. Bright is the incarnation feels, and feels 
 with justice, that its great part is played. As one of 
 the ablest and most zealous of them said to a younger 
 man, 'You see the Eadical programme with which 
 we started in life is now all but realised.' The 
 Eadical programme of the older sort realised at last, 
 and yet the millennium is not come ! Well, we must 
 accept these things. To force these complacent 
 veterans into new campaigns would be to risk certain 
 defeat. Heroic measures, even if they could plan 
 them, would come from their lips with a hollow voice 
 and a lack-lustre look. 
 
 There is a simpler way of quelling domestic 
 discontent without dazzling attention by heroic 
 campaigns. And that way is by honestly studying 
 the causes of that discontent, patiently working out 
 the people's claims, and dealing with them in a spirit 
 of serious statesmanship, and not in the spirit of 
 official shuffling. There is a great field before Liberal 
 statesmen yet, without stirring the deeps of social 
 agitation, or revising the constitution. The frank 
 admission of the agricultural population to poHtical 
 rights, after the signal lessons of the labourers' move- 
 ment, is an obvious necessity, as just as it is safe. 
 The proofs of oppressive use of police law and justices' 
 law, are too overwhelming and ubiquitous to be stored 
 away even in the enormous receptacles of ' favourable 
 considerations,' which must lie as vaults beneath the 
 floors of the Home Office, and the Board of Trade. 
 
2 52 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 Let US vary the Irish sessions, and the Educational 
 sessions, and the Universal Muddle sessions, by a 
 session of internal administration. Suppose a minister 
 really tried to make any one department efficient in 
 the sense in which a Prussian department is efficient ; 
 suppose a little of that genius which goes to make a 
 party debate were thrown into the study of some of 
 those details of domestic legislation, which make or 
 ruin the happiness of the homes of the poor. It is a 
 career, humble perhaps, but doubtless more substantial 
 than any sham heroic legislation, for which the hour is 
 not ripe, or the men are not come. The land question 
 is a solid reality, which sneers and statistics are not 
 likely to extinguish. But who shall say that it is ripe 
 for legislation? Who can exactly say what it is? 
 The working of our laws affecting the land is so 
 technical and so intricate that the effect of any single 
 change in the law is what no one can acciu-ately trace, 
 who is not a real-property lawyer with an eye for 
 politics. The immediate effect of making an acre of 
 land as marketable as a horse, would probably be to 
 stimulate afresh the creation of great estates. The 
 immediate effect of ' abolishing primogeniture ' would 
 probably be nothing but the saving some lawyers a 
 good deal of trouble. The immediate effect of a 
 crude interference with settlements would probably 
 be to create a new order of conveyancers who would 
 succeed in eluding it. Altogether, ' the land question * 
 needs an amount of threshing out which has not yet 
 begun, ere it can enter the field of practical politics. 
 And perhaps not one man in a thousand who talks of 
 
ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM. 253 
 
 the land question knows what are the laws he wishes 
 to modify. With Education the present dynasty will 
 have enough to do, if it can get out of the mess which 
 it has itself created. He must have strange ideas of 
 statesmanship who still persists in seeing it in the 
 grand measure, which is now covering the land with 
 sectarian quarrels, and has stirred half the great towns 
 to phrensies of polemical combat. They must have 
 strange views about religion, who think it is served by 
 turning half the clergy into agitators ; or about educa- 
 tion, who think it served by elevating it to the position 
 of an Orange procession in Belfast. With all these 
 matters on hand, the party in power have enough to 
 do without being bated into heroic measures, or being 
 allured into burning questions. 
 
254 LEGISLATIVE REFORM. 
 
 ESSAY V. 
 
 LEGISLATIVE REFORM. 
 
 [The following Essay speaks for itself. It was published 
 January 1, 1874. In the interval between this and the 
 second Essay, a number of organic Measures had been passed — 
 Irish Church Disestablishment, Irish Land Act, Education 
 Act, Elections, Ballot, &c., &c., &c. The writer returns to 
 the question of internal Parliamentary Eeform ; in which 
 little, or nothing, had been done.j 
 
 The opening of another year compels the busiest and 
 the idlest alike to compare the present with the past 
 and the future. We, who in England take stock of 
 our political progress, can hardly shut out a mixed 
 feeling of disappointment and of hope ; in one sense a 
 generation has changed so little, in another sense it has 
 changed so much ; we can show so long a roll of legis- 
 lative reforms, and yet how little have they actually 
 done ! Corn-laws have been aboUshed, the whole 
 system of tariffs has been abandoned, taxation has 
 been recast, common law and chancery have been 
 remodelled, we have swept out the iniquities of Doc- 
 tors' Commons, and brought divorce home to the very 
 door of the poor artisan. Every vestige of civil dis- 
 ability for religion has been removed, and Jews and 
 Catholics are honoured judges and ministers. The 
 
LEGISLATIVE REFORM. 255 
 
 suffrage has been opened to every householder ; bribery 
 has been punished as the sin of witchcraft. Trades 
 unions have been made legal, at least it is no longer 
 lawful to rob them. The poor man has been relieved 
 from the taxes on knowledge, and the rich man has 
 been relieved from the tax on hair-powder. Every- 
 body has been relieved ; and surpluses have flown out 
 of the Budget like bouquets from a conjuror's sleeve. 
 The Irish Church has been firmly yet gently disestab- 
 lished by the sense of public duty of a true son of the 
 Church : the Irish peasant has had justice done him, 
 and has even legal rights to his permanent improve- 
 ments. The British voter, no longer cowed by the 
 light of publicity, now goes proudly to his ballot-box. 
 The judicature, the army, the public-houses, the Civil 
 Service, have all been reorganised. And lastly, the 
 Education Act has established at least the principle 
 of compulsory national education. It is a great roll 
 of legislative achievement ; and yet — ! Are these 
 changes and reforms in result all that they claimed to 
 be and seemed to be ? Has the enthusiasm of people 
 and ministers been justified in the event? Is Ireland 
 a contented and united land? Are pocket-boroughs 
 unknown here? Are bribery, intimidation, and dicta- 
 tion forgotten ? Is the national administration yet a 
 model; are all abuses in law at an end? Are the 
 children of the poor in a fair way to a good education ? 
 They who with no sneer of the partizan or the 
 cynic can ask these questions of themselves, who see in 
 these measures great acts of justice and great sources 
 of prosperity, who are most desirous of seeing in them 
 
256 LEGISLATIVE REFORM. 
 
 all their good result, and of not asking from them 
 more result than is just — even these men must feel 
 sadly conscious how little Acts of Parliament corres- 
 pond to changes in the life of the nation, at all in the 
 degree of the hopes of those who frame them. To 
 what extent has the condition of Ireland been seriously 
 raised by statutes? How far do the evils which we 
 remedy outstrip the new evils unconsciously growing 
 up around us ? Do the great measures which we 
 herald as the gospel of peace, or which we resist as 
 revolution, as ' destructive of the best interests of the 
 nation,' as ' simooms ' and ' hydras ' and the hke — do 
 these measures, when they get on the statute-book and 
 pass into the hands of magistrates and policemen, 
 really work all the havoc or the blessing which we 
 prophesied to our fellow-citizens ? In soberness and in 
 honesty it must be answered, No. We may still think 
 the measures in question right, opportune, indispen- 
 sable ; or wrong, unnecessary, and self-interested. We 
 may not see in what better way they could then have 
 been passed, or we may think they need not have been 
 passed. We may be proud of what was done, we may 
 be proud of the men who did it, or we may deplore 
 their action. And yet we must feel that its being 
 done mattered really less than we were ever wiUing to 
 suppose. 
 
 All this should have a sobering effect upon public 
 men. It should bring home to them that they are not 
 omnipotent, that legislation is but one of the forms, 
 and not one of the sources, of civilisation, that Acts of 
 Parliament are not reformations. Our pubUc men, 
 
LEGISLATIVE REFORM. 257 
 
 inspired with the consciousness of creative energy, 
 which is the vanity of Parhaments, too seldom remem- 
 ber the littleness of each legislative act, and the nar- 
 row circumscription of their power over the character 
 of their age. Mr. Lowe, when he recalls the godlike 
 purposes of his party, and their beneficent administra- 
 tion, is lost in wonder at the ingratitude of the recipi- 
 ents of such blessings, at the general hesitation to wel- 
 come the millennium. So good, so great a ministry, 
 so little understood ! No Liberal denies that they 
 have served their country, and have carried useful 
 measures. But thus to be lost in amazement at their 
 own exceeding wisdom and goodness argues too high 
 sense of the power of any statesmen and of any 
 measures. Political parties, when they have done all 
 that is commanded of them, must still say they are 
 unprofitable servants of the country ; nor should they 
 expect the public to fall down to them, as to Paul and 
 Barnabas at Lystra. As statesmen they may have 
 done great things ; but the limits of statesmanship are 
 very rigid. Each Act of Parliament but adds a brick 
 to the edifice of our lives. Sensational legislation is 
 not only impolitic, but it is sterile. For a single 
 statute can do little more than expound a principle. 
 The philosophers are for ever warning the statesmen, 
 that statesmen are not the great people that they 
 think ; that Parliament is often but a Court of Eegistry, 
 and often but a national platform. The statute-book 
 is but an element in our national civilisation, and they 
 who make that statute-book must remember that its 
 achievements for ever fall short of its promises. Like 
 
 s 
 
258 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 wise men they must be content with what they can do, 
 without expecting extravagant results, or assuming im- 
 possible powers. They must recognise the infinitely 
 subtle and complex character of society as an organism, 
 rejecting the heroic remedies, and the hope of social 
 reconstruction; giving up all 'simoom' theories of 
 human affairs, and all omnipotent theories of parha- 
 mentary legislation. With a year which opens with 
 the grey dull tones of 1874, to a man who can recall 
 the world of a generation since, there must be borne in 
 the sobering lesson that legislation effects much less 
 than men suppose, that it effects that little more slowly 
 than men suppose, and that in order to effect even that 
 it must work through a multitude of channels, and 
 foresee a multitude of consequences. 
 
 On the other hand, the retrospect has its own 
 cheerful side. There is no doubt that, on the whole, 
 the general political condition has sensibly improved, 
 in things material very greatly improved, and that in a 
 large measure by means of legislative help. We can 
 distinctly trace the good results of many an Act of 
 Parliament ; but still more often we find a solid change 
 distinctly apart from legislative help. Statutes are like 
 the corn-seed, much of which is dried up and withered, 
 much of which is choked by tares, but much of which 
 bears fruit after a period of apparent unfruitfulness. 
 Then, again, we must feel that things which were com- 
 mon formerly are impossible now ; evils which repeated 
 statutes failed to touch have disappeared like clouds ; 
 that there is a growing unity between legislation and 
 the spirit of its age. Hence we may well rest assured 
 
LEGISLATIVE REFORM. 259 
 
 that the Liberal legislation of a generation has on the 
 whole been based on the right lines ; and that if it is 
 not altogether omniscient beneficence, it is something 
 more than blundering and plundering. 
 
 This moderate estimate of the results of legislation 
 may also suggest the necessity of doing something to 
 improve the legislative machinery. Legislation, at its 
 best, can never do all it promises to do, and short of 
 its best it does hardly anything at all. Every year of 
 advanced civilisation requires more scientific skill in 
 legislation, and makes the necessary machinery far more 
 complicated. If there be anything on which parties 
 are fairly agreed, which pohticians on both sides de- 
 plore equally, it is the outrageous waste of power in 
 the parliamentary engine, the expenditure of fuel, the 
 amount of friction, the frequency of break-down. In 
 other words, the mechanism of our parliamentary 
 system cries aloud for amendment. A Parliament 
 which we are told has scattered reforms broadcast like 
 a good genius, can hardly employ its declining days 
 better than by doing something towards reforming 
 itself. All this is no radical grievance or platform 
 abuse to furnish forth an annual motion. It is a thing 
 admitted on all sides ; and of all men, leaders of parties 
 and ministers are perhaps those who feel most deeply 
 the extent of the evil. No one could tell the dismal 
 tale of delays, waste, and confusion, both in making 
 and in working Acts of Parliament, as they can who 
 are responsible for them. The way in which an ordi- 
 nary statute is put together would be a scandal to a 
 solicitor or a conveyancer drafting a common settle- 
 
260 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 meat or will. It is not but that the Bills are skilfully- 
 prepared when they enter the House ; it is that the 
 majority of Acts get finally settled in a sort of scuffle, 
 in which clauses are tossed out or jerked in at random, 
 and a legal web of a hundred sections is pieced together, 
 and re-pieced by a wrangling committee of four hun- 
 dred or five hundred members. Thus the last state of 
 that Bill is invariably worse than the first. When it 
 has been ' amended in Committee ' it is usually a thing 
 of rags and patches ; it comes into the House in the 
 state in which it ought to go out, and it usually goes out 
 in a state which is really little better than notes for 
 a draftsman. Of course, in important Government 
 matters, great efforts are made to keep the clauses 
 straight whilst going through Committees ; but this can 
 only be done much as a ship might have her rigging 
 or engines refitted in the midst of a general action. It 
 is very rarely indeed that the lawyer or the official 
 lights on an Act which from beginning to end is free 
 from blunder or inconsistency, in the sense in which 
 every well-drawn deed is free from both. An ordinary 
 statute difiers from an ordinary deed, much as a mar- 
 riage settlement, prepared by a competent lawyer, 
 differs from one which should be finally settled in a 
 dozen fierce wrangles between the heated relatives of 
 the happy pair. If testators, when executing their 
 wills, were to put in new clauses on the spur of the 
 moment, or the ' respective families ' were to cut about 
 the drafts of an eminent conveyancer, wills and settle- 
 ments would bear a strong resemblance to modern 
 Acts of Parliament. And the incoherence and error 
 
LEGISLATIVE REFORM. 261 
 
 with which they are marked is for the most part avoid- 
 able. As a rule, it is all imported into the Bill after 
 the second reading. Till then the Bill was probably as 
 accurate and precise as any other well-drawn legal 
 document. Now at the present time the minutest word 
 misplaced in an Act may cause indefinite hardship, 
 labour, or confusion. That words of such almost 
 mystical value should be tossed about in the meUe of 
 factious divisions is a crying scandal on our national 
 good sense. 
 
 Nor is the drafting of Acts of Parliament the only 
 source of disorder and waste. The abuses in the 
 business of the House, the multiplication of contrivances 
 for delay, the torrent of purely administrative detail, 
 and of official routine, which pours into the public 
 sittings, the intricacy of the course of procedure, the 
 recurrence of constant miscarriage, and the wild muddle 
 of pohtical with purely executive work — is it not 
 written in the book of Hansard, and graven on the 
 brain of every capable man who ever sat in the House .^ 
 Statesmen, journalists, essayists are perpetually crying 
 out against the incalculable evils of an institution with 
 such vast potential powers abandoned to such disor- 
 ganisation. When we look at facts and not at names 
 we find the executive and legislative powers of the 
 most complex empire and the most intricate society of 
 modern times all heaped in promiscuous confusion upon 
 an assembly, the forms and trachtions of which belc^ng 
 to a very difierent function. At any moment from 
 noon until midnight a gas bill may explode into an 
 attack upon a ministry, and five hundred breathless 
 
262 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 party -men will be dragged into opposite lobbies about 
 a sewer or an office-boy. Masses of common routine 
 orders, which in other countries are settled by a 
 minister's deputy, and settled well, in this country are 
 the subject of interminable discussion in a huge club of 
 meddlesome amateurs. The right organisation of the 
 executive, as distinct from the legislative fimctions ; of 
 the work of ministers, as distinct from that of senators, 
 is one of the most pressing of our wants. In a time 
 when a highly organised administration and a really 
 scientific legislation are needed for national existence, 
 we have six hundred members of Parhament, each of 
 whom is more or less of a minister, and ministers each 
 of whom is only a hard- worked member of Parliament. 
 The British Empire is tending to be governed by some- 
 thing that is only a prolonged public meeting, and a 
 public meeting which claims the attributes of Justinian 
 and the Shah of Persia. 
 
 Parliamentary Eeform, in the sense of reorganising 
 the course of business in the Houses, would be a 
 worthy subject for the consideration of a Parhament 
 rather in want of congenial occupation. And certainly 
 no statesman of our time so fit as Mr. Gladstone to 
 undertake the task. His immense experience of par- 
 liamentary and official business, his mastery over details, 
 and his dexterity in adapting old contrivances to new 
 uses, combined with his pre-eminent influence over this 
 House of Commons, mark him out as the one man who 
 might fairly grapple with the task. It is not a work to 
 be accomphshed off-hand. But Mr. Gladstone has 
 already shown by his w^ords, as well as by his acts, 
 
LEGISLATIVE REFORM. 263 
 
 that he is deeply impressed with the defects of our par- 
 hamentary machine, and that much must be done to 
 improve it, if capable government is to be carried on 
 by its agency. At a time when great party questions 
 are out of the way, and nothing absorbing is agitating 
 the public mind, it would be a misfortune if the oppor- 
 timity be not seized to disentangle the Executive from 
 the Legislative action of Parliament, to reorganise the 
 Executive as a distinct function, to give system to the 
 chaos of parliamentary business, and at least to con- 
 solidate and reform the text of statute law. 
 
 It is often asked, What is there for Parhament now 
 to do ? What is there to do ? There is any amount 
 of work without touching a single party question, or 
 waiting for any popular movement. There is the codi- 
 fication of the law, and the consolidation of the statutes, 
 the reorganisation of local taxation, the revision of the 
 system of local justice, the reducing to order the entire 
 framework of internal administration. No one sup- 
 poses that the whole paraphernaha of the j iistice-room 
 and petty sessions, so picturesquely associated with the 
 highest poetry and fiction of the language, is worthy of 
 an age with the resoiu-ces of ours. It is not bound up 
 with any cause dear to party, and yet if a beneficent 
 legislation were to choose the one question where a 
 thoroughly scientific reform would bring the greatest 
 happiness and relief home to the doors of the rural 
 population, it would probably be by dealing with the 
 unpaid magistracy. 
 
264 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 The question of reorganising the machinery of 
 legislation and of disentangling executive from legis- 
 lative functions, is closely connected with a subject 
 which as yet is but matter for superb leaders and com- 
 placent good sense. The comphcated macliinery of 
 Parliament, and its miscellaneous executive functions, 
 can only be worked on the assumption that Parhament 
 really consists of a governing class. How is the 
 machinery to be worked in the midst of something 
 approaching civil war ? How are the government of 
 Ireland and Parliamentary chaos to be permanently 
 made compatible ? Home Eule in Ireland is as yet, 
 to the English public, something not very intelligible 
 and slightly tedious. What can they want ? says the 
 average householder ; and why not pass laws in West- 
 minster as well as in Dublin ? It is a matter of which 
 but a few years will suffice to develop the meaning. 
 The next election to all appearance will force the 
 householder to understand Home Eule, by showing 
 him an immense preponderance of Irish votes forming 
 a definitely Irish party. ^ When this party for the first 
 time is recruited from Protestant and Catholic, and 
 comprises within it Cromwellians, Ultramontanes, and 
 Eepublicans, it will knock at the door of English 
 politics with a force which will have to be hstened to, 
 for it threatens unless dealt with to bring English 
 parties to a deadlock. The legislation, and still more 
 the attitude of the last few years, have virtually broken 
 the back of Protestant ascendancy. Now, for centuries 
 the instrument by which Ireland has been governed 
 
 * This came about rather unexpectedly within a month, in February 1874. 
 
LEGISLATIVE REFORM. 265 
 
 has been, in some form or other, this Protestant ascen- 
 dancy. The Parliament of 1868, in flinging behind it 
 this ill-omened weapon, prepared, whether knowingly 
 or not, a new era for Ireland. The English nation is 
 now, for the first time for generations, in the presence 
 of Irish nationality ; and if it be found that it has dis- 
 carded the old secret of empire, without having fully 
 elaborated a new one, the relations of the two nations 
 will have to be recast afresh. 
 
 If we need an example of the type to which Legis- 
 lation should not conform, we have it in the famous 
 Education Act. Here Parliament, instead of taking 
 up a great question itself, and settling it in a spirit of 
 vigorous precision, has made itself a simple arena for 
 religious and local bodies contending for purely sec- 
 tarian ends. The utterances of politicians appear now 
 to admit that the Education Act is not the settlement, 
 as was supposed, but the opening of the question. 
 Looked at from an historical point of view, it will pro- 
 bably appear hereafter that the Act of 1870 formu- 
 lated the principle of national education, but did not 
 even plan the foundations. The spectacle of school- 
 board elections which we have just been witnessing, 
 and are yet about to witness, offers every element 
 which tests that a question is not settled and has not 
 been solved. That a great national duty should be 
 understood in fifty different ways in every part of the 
 country, that it should be decided by irrelevant issues, 
 and become the excuse for outbursts of rival fanati- 
 cisms is just the character which stamps a measure 
 
266 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 in the eyes of English poHticians as essentially un- 
 statesmanlike. Parliament has many defects, and our 
 system of legislation is unscientific. But when Parlia- 
 ment deals with a question of national importance it 
 does the work itself, and it does not hand it over to 
 parishes and vestries. Matters of local health and 
 relief, it is our custom to leave in the hands of local 
 authority. But education was taken up as a great 
 national concern which Parliament alone could provide 
 for. The idea of throwing the rehgious difficulty to 
 each parish as a bone of local contention was perhaps 
 ingenious, but all sides are getting rather ashamed of 
 it. It has conspicuously failed ; the furious polemics 
 of the rival sects scandalise those who thought that a 
 national duty had been finally accomplished ; the in- 
 vasion of politics by sectarian agitators, and the reck- 
 less pertinacity of cliques, has disgusted quiet men of 
 business. It is in vain to repeat the specious common- 
 place that the Act is not responsible for bigotry and 
 sectarianism, that it aimed only at utilising the existing 
 machinery of voluntary bodies. This specious com- 
 monplace, Hke so many others, is not true. The result 
 has proved, on the contrary, that a new stimulus has 
 been given to religious rivalries, that political ascend- 
 ancy has been offered as the prize of the victor, that 
 education has been approached from its religious, not 
 from its secular side, from its parochial not its national 
 side. Great questions cannot be shirked by a court of 
 supreme legislation, and statesmen are not people who 
 dabble in clerical manoeuvres. It is, however, much 
 that the principle of national education has been 
 
LEGISLATIVE REFORM. 267 
 
 asserted, and the great need now is to bring back the 
 question to the one point of efficient piibhc instruction. 
 It is much that education should have been raised to 
 its present pre-eminence as a national concern ; but he 
 must be of a sanguine temper wlio assumes that the 
 problem is really settled. Two things, however, in the 
 meantime, have been accomplished. A great body of 
 sectarian agitation has been called into political activity, 
 four-fifths of which will be permanently used on the 
 retrograde side in secular politics. And the position 
 of the Established Church has been advanced to the 
 line of practical questions. 
 
268 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 ESSAY VI. 
 
 THE CONSERVATIVE REACTION. 
 
 [This Essay was published March 1, 1874, immediately after 
 the General Election, precipitated by Mr. Gladstone. If 
 the result was overwhelming beyond all immediate expecta- 
 tion, it was not in disagreement with the principles main- 
 tained in the earlier Essays of this volume (1867, and 1868).] 
 
 It is ever easy to be wise after the event, and nothing 
 now can seem more obvious than the causes of the 
 great revolution in parties. Like other and greater 
 revolutions it is all clear the moment it has happened. 
 The famous Dissolution mine has exploded the wrong 
 way, and annihilated the defenders, and not the be- 
 siegers, of the ministerial citadel. Now everyone can 
 tell us why it failed, though no one foretold, and very 
 few at all expected it. The truth is, that the famous 
 manifesto of Mr. Gladstone, his programme of future 
 legislation, the budget, the surplus, the income-tax, in- 
 deed, political questions of any special kind, have had 
 no influence at the polls. We all, politicians, states- 
 men, essayists, speakers and writers alike, habitually 
 exaggerate the amount and area of political conviction. 
 Except under exceptional excitement, those who seri- 
 ously care for political questions, even those who vote 
 
THE CONSERVATIVE REACTION. 269 
 
 under definite political impulse, are quite a minority, 
 often a small minority. Half-conscious bias, personal 
 liking, vague habit and vaguer hopes, determine the 
 votes of the non-political bulk of the electors. Mr. Glad- 
 stone committed the mistake of supposing that this 
 indifferent mass would form definite views upon specific 
 public questions ; and writers and speakers, party-men, 
 journalists, and all on both sides followed his mistake. 
 The story of the last month should be a lesson to them 
 all. Public men talk and think of the country being 
 ' agitated ' about some one's new Bill, just as a theatri- 
 cal clique talks of ' the town ' being delighted by the 
 new farce, just as some group of gossips imagines man- 
 kind divided by the quarrel of two dowagers. The 
 real country, the millions who are attending to their 
 occupations, or who vote at the polls, all the while 
 never heard of the new Bill, the blazing principle, or 
 even its author, just as they never knew that there ever 
 had been a new farce at all, or a drawing-room scandal of 
 any kind. So Mr. Gladstone's great appeal fell utterly 
 flat, for it never reached more than the political class, 
 who are always a small percentage of those who vote. 
 The elections have been determined by causes which 
 have existed for long months and years, which are very 
 much older than any cabinet revelation, and very much 
 deeper than any budget or any programme. As com- 
 pared with six years ago, there is a very real change in 
 the country as a whole. The change is not perhaps 
 very deep in political convictions ; but it is a very real 
 change in political temper ; and a tremendous change 
 in party government. The change is not only very 
 
270 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 even in its effect, but it is one very extensive in its 
 area. It must have momentous results on the course 
 of political progress. Let us try to satisfy ourselves 
 what is its true nature. 
 
 A change so wide-spread and emphatic is not to be 
 accounted for by any small or accidental cause. We 
 are all too ready to explain pohtical crises by means of 
 some single or some direct agency. Political crises 
 hardly ever arise except under a multitude of minor 
 and indirect agencies which have long contended or 
 combined with each other, and at last find expression 
 in a common cause. But as the present, like other 
 catastrophes of party, has had its minor accidents, they 
 may fairly claim our first attention, and be quickly dis- 
 missed from the political horizon. 
 
 The outraged dignity of Beer has indeed been nobly 
 avenged. Brewers, distillers, and beersellers have 
 been everywhere the popular heroes ; and falling in with 
 a stagnant era of political energy, and many another 
 irritated interest, the great Trade has won a signal 
 triumph. Of all the minor causes of the Conservative 
 reaction, the most distinct, as also the most universal, 
 has unquestionably been Beer. Masses of electors, in 
 ordinary times, vote as schoolboys will shout — by the 
 mere contagion of noise and fun ; and the rattle of the 
 taproom or a glass of beer will decide the pohtical 
 convictions of hundreds who waver betwixt Progress 
 and Antiquity. 
 
 There were other causes; but they were but the minor 
 causes of the great change. A change of one hundred and 
 forty votes in five years must be occasioned by something 
 
THE CONSERVATIVE REACTION. 271 
 
 yet deeper and more general than this. If party men 
 are to be found who set it all down to the beer trade, or 
 to the 25th Section, or to Mr. Bruce, to the match-tax,- 
 or the Alabama arbitration, or the Carlton Club, or all 
 combined, they are only trifling with the matter. The 
 truth must be faced that in five years the country, England 
 at least, had distinctly changed its mind. There is a 
 real Conservative reaction of a certain kind, more 
 or less common to all parts of this island, and more or 
 less marked in all sections of the public. That this 
 reaction is somewhat vague in its aims, that it is largely 
 made up of lassitude, and very unhkely to be active, 
 that it is accidentally swollen by special offences, and 
 made articulate by a series of blunders, that its main 
 substratum is a national plethora of prosperity, and the 
 coating of odium which gradually incrusts a Ministry, 
 ought not to close our eyes to the fact that the reaction 
 really exists. And the first thing to be done is to per- 
 ceive that the country is in a very different mood from 
 what it was ^^^ or six years ago. 
 
 A very marked feature in the struggle has been the 
 hostility displayed towards ministers as such. Closely 
 allied to this impression is a feeling which affects tlie 
 Liberal party even more than a Liberal Government, 
 the distaste of the mass of the nation for the mechanical 
 repetition of economic sophisms. The saws which the 
 money-making classes pretend to be political economy, 
 the gospel of laissez-faire., or rights of (wealthy) man, 
 may be sovereign maxims for getting on in the world, 
 but they must ruin a political party. The so-called 
 Liberal party is that which specially prides itself on the 
 
272 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 purity of its economic orthodoxy, is the party which is 
 always on the side of doing nothing, that is, practically 
 on the side of the rich, which is ever ready with 
 scientific dogmas to show the criminal weakness of pro- 
 tecting the weak, which teaches there is but one way 
 of making ships seaworthy, or mines safe, or factories 
 healthy, fraudulent traders honest, and overworked 
 children happy, and that is by letting them all alone, 
 by respecting the god-like wisdom of enlightened self- 
 interest. It is true no Government of a civilised com- 
 munity can ever act upon this cynical paradox ; but a 
 Liberal Government seems that which is most ready to 
 listen to its appeal, and is most associated with its pro- 
 fessors. The hard-and-fast party man of the straightest 
 sect of Liberalism or Eadicalism who could say his 
 economic catechism without stumbling, and is without 
 a taint of economic heresy, has been wont to smile at 
 the vision of the Conservative working-man. Perhaps 
 he smiles no longer. He has had a good deal to do mth 
 the making of the Conservative working-man, who in 
 all the measures which directly affect himself has found 
 the Eadical economist his stiffest opponent. Through- 
 out the manufacturing districts it seems clear that the 
 Conservative candidates, rather more often and dis- 
 tinctly than the Liberal candidates, have supported the 
 measures desired by the workmen. In Lancashire and 
 Yorkshire the old tradition was that the Conservative, 
 and not the Liberal, was the workman's friend, and 
 the Nine Hours' Bill and the Masters' Federation have 
 done much to revive the tradition. In any case, it 
 seems clear that Conservative employers are at least as 
 
THE CONSERVATIVE REACTION. 273 
 
 popular with their workmen as the Liberal employers 
 in many, if not in all, parts of the country. One sees 
 no particular reason for the contrary. And the dream 
 of the party Liberal that all workmen, the moment they 
 had the franchise, would hasten to give it to the great 
 Free Trade party, is a dream which has now no foun- 
 dation, if it ever had any in the past. 
 
 Fortunately the skilled workman is usually a poli- 
 tician as well as a member of a class. In the long-run, 
 and in most trades, he is on broad grounds on the side 
 of Progress. And the great bulk of the skilled artisans 
 will undoubtedly be found to have voted for the 
 Liberal cause, though in the cotton and textile trades, 
 where political intelligence is not very broad, where 
 trade questions are very absorbing, and where the 
 factory system stimulates a local and domestic partisan- 
 ship, the Conservative working-men may be found in 
 masses. In some of the factory districts they vote by 
 mills and wards in the spirit in which schoolboys play 
 cricket or football by 'houses,' or 'forms.' Those who 
 imagined that the entire workman vote was going to 
 be cast for the historic Liberal party completely forgot 
 that amongst large masses of workmen, especially mill- 
 hands, a popular neighbour commands all the influence 
 which the captain of the boats or an athletic tutor has 
 in colleges and schools. They also forgot that the 
 number of the skilled artisans which the Act of 1867 
 added to the register was not overwhelming, and only 
 in a few places made them equal to the upper and mid- 
 dle classes combined. They also forgot that the skilled 
 artisans are a very different body from the town 
 
 T 
 
274 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 labourers, large numbers of whom were placed on the 
 register for the first time in 1867. Perhaps throughout 
 all EngUsh society there is no break more marked than 
 that which in cities divides the skilled from the unskilled 
 workmen. In temper, interest, and intelligence, they 
 are separated by a deep and invariable gulf. The poli- 
 tical aptitudes and proclivities, with which in 1867 it 
 was the fashion to credit the workmen, were truly 
 credited to the skilled workmen, but not accurately, or 
 but partially, to the unskilled. The Whigs forgot if 
 Mr. Disraeli remembered that when you pass below 
 the skilled workmen you come upon a stratum of 
 casual employment, low education, and habitual de- 
 pendence, where poHtical action is dormant, and the 
 influences of clergyman, publican, wealth, and mere 
 ostentation, are almost paramount. Without using 
 the offensive term ' residuum,' it is obvious that below 
 the body of skilled artisans there exists a large and 
 floating body of town labourers, whom in times of 
 prosperity and political stagnation a little demagogism 
 can easily win for the Conservative side. This is a 
 body which the genius of Mr. Disraeli seciu-ed for the 
 British constitution. 
 
 But if large sections of the unskilled workmen, and 
 some sections of the skilled workmen have been brought 
 to swell the Conservative following, who were the 
 agents by whom they were influenced ? Almost exclu- 
 sively middle-class capitahsts and popular employers. 
 And that brings us to what is, perhaps, the backbone 
 of the Conservative reaction, the change of front of the 
 great composite middle-class. The real truth is that 
 the middle-class, or its effective strength, has swung 
 
THE CONSERVATIVE REACTION. 275 
 
 round to Conservatism. Conservatism no doubt it is 
 of a vague and negative kind ; but its practical effect 
 is an undefined preference for 'leaving well alone.' 
 When we look at the poll in the City of London, in 
 Westminster, in Middlesex, in Surrey, in Liverpool, 
 Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield, in the metropolitan 
 boroughs and in the home counties, in all the centres 
 of middle-class industry, wealth and cultivation, we 
 see one unmistakeable fact, that the rich trading-class, 
 and the comfortable middle-class have grown distinctly 
 Conservative. There are no special causes at work in these 
 great constituencies. Beer has no influence with the 
 merchants, shopkeepers, and citizens of London. There 
 are no dockyards in Surrey and Middlesex. There are 
 no great landlords or employers in Marylebone. The 
 Carlton Club cannot pull the wires of Manchester and 
 Sheffield. The 25th Section men are not very strong 
 in Westminster, and there is no ' residuum ' in Hert- 
 fordshire and Essex, in Lancashire and Yorkshire 
 counties. These great boroughs and counties contain 
 the very flower of the men of business, whose indomit- 
 able energy builds up these five millions of surplus, 
 who pay so large a proportion of that income-tax which 
 was offered them as a bonus. The inference is unmis- 
 takeable. The effective force of the middle-class has 
 grown for a season Conservative. The Conservative 
 party has become as much the middle-class party as the 
 Liberal used to be, as much and more. The great 
 merchants of London, the great spinners of Manchester, 
 are Tories of the Tories ; and the small merchant and 
 tradesman has begun to follow the fashion. The 
 
 T 2 
 
27.6 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 brewer, the distiller, the soap-boiler, the cotton-broker, 
 and the drysalter, have strong constitutional opinions. 
 The sleek citizens, who pour forth daily from thousands 
 and thousands of smart villas roimd London, Man- 
 chester and Liverpool, read their Standard and believe 
 that the country will do very well as it is. There is 
 nothing now exclusive about the Conservative party. 
 It is, in the old sense of the words, just as popular 
 and democratic as the Liberal party. If one casts the 
 €ye down the list of the 351 Conservatives, we find 
 middle-class traders preponderating in the boroughs, 
 and fairly conspicuous in the sacred preserves of the 
 counties. Conservatism has opened its arms to the 
 middle-classes, and has reaped its just reward. 
 
 What are the causes of this great parliamentary 
 change would be a long and intricate tale to tell. Per- 
 haps the principal has been the advance of the work- 
 ing-classes along the whole of their line. Enormous 
 development in prosperity has led to an extraordinary 
 demand for labour. Labour, in spite of the economists, 
 does not in practice ' flow,' and does not always come 
 when you turn on the tap, no, not if you use a golden 
 key. The natural result was competition for the work- 
 men, rapidly increasing wages, augmented independence 
 and power to the labourers. It was borne in upon the 
 middle-class, especially on the lower middle-class, and 
 those whose incomes are fixed or narrow, that the 
 working-classes were invading them. The middle- 
 classes felt their heel trodden on by the workman. It 
 flashed on them with a sense of horror that they them- 
 selves were sinking under the struggle, that large 
 
THE CONSERVATIVE REACTION. ^-j-j 
 
 sections of them were without raison d'etr e2ii\(\ destined 
 to early absorption. Middle-class tradesmen who had 
 been paying 40.9. a ton for coals whilst they paid 406'. 
 a week for wages, were hardly likely as a body to vote 
 for the Liberal party. 
 
 With the wealthier sections of the middle-class, the 
 men whose success, energy and shrewdness impress and 
 guide their neighbours ; with the professional and cul- 
 tivated groups in tlie great cities ; with the clubs, the 
 chambers of commerce, the exchanges ; with ' society,' 
 other and more truly political feelings doubtless pre- 
 vailed. They had coolly reflected over the great poli- 
 tical changes of the last six years, accomplished and pro- 
 jected, and they thought, on the whole, that they had 
 had enough. The state of the Continent has strengthened 
 reaction throughout Europe, and has discredited demo- 
 cracy. The German mihtary empire has flung some 
 halo over feudal institutions. The revolutionary storms 
 of France and of Spain have cast a shadow upon popular 
 causes. Even the story of the Commune of Paris, the 
 true lesson of which is so little understood, has affected 
 Liberalism in England, with which it has as httle real 
 connection as the famine in Bengal. Nay, our political 
 classes are far from being strictly logical, and it was as 
 good logic as most to reason that the Communists were 
 miscreants, that the Commune arose with French 
 working-men, that the Liberal party claim the support 
 of English working-men, and that therefore to support 
 the Liberal party was to encourage miscreants and 
 possibly inaugurate the Commune in London. 
 
 We must all acquiesce in this, for it is the plain 
 
278 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 tleoision of the nation. Premature attempts to re- 
 organise the Liberal party on any clap-trap cry will 
 recoil heavily on those who attempt it. Futile expla- 
 nations of the late defeat by any temporary cause will 
 only make that defeat more enduring. The first thing 
 to be done is to recognise the facts ; and the first fact 
 is that the Liberal party at present consists of two 
 heterogeneous sections, and that both combined are not 
 a majority. Whether these sections will ever be got 
 into hue together again is exceedingly doubtful ; but 
 this will not be obtair ed by denying the separation. A 
 considerable portion of the upper and middle-class 
 seceders will no doubt be permanently added to the 
 regular party of resistance. There are great questions 
 which remain to be dealt with, and pressing wants 
 which ought to be supplied. With some of them per- 
 haps a Conservative Government can deal as well as a 
 Liberal Government. And some of them, it must be 
 admitted, are not in a state of due preparation. The 
 peculiar institution of England, the feudalisation of the 
 land, will some day meet with its legislative remedy, or 
 rather lose its legislative sanction ; but this great pro- 
 blem with its legal, practical, and political difficulties, 
 has hardly yet begun to be treated with adequate 
 knowledge and a determined end. The minor struggle 
 around the Education Act must broaden, as the Con- 
 servatives see, into a struggle round the very principle 
 of privileged Church and State connection with religion. 
 And it must be allowed that opinion is far from mature 
 on the question, whilst the country for the time has re- 
 legated it from the sphere of politics to the sphere of 
 
THE CONSERVATIVE REACTION. 279 
 
 thought. To found a high system of national educa- 
 tion, to secure reUgious independence and equahty, to 
 bind the labourer, the farmer, and the proprietor by 
 healthier ties to the land which they cultivate, are 
 problems which await the generations to come; but 
 for the time the nation has decided that they must take 
 the form of appeals to public opinion, and not of 
 direct experiment in legislating. 
 
 The wildest Tory can hardly suppose that the wish 
 of the country for a period of rest is equivalent to a 
 spirit of active retrogression. There is nothing very 
 terrible about the Conservative reaction, and no reason 
 to fear that it will undo any great work that has been 
 done, or put an end to the course of administrative im- 
 provements. There is nothing feudal about the Toryism 
 of 1874, nothing retrograde about its principles. It is 
 just as much bourgeois, industrial, and practical as 
 Liberalism itself, and as to its principles it has no prin- 
 ciples at all. A party which implicitly obeys a new 
 man of genius and is largely made up of great employers 
 and capitalists, is not about to fly at the nineteenth 
 century, and is just as likely to find good men of busi- 
 ness as any of its rivals. 
 
 There is one great feature of policy in which a 
 Conservative Government may easily surpass its prede- 
 cessor, as it can hardly contrive to sink below it. The 
 weak side of the Gladstone Government has been its 
 foreign policy, or rather absence of a foreign policy. 
 The Eusso-Turkish question, the Khivan question, the 
 Alabama question, the whole attitude of England in 
 1870 and 1871, have left on the nation a sense of being 
 
28o STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 exceedingly insignificant in the estimation of the world. 
 Not only is the effacement of England as a European 
 power an acknowledged fact, but the late Government 
 had an air of bragging about it as a stroke of genius, 
 and a triumph of true economy. Like the fox in the 
 fable, it was continually lecturing its neighbours on the 
 practical advantages of getting rid of your tail and 
 avoiding the incumbrance of a national position. Enghsh- 
 men do not, perhaps, regard the opinion of other 
 nations with the jealous vanity of Frenchmen ; but it 
 is a very great mistake to suppose that they are not 
 acutely alive to public contempt. For generations our 
 Governments have risen and fallen on foreign questions. 
 It will be found that the paramount prestige of Mr. 
 Gladstone and his Ministry first began to wane when 
 the nullity of England was manifested during the war 
 of 1870. The attitude of the Government may have 
 shown a masterly inactivity; and the war song of 
 ' happy, happy England ' may have been chanted with 
 striking success ; but when it was all over. Englishmen 
 did not look back on their part with pride. The 
 brilliant discovery that there was a ' cheap defence of 
 nations,' not exactly in national honour, but in diplo- 
 matic compliments, was tried again and again ; and the 
 Eussian Empire was invited to help itself with the same 
 ceremonious helplessness as the Prussian Empire had 
 been. Mr. Disraeli's Government has an opportunity 
 now of removing the tone of sonorous imbecility which 
 has grown to be the habitual key of English diplomacy. 
 Whatever its foreign policy may be, it can hardly be so 
 bad as the policy of boasting that nothing can induce 
 you to have a policy at all. Even if home affairs are 
 
THE CONSERVATIVE REACTION. ^ I- 2%(.' 
 
 to bide their time for a space, it is some coirip^nsatito '^Z ^ 
 to feel that we are free from a system of which, the'' '/^ 
 ideal was to raise England to the national position'" cjf ^ 
 Australia or Holland. • / 
 
 The Conservative reaction then is no illusion, but a -- 
 very sohd reality, for the tone of the nation has be- 
 come distinctly Conservative. On mere party questions 
 the effect must be tremendous and probably prolonged. 
 It is far from likely that the lowest point in the for- 
 tunes of the Liberal party has been reached. Another, 
 and yet another fall, for aught we can see, may await 
 it. And a new generation may have sprung up before 
 another great era of change has set in. But there is 
 little ground for thinking that a catastrophe so ruinous 
 to whips and. wire-pullers, is any great catastrophe to 
 the country. There is less ground for thinking that a 
 Conservative Government will differ very much in 
 practice from a Liberal Government, or that the nation 
 has the slightest intention of submitting to any sub- 
 stantive change of principle. If the new Government 
 will efficiently carry on the general spirit by which 
 home affairs have been guided since the repeal of the 
 corn laws, and w^ill add to that a consistent and national 
 foreign policy, there is surely no reason why it should 
 not be long in the ascendant. If Toryism were so 
 infatuated as to take popular irritation against ambi- 
 tious blundering for a popular desire to return to the 
 past, it Will be speedily and rudely thrust aside. The 
 Conservative reaction is a great fact, in so far as it seats 
 Mr. Disraeli and his friends in firm and undisputed 
 possession of power ; but it has very little that is truly 
 Conservative, and next to nothing of real reaction. 
 
282 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 ESSAY VII. 
 
 FOREIGN POLICY. 
 
 [It is no part of this volume to deal with Foreign Policy in 
 general, and the following Essay makes no profession to do 
 so. It is inserted as bearing strictly on the question of this 
 book — the weak side inevitably presented by our present 
 Parliamentary system. The enormous difference between 
 the attitude of England towards the world two or three 
 generations ago, as compared with its attitude in this and the 
 more recent Parliaments, is a matter for curious study. Of 
 late years there has been a species of paralysis about our 
 foreign policy which cannot be caused either by want of 
 energy or skill in our diplomacy. It can be directly traced 
 to the growth of Parliamentary Executive, whereby a floating 
 majority of popular representatives practically neutralises all 
 initiative and energy in our Foreign Policy, without itself 
 contributing any new force. Our Foreign Policy is Efface- 
 ment, simply because there is no organic Executive in our 
 system. The object of this Essay (published in May 1874) 
 is to urge that this is more than an evil : that it is a danger^ 
 of the first magnitude. I advocate no special Foreign 
 Policy ; I do not call for ' a spirited Foreign Policy ' as it is 
 said (though the Abyssinian and the Ashantee wars were 
 ' spirited ' enough). I call only for a national and settled 
 policy in Europe as essential to the very safety of this country.] 
 
 The aim of a Conservative Government, we are told, is 
 to give to the country a period of rest ; and it certainly 
 bids fair to fulfil its mission. Public AfTairs, at any 
 
FOREIGN POLICY. 283 
 
 rate in England, like the historic snakes in Ireland, 
 form a chapter that is easily written ; that is to say, 
 there are none. But this vacancy in the annals of our 
 country, as it is the best proof, they say, of the happi- 
 ness of the people, so it may be used to very good pur- 
 pose and with much profit by the inquiring mind. 
 The profound calm of the country within invites us to 
 study the state of the country without. Foreign affairs, 
 it has well been said, are not so much the affairs of 
 foreis^ners as the affairs of Encfland in relation to 
 foreigners. And a Conservative reaction may prove a 
 solid gain to this nation if it turns men's minds to 
 serious thought upon the position of the Empire with 
 regard to its many neighbours. 
 
 Do we sufficiently recognise the fact that in twenty 
 years Eussia has recovered all, and more than all, she 
 lost by the Crimean War ? Do we feel that she is 
 relatively far stronger and nearer to us now than she 
 was in the halcyon days which preceded that great 
 struggle P What a lavish outlay of blood and treasure 
 and some show of statesmanship then assured to this 
 country, has been flung away by a policy of huckster- 
 ing self-abasement. What has become of that under- 
 standing with France, deeper than ministries or dynas- 
 ties in either country, which made the two people feel 
 that they had at bottom common interests in Europe ? 
 What has become of that European equilibrium of 
 which we felt ourselves in some sort the guardians, and 
 of which we so largely enjoyed the advantage? The 
 entire state of things, the very order of ideas, are 
 gone ; and nothing definite but great armies and em- 
 
284 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 pires has taken the place. Happy, happy England 
 stands alone. If the Eussians descend on Constanti- 
 nople, and we choose to defend it, we must do so 
 absolutely alone — that is to say, we shall not do it at 
 all. There will not be a hundred thousand French 
 soldiers to take the Malakoff for us. We must do it 
 ourselves. And as one English army corps even since 
 Lord Card well's time is perhaps hardly yet a match for 
 about thirty Eussian corps, it is unhkely that the Mala- 
 koff will be taken again. It has long been a fixed 
 basis in our policy that Austria had far more interest 
 in keeping Eussia from the Bosphorus than we have 
 ourselves, and that she was in ample position to do so. 
 She was, but she is no longer. A hint fi-om Berlin 
 would suffice ; the most simple understanding between 
 the Eussian and the German cabinets Avould paralyse 
 Austria, and leave the conquest of Turkey a mere 
 military promenade. In other words, a Eussian 
 Government has only to give its orders, make its terms 
 with Prince Bismarck, engage our Foreign Office in a 
 sham correspondence, and the Levant in a month is a 
 Muscovite lake. 
 
 Against this possibility the trust of the British 
 public is simply that the Czar will do nothing so 
 wicked. So thouglit the Peace Society when, in 1853, 
 it Hew with healing on its wings to St. Petersburg. 
 But to sensible men no such trust is vouchsafed. They 
 recognise the enormous development of Eussia since 
 the Peace of Paris; the change which her military 
 resources have received by the system of railways, 
 manufactories, and docks ; and, lastly, the fabulous 
 
FOREIGN POLICY. 285 
 
 sum-total of her armies. The Eiissian Empire is now 
 three times as powerful for war as she was a generation 
 ago. And to suppose that this tremendous apparatus 
 of conquest is built up for nothing, and is destined for 
 display, is quite unreasonable. It is directed by intel- 
 lects as sleepless and wills as concentrated as ever 
 shaped the destinies of a nation. The Czar himself is 
 doubtless peaceful, and somewhat too indolent for a 
 gi'eat design ; but around him there are brains of an 
 aspiring order, and behind them all the Eussian race. 
 The Czar with all his power is still but an instrument ; 
 and it may well suit the schemers in the background 
 to place him in the front ; to celebrate the English 
 alliance and hospitalities with pipe and drum, trumpets 
 and lords in waiting. But Czar, weddings, and hospi- 
 talities, mean as little as the froth in a loving-cup. 
 Whilst our Court is making holiday like a careful 
 family which has gotten a fine match for a younger 
 son, the close brains who work the Eussian Empire are 
 busier than ever. A month or two, a year or two 
 matter little to a race with a destiny and a faith 
 steadily before them ; for the classes which mould the 
 course of Eussia have small taste for the tradesman's 
 honest industry, for peaceful devotion to the science of 
 making money. They have a faith in their country's 
 mission and a conception of its conquering destiny 
 quite alien to the insipid religion of comfort which un- 
 mans the governing classes of the West. They have a 
 purpose and a dream which we can only conceive by 
 the aid of history, and which has really something of 
 the grand within it. The indefinite extension and 
 
2?6 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 aggrandisement of the Eussian Empire has behind it a 
 national force which is perhaps the most permanent of 
 its kind in Europe. The passing of this moral force 
 into a reality and a fact, is but a matter of external 
 and material conditions. And the conditions are mani- 
 festly approaching a state of complete preparation for 
 a crisis. The decision has but to be made, the Ger- 
 man price has but to be paid, our governments have 
 but to be amused with diplomatic feints, and the eagles 
 will wave over the Eastern Mediterranean. 
 
 So far, in their inmost reflections, most Englishmen 
 are prepared to go ; and it seems an easy solution to 
 resolve that, at the first signal of movement from 
 Sebastopol or Odessa, an English army and fleet will 
 descend on Egypt, and secure all that England cares 
 for in the Levant — the passage to India. This is very 
 easy to say, but it is far from clear that an English 
 Ministry has life enough left for such a stroke, which 
 would have to be struck before one could even find 
 out what the Times would say of it ; and, what is far 
 more important, it is much less clear that the most 
 resolute Ministry could do it without the support or 
 the assent of other Powers in Europe. Whose interest 
 or wish could it be to send England to the Nile? And 
 is she likely to go there against the will of the rest of 
 the European world ? But to let that pass, to suopose 
 that such a step were in the first place possible^ and in 
 the next place would attain its object, there is a great 
 deal yet to be considered. Russia is an Asiatic Power 
 just as completely as England, and, morally speaking, 
 far more so. The dream of universal dominion is far 
 
FOREIGN POLICY. 287 
 
 Stronger on her Asiatic than on her European side. 
 The story of the Khivan expedition should teach us 
 how that dream tends to shape itself into fact, almost 
 in spite of the intention of the principal actors ; and 
 the pages of the Khivan Blue-book have made us all 
 feel how impotent to arrest it is diplomatic eloquence. 
 Lord Partington defying the Eussian tide with his 
 accomplished goose-quill is not a picture which rouses 
 our national pride. 
 
 Our position in the East, with regard to Eussia, is 
 one very far from satisfactory. Each year brings us 
 closer together, and the so-called neutral-ground, of 
 which so much has been made, leaves things worse 
 than before. Our Indian Empire is no doubt pos- 
 sessed of immense resources for defence, and Eussia 
 perhaps does more justice to the fighting power of our 
 army of occupation than we do ourselves ; but it is far 
 from clear that these resources would prove adequate 
 if left, even for a moderate period, without support 
 from the mother-island. Now if Eussia ever really 
 contemplates an aggressive movement, it will probably 
 be along the whole line at once. Her armies are so 
 enormous, her extent and resources are such, that if 
 the word were given to brave a conflict with England 
 she could occupy us simultaneously with her fleet in 
 many parts of the world — could descend upon Con- 
 stantinople and threaten the Levant, and at the same 
 time occupy Afghanistan and Persia, and plant herself 
 at the gates, or within the gates, of Hindostan. It is 
 tolerably certain that if this momentous effort be ever 
 made, it will not be made unsupported. It will have 
 
288 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 to obtain the sanction, if not the help, of the German 
 arbiter of Europe. It would be rendered easy by the 
 moral support of the United States. The German and the 
 American Governments have only to establish a male- 
 volent neutrality, to assume an attitude of hostility, to 
 let a few Alabamas slip from their ports, discover 
 'questions ' in Belgium, Heligoland, Canada, or Jamaica, 
 or even, let us say, in Gibraltar, Malta, and Suez, and 
 it is difficult to say what might not happen. It is easy 
 to say what would happen. England would be like a 
 whale attacked at once by a shoal of swordfish. Her 
 empire, scattered broadcast over two hemispheres, ex- 
 poses her to assault from fifty sides at once. Her 
 formidable fleet cannot be everywhere at once ; whilst 
 it would signify very little where her puny army was 
 or was not. The fighting resources of the British army 
 in India might perhaps guarantee, for the time, the 
 defence of that empire ; and the fleet might possibly 
 protect any single spot, the retention of which was 
 thought to be essential ; but where would be the 
 Empire on which the sun never sets at the end of the 
 conflict, if Eussia once chose to set herself to dis- 
 member it, and Germany and America abetted or 
 assented to the scheme.^ To whom should England 
 turn? To Austria, jammed between two giants ? To 
 France, panting, despondent, and bitter ? To which of 
 the other Powers ? There are none, or none that are 
 not in greater danger than ourselves. Such are the 
 triumphs of the policy of strict attention to the shop ! 
 
 We are not of those who think that the greatness of 
 this country resides in her Eastern Empire or in her 
 
FOREIGN POLICY. 289 
 
 maritime ascendancy, but it is a fair question to ask, 
 what would be the condition of England and of Eng- 
 lish society, if the entire colonial and imperial fabric 
 were shaken to its foundations, and commerce shorn of 
 its cherished prerogatives and its chosen fields. This 
 country would have to be reorganised both within and 
 without — not for the worse, it might be, but under con- 
 ditions for which few are prepared. Kow, what is it 
 that prevents such a catastrophe arriving? No man 
 dare say that it is impossible, that the means of effect- 
 ing it are not already in existence. Its realisation 
 simply awaits the will of one or two potentates, 
 cabinets, and statesmen. It is mere self-deception to 
 imagine that they are incapable of such an enterprise. 
 The Europe of to-day is not the Europe which used to 
 fill the dreams about infinite Free Trade and Inter- 
 national Bazaars. It is an Europe disorganised and 
 with no settled relations, overshadowed by one or two 
 mihtary empires burning with the passions of conquest, 
 and able to sweep it from end to end. 
 
 The story of the German Army Bill may teach us 
 the true character of the new Europe of to-day. The 
 Liberal party in the nation have obtained a certain con- 
 cession, important mainly as showing that they are not 
 altogether a cypher ; but for the present the military 
 autocracy is, in substance, master of the situation. 
 Whether the solemn warnings of the German generals 
 are bona fide or not, they are equally subject for 
 anxiety. Whether they honestly beheve that Germany 
 is not safe without an army of more than two milhons 
 of men, or whether they demand such an army for 
 
 u 
 
'290 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 offensive purposes, war seems equally to them the 
 normal state of Europe. The language of Count Moltke 
 is precisely the language which might occur to the first 
 Napoleon after the Treaty, or truce, of Amiens. And 
 the majority of the German nation appear to be con- 
 vinced that there is sufficient ground for Count Moltke's 
 demands. It is now clearer than ever that the domi- 
 nant military Government of Germany is in a material 
 sense the arbiter of Europe. What is the ground for 
 the trust that it is never likely to use that power to the 
 injury of its neighbours ? Throughout Germany a pro- 
 found conviction reigns that, in spite of the nation's 
 desire for peace, very few years will pass before they 
 are again exposed to war. Nothing less than this can 
 explain the recent votes. And are we alone — whilst 
 all the military nations of Europe are thinking of mili- 
 tary adventures — are we to rest blissfully content under 
 our own shop-doors, confident that there is to be no 
 wicked fighting ; or, if there be, that we can easily keep 
 out of it ? When is the British economist to be taught 
 that other Governments have not learnt the simplest of 
 our copy-book maxims, that the national ideal of men 
 like Gortschakoff and Bismarck is not the millennium of 
 Free-Trade and local self-government by vestries and 
 school-boards ? When men hke these strain the whole 
 forces of tlieir respective nations to the last ounce, and 
 that strain has as its end the creation of the most stu- 
 pendous machine of war that this earth has ever yet 
 seen, the natural conclusion is that they intend to set 
 it in motion. It is to them no royal plaything, as to 
 so many a Prince Florestan both in and out of the 
 
FOREIGN POLICY. 291 
 
 Almanac de Gotha. When men of that stamp elaborate 
 a tremendous engine, it is destined to compass some 
 tremendous end. What would happen if all that Eng- 
 lishmen hold precious in the East were suddenly 
 assailed at once by the whole power of Eussia? and 
 what, if Germany were planted by campaigns of a few 
 weeks in Denmark, Holland, and Belgium ? It is easy 
 to talk complacently ' of keeping out of it ; ' but every 
 one who reflects knows well that any of these designs 
 are possible, and all of them together ; and their issue 
 into act depends only on the will of some ^ve or six 
 inscrutable persons. 
 
 These five or six persons have undoubtedly the 
 power, if they choose to exert it, to pull down the 
 existing State-system both of Europe and of Asia, and 
 to remould it afresh on their own pattern. At the 
 very least they have the power to put this country in 
 jeopardy such as it has not known since Austerlitz. 
 There is but one way obviously of meeting such a state 
 of things : for our thirteenth reorganisation of the army 
 and the navy, and the surprising energy of our Lords 
 Cardwell and Mr. Ward Hunts, does not seem alto- 
 gether sufficient. There is but one way. It is simply 
 the old plan of having an external policy — of a union 
 established amongst those nations whose interest is 
 peace — of distinct guarantees for the maintenance of 
 the actual order. The old doctrine of the balance of 
 power, grossly as it was abused, had in it a great value, 
 and conferred solid advantages on the peaceful. It 
 has been shattered by a series of grand convulsions, 
 revolutions, and wars, and in its place there has been 
 
 u 2 
 
292 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 set up a sort of national sauve qui pent But all the 
 elements exist for re-establishing on a rational footing 
 a more vigorous balance of power, or, at least, guaran- 
 teeing the status quo, A nation like England has 
 everything to gain by a healthy resort to the status 
 quo. But to be of any utility this must mean not a 
 negative acceptance of the existing order, but an active 
 resolution to maintain it. And the only possible 
 means of maintaining it is an effective combination 
 amongst those States whose interest it is to have it 
 maintained. Austria now even more than ever is a 
 State whose existence depends on the maintenance of 
 the status quo. In her present form she is doubtless 
 of sohd service to Europe, to order, to peace, and to 
 progress. But she exists only upon sufferance. A 
 word, a look of understanding between Prince Bis- 
 marck and Prince Gortschakoff*, would suffice for her ex- 
 tinction. In a few months she would be, to adapt the 
 phrase of her famous statesman, not a geographical but 
 an historical expression. She is our ' ancient ally,' and 
 far more worthy to be our ally than she was when she 
 was the symbol of reaction and compression. It is 
 notorious that she has of late sought to renew the 
 ancient ties, and that these overtures have been rejected 
 with alarm by our diplomatic shopkeepers. Of course 
 to accept her overtures is to incur a certain responsi- 
 bihty, and to run the risk of a possible sacrifice. 
 But ruin stares those in the face who never dare 
 lun a risk or make a sacrifice. As for Austria, 
 she is alone and almost past hope. There is 
 nothing left for her but to end it with dignity, and 
 
FOREIGN POLICY. 293 
 
 to make sucli terms as lier mighty neighbours can 
 agree to grant her. Yet there she is still — the natural 
 and essential nucleus of any European combination to 
 maintain the status quo. Italy, with her internal diffi- 
 culties, and the cancer of national bankruptcy eating 
 out her life, is interested in the status quo in a degree 
 only second to Austria. The drain of the preposterous 
 army, which her equivocal position in Europe appears to 
 require, is wearing down a fine people, and the criminal 
 threats which she endures from the retrograde parties 
 in France, distract her policy and paralyse her hfe. 
 She, too, having lost all prospect of honest alliances, 
 is ready to listen to any proposal which oifers her a 
 temporary chance. Of Spain it is unnecessary to speak, 
 save to say that she exhibits all the evils of Italy in a 
 violently acute form, under which she has long been 
 practically erased from the map of Europe. To France 
 the status quo is the first and most imperative need. 
 And even if the dream of reprisals is too often indulged, 
 it is obviously contrary to all her interests, and far 
 from being really accepted by the sober part of the 
 nation. The thinking part of the public, and calamity 
 has made a very large part of her public think, are 
 but too conscious of the futility of any such dream — 
 are but too well aware of the jeopardy in which their 
 country yet stands — how the great German Stratocracy 
 thirsts to complete their task — how powerless is France 
 to resist their attack. Eest, peace, things as they are, 
 make the one desire of every wise French citizen. It 
 is the desire, too, of all the smaller States, not one of 
 which but is thinking of a struggle for national exist- 
 
294 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 ence. Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, are 
 troubled as the smaller fry are troubled when the 
 monsters of the deep are preparing for great encounters. 
 Here then are all the materials for a true English 
 policy. Its end would be as of old, the maintenance 
 of the existing balance in Europe, and the recognition 
 of the actual State-system. And not the passive recog- 
 nition, but the active guarantee of it : for passive re- 
 cognition means doing nothing. It would amount in 
 truth to a mutual assurance of the actual Powers, fairly 
 open to all who would consent to join it. It would be 
 a Peace Confederation ; not a mere union passively 
 boimd to observe peace, but a union actively deter- 
 mined to enforce peace, or at least to resist any recon- 
 struction of the map of Europe from whatever side it 
 might come. It would be an alliance strictly defensive — 
 aiming at none, and open to all ; yet an alliance actively 
 defensive, and resolute to do all that defence might 
 require. The enormous material resources of England ; 
 her inexhaustible means of production ; and, in such a 
 matter, her unimpeachable honesty of purpose, would 
 give her rare opportunities for founding and cementing 
 such a Peace Confederation. A hearty approach 
 towards Austria, who has cast back her eyes upon her 
 ancient ally after every rebuff, would form at once a 
 rallying-point for such a coalition ; to which Italy 
 would be necessarily drawn. Such a coalition would 
 be in a position to seek the adhesion of France dis- 
 tinctly on the basis of uti possidetis, offering her an 
 alliance against any wanton attack ; she, on her part, 
 renouncing every attempt on the peace of Europe. 
 
FOREIGN POLICY. ic^x, 
 
 Amongst the main difficulties of any cordiality between 
 France, Austria, Italy, and Spain, are the memories of 
 the Lombard campaign on the one hand, and the 
 clerical policy of the monarchic parties of France. 
 But the offer of such an alliance and the liberal in- 
 fluence of England would strengthen the hands of the 
 Liberal parties in France, do something to modify the 
 rage of factions, and enable Italy to shape her policy 
 in accord with France ; from which she would then 
 have nothing to fear, and with whose true interests her 
 own are in perfect accord. A combination to assure 
 the peace of Europe, which included England, France, 
 Austria, and Italy could not fail to have the adhesion, 
 express or implied, of the smaller Powers. Nor could 
 Germany take up an attitude of defiance towards such 
 a coalition, toward which she would more or less tend, 
 at least in appearance if not in reahty. For the Con- 
 federation we are painting would assume an attitude of 
 hostility to none. It would be purely though actively 
 defensive. Its avowed, like its real, object would be 
 simply the protection of all by all. It would be a 
 true Confederation of Peace ; the sole end of which 
 would be that Europe should lie no longer at the 
 mercy of the great Stratocracies.^ 
 
 We have now, if ever before, a need for a great 
 English statesman. The position of England — the 
 position of civilisation itself — practically lies at the 
 sufferance of the great military Powers. If this be so, 
 
 ' A curious instance of some such Confederation spontaneously arising, 
 was shown by the attitude of England and its consequences at the Kussian 
 Conference of Brussels (1874), and again, at the English refusal to join the 
 St. Petersburg Conference (February 1875). 
 
296 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 it is a mockery to talk to us of Economy, Trade, and 
 Non-intervention. Something must be staked and 
 dared by those who find themselves in a real danger. 
 And the men who secured the safety of this country of 
 old, staked much and planned many things before that 
 safety was achieved. It is not a question of w^ar, but 
 of statesmanship — of a settled political design worked 
 out by the whole resources and credit of the nation. 
 That design should be one strictly of peace, according 
 to the old traditions of this country. There is indeed 
 some reason to think it more in unison with the atti- 
 tude of the Conservative than of the Liberal Party. It 
 would be but the resuming the threads of the ancient 
 traditions of that party, altered doubtless to new ends, 
 but not inconsistent with the spirit. Since the aboli- 
 tion of the Corn Laws, the party which carried that 
 measure have extended their influence from home to 
 foreign affairs, until at last it would seem that their 
 power was more in the ascendant in external than in 
 home questions. The old official depositaries of the 
 mysteries of Enghsh diplomacy have, step by step, 
 surrendered their ancestral domain, and have purchased 
 the barren privilege of being the titular directors of 
 that policy at the price of consenting to shape it at the 
 bidding of the trader. That strange economico-reli- 
 gious madness which inspired the peace party has made 
 the conquest of this country and its destinies, not by 
 converting the older statesmen to its principles but by 
 reducing them to passive inaction. The fanaticism of 
 the shop has so far mastered them, that the highest 
 ambition of an Enghsh foreign minister is to say of the 
 
FOREIGN POLICY, 297 
 
 power of this country entrusted to his hands that which 
 the unwise servant says in the parable — ' Lo ! there is 
 thy talent, wrapped in a blanket ; I have done 
 nothing with it, and gained nothing by it.' But the 
 end of the most complete nonenity in life must come 
 some time, and perhaps with the fall of the cabinet of 
 the economists we have passed the lowest point of 
 national effacement. 
 
 There is always an evil fate awaiting a nation 
 which sacrifices everything to material results. 
 We have had for a generation a prosperity ad- 
 vancing by ' leaps and bounds.' It has filled the 
 national imagination, and planted itself firmly in the 
 seat of power. Governments and governing classes 
 exist but to minister to it and to do its bidding. And 
 its bidding is easy to do. It is only to do nothing, to 
 look on, to raise up impotent hands in deprecation like 
 the old men in a Greek chorus, ' to keep out of it,' and 
 to drive a flourishing trade. The official classes no 
 longer ask to direct the policy of the nation. They 
 are content to take orders, if they may still bear 
 nominal office. The trading classes make no claim to 
 the stately impotence of office. They are content if 
 others direct the destinies of the nation to the end which 
 they shall indicate. And the end that they indicate is 
 to spread out the empire and the commerce of England 
 to every corner of the inhabited and uninhabited world, 
 to back up the planter and the broker in every quarrel 
 he may choose to indulge in, to force upon the savage 
 or benighted races of the earth the evangelising doc- 
 trines of Free Trade, to make all the httle wars which 
 
298 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 brisk markets may require, and to treat the rest of 
 Europe as an expression made familiar to us by histories, 
 gazetteers, and commercial dictionaries. 
 
 Such a course must some day meet with its condign 
 end. Every fresh extension of the Empire beyond the 
 Eastern or the Western oceans but extends the area of 
 vulnerability and weakness ; whilst the powers which 
 surround its centre are gathering up resources with re- 
 doubled velocity. The phantom of a possible invasion 
 of this island may at least be put aside. It has doubt- 
 less obscured the real question and turned away many 
 a mind from truly facing the position. It seems indeed 
 abundantly clear that a descent upon our shores for 
 purposes of conquest is as httle within the bounds of 
 practical contingencies as its success is within that of 
 bare possibilities. But having settled in our minds that 
 no second William is ever to dethrone a second Harold, 
 the real issue is still untouched. That issue is, if the 
 general condition of Europe and the general condition 
 of the Empire are such as to be quite reassm-ing, 
 whether both are not easily assailable ; and what are 
 the grounds of trust that they are not very likely to be 
 assailed. The problem for a great statesman — and we 
 need one now if we ever did — is not how to win ' the 
 battle of Dorking,' but how to secure the very existence 
 of the Empire now that this island itself is reduced to 
 the position of a big free port. The idea that the mul- 
 tiform British Empire is capable of defending itself 
 against all comers is a jest. The idea that it is in- 
 capable of being attacked is an illusion. The fact that 
 it is without hold or hope outside of itself ; that it has 
 
FOREIGN POLICY. 299 
 
 neither friends nor allies : has nothing but a few weak 
 dependants who doubtfully look to it for help — this is 
 indeed a reality. And it is a reahty for which there 
 is but one remedy — the formation of alliances and poli- 
 tical combinations which shall restore this country to 
 her ancient place in Europe, and to her old sense of 
 security and independence. The object is obvious — 
 the maintenance of peace and national integrity. The 
 means are obvious — the mutual guarantee of States. 
 The principle is obvious — the respect of existing con- 
 ditions. But any policy is better than no pohcy. For 
 it is the no-policy which has brought us to our present 
 state of isolation, and which will bring us to the verge 
 of that abyss into which a material millennium has 
 plunged our neighbours in France. 
 
30O STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 ESSAY VIII. 
 
 THE MONARCHY. 
 
 [The seven preceding Essays, thougli written at considerable 
 intervals, and on different occasions, are placed together in a 
 series, since they all treat of the present Parliamentary sys- 
 tem, and examine it critically. The two Essays which now 
 follow relate rather to the constructive side of the Theory of 
 Grovernment.] (June, 1872.) 
 
 One of the most cool and sagacious of the dignitaries 
 of Oxford is wont to speak of the Eepublican Club 
 which flourishes in that loyal University as ' The 
 Society for the encouragement of the Day after To- 
 morrow.' Thoughtful men, of whatever party, have 
 long been quietly of the same mind. They see that 
 the ultimate adoption of the republican form by both 
 branches of the English race is as certain as the rising 
 of to-morrow's sun. But as a thing of a much more 
 indefinite future, all practical men have agreed to await 
 its coming ; and the rival claims of monarchies and re- 
 publics have been decided only in the bloodless arena 
 of debating clubs, or by the fearless logic of essay 
 societies. 
 
 It occurred, however, in the dull season to some 
 very experienced publicists to force this topic into one 
 of public interest. They seized hold of a few questions 
 
THE MONARCHY. 301 
 
 about the Civil List, whicli had been raised by a Mem- 
 ber of Parliament ; and then these inspired journalists, 
 these self-elected beadles of the British Constitution, 
 scolded like Bumble when the httle boy asked ' for 
 more.' There followed the auspicious recovery of a 
 popular prince, which our good-natured public were 
 gravely assured they witnessed with transports of 
 dehrious joy. Thereupon the beadles set up a chorus 
 of maudlin adulation, which turned the whole matter 
 into a farce. In sober truth, there was never a sillier 
 cry than that of monarchy in danger. The only 
 danger it runs is that of being made ridiculous by 
 officious sycophants. 
 
 The formation of a genuine Beefeater Party, whose 
 political mission is to rally round the Throne, is 
 certainly a new feature in party history. Still, if 
 Conservatives decide to make it the topic of the day, 
 Eepublicans will naturally have something to say. 
 Not that there is much to be said, except to lift the 
 subject from the cataract of cant in which it has been 
 drowned. And in the first place, if monarchy presents 
 itself as a popular subject of discussion, it may be as 
 well in the outset to decide if there is a monarchy to 
 discuss. 
 
 Our Oxford friend, sagacious as he is, has been 
 betrayed into a somewhat ordinary sophism. Looking to 
 realities, and throwing aside forms, the Eepublican Club 
 which is the object of his wit is really engaged, not in en- 
 couraging the day after to-morrow, hut in accelerating 
 the day before yesterday. In the truest sense of the 
 word, this country is, and has long been, a republic. 
 
302 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 though a most imperfect repubhc, it must be allowed. 
 The republican form, the object of such hopes and of 
 such fears, is important enough ; but it is, after all, a 
 matter of administrative adjustment. The republican 
 substance we have, or, if we wish to speak of our 
 system with scientific accuracy, we should frame a 
 definition as complex as its own history. England 
 is now an aristocratic republic, with a democratic 
 machinery and an hereditaiy grand master of the 
 ceremonies. 
 
 For what is a republic ? It is an abuse of language 
 to make republic synonymous with democracy. There 
 is no necessary connection between republic and ballot- 
 boxes, stump oratory, and the rule of the masses. 
 Nothing is more mindless than the common assumption 
 that there is no republic possible but that of our 
 American brethren. Every sinister feature of their 
 public hfe is due to the hazard of their national origin 
 and prodigious rapidity of growth, not to the fact of 
 their having a repubhc. We, however, here at the 
 outset entirely repudiate that as the perfect type of the 
 republic, of which it is in some respects a very inferior 
 example. The United States happen to be a demo- 
 cratic republic ; but there have been republics without 
 one of their peculiar institutions, or even a trace of 
 democracy. Some of the most tjrpical republics in 
 history have been permanently ruled by popular nobles 
 or popular soldiers. The Venetian system was repub- 
 lican, though as little liable to mob-rule as an Eastern 
 despotism. The Kome of the Metelli and of the Scipios 
 was a state directed by birth, wealth, and the sword of 
 
THE MONARCHY. 303 
 
 dictators ; yet it is still the type of the republic, and 
 justly so. The idea of the republic, the only one 
 which answers to all its forms in history, by no means 
 implies direct government by the masses, much less 
 anarchy, change, or personal licence. The world has 
 never seen governments of more simple energy and 
 self-assertion than those directed by Cromwell in his 
 struggle with feudalism, by Danton in his struggle with 
 royalty, by Lincoln in his struggle with slavery. The 
 typical republics have often been swift, silent, and in- 
 exorable ; and no monarchs have ever shown themselves 
 more truly kings of men than many of those republican 
 chiefs, who in the height of their power bore them- 
 selves as only servants of the commonwealth. 
 
 What then is the real meaning of republic ? The 
 republic is that state, the principle of which is not 
 privilege but merit, where all public power is a free 
 gift, and is freely intrusted to those who seem able to 
 use it best. In the repubhc no authority is legitimate 
 but that which claims as its tenure capacity, working 
 in the interest of all, with the active co-operation of all. 
 These are the tests of the really republican system — 
 (1) that power rests on fitness to rule, (2) that its sole 
 avowed object is the public good, (3) that it is main- 
 tained by public opinion, and not by force. Govern- 
 ment is then a public function, and not a private 
 property : it rests on consent, not on fear or right. 
 Where this is the settled point of view of governors 
 and governed, it is idle to deny to a community the 
 name of republic, because it has not eliminated from 
 government all notions of privilege and property; 
 
304 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 because in the midst of republican realities it retains a 
 monarchic pageant. Anomalies of the kind are com- 
 mon in nature, where an otiose tail may still be found 
 in bimana., and rudimentary organs abound which are 
 atrophied from want of use. 
 
 The definition above given exactly fits that charac- 
 ter which the imagination presents as the typical 
 republic of history. The majesty of Eome in its early 
 centuries recalls but a commonwealth of citizens, each 
 of whom owed his life and labour to the State ; where 
 no one was master as of right, where capacity to serve 
 the State was the sole kingship. And the same halo 
 of civic duty lights up the story of the Dandolos and 
 the Dorias, the Winkelrieds, the De Witts, the Crom- 
 wells, the Washingtons, and the Dantons. No one 
 can justly deny the name of commonwealth to the 
 societies for which they lived and died, because in 
 some of them wealth or birth retained great but unde- 
 fined power — because in some of them the will of the 
 community was centred in one iron hand. All held 
 their power as of merit by consent. They were the 
 servants, not the masters, of their fellow-citizens, and 
 were sustained in their high duties by public opinion. 
 On the other hand, in the true monarchies and aristo- 
 cracies, the idea of hereditary right overpowers that of 
 public convenience. The monarch says, L'etat c'est 
 moi. He is the head of the family, the proprietor of 
 an estate ; he exercises power, sometimes well and 
 sometimes ill ; sometimes in person, sometimes by 
 deputy ; but always as of right, not as the most fit. 
 And, however he exercises it, the people cannot legally 
 
THE MONARCHY. 305 
 
 call him to account, much less can they dismiss him. 
 At the very, least a monarchy implies that the monarch 
 is the organ of public opinion. 
 
 Apply this test to our own system. We shall find 
 that, in the reahty of power, we strictly conform to the 
 republican, not to the monarchic type. It is the most 
 tiresome of commonplaces, ' that in this free country 
 the will of the people is supreme.' Parliament, we are 
 daily reminded, is omnipotent ; and the House of Com- 
 mons in practice is the sovereign authority. Power is, 
 in fact, exclusively exercised by its delegates ; and, 
 though one smiles to say it, in theory at least its dele- 
 gates are beheved to be the most capable men it can 
 find. The whole public resources are avowedly used 
 in the service of the community — the pubhc good is 
 the paramount consideration. But all this is the defi- 
 nition of a republic, not of a monarchy. No doubt we 
 have our throne, the most ancient and historic in Europe. 
 But a sovereign who is wholly without influence in the 
 action of the State is simply an hereditary president — 
 or rather a titular appendage, an historic relic hke the 
 Eex Sacrificulus at Kome, or our own hereditary 
 champion of England. For everything that is not 
 mere pageant the country is administered precisely as 
 a repubhc. The king here holds levees and drawing- 
 rooms, in person or by proxy ; once or twice in a reign 
 is dragged about in a motley procession ; when he 
 chooses to do it, performs a mass of state routine, and, 
 when equal to it, reads a royal speech. But it is part 
 of the unwritten code of the constitution that he is to 
 do nothing serious. The king cannot insert a sentence 
 
 X 
 
4 
 
 3o6. STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 or a phrase in his own speech. The 'Old Whigs* 
 would rend their garments in sacred indignation at 
 such profanity ; the Tories would prophesy in the 
 market-place. He cannot add a clause to a bill in 
 Parliament. The very thought would raise a smile ; 
 to act on it would be revolution. The most silent 
 member of Parliament has more legislative power than 
 the Crown. The exercise of its legal veto would not 
 be permitted in practice. A public attempt to affect 
 legislation against the will of the nation would be the 
 end of the dynasty. The British Crown exactly fills in 
 the State the part which our ignorant ancestors 
 assigned to the pretty woman. She was to reign in 
 her own drawing-room, where no compHment could 
 be extreme, and no homage unmanly. But she was 
 not expected to meddle in things outside it. 
 
 There is only one moment in the practical working 
 of our system when the sovereign has even in appear- 
 ance the slightest legislative power. That moment is 
 when a change of ministry occurs. But it is perfectly 
 well understood that an outgoing minister really nomi- 
 nates his successor under forms more or less circum- 
 locutory.^ Mr. Disraeli once explained the formalities 
 employed with that delicious sense of humour in which, 
 
 ^ It certainly appears that our present Sovereign, from long and 
 laborious attention to public business, has acquired a mastery of the 
 Constitutional machine, and has amassed a knowledge of its rules, with 
 which perhaps no living statesman can compare. In the petty re- 
 arrangements of office, that we call ministerial crises, the part of the 
 highest functionary is not the least skilfully plRyed. We can, however, 
 seldom look for such persistent industry on the Throne. And the fact 
 that energy in public business as constant and as great as that given by 
 the Queen and her Consort has had effects on Government so moderate, 
 proves how anomalous and thankless an office the Throne haa become. 
 
THE MONARCHY, 307 
 
 without moving a muscle, he contrives to quiz the 
 British constitution. In extreme cases a venerable 
 peer — a sort of family lawyer — is confidentially called 
 in. Even if we could conceive a sovereign so old- 
 fashioned as to insist on personally nominating a min- 
 ister, the House of Commons would sharply call him 
 to order. Shades of ' the wise and good Lord Somers,' 
 of Blackstone, of Hallam and Macaulay, what radical 
 speeches would re-echo again from the benches of the 
 Lords ! The cause ' for which Hampden perished on 
 the field, and Sidney on the scaffold,' would cease to 
 rest and be thankful, and would begin to rub its eyes. 
 The very lawn of the bishops would ruffle in WTath. 
 We may, however, be perfectly tranquil. No sove- 
 reign has yet been seen to attempt any gambols with 
 the constitution, any more than the cream-coloured 
 horses are given to kick to pieces the gingerbread 
 coach. 
 
 The sovereign here, as we repeat with serious 
 pride, has no part in government. Every official is, 
 directly or indirectly, the appointed servant of lhe 
 public, as completely, though not so directly, as in the 
 United States. There are hardly half-a-dozen posts 
 (those about the person of the sovereign not excepted) 
 which are not actually in the sole appointment of the 
 ministry. Every question in Parliament, every detail 
 of administration, is discussed with reference to the 
 national welfare. There is not an institution, not a 
 law, not a right in existence, which is not, both by the 
 theory of the constitution and the practice of public' 
 opinion, the mere creature of the Legislature — that is, 
 
 X 2 
 
3o8 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 ultimately and in principle the creature of the people. 
 Nor is there one which is defended on any other 
 ground than that it conduces to the public well-being. 
 The notion that any person, any family, any order of 
 men have rights paramount to the public good, or 
 titles superior to parliamentary and national authority, 
 or any existence or privilege not amenable to that 
 authority, is never heard out of a boys' debating club. 
 
 It cannot be too often insisted that the throne itself 
 is no exception to this principle. It is now frankly 
 submitting itself to public discussion on the ground of 
 its public utility. The subject is a very wide one ; it 
 will have to submit to a great deal more of discussion 
 still. The position, functions, and existence of the 
 throne, like those of the Church or the army, are as 
 much within the jurisdiction of public opinion as the 
 unpaid magistracy. If it were not so, the omnipotence 
 of Parliament would be only a phrase, for there is 
 nothing to tell us what part of our system is, and what 
 is not open to change. And yet, with all this, there 
 are persons found to tell us that we live under a 
 monarchy. 
 
 That is no monarchy where the throne itself exists 
 by parliamentary sufferance, and all power is exercised 
 by parliamentary choice. Yet Parliament would not 
 be omnipotent if anything existed contrary to its will, 
 or anyone held power which it had not given. The 
 notion that the throne, like every office in the State, is 
 the creature of public opinion is not yet sufficiently 
 familiar to us ; for, as pohticians, we are rather imper- 
 vious to logic. But the principle has lately been 
 
THE MONARCHY. 309 
 
 asserted over an institution which people once thought 
 no less above discussion than the monarchy itself. The 
 Irish Church Act, the abolition of that Established 
 Church by the will of Parliament, ' by and with the 
 consent of the nation and of public opinion, and by 
 the authority of the same,' has finally disposed of the 
 dream that there is any institution in these islands con- 
 stitutionally sacred, any privilege which transcends 
 law, and the law-making power. The most ancient 
 title, the most venerable office, and what many called 
 the interests and rights of God himself, were formally 
 set aside, when the question became one of satisfying 
 the people of these islands. The statesman who 
 designed and carried out that act has since been the 
 real head of the English republic, as completely as 
 President Grant is the head of the American republic. 
 It is true that our English president has far less power 
 as a ruler. He is weighted with a gilt court dress, and 
 bound in parliamentary chains. Still he rules us by a 
 tenure of office even more popular, because more 
 revocable than that of his American rival, and avows, 
 like him, as his sole purpose the general welfare of 
 the commonwealth. Mr. Gladstone, hke General Grant, 
 chooses the chief officials, is responsible for the entire 
 administration, is master of the collective public action 
 of his country, within and without. Like General 
 Grant he is, somewhat less directly, but still as truly, 
 elected by the people ; like him, he professes to hold 
 this great power only by their good-will, and to use it 
 only in their service. He is somewhat harassed by 
 having to run backwards and forwarxls to Balmoral or 
 
3IO ■ STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 Osborne, and to go through various obeisances and 
 hyperbolical circumlocutions which, he seems to think, 
 add to his dignity. But though these little cereiponials 
 may chafe his temper and lessen his authority, they do 
 not seriously destroy his power. And it would be 
 useless to pretend that a government like this is any- 
 thing but a parliamentary republic. The United 
 States would not cease to be a republic if the framers 
 of the constitution had designed the government of the 
 republic to be carried on in the name of Princess 
 Pocahontas, whose orders the president was supposed 
 to receive in some distant recess of the Eocky Moun- 
 tains. 
 
 The case is more difficult to analyse if we are told 
 that, after all, England is an aristocracy. It is certainly 
 true that it has an aristot^ratic administration ; and it is 
 an exceedingly aristocratic republic. It would be an 
 error to overlook the immense influence possessed by 
 hereditary wealth. But it will not do to exaggerate it. 
 In what human society has not wealth influence ; and 
 in what settled State is not hereditary wealth certain to 
 be potent ? But the politiciil influence of wealth does 
 not constitute an aristocracy. A society governed by 
 bank directors is not an aristocracy. Wealth is every- 
 where power, and, in a low sense of the word, merit. 
 In an industrial society wealth is usually the creation 
 of energy, foresight, and judgment. And it is not very 
 long held together without some of these qualities in 
 those who possess it. Those who accidentally inherit 
 or acquire wealth amongst us have a better start for 
 political power than other men, but neither wealth nor 
 
THE MONARCHY. 311 
 
 birth can maintain a man long in political power. 
 Birth, indeed, without wealth or capacity is politically 
 a cipher. And the fatuous and needy heir of a hun- 
 dred earls has little open to him but a wealthy match. 
 But a society in which birth as such is a cipher, in 
 which even hereditary wealth only gives a good start, 
 in which middle- class abihty exercises almost all the 
 real power, is not an aristocracy, however much it may 
 lose in self-respect by retention of a privileged order. 
 The prime minister and the majority of the ministers 
 belong by origin, and by every instinct of their natures, 
 to the great order of middle-class traders. They are 
 bourgeois even in their faults, down to their passion for 
 economy. They are men of the caste of Necker or 
 Peel, glorified bankers, or capitalists, with a happy turn 
 for debating. Useful and valuable gifts, but in no 
 sense those of a true aristocracy. No aristocracy in 
 the world would ever have stooped to our base com- 
 mercial wars in the East, and our yet baser commercial 
 peace in Europe, cauponantes bellum, cauponantes 
 pacem. 
 
 So thoroughly is this commercial conception of 
 statesmanship estabhshed, that the genuine aristocrats 
 who enter into it rather overplay the part. The foreign 
 minister, a really capable man, familiar by birth and 
 education with the transparencies of Europe, is con- 
 spicuous for an almost cynical deference to the majesty 
 of British commerce. He almost upset the colonies 
 out of respect to the memory of the late Mr. Cobden. 
 In the great transformation of Europe which we have 
 just witnessed he threw away every tradition of British 
 
312 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 statesmansliip, and thought of nothing but keeping a 
 market open for British industry. 
 
 With such men for our actual rulers — men really 
 chosen by the tradesmen as those who display trades- 
 manlike qualities — it is as preposterous to call this 
 country an aristocracy because it still maintains a very 
 select club called the House of Lords, as it is to call it 
 a monarchy because there are court balls. The House 
 of Lords, like the Crown, is expected not to exercise 
 even its legal veto beyond the point of complimentary 
 delay. The House of Lords is no doubt one of the 
 many causes of the deadlock which seems destined to 
 be the ignoble end of Parhamentary Government. But 
 as all true power is vested in the elected and not in the 
 hereditary chamber, the country has long ceased to be 
 an aristocracy, though it keeps up the name by giving 
 titles to a number of rich men. The governing class 
 really possesses nothing whicti any rich man cannot 
 buy, and excludes no man of brains unless his brains 
 chance to look some other way. The present genera- 
 tion has witnessed, amongst the most remarkable chiefs 
 of the State, the son of an actress, the son of a cotton 
 spinner, the son of an ingenious author, and the son of 
 a provincial merchant. These men were not mere ser- 
 vants or agents of any king or any aristocracy. They 
 were masters of the whole governing class, and the real 
 rukrs of the country. They were indeed the fountain 
 of honour for the time being, a supply which they and 
 their colleagues turned on rather freely. Indeed, the 
 Grandes Eaux of honour are wont to play on the least 
 occasion — bankers, mill-owners, useful 'whips' and 
 
THE MONARCHY. ' / , 31/. 
 
 i O, '■■ ■/ 
 
 smart electioneerers, peers who, according to Bilrke, ^f 
 came in with the Conquest, and peers who, according'/, 
 to Dod, came in with reform, have to shake dow^a. O 
 together. They all stand on much the same footing — . / 
 acres and three per cents. Non tali auxilio non 
 defensorihus istis, were the true aristocracies of history 
 maintained. Our political system is possibly a pluto- 
 cracy, but it is certainly — thank Cromwell ! — not a 
 real aristocracy. 
 
 There are hardly any States which are entirely 
 simple examples. All have traditional influences and 
 institutions within them. Turkey is a pure theocratic 
 monarchy; and the United States a real democratic 
 republic. Between these extremes the forces are vari- 
 ously mixed ; and what we have to consider are the 
 really essential features. Of all States England is, at 
 first sight, the most curiously hybrid ; but its real genus 
 and species are quite unmistakeable. It has at once an 
 hereditary monarchy, which is only meant to be looked 
 at ; and a powerful aristocracy, which has long been 
 entirely bourgeois ; in all the essential features it is a 
 republic ; to which it has added some of the worst vices 
 of a democracy. Its democratic suffrage was never 
 intended to be altogether free, and perfectly fulfils its 
 design ; its historic doge is only for exhibition on high 
 days, and is fully equal to its part ; the real government, 
 in the meantime, rests with a moneyed caste, who, 
 accepting the republican substance, do what they can 
 to debase it. England is, therefore, a republic which, 
 with a miscellaneous democracy and a titular sovereign, 
 is governed by a sort of commercial aristocracy. 
 
 r> 
 
314 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 Those who imagine that the retention of the his- 
 toric pageant of royalty in the English republic — a 
 pageant Avhich may have sundry uses — gives them the 
 unspeakable blessing of living under a monarchy, must 
 be of the mood which is thankful for small mercies. 
 They might as well look on the beefeaters as saviours 
 of society. The advantages of a monarchy — and they 
 are very real in societies fitted for them — are that they 
 secure permanence and unity in government, prevent 
 the perpetual struggle of ambition, of parties, of classes, 
 and the wear and tear of political agitation. The head 
 of the State is not personally exposed to the attacks of 
 rivals, the policy of government is not being per- 
 petually debated, and those who exercise it are not 
 being continually tripped up by partisan opponents. 
 There is also a real sense of devotion to the monarch, 
 as representing the public interest, and a rallying round 
 him when his will is distinctly exerted. He becomes 
 the mouthpiece of the common feeling, the organ of 
 public opinion. In Eussia, for instance, these advan- 
 tages are manifest. The Eussian people are not en- 
 gaged in continually tinkering the constitution, and 
 when their father, the Czar, really sets his will to a 
 thing, instinctively the mass of the people gets it done. 
 If he decides to abolish serfdom, it is abolished; his 
 government pursues a silent, permanent course which 
 our statesmen regard with uncomfortable awe. The 
 will of the sovereign is a rough substitute for public 
 opinion, which it partly forms and partly expresses. In 
 Prussia and in Austria, though the monarchy there is 
 far less real, still it is the eflfective centre round which 
 
THE MONARCHY. 315 
 
 the governing machine revolves — the authorised ex- 
 ponent of the public feeling. As we saw during the 
 war, and see now since the peace, the Emperor William 
 is not altogether a phantasm-captain, and in great 
 national moments his will and name call up in the mass 
 of the people a real spirit of loyal co-operation with 
 the government of which he is in some intelHgible 
 sense the head. The average Prussian really thinks 
 in a way that he is bound to back up the Emperor's 
 rule, and loyalty there still counts as a distinct element 
 in carrying on the national administration. In Eussia 
 all this is true in a much higher degree. These are, 
 in a tangible sense, some of the true 'blessings of 
 monarchy,' which in backward populations is the only 
 possible representative of the nation. 
 
 Which of these have we ? Erom which of the 
 evils of democracy does our dogedom preserve us .^ We 
 have surely our fair share of political agitation, party 
 faction, and personal rivalry. People used to imagine 
 that monarchy averted the struggle for the first place 
 in the State, and spared us from unseemly agitations. 
 We were not like other men, they said — like those 
 Americans, for instance. It surely does nothing of the 
 kind. The first place in the State is that of the head 
 of the ministry, and the struggle for it is as keen as if 
 the title were president instead of premier. If Mr. 
 Gladstone and Mr. Disraeli were rival candidates for 
 the office held by General Grant, could there be more 
 wire-pulling, more caucusing, more demagogism than 
 we have in a grand general election? The election of 
 President in the United States is direct, and our own 
 
3i6 STUDIES OF CRISES, 
 
 chief magistrate is elected indirectly by Parliament, 
 and so far there is less unmixed democracy. But that 
 is only an accident, which would cease if the President 
 of the American, like the President of the French, 
 Eepublic were elected by a chamber. The scramble 
 for power here is as fierce as ambition and recklessness 
 can make it, and the meetings and stumpings, the 
 jobberies and the buncombe, the ' platforms,' the 
 ' tickets,' the ' cornering ' of this party, and the 
 ' stumping out ' of that, go on as briskly as patriotism 
 and public spirit can make them go in our phlegmatic 
 race, without the slightest reference to the fact that 
 there is or is not an amiable lady of rank living a life 
 of seclusion in the Highlands. People must be true 
 disciples of Gamaliel who can lift up their eyes and 
 thank God that we are spared the political tiu-moil 
 which afflicts republics. 
 
 Nor is the throne even apparently the centre of the 
 national administration. The sovereign here is in no 
 rational sense the organ of pubhc opinion. On the 
 contrary, it is indelicate, and even dishonest, for a 
 minister to pretend that the sovereign has the smallest 
 partiality for any measure or any men. When Mr. 
 Disraeli threw what was thought to be an intentional 
 unction into the accepted language of homage, he was 
 very justly rebuked. It is the first axiom of the con- 
 stitution that the sovereign's name is never mixed up 
 in politics. What occurred in former generations is 
 impossible now. It is ill-mannered to suggest that he 
 would ever allow a personal opinion to betray itself. It 
 would be a breach of decorum to do so ; for the sove- 
 
. THE MONARCHY. 317 
 
 reign is as much bound to keep his feehngs to himself 
 as any well-bred young lady. In consequence, the 
 influence of the throne, whatever it may be socially, is 
 nothing politically. Measures and administrations de- 
 rive not the least authority or help from it in the way 
 that Bismarck does from his Emperor or Gortschakoff 
 from his Czar. The sovereign has as little to do wdth 
 strengthening the hands of the real government as the 
 Speaker of the House of Commons has. Eallying 
 roimd the throne here means intriguing for cards to a 
 court ball, waving a handkerchief in a grand stand, or 
 a hohday and extra beer. The throne has certain 
 social purposes, and some indirectly pohtical ; but it 
 does absolutely nothing, like the throne in Eussia, and 
 even in Prussia, to give unity and force to the central 
 administration. In the way of democracy it saves us 
 nothing ; and to attribute our political condition to the 
 beneficent rule of a monarch is as rational as to set it 
 down to our living under the mild sway of a lord 
 mayor. 
 
 Does the monarchy again secure us from perpetually 
 criticising and recasting the constitution ? Nothing of 
 the kind. There exist no people but the French who 
 are so constantly occupied as we are in remodelling the 
 machinery of government. Now a real monarchy does 
 guarantee a people against this, which is, at the very 
 best, a waste of power ; a titular monarchy provokes 
 it. The Eussian, and even the Prussian, system pre- 
 supposes that the people on the whole accept the 
 general framework of the State ; of all people, the 
 French alone excepted, we seem the most dissatisfied 
 
318 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 with ours. Our internal political history of a hundred 
 years now has been one interminable history of reform 
 bills and reform acts ; attacks on the House of Lords, 
 on the Established Church ; struggles of class with 
 class, and one order with another, to get power, and 
 recast the constitution ; ballot agitations, charters, re- 
 form leagues, manhood suffrage, single chamber, and 
 woman suffrage agitations succeed in weary round. 
 Almost the whole of our really serious struggles have 
 turned on the persons by whom, not the way in which, 
 power was to be exercised. It is one long series of 
 constitutional amendments, in which every element and 
 fixed point in the constitution has been attacked and 
 defended, undermined, revised, botched, amended, and 
 re-amended again, like the Bankruptcy Acts. The 
 substance of the constitution has evaporated away in 
 the fumes of talk ; and though many of the great 
 features still in form survive, how many years' purchase 
 are they still worth, and what is the chance of the 
 rising tide of criticism and attack being stemmed back? 
 Now Eussia, which is an acknowledged monarchy, is 
 free from all this ; and the United States, which is an 
 acknowledged republic, is free from it. They have in 
 America their own political vices which we are the 
 first to denounce ; but they have the immense ad- 
 vantage of an indefeasible republic. Slavery, their 
 special curse, apart, during the hundred years that we 
 have been tinkering our constitution they have been 
 making and discussing hardly any changes in theirs. 
 The American people are not only satisfied with their 
 system, but have an intense devotion for it, because it 
 
THE MONARCHY. 319 
 
 is a republic. And if they with their repubhc rest 
 content with their constitution, whilst we with our 
 monarchy are ever fighting over ours, it is a little 
 illogical to assert that our monarchy preserves us from 
 evils which in fact we have got, and they, republicans, 
 have not. 
 
 The example of France is rather misleading. France 
 is in a seething state because its class and religious 
 feuds have reached a frightful pitch of intensity, not 
 because it is a repubhc. In face of the conspicuous 
 stabihty of the American republic or of the Swiss 
 repubhcs, it would be ridiculous to attribute the spasms 
 of France to that cause. They are mainly due to the 
 fact that monarchy in France, as in Spain, is a mere 
 conspiracy. When the struggle between labour and 
 capital, intelhgence and superstition, has reached the 
 same white heat here, if it were unhappily to reach it, 
 our monarchy would crumble up like paper in the 
 blaze. It is quite clear, as we see in Ireland, that it 
 does nothing whatever to modify the great labour 
 questions, or to reconcile the bitterness of religious 
 war. It might very easily be converted into a distinct 
 aggravation of them. The immunity from revolution, 
 and the prosperity of England, are due entirely to the 
 fact that the aristocratic bourgeoisie who govern it have 
 not yet altogether lost the control of power ; and that 
 they have wisely averted or diverted some of the most 
 formidable questions which hang over society. But in 
 this result the monarchy has had no active share ; or not 
 more than the mace of Parliament, the ermine of the 
 judges, or some other great historic pageants. 
 
320 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 They have always taught us that the throne was a 
 venerable fetish, wholly without active functions, and 
 as such we must always regard it. It is a little too 
 much that we should now be told that it is a real 
 engine for solving political problems. Hallam and 
 Macaulay, ' under the most distinguished patronage/ 
 have hammered into us a faith in the innate wicked- 
 ness of kings, and the dangers of allowing them a 
 particle of real power ; and it is a little too late, now 
 that discontent is felt at the incompetent management 
 of the State, to call out the venerable idol, and to tell 
 us that it is alive and that we are to bow down and 
 worship it. Whig statesmen have themselves dehbe- 
 rately, by their own acts and the teaching of their 
 official schoolmasters, destroyed any vestige of real 
 efficiency that the monarchy ever had in the political 
 system. They have taught us to regard it politically as 
 a sort of Original Sin. Venerable idol they have made 
 it, and venerable idol it is. We read in Livy that 
 whenever the Eoman Senate was utterly puzzled or 
 Very much frightened, it straightway decreed a Lec- 
 iisternium — a ceremony in which the old images were 
 solemnly paraded. It is a httle too late to repeat that 
 sublime hocus ; and if they did, the augurs would 
 laugh so immoderately that they could hardly go 
 through the ceremony. The present generation can 
 remember the slights which some of our most noisy 
 royahsts have from time to time cast on the sovereign. 
 Bumble has talked quite coarsely of ' the Board ' in 
 the hearing of the whole parish. None can forget their 
 tone to the late Prince Consort during his hfe. His 
 
THE MONARCHY. 321 
 
 ability, rectitude, and earnestness ought at least to have 
 protected him from that, as her personal qualities and 
 her difficult position ought equally to have protected 
 the Queen. Our tradesmen now rally round the 
 throne, and advertise themselves well at a loyal pro- 
 cession. To them the throne is the symbol of order 
 and internal peace. So was the empire to the shop- 
 keepers of Paris. It is the symbol, but it is not the 
 source. To secure that peace and order it is absolutely 
 powerless ; and some most intemperate conservatives 
 are now doing much to make it quite the contrary. 
 The tradesman will soon find out, if this goes on, that 
 the throne is really a constant menace to order ; and 
 the moment he does, he will throw it over as readily as 
 his Parisian confrere pulled down the imperial arms. 
 
 As for the aristocracy, hereditary or monetary, they 
 have a great spirit of political compromise. Whenever 
 they find that the throne guarantees themselves against 
 revolution, much as gongs and tom-toms are sovereign 
 cures for an eclipse, they will be the first to let it go. 
 Our governing classes, hke the beaver or coon of our 
 youth, will always satisfy the hunter when they are 
 hard-pressed. ' Colonel,' they cry when the game is 
 up, ' we are coming down.' And down they come with 
 a really good grace, wagging their tails as if they were 
 simply tired of sitting up aloft. In the same sense the 
 real governing classes will hold on by House of Lords, 
 Church, and Throne, until they see that they are doing 
 them more harm than good. Comte always said that 
 they had a remarkable instinct of self-modification. 
 They made England in 1688 a disguised republic, and 
 
 Y 
 
322 STUDIES OF CRISES, 
 
 since that date they have been slowly stripping off the 
 disguise. It would be a pretty piece of political specu- 
 lation which of the three garments, Church, House of 
 Lords, or Throne, they will unbutton last. In an age when 
 politics exhibit no social principle whatever, anything 
 is possible, and marvellous transformations of opinion 
 seize our people as if by special revelation. Future 
 ages may see the Peers quite ready to take the plunge, 
 throw out the Bill for shutting up their House two 
 years running, and in the next glide into real power 
 as county M.P.'s. So with the Crown. There is no 
 family in Europe which can yield so gracefully as the 
 House of Brunswick. Its princes, with their goodness 
 of heart and homely tastes, would take their place 
 naturally at the head of the aristocracy, a process 
 already commenced by a recent happy alliance. Like 
 the Princes of Orleans, they would easily pass into first 
 citizens (by courtesy), remarkable, let us hope, for 
 their industrious and high-toned lives. Who at Lord 
 Palmerston's death dreamt of an attack on Established 
 Churches ? The handwriting was seen upon the wall 
 with the signature of a well-known statesman ; the 
 Chaldeans trembled; and all was over. An age of 
 profound political unbelief accepts the smallest signs. 
 And, possibly even after some special revelation, having 
 ' thought twice,' and avowing a ' sneaking kindness ' 
 for the institution, some new Mr. Gladstone of the 
 future will be rising in a crowded House to propose 
 more famous resolutions ' that in the opinion of this 
 House, the time has arrived when the highest interests 
 of the nation, and the dignity and prosperity of the 
 
THE MONARCHY. 323 
 
 country, &c., &c., demand in fact a well-considered 
 scheme — with due regard for vested interests — for the 
 disestablishment of the British monarchy.' 
 
 To return to more practical things. Pohtical hypo- 
 crisy has grown to that pitch, that free discussion of 
 the institutions of our country is supposed to be sacri- 
 Itege or personal outrage. To the silly and cowardly 
 charge of disloyalty, temperate republicans show an 
 open front. Those to whom the estabhshment of a 
 real Government is all-important are not the men to be 
 disloyal in the just sense of that term. They are loyal 
 in that they respect the laws of their country, be they 
 made by them or not : they will abide by them until 
 they are changed ; but their right to change them is 
 the condition of their loyal abiding. They respect all 
 public functionaries who honestly fulfil the public 
 duties of their office. They repudiate all attacks on 
 public functionaries in the discharge of their public 
 duties — for each is the representative of the common 
 weal — be that functionary sovereign on his throne, 
 magistrate on his bench, or policeman on his beat. It 
 is not we republicans who narrow down into a sinecure 
 the noble spirit of loyalty, the life-blood of societies. 
 We are for strengthening the dignity of the ruler, not 
 for reducing it ; for vitalising Government, not for 
 paralysing it. But it may be as well to put on record 
 for anyone whom it may concern, that this present 
 writer at least has never confounded republic with 
 democracy. It is not he or his friends who would 
 teach the people the gospel of Equality, or the revela- 
 tion of Universal Suffi:age. It is not they who have 
 
 T 2 
 
324 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 lield up the United States as the eternal model of a 
 republic ; for in many things we hold it to he one of 
 the worst. We ask for nothing better than a strong 
 Government clothed with all majesty, provided the 
 majesty be that of the nation. So far from proscribing 
 loyalty, it is to loyalty we look to put fresh life into 
 the commonwealth. 
 
 And as to the lady who now holds the royal office, 
 it is certainly not we who would drag her name into 
 a political controversy. They who can speak of that 
 office without affectation, see perhaps best some of the 
 difficulties by which it is beset. One who occupies the 
 throne of the great Normans, of the Edwards, of Eliza- 
 beth, of Cromwell, of William of Orange, the successor 
 and kinswoman of heroes, receives a halo from the 
 glories of that historic seat. She, who by a tragic fate 
 working with special circumstance, is widowed as few 
 women are, by a life of communion with the dead, has 
 sanctified again the sacred name of widow. We are 
 not the last to honour that purpose which has made 
 her life a life-long widowhood. Men who reject the 
 cant of conventional homage may best judge how thank- 
 less a task is that routine which is the solid fact beneath 
 so much lip-mockery. It is not we who are disloyal to 
 the person of the Sovereign, not we who are lacking in 
 respect for the woman when, cut off from that private 
 life which is the glory of other women, devoted by 
 destiny to a life of public drudgery, in a sphere which 
 is one long phantasmagoria, she left society to its dance 
 of fashion, to toil on silently at her melancholy office. 
 But whilst discouraging any disturbance of the 
 
THE MONARCHY. 325 
 
 constitution, and offering personal respect to the first 
 magistrate under it, we are certainly not to be debarred 
 from this amongst other political topics. The air of 
 holy mystery which it is usual to throw round it is one 
 of the drollest bits of our social affectation. If we 
 think the office an incumbrance in itself, however 
 well it may be filled, we have a right to say so. And • 
 when certain persons think to awe us into silence with 
 a tone of bullying pomposity, it is a little too much for 
 our patience. Are a few jaded clubmen and the 
 liveried parasites of the official world to brag about 
 the throne like Jeames de la Pluche about his 'gracious 
 sovarinx,' are they to scold all round as if they were 
 hall porters to the entire peerage, whilst plain men are 
 not to discuss the institutions they live under? A 
 serious and somewhat melancholy interest is the feeling 
 we wish to entertain in dealing with this ancient insti- 
 tution. We are proud of it as a curious relic of the 
 past ; we are touched by it ; we feel a soft antiquarian 
 sentiment creep over us ; when we chance to meet it 
 we look on it with all that respectful and good- 
 humoured interest which we feel for any other of our 
 quaint reminiscences of the course of time — for the 
 Tower of London or Temple Bar. We want a calm 
 and harmonious sense of studious appreciation — un- 
 broken by the antics of showmen. 
 
 We are not blind to such positive advantages as we 
 may fairly attribute to our own quasi-monarchy. They 
 are not very numerous, and not very easy to state with 
 precision. Still they ought to have every weight given 
 to them. It may, for instance, be fairly said that, in 
 
326 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 the absence of higher cultivation, the monarchy for 
 some people embodies and carries on the traditions of 
 the country, and gives a unity to our historical life very 
 favourable to order and internal development. It 
 might cause an abrupt gulf in our history, as is too 
 often seen in France, if the republic was not felt to be 
 the natural successor of the monarchy. And our actual 
 form of disguised republic is perhaps doing much to 
 educate us up to a peaceable and natural transforma- 
 tion of society. Again, perhaps the fiction that there 
 is above all parties an ultimate arbiter with authority 
 and with interests entirely aloof from theirs, does a 
 good deal to keep alive, in the most desperate hours of 
 party conflict, the notion of a public beyond and above 
 them. There is in the sovereign a visible symbol of 
 the nation which the most frantic partisans are obhged 
 to treat with the semblance of deference. This is a 
 real good. But we must not over-estimate its efficiency. 
 That English parties in the main respect that symbol, 
 conventional as it is, is rather due to the relative healthi- 
 ness of English parties than to the native force of the 
 symbol itself. They have a constitutional monarch in 
 Spain, who ^ stands wringing his hands in the midst of 
 Zorillists and Sagastists. When parties here have got into 
 that mood, our crown will count -for as little. And it 
 must not be forgotten that in this as in all other func- 
 tions, the part of the crown is utterly unreal, resting on 
 a transparent fiction. The Sovereign for the time being 
 now is, but might not be, really fit to act as arbiter in 
 a crisis, and perhaps some day will no more act as 
 
 * Amedeo, June 1872. 
 
THE MONARCHY. 327 
 
 arbiter, than any chance man or woman out of the 
 street. The danger of relying on fictions which all 
 know to be fictions, is that in times of excitement they 
 are utterly vain. It may be that our people altogether 
 are not yet trained to feel the existence of the nation 
 except under the material effigy of a monarchy. But 
 this gilt image of the public good can never produce 
 that instinctive rally of the citizens round the repubhc, 
 which we may see sometimes burst forth in the United 
 States, to control the recklessness of party, a spirit 
 which in yet higher forms rose into a rehgion in many 
 of the heroic republics of history. 
 
 It is often said, and it will be said again, that the 
 monarchy gives a high tone to public life, inspires it 
 with sentiments of honour, and secures an efficient and 
 cheap administration. There is no doubt that English 
 public life exhibits a fairly high standard of personal 
 dignity, an almost unexampled standard of pecuniary 
 honesty, and much faithful and gratuitous service. The 
 monarchy may count for an element in this result, but it 
 is only a very trifling element. The fact is due to the 
 general character of the governing class, who, what- 
 ever their defects, are on the whole honourable in 
 private life, singularly pure as to money, and with a 
 fair sense of public duty. But all this is only saying that 
 the powerful orders in England have still the personal 
 self-respect of a ruling caste. It is in a very minor 
 degree the result of our having a monarchy. To set 
 it all down to the throne is one of those saws in school- 
 boy themes — 'post hoc ergo propter hoc — which show 
 the class of mind for which these apologies for Eoyalty 
 
328 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 are intended. The same schoolboy themes might have 
 shown how all these virtues shone ten times as brightly 
 under the ancient republics. Indeed, our types, the 
 eternal types, of civic honesty and public devotion all 
 come from those heroic commonwealths. And are they 
 absent from the story of the early media3val repubhcs, 
 of Genoa, of Venice, of Bruges and Ghient, from the 
 early story of the Swiss and American Constitutions ? 
 And if the United States are struggling now with some 
 of the worst vices of democracy, their history can show 
 most honourable types of patriotism and duty. The 
 worst of their jobbers and hirelings in office are not 
 worse than those who in different ages have polluted 
 our own and other monarchies. Washington and 
 Frankhn may hold their own against Walpole and Bute. 
 And then for the converse. The most corrupt of all 
 European administrations is said to be the Eussian, the 
 most essentially monarchic of States, as in the last cen- 
 tury was that of the Lo.uises in France, where monarchy 
 and corruption became convertible terms. The French 
 administration and army have hardly lost in exchanging 
 empire for republic. Spain and Greece are constitu- 
 tional monarchies, yet no one would cite any one of 
 these as high types of unselfishness in public life. 
 Certainly the administration of Switzerland would most 
 justly compete with them, whilst nothing, even in the 
 vices of the United States, could compare with them. 
 The fact is, that the honesty of public servants depends 
 on the tone of the class which furnishes those servants, 
 and has nothing to do with the fact that they are the 
 servants of a republic, or the servants of a monarchy. 
 
THE MONARCHY, 329 
 
 Parliamentary or public supervision may have much to 
 do with it, but monarchy Httle or nothing. There are 
 abundant instances of monarchies, the servants of which 
 have been thoroughly corrupt and servile, and there 
 have been republics, the servants of which have dis- 
 played the loftiest public virtues. 
 
 It is indeed true that the monarchy appears to close 
 the highest place in the State to ambition and faction, 
 by reserving as it were a supreme neutral ground to 
 which neither can aspire. So far this is a good. But 
 as we have already shown, it is only nominally and not 
 really the highest place of power which is closed. The 
 place of real power is the prize of popular election. 
 The place of unreal power is a wearisome sinecure. 
 And every year and every struggle diminishes the im- 
 portance of the sham function and increases that of the 
 true function. It is, however, unquestionable that the 
 existence of an historic monarchy, wisely used, may be 
 favourable for the time to a rational conservatism, and 
 instinctively divert minds from thoughts of violent revo- 
 lution. At present it is so. And this in our eyes, as 
 in those of all genuine conservatives, is a good so long 
 as it lasts. But then we are republican conservatives, 
 and we cannot help seeing that an historic republic 
 does precisely the sam^e thing, and in a far more com- 
 plete way. It is quite certain that the Swiss Republic 
 or the American Eepublic is far less likely to degene- 
 rate into a monarchy than our monarchy is to expand 
 into a republic. Both of these republics offer far 
 greater securities to order and permanence. And 
 whilst the conservative force of these republics grows 
 
330 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 with the enlightenment of each generation, the con- 
 servative force of our monarchy by the same ratio 
 diminishes. In fact, we already see it entering on the 
 stage in which it will become a disturbing element. If 
 there are advantages in filling up the first place in the 
 State by a figure-head, there are disadvantages if your 
 State chances to need a real head ! 
 
 When we come to press home the positive arguments 
 in favour of a monarchy, they are too much of the sort 
 to which FalstafT treats us as his reasons for respecting 
 the king, only they are sadly less amusing. We have 
 had elegant essayists assuring us that the people must 
 have a pageant — which might be a plea for Lord Mayor's 
 show or the revival of tournaments, but hardly for 
 making the entire constitution culminate in ceremonial. 
 Certainly if the people must have a pageant, they get 
 exceedingly little of it. We are told that monarchy is 
 the theatric part of the constitution, though why a na- 
 tion should need a theatric part to its constitution more 
 than a man is not so apparent. And theatric is an un- 
 lucky phrase, when we remember the growing affinity 
 of the stage for burlesque. Monarchy, we are told, 
 gives a tone to society and domestic life, which is pos- 
 sibly true. But what that tone is, entirely depends 
 on the monarch. It is happily now the tone that is 
 given by an irreproachable lady, esto perpetua ! but it 
 is sometimes that of a debauched booby. When we 
 reflect on the perils which surround virtue on a tlirone, 
 it is perhaps almost as likely to be one as the otlier ; 
 so that particular feature is about as broad as it is long. 
 The topic is one on which it would be easy to enlarge ; 
 
THE MONARCHY. 331 
 
 but by no means savoury. And on the whole it is an 
 argument which it might be better to drop. 
 
 But there are no others at hand. As we all know, 
 the monarchy is good for trade. This is a very power- 
 ful argument, and was always used by the press when 
 the court was long absent from London. The late 
 French empire also was good for trade — on the whole 
 with doubtful success. Again, Eoyalty encourages art, 
 fosters science ; has given us South Kensington and the 
 Hall of Arts. Ah! we were forgetting the inspiration 
 which loyalty gives to art and thought. See the sun of 
 royalty beam upon the world of letters. A king 
 amongst us ! Hush, he speaks. ' II aiu-a raison,' as 
 the chamberlains say in Zadig. He has spoken ! ' II 
 a raison.' ^ The sternest republican must be staggered 
 when he dwells on the air of high-toned manliness, on 
 that fine spiritual dignity which beneath the sunshine of 
 the crown flows upwards like a sap into the fibres of the 
 intellectual world. What Athenian nights ! what Attic 
 salt mixed with what Spartan pride ! How the grace 
 of the courtier but stimulates the genius of the man ! 
 Artist, critic, poet, are transfigured into loftier forms, 
 and make a truly royal chorus singing one hymn — 
 
 Que son merite est extreme ! 
 Que de graces ! que de grandeur ; 
 
 Ah ! combien Monseigneur 
 Doit etre content de Ini-meme ! — Zadig. 
 
 It is reported, likewise, that monarchy refines the 
 
 1 * Le diner dura trois heures : des qu'il ouvrit la bouche pour paiier, 
 le premier chambellan dit: II aura raison. A peine eut-il prononce 
 quatre paroles que le second chambellan s'^cria : II a raison. Les deux 
 autres chambellans firent de grands Eclats de rire des bons mots qu'il 
 avait dits ou qu'il avait du dire.' 
 
332 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 people by accustoming their minds to tasteful display. 
 A most valuable office in any nation ! But a nation 
 rich in Lothairs has almost a superfluity of this special 
 form of culture. Lastly, we are positively assured that 
 it gives a general tone to society. Richard ! mon 
 Eoi ! Who would rob them of that simple enjoyment ? 
 To turn from the cackle of society to political argu- 
 ment. It will appear, in fact, that the serious argu- 
 ments for monarchy all resolve themselves into this — 
 that it is there. And this is a very strong argument 
 indeed ; in truth, it is a conclusive argument against 
 any wanton meddling with it. It is the old argument 
 which has so long saved Temple Bar. There it is. No 
 one would now put it there ; no one can see any par- 
 ticular use in it ; everyone can see we should be better 
 without it. But still the associations round it are so 
 great, and the shock its absence would cause is so grave, 
 that it is as well to let it stand. The monarchy, al- 
 though a political nullity, is indeed associated with every 
 phase of English society. It is the embodiment of the 
 status quo. It is the keystone of our social system. 
 Thus, though of very small account in itself, it is a most 
 potent symbol. To the governing classes it is the sign 
 of their right to govern. It is more than the sign, it is 
 their consecration, the holy oil with which they are 
 anointed. To them, it is what the Sacrament of the 
 mass is to the Catholic priesthood. As the priest is 
 sanctified to his congregation, who ' see God made and 
 eaten all day long,' so the governing orders fresh from 
 the actual presence of Majesty seem to acquire a power 
 to rule the common. They come forth to the public 
 
THE MONARCHY. 333 
 
 gaze with a halo like an Aaronite who has entered into 
 the holy of holies, or like Moses when he came down 
 with horns from the fiery mount. This is the reason 
 why, whilst treating the throne with real disdain, they 
 have contrived, by certain high-polite circumlocutions, 
 to throw round it an air of sacred mystery. In fact, 
 the governing orders in England could no more manage 
 the plebeians without the mystical rites of monarchy 
 than the Eoman aristocracy could have ruled without 
 augurs and sacred chickens. 
 
 To the wealthy orders, again, the monarchy is the 
 symbol of respect for wealth, respect for luxury, and 
 respect for an idle class. Not that it is itself very rich 
 or very luxurious, or at present at all idle. Personally, 
 the sovereign now drudges like a head examining clerk 
 at dull, though perhaps superfluous tasks. From real 
 work the office is debarred by custom and law. But a 
 society which still maintains a purely sinecure monarchy 
 consecrates dignity without responsibihty, wealth with- 
 out toil, and display for its own sake. They feel 
 therefore, whilst the monarchy lasts, that their own 
 lives and their own position are abundantly defensible, 
 for they are but its faint image and copy. By a 
 ceremonial crown the whole hierarchy of society, its 
 artificial dignities, its religion of display, and its claim 
 to enjoy itself for the good of the rest of mankind are 
 all consecrated. It would be irrational to strain at the 
 gnat of Lothair whilst swallowing the camel of the Civil 
 List. The vulgar idea of a sovereign is that of a sort 
 of Apis or sacred bull whom it is a solemn duty to 
 fatten and make sleek for a blessing on the people. 
 
334 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 And the idle rich are but too ready to suppose them- 
 selves local avatars of Apis ; aud most conscientiously 
 do they seek the good of their fellow-creatures by 
 growing fatter and sleeker. To the whole order of the 
 wealthy and the luxurious, the crown is therefore a sine 
 qud non. It serves them at once with their type and 
 their ideal— the symbol of their life — their justification 
 and raison d'etre. 
 
 To the entire middle class, from the capitalist 
 down to the smallest tradesman, the monarchy at 
 present represents prosperity because it represents 
 the existing order of things. To them it is an 
 institution to touch which would be to touch Diana 
 of the Ephesians, the temple whereout they suck 
 no small advantage. It is true all this is 'not because 
 it is a monarchy : not because it at all produces that 
 prosperity, but simply because it is there. In the 
 United States the republic is just as much the palladium 
 of the existing state, and just as favourable, indeed is 
 even more favourable to the art of making fortunes. 
 There the entire industrial and money-making class 
 rallies round the repubhc with an even deeper jealousy 
 than does our moneyed class round the throne as the 
 symbol of the status quo ; and it has the advantage of 
 being entirely in harmony with all their other 
 tendencies and interests, which cannot be said for the 
 monarchy here. 
 
 Monarchy, in a word, is the social status quo. 
 Politically it has no tangible importance, socially it is 
 the consecration of the present. The monarchy is 
 therefore not a political question at all, but a social 
 
THE MONARCHY, 335 
 
 question. And since social questions cannot be settled 
 by external revolutions, any violent attack on the 
 monarchy as an institution would fail to secure its 
 object. It would be like attempting to abolish luxury 
 or suppress wealth by Act of Parliament or popular 
 plebiscite. For a formal political change it would risk 
 a critical social convulsion. The time may come when 
 political problems of paramount moment have stifled 
 all minor interests ; when one of those mysterious 
 revulsions of mind has silently transformed our prac- 
 tical people ; and then the paraphernalia of the crown 
 may awaken as little emotion as John Doe and 
 Eichard Eoe. But without one of those moments of 
 political transfiguration of which a great people are 
 occasionally capable, without a fuller and more con- 
 scious mental preparation, without a real republican 
 patriotism, the official disestablishment of monarchy 
 would be no very mighty afiair. It would not dethrone 
 wealth, idleness, servility. The menial loyalty to 
 display would be as loyal as ever. Lothairs would 
 mount the vacant throne, and scramble for the regaha. 
 The symbol might be discarded, but the thing would 
 be cherished. 
 
 For these and many such reasons, there is little need 
 for republican agitation. A bold movement against the 
 monarchical formulas, even on strictly constitutional 
 bases, would have no adequate object. It would be 
 to attack the reactionists on their chosen battlefield. 
 It would create a factitious interest in the throne, and 
 give it the dead weight of the indifferent mass. As 
 a matter of fact, no republican agitation has ever been 
 
336 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 projected. Amidst masses of republicans there is no 
 republican programme. Or if one is forming, it is 
 simply in answer to the menacing extravagancies of the 
 new party of Beefeaters. 
 
 Sensible people will, however, be careful not to con- 
 found practical acceptance of a status quo with 
 enthusiasm for a cause. He would be a very idle 
 observer w^ho attached too much importance to what 
 our young lions are fond of calling ' demonstrations.' 
 The royal personages are themselves popular, and 
 homage is felt for the Queen as a woman as well as 
 titular sovereign. Our people are not insensible to the 
 merits of a holiday, and as to a show, it is difficult to 
 say what trumpery would not content them, or what 
 personage they would not cheer. We see millions 
 roused out of their vacant and dismal lives by a boat- 
 race or a horse-race, though they do not know the 
 difference of a row-lock from a fetlock. With the press 
 stunning their ears with its everlasting gong, the huck- 
 sters shouting out ' to buy, to buy,' and the showmen 
 with brass bells and trumpets dinning into them ' to 
 walk up,' the poor public get as mazed as a bumpkin at 
 a fair, and w^ill walk up to any booth and gaze on any 
 lion or any waxwork. The truth is that the vast 
 development of the cheap press has given a new 
 stimulus to all idle crowding. If ' the Wandering 
 Jew,' ' the Great Panjandrum,' or ' the Prince of Dark- 
 ness ' could be induced to visit us, he would be dogged 
 by special correspondents, receive 'stupendous ova- 
 tions,' and be the centre of magnificent demonstrations.' 
 One who quietly reflects on the vacancy of mind, on the 
 
THE MONARCHY. 
 
 337 
 
 spaniel-like instinct which is shown by the crowds who 
 will gather to shout at any Ijothair's wedding, can 
 hardly take for political sentiment the mere booby 
 tendency to stare and throw up caps. Given notoriety, 
 the credit of wealth, something to simper over, and the 
 press to beat gongs and bawl one deaf — and any 
 imaginable crowd will gather to see any imaginable 
 thing. No rational being can draw any political 
 argument from ' demonstrations.' We might as well 
 study the public ophiion of sheep jamming through a 
 gate. Whole droves of these baa-lambs might be 
 turned by two resolute men. They can teach us 
 nothing — except it may be the growing vulgarity of 
 wealth, the low state of general education, and the 
 tendency of Lothair-olatry to become a state religion, 
 with the monarchy, as its Melchisedek, its prophet, 
 priest, and king. 
 
 This high attribute of monarchy to elevate the 
 vulgar to the adoration of wealth ought not to blind 
 responsible persons to facts. Now, whilst there is a 
 general desire in England to maintain public order, 
 and a general acceptance of the monarchic form as a 
 convenient status quo^ there is a very wide and deep 
 republican feeling more or less definite and conscious. 
 In London and the great cities the bulk of the work- 
 ing-classes are republican by conviction, unless where 
 they are perfectly indifferent. There are a score of 
 towns in the north and centre where the republican 
 feeling has been at fever-heat. Through the body 
 of the smaller shopkeeping class, loyalty to the throne 
 finds its highest expression in royal footmen and 
 
 z 
 
338 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 portraits of a princess : nor is it likely to take a more 
 solid form. The heir to the crown is ' popular,' but 
 he is just as popular in the United States, where 
 huzzaing a notability can hardly be mistaken for 
 political principle. And popularity is a vague term. 
 In Ireland they are raising a statue to a beloved grey- 
 hound. 
 
 As we all know, amongst the educated classes 
 there is a quiet pooh-poohing of monarchy as a living 
 institution, with a tacit understanding to keep things 
 as they are. We read gushing articles in a morning, 
 which we trust may impress the people ; but no man 
 of sense speaks to another as if it were a thing to care 
 about. We have perhaps a sneaking weakness for it ; 
 but a sneaking weakness is not a strong thing. We 
 are all conscious around us of perfectly settled though 
 perfectly well-behaved republican convictions. In 
 fact, with most men of foresight the republic is to 
 them what it is to our Oxford dignitary, ' the day 
 after to-morrow,' or, it may be, ' the middle of next 
 week.' It is a question of time, about which, as 
 practical men, we do not concern ourselves. An 
 effective faith in hereditary monarchy as a reality, 
 and not an etiquette, would, in fact, be an effective 
 repudiation of modern civilisation. Our whole cast 
 of action and of life is now so essentially republican, 
 that to any thoughtful mind hereditary monarchy as 
 an active principle can present itself only as a con- 
 spiracy or a mummery. 
 
 Practical politicians then, to repeat, have every 
 ground to disclaim an attack on the established 
 
THE MONARCHY, 339 
 
 monarchic form. We must accept the status quo. 
 As in all other cases, it is a balance of advantages 
 and disadvantages, and as things now stand, the 
 balance is on the side of the status quo. But in 
 tolerating a status quo we ought not to delude our- 
 selves ; for, quite apart from the crop of social fungi 
 which springs out of that soil, there is in the purely 
 political sphere a vis inertice in mock royalty which 
 heavily weights our English repubhc. In the growing 
 problem of executive government, the one thing need- 
 ful is to bring some living personality out of the hub- 
 bub of jarring voices. Each session. Parliament is 
 growing more of a scramble, a free fight, a game of 
 blindman's-bufF. The great Parliamentary Babel is 
 hopelessly stricken with confusion of tongues. Accord- 
 ingly, with us the practical chief of the State is, almost 
 for the first time in history, a mere gladiator in a 
 crowd of rhetoricians, the plaything of a tangle of 
 factions, of necessity a demagogue, by office a stop- 
 gap. In all history there is hardly an example of the 
 real chief of the State, the absolute head of the execu- 
 tive, being exposed to daily and hourly rebuffs, liable 
 to dismissal by a single vote of an assembly. President 
 Grant is not liable to instant fall if he fail in a single 
 division to persuade or frighten a majority. Certainly 
 he has not to stand up night after night, and wrangle 
 over the details of every trumpery administrative act. 
 Something of the kind was, indeed, tried in France 
 the other day, till the absurdity of the situation forced 
 them (infatuated republicans as they are !) to separate 
 the chief of the State a little from the bear-fights of 
 
 z 2 
 
340 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 Parliament ; and France has only had a government 
 since the head of the executive has ceased to be a 
 * minister.' Indeed, since the days when Cleon and 
 Alcibiades perorated to critical crowds, like actors, 
 for popular applause, and ruled alternately by catch- 
 ing votes, the world has hardly seen an executive so 
 utterly democratic as that of our present parliamentary 
 system. The sole head of the State has to satisfy 
 nightly a talking, intriguing, lounging assembly, w^hile 
 the entire executive apparatus and the whole govern- 
 ment machine are liable to instant overthrow by a 
 biting tongue or a dexterous whip. It is not thus in 
 America ; it is not thus in France — repubhcs though 
 they be. It was not thus in any rational republic or 
 in any respectable State. The cause of it is, that with 
 full-blown republican habits and ideas, with a repubHc 
 which is a second nature to us all, we choose to 
 travestie our whole pohtical system by a monarchic 
 figment ; that we shut our eyes to facts, and refuse to 
 see that the real master of power must be the head of 
 the State. 
 
 The whirligig of time verily brings about its 
 revenges ; and it is a cruel mockery of our love of 
 antiquated compromise that the very means by which 
 our forefathers, in different circumstances, sought to 
 preserve us from this evil have been the very means 
 of producing it. It once seemed the acme of skill 
 when they invented the dogma that ' the King reigns, 
 but does not govern,' and tliey thought that the rule 
 of ministerial responsibility for ever preserved the 
 executive from the democratic assaults of Parhament. 
 
THE MONARCHY. 341 
 
 They thought it a stroke of wisdom when they enabled 
 Parliament to control affairs, without actually admin- 
 istering them ; to dictate a policy, without overthrow- 
 ing the head of the State ; to limit his power, without 
 destroying his dignity. Our good, short-sighted, 
 worthy forefathers, were wise in their generation, but 
 not wiser than it. They could not see the day when 
 their wisdom should be turned into foolishness, when 
 all their pains would tend to undo their work ! Could 
 they have foretold the day when Parliament and its 
 creature, the mere breath of its nostrils, should be the 
 true, the only executive, when the head of the State 
 should be of necessity the nearest approach to a 
 demagogue centuries have seen? They could not 
 foresee that by inevitable laws society would become 
 to its heart's core a repubhc, and that then their 
 devices would have made its president the least 
 dignified and the least established of all the presidents ! 
 It was not given to foresee that the day would come 
 when the monarchy would neither reign nor govern, 
 but live in retirement in the Highlands ; when the 
 true monarch of England would be wrangling like an 
 Old Bailey advocate before an adverse jury. The ela- 
 borated imposture of the British constitution has closed 
 our eyes to these things —closes the eyes of those con- 
 cerned. But the facts are indestructible, and the truth 
 comes back to us in each wild demaofosfic melee. 
 ' Ministers of the Crown ' they call themselves ; ' The 
 servants of his gracious Majesty,' they repeat with 
 unction. And the Majesty of England., they say with 
 bated breath and upturned eyes, reigns like a deity 
 
342 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 above these sublunary storms. Alas ! too far above, 
 like the gods of Epicurus ; so far above as to be a 
 mere legal formula ; and for any practical purpose, 
 so far above, that it signifies little if it be there at all. 
 Such are the phrases, such is the letter of the law ; 
 but the spirit and the fact remain that the sovereign 
 executive of this country is the hourly shuttlecock of 
 faction : and the real ruler of England, neither claim- 
 ing nor receiving his just dignity nor armed with his 
 due authority and majesty, stands daily like a bull at 
 a stake, to be baited by a chorus of eager rivals. Such 
 is the reality of democracy under the masquerade of 
 royalty. 
 
 It is impossible for a mere ' Minister ' accustomed 
 to speak of himself, and to be treated in the tone in 
 which ministers were once used to be addressed by 
 real kings, ever to realise the responsibihty of his high 
 office, now that he is the true chief of the republic. 
 The cant of ' His Majesty's Favour' blinds both him 
 and us to the actual facts. And downward from ihe 
 Prime Minister (and we say the same thing, be his 
 name Mr. Gladstone or Mr. Disraeli), through the 
 lower offices of State, the radical falsity of the conven- 
 tional language confuses and deteriorates their service. 
 The cramped and obsolete notion of loyalty to the 
 crown chokes the abiding sense of loyalty to the 
 public. There were ages once, and there are States 
 now, where loyalty to a king has power to ennoble 
 and strengthen the entire governing machine. But 
 only is this possible in times, or in nations, where tliat 
 governing body is crowned with a hving and conscious 
 
THE MONARCHY. 343. 
 
 head. Where, in place of a conscious head there is 
 only a symbolical figure-head, it is impossible ; where 
 the highest office is a sinecure, the principle of sine- 
 cures is dangerously fostered ; where the highest office 
 is hereditary, all offices will tend to be hereditary; 
 where the highest office is a thing of property, and not 
 a thing; of merit, merit labours with a cruel dead 
 weight, and property becomes the very principle of 
 office. And when each one of these three tendencies 
 is united in one, when the highest office of the State is 
 itself the very type of all, when it becomes the mere 
 incarnation of property in an hereditary sinecure, the 
 blight descends through every fibre and root of the 
 public service. In the true republic (and a society 
 once republic is republic for ever, and can no more 
 return to monarchy than it can return to feudalism, 
 of which our monarchy is but a part) — in the true 
 republic, the nation is the visible ever-present and 
 uhimate master : from the president to the meanest 
 functionary, from the highest function of government 
 down to every button on every policeman's coat, there 
 is visibly, indelibly imprinted the nation, and duty to 
 the nation, employment only to those worthy of the 
 nation. From top to bottom of the social scale runs 
 the principle of merit ; and office held in trust for the 
 common weal. 
 
 Not that the adoption of the republican form in 
 itself can work this end. No form whatever can. It 
 is the growth only of the republican morahty. There 
 is many a republic grossly inferior to its ideal ; and 
 many a monarchy really superior to its form. But 
 
34i STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 tliougli the mere adoption of a true form can work no 
 immediate practical good, the obstinate worship of a 
 dead form may seriously hamper growth. Forms are 
 of no transcendent importance ; but such as we have, 
 it is well to have simple, and somewhat in accordence 
 with fact. Now the great problem of our statesmen is 
 obviously that of creating a working executive. The 
 present is a wild jumble of executive and legislative, 
 which each year more plainly threatens a fatal dead- 
 lock. The cumbrous constitution, piled with the ruins 
 of earlier ages, honeycombed with compromise, and 
 entangled in the weeds of unreality, is hardly a 
 habitable mansion. Mole ruit sua. The one thing 
 that can save us is to free ourselves from encumbrances ; 
 to return to simplicity, to unity, to fact. We need to 
 be rid of this labyrinth of forms which are a mere 
 mummery ; to get back to a form which expresses the 
 real life we act. It may be that we have ' a sneaking 
 hking ' for the mummery itself ; it may be that cir- 
 cumstances make us loath to disturb it. But it would 
 be folly not to think honestly on all that it involves. 
 It would be folly to forget that the tangle of adminis- 
 trative machinery was designed to work round an 
 ornamental centre which is not now its mechanical 
 centre. It is cowardice to shut our eyes to the fact 
 that our whole public life, which we strive to make 
 serious and true, culminates and is embodied in a 
 conscious masquerade. 
 
 Are we to despair because the passage from the 
 false to the true life is slow? Better than all attack 
 on monarchy is the cultivation of the true republican 
 
THE MONARCHY. ^ ' /' 34/ . 
 
 sentiment. That sentiment in its integfitfjj. is tJVe 
 noblest and the strongest that has ever animated^'^cpm- o 
 munities. It is nothing^ but the most exalted force' of 
 that which all society implies ; for it is the utmost / 
 distribution of function with the greatest social co- 
 operation. In simple words, it is the idea that the 
 common good permeates and inspires every public act. 
 Government becomes the embodiment of the common 
 good ; to accomplish which is its only title. The one 
 qualification of office, the sole right to power, is 
 capacity to effect this common good. He who com- 
 mands with this title in the State, ordains not merely 
 with the whole force of a superior nature, but with 
 the majesty of that multitude of wills which are 
 incarnate in his. From the humblest official up to the 
 first magistrate of the State, all who have public duties 
 feel behind them the might of the united community. 
 Every public act of every citizen, and in the republic 
 life is but one long public act, is in itself an act of 
 patriotism, has its bearing on the welfare of the State. 
 The barren claim of ' rights,' the coarse notion of 
 property in power, the sense of being born to privilege 
 dies out of the social conscience, and from one end of 
 the body politic to the other there rises up the supreme 
 instinct that no function is legitimate save that which 
 is truly fulfilled. This was the idea which lit in the 
 mind of the Eom.an the thought of the City, as that 
 from which all that gave him dignity was drawn, as 
 that to which his life and powers were continually and 
 entirely owed. This too, throughout the Middle Ages, 
 was the spirit which inspired the municipal bodies to 
 
346 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 whose energy civilisation owes the seeds of its progress. 
 It was, in fact, but this spirit which in a crude and 
 personal form was the real spring of that loyalty and 
 liej?e-trust which are the boast of the feudalisms and 
 royalties of Europe. And it is simply this which in 
 the scramble of our modern society makes any govern- 
 ment possible, or gives any dignity to our national life. 
 England is amongst the first of nations simply 
 because it is in essence republican — because it has 
 long passed into that stage in which public opinion 
 is the foundation of power, and capacity its true 
 qualification — because it has long passed out of that 
 stage in which allegiance is an accident of birth, and 
 government a piece of property. England is, in heart, 
 republican, because it has asserted in all material 
 things, past question and past change, the principle 
 that the public good is the sole standard, and personal 
 fitness the real criterion of civil power. Most 
 imperfectly and half-consciously republican it may 
 be said. The debris of privilege and of feudalism 
 through which the republican ideal has forced its way 
 encumber it still on all sides. The ennobling reahty 
 of loyalty to the nation is choked at every turn by 
 the obsolete fiction of loyalty to a family — loyalty to 
 a pageant — loyalty to a sinecure. The social might 
 which should clothe all office is bedimmed whilst the 
 highest is the nominal appanage of a noble house. 
 It is in the republic alone that the true loyalty is 
 possible or that true monarchs exist. In the republic 
 proper there is no morbid thirst for equality, nor 
 mincing up of power into the unpractised hands of 
 
THE MONARCHY. 347 
 
 multitudes. The real republic, whose ideal is capacity, 
 needs in its place each capacity ; and they indefinitely 
 differ in degree. Nor would the State be truly served 
 if the rare capacities within it were drowned in the 
 torrent of myriad incapacities. It is the republic then 
 which seizes on the true eminence of its noblest sons, 
 as it is the republic which alone can rally the citizens 
 round them in effective loyalty. This spirit is rooted 
 amongst us, and grows with each hour of progress. 
 Each statesman who presides over the destiny of the 
 country shakes himself freer from convention, and 
 rises more clearly in conscious dignity to the height of 
 his mission. We who call him minister are growing 
 to feel him a ruler. As the ceremonial Majesty of the 
 throne grows daily more alien to all our self-respect, 
 the practical majesty of the nation becomes a more 
 present force. It is the resolute assertion of this, 
 not the stormy negation of that, which will lead to 
 fruitful result. It is we republicans alone who can 
 revive the true attribute of the ruler by uniting again 
 in one the majesty and the responsibility — it is we who 
 raise the sentiment of loyalty from the sphere of 
 ceremony to that of public duty — from the keeping of 
 chamberlains to that of citizens. 
 
348 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 ESSAY IX. 
 
 THE REVIVAL OF AUTHORITY (Jan., 1873). 
 
 Section I. — The Principle of Authority. 
 
 In politics, if we put aside the phrases of party and 
 traditional cant, but two real principles exist : personal 
 Authority, and popular Will. Pessimists are for 
 ever exclaiming, that the day of the former is past. 
 They tell us that each hour undermines the bases 
 of authority, and the future has in store but a dead 
 level of democracy. If this were true it would be 
 I serious indeed ; for society without authority would 
 be an incoherent crowd. But happily it is not 
 true. Spurious and baneful forms of authority may 
 be dissolving; but Authority in its true sense is 
 indestructible. It is to this day as full of life, and 
 like to live as long, as the principle of popular will. 
 For ages the two have waged eternal war; yet 
 neither can destroy the other, and utterly overcome 
 it. The good sense of the larger, or at least of 
 the stronger, part of mankind will suffer neither to 
 oust the other altogether. We insist on establishing 
 between them a rough and precarious modus vivendi. 
 We feel each principle to be too precious to be finally 
 
THE PRINCIPLE OF AUIHORITV. 349 
 
 discarded; and yet to be too dangerous to be frankly 
 embraced. Each principle makes a claim that it 
 seems impossible to resist ; and yet to yield it seems 
 to threaten unlimited catastrophes. If we express 
 these principles in regular formula, the first might be 
 stated thus : — Government is the exclusive function of 
 special capacity. The second might be stated thus : — 
 All Government must emanate from the collective will 
 of the nation. 
 
 • Into one or other of these two, all theories of 
 Government, absolutist and constitutional, aristocratic 
 and democratic, with all tlieir subdivisions and shades, 
 may be ultimately resolved. For every party must 
 have a principle of some kind at bottom. Mere 
 interest is too shifting a base for any combination 
 of men more important than a band of thieves. Some 
 social faith, some reasonable conviction there must be 
 at the root of every political body. Now a little 
 analysis will always show that every party is animated 
 by one or other of the doctrines — the only Good 
 government is that of the best men : or else by this 
 other doctrine — the only Just government is that 
 of the national will. One or other of these doctrines 
 directs every party ; yet no party equally professes 
 both. Amongst ourselves both doctrines exert im- 
 mense influence in turn ; yet never jointly. And 
 neither of them alone can obtain full confidence. So 
 inadequate does each doctrine appear apart from the 
 other, that the great parties seem half ashamed of 
 their own creed. Their main efforts are employed in 
 attacking the counter principle instead of vaunting 
 
350 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 their own. Thus our high Tories appeal not to the 
 doctrines of authority but to the ballot-box and the 
 hustings. They tell us that their mission is to stem 
 democracy, not that it is to found Authority. And 
 their method of stemming democracy is to work it 
 themselves. The Liberals advocate the suffrage rather 
 as the avenue for true merit, than as a pure de- 
 mocratic end. They labour to counteract the power 
 of birth and wealth, and are only happy if they can 
 handicap personal ascendency. But they avoid com- 
 mitting themselves to the theory quod vult populus 
 vult Deus. No party then preaches its own creed 
 in a fervent way as if it believed it. The very 
 few on either side who have the courage of their 
 opinions speak with the voice of one crying in the 
 wilderness. Our greatest living Genius has indeed 
 preached one of these doctrines for forty years, the 
 Gospel that Power is the birthright of the Able man, 
 and he has preached it to the winds. The counter 
 Gospel, that nothing is good but what has been voted, 
 is preached only by furious sectaries, who are useful, 
 chiefly as the Helot after dinner was useful to young 
 Spartans. 
 
 After all, are these two principles finally irre- 
 concilable? Are politicians really condemned to an 
 insoluble dilemma, much as metaphysicians are 
 pinned between the horns of Free-will and Necessity ? 
 We venture to think not. We believe that the 
 principle of personal Authority as well as that of 
 Public Opinion has in it an indefeasible truth, and 
 that both are capable of strict harmony. What if 
 
THE PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY. 351 
 
 these rival doctrines be but the complementary parts 
 of a single principle ? That is, systematic Govern- 
 ment by the best men may prove to be true ex- 
 pression of the popular will. The type of the Eepublic 
 is the effective union of both, as il: is only in the 
 republic that they can finally be united. The political 
 problem of our age in a word is to found Authority 
 without oppression upon a Public Opinion without 
 democracy. 
 
 Let us take each of these great principles in detail : 
 and separate its central imperishable truth from that 
 which constitutes its danger. The principle that 
 power to be well exercised requires special capacity is 
 not only a truth but a truism. Every thing that man 
 does or makes, is done better by some men than by 
 others, can hardly be done at all by some men, is 
 done supremely well by some very few. The more 
 difficult and complex each work, the more numerous 
 the relations it involves, the more special is the 
 capacity it demands. And, of all things that men do, 
 the most difficult is the co-ordinating all the various 
 things that each does, so as to make the individual 
 efforts work together — which is the task of Govern- 
 ment. The Philosopher might well call it the master 
 art. Its importance follows from the simplest analysis 
 of Government, and of Society. What, in fact, is 
 Government and w^hat is Society ? Society, it is 
 obvious, is the combination of many special activities 
 into a common life. An aggregation of individuals 
 or families each doing the same thing separately, 
 
352 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 and doing nothing in common, is not truly a Society, 
 but a crowd. The more completely specialised the 
 individual functions, and the more general the common 
 life, the higher becomes the grade of the Society. 
 And Government is nothing but the general function 
 which gives unity to the special functions. It makes 
 little difference if we listen to those who reduce 
 government to its simplest form, and make it consist 
 mainly in non-intervention. For this is only possible 
 when Society has reached the highest forms of 
 differentiation. In complex human relations it often 
 requires more skill to fix the limit of abstention than 
 that of intervention. The minimum of Government 
 in a highly. organised Society involves a far harder 
 task than the maximum of Government in a simple 
 Society. In every Government there are the constable 
 and the magistrate, the soldier and the tax-gatherer, 
 and there should be something of the asdile. And 
 these personages amongst them in practice involve 
 very much. Wisely to determine and control the 
 functions even of these primitive functionaries requires 
 a true estimate of every special activity in the Society, 
 and their just co-ordination. Indeed in complex 
 communities where Government is almost negative, 
 the skill it requires is not much less than where it is 
 most active. And thus whether we mean by Govern- 
 ment, a highly centralised autocracy, or the mere 
 guardian of public safety, its functions are the most 
 important of all others in the Society ; they are 
 at once the most specialised by their concen- 
 tration, and the most general by their comprehen- 
 
THE PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY. 353 
 
 siveness. Hence they are the most difficult. Govern- 
 ment is thus in its nature bound up with real, not 
 artificial, superiority. Ca,pabihty is its key-note ; and 
 Personal Merit is its essence. 
 
 It would be useless to insist further on what no one 
 seriously denies. That good government is a work to 
 task the highest powers, that the highest faculty 
 for the task is found in the rarest natures, as a 
 principle is a mere commonplace. It is assumed in 
 every political discussion or movement. History would 
 indeed be an old almanac, were it not so. What would 
 be the meaning of great men, were it otherwise ? Was 
 it a mere mistake to have thought nations wisely 
 governed in a crisis ? Would any other man have done 
 as well ? And are political genius and force of charac- 
 ter but false lights thrown accidentally on a chance 
 citizen ? Alfred, Cromwell, and Washington then, we 
 are to believe, owed much to their age, but their age 
 owed nothing to them. May we trust, as the king said 
 of Percy, that we have five hundred as good as they ? 
 It is not so, and no reasonable being in his heart thinks 
 it is. 
 
 But if no one denies the principle that the faculty 
 for government is a rare gift, it is singular that we never 
 hear it proclaimed. On the contrary, the commonplaces 
 of Parliament and journalism all assume the reverse. 
 Statesmen and publicists eternally repeat the very op- 
 posite doctrine. Every argument they use assumes 
 that it is for the majority to determine not only what 
 the Government shall be, but what it shall do. Legis> 
 lation and administration are said to flow from the na- 
 
 A A 
 
354 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 tional will ; and parliaments and ministries have only 
 to find out what it is, and to do what it directs them. 
 Tories use precisely the same language as radicals ; only 
 they contend that the majority is for them. The final 
 argument in the House of Commons is that a measure 
 is ' uncalled for.' The one side insists that the people 
 desire it; the other side insists that they do not. 
 Ministers ask ^vith indignation how many petitions 
 there are for the Bill, or assert with triumph that the 
 public voice has now declared itself. The golden 
 doctrine is to ' leave people to manage their own affairs.' 
 In all this there is a great deal of running after the great 
 men, but then the great man is he who can best follow 
 the majority. The great minister is he who obeys the 
 voice of the people. Parliament is to be the sovereign 
 power, and Parliament is, or ought to be, ' the exact 
 mirror of the nation.' Thus the grand constitutional 
 ideal is attained. 'The nation governs itself,' and 
 victorious ' self-government ' is ever about to biing in 
 the golden age. From top to bottom of our public life, 
 whatever the practice may be, the profession is nothing 
 but pure democracy. And the very authors of all this 
 will cry out that the principle of authority is going to 
 wreck. 
 
 How can the principle of authority flourish if 
 those in authority seem eagerly to disclaim its very 
 existence? Throughout all this flourish about self- 
 government there is never heard a word of the 
 counter principle, that good government is the most 
 difficult of tasks, and therefore possible only to special 
 capacities. That government simply means leadership, 
 the direction of the inferior by the superior, and that 
 
THE PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY. 355 
 
 good government can be obtained from none but the 
 few supremely fit, appears to be a notion as obsolete as 
 divine right. The convenient sophism that the people 
 are not to govern directly, but through representatives, 
 that they are not to be ministers, but only to choose 
 ministers, that they are not to carry out measures, but 
 merely to dictate them, and to initiate them, does not 
 come to much. They who dictate the Govermnent ' 
 govern ; and they who are to originate all acts of 
 authority do not much differ from being its masters. 
 
 This is nothing but the theory — the avowed pro- 
 fession. Nothmg can be farther from the real 
 meaning or the actual practice. All the common- 
 places as to the suffrage being a trust, that it ought 
 not to be degraded, that power should be entrusted 
 only to those who have a stake in \he country, the 
 appeals against copying American institutions, the 
 appeals to reserve office for social standing or emi- 
 nence — and these hackneyed phrases cover often the 
 most honest and even passionate convictions — all rest 
 on the principle that some men are fitter to govern 
 than others. The whole of the Conservative enthu- 
 siasm, and more than half the Liberal caution, is based 
 on the profound conviction, common to both, that 
 whatever their professions may require, in practice it 
 would be madness to abandon government to the 
 hands of numbers. Well, why is it never said? 
 There is not a debate in Parliament, and scarcely an 
 article in a journal, which this conviction does not 
 underlie. And perhaps, except a small and unin- 
 fluential section, there is not a single party in the 
 
356 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 State which is honestly ready to apply in reality the 
 doctrine which is the logical issue of all the avowed 
 doctrines — that power must emanate from the will of 
 the people. It is the sole doctrine which they preach ; 
 but it is one which none will practise — and with very 
 good reason. This ' un veracity,' as the poet calls it, 
 constitutes a fatal weakness, which afflicts all parties 
 at once. They all, Tories and Liberals, repeat a set 
 of democratic principles which no one of them really 
 means. They disavow the existence of authority as 
 a principle, and then they cry out, what has become 
 of authority ? The very Ishmael of Toryism dares 
 not assert that power is his birthright, but talks only 
 gloomily of dying in the last ditch. The legitimate 
 heads of the Tory world, as we all know, have 
 rescued our ' ancient institutions ' by means of house- 
 hold suffrage, the ' residuum,' — and the ' illiterate' voter. 
 They dare not, in common decency, put forward 
 the principle which is doubtless their secret faith. 
 Toryism really means, if it means anything, that the 
 incapable should leave government to the capable ; 
 and our modern Tories do not venture to say that 
 they are specially capable. To be of a good family, 
 that is to say, to be the great grandson of Squire 
 Western, or even the remote descendant of Justice 
 Shallow, could hardly be pretended in our day as a 
 qualification for Secretary of State. A governing class 
 ought, at least, to believe that they are specially fit to 
 govern, as our civil and military staff in India do, and 
 even as the Prussian Junker does. But the notion 
 that nature had specially designed them to govern 
 
THE PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY. 357 
 
 would be too whimsical to be seriously accepted by 
 our Conservatives at home, who prefer to rely on the 
 complacent fiction that the people wish them to 
 govern. Thus it comes that they who profess the 
 principle of authority give us not the principle of 
 authority, but a travestie of it. They leave out the 
 whole sap and life of it — its kernel of truth, which is 
 personal capacity ; and they are forced to do so for the 
 excellent reason that it is the special truth which most 
 conclusively disposes of their exclusive claim. 
 
 If government or authority means anything, it is 
 • something supremely difficult ; and unless it is to be 
 an intolerable evil, it must imply capacity other than 
 capacity to do nothing. It is a mere delusion, there- 
 fore, to look on our actual Conservatives as in any 
 special sense representing the principle of authority. 
 In any rational sense of the word authority, that is as 
 implying personal capacity, they no more represent 
 the principle than do the wildest democrats. In the 
 feudal system (the very essence of which was first, the 
 responsibihty of man to man, and next the corporate 
 character of all government as well as of all educa- 
 tion), birth, rank, and status generally, were rough 
 and often very valuable tests of capacity. The heir 
 of a baron, the next in succession in a close order or 
 corporation were often the only persons who were 
 personally fit to succeed to a vacant public function. 
 And in a formal hierarchy of society, authority, 
 personal capacity, and hereditary rank, naturally and 
 often rightly get mixed up as interchangeable terms. 
 But in a society where the hierarchies have been 
 
358 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 finally dissolved, which has grown homogeneous 
 through the spread of education and pubhc opinion, 
 hereditary rank, wealth, and status are felt to be very 
 widely severed from any political aptitude. They 
 mean totally different things from capacity, and often 
 the opposite of it. And thus, if they pretend still to 
 represent authority, they associate it with personal 
 incapacity, which justly discredits it. It is most 
 unlucky, and not very just, but somehow social rank 
 has got to imply a certain want of special aptitude. 
 Hence our Conservatives represent the principle of 
 rank, but they certainly do not represent the principle 
 of capacity. On the contrary, they are the antagonists 
 of mere personal merit, ' its cold shade,' its here- 
 ditary incubus. And inasmuch as the principle of 
 capacity is the only solid foundation on which any 
 principle of authority can be based in grown- up nations, 
 they who look coldly on merit are the traitors to the 
 principles of authority, and not its champions. 
 
 Tlie ascendancy of individual force of intellect is 
 the only living form of authority ; and this is a Ee- 
 publican principle. Indeed, it is the key-note of the 
 Eepublican faith, and its true ideal. The passage 
 from the hereditary form of authority to the personal 
 is often a troubled one, and is thrust out of its course 
 by many a democratic outburst. But democracy is 
 only the revolutionary negation of false forms of 
 authority, and from the nature of human instincts 
 represents no permanent phase. When obsolete and 
 oppressive forms of authority have been sufficiently 
 siiattered, and artificial inequalities and antagonisms 
 
THE PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY. 359 
 
 have been fused in a universal public feeling, the 
 tendency of the republican spirit to trust the common 
 weal to the best available guidance will become irre- 
 sistible. Then the instinct which calls on each citizen 
 to devote his powers to the general good, must 
 force the citizens of the highest powers to fill the most 
 responsible duty. 
 
 It is unjust to charge upon the people the actual 
 degradation of the principle of authority. On the 
 contrary, it is they who invoke its name, and affect to 
 represent its mission, who are really the authors of its 
 humiliation. The principle of authority, as we have 
 seen, has now no meaning or root, except as it means 
 the ascendancy of personal merit. All other forms 
 of authority have now become but mockeries or 
 caricatures of it. And they who are charged with 
 upholding authority are every day trampling under 
 foot that which is its sole 1 life — capacity. They do 
 not exhibit eminent capacity themselves, they do not 
 honour it in others, nor do they speak in its name. 
 Every interested appointment to office, every official 
 blunder, every homage to rank aud wealth, is a fresh 
 stab to the principle of authority, a fresh obstacle to its 
 rise. The exhibition of gilded incapacity in respon- 
 sible duties chokes within the people the just reverence 
 for merit, and drives us on the path of democracy 
 with a power greater than that of a hundred stump 
 agitators. The real enemies of authority ai'e not the 
 harmless wearers of caps of liberty, but they who 
 scramble for its insignia that they may fill their own 
 pockets and air their own vanity. 
 
36o STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 The only way in which the principle of Authority 
 can be restored is by public leaders themselves showing 
 a truer sense of it, and a higher faith in it. Let those 
 who feel they have the power within them to lead come 
 forth ; show us what they can do, and tell us what they 
 mean by legitimate Authority. It is shameful in them to 
 do nothing but abuse the people who are crying out for 
 something they can trust and hope in. What image of 
 Authority is it that the Conservatives hold up to the 
 people, what future do they offer them, what man 
 do they show them as leader? Nothing, absolutely 
 nothing. For Authority, they offer them police, 
 j ustices — in the background bayonets ; for a future — ' as 
 you are ;' for a leader — ' Us ! ' Turn to the Aristides 
 of the party, that immensely sensible, just, and moderate 
 man. Lord Derby. Now, he has studied the social ques- 
 tion, the political question, every question, in fact, and 
 'ism' in the 'British Encyclopaedia.' He sees that many 
 things are wrong, won't last, can't last — in fact, he doubts 
 if anything is altogether right, but, for the life of him he 
 cannot see any way in which they would not be made 
 worse. He is a practical man himself: he is the 
 Industrious Apprentice of the House of Lords. You 
 can all see what he has done for himself: by strict 
 morality, honesty, and attention to business, he is what 
 he is, with £100,000 a year, and a prospective ruler of 
 the British Empire. All he can say is, have no false 
 hopes, don't try experiments, don't be enthusiastic. 
 Leave well alone — indeed, you had better leave ill alone, 
 or you may make it worse. Give no credit, and ask 
 none, be virtuous and all that, and, above all, be 
 
THE PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY. 361 
 
 industrious. Grand schemes are all stuff; Government 
 can't help you ; if we put you straight you would go 
 wrong to-morrow. It is true you are packed like 
 herrings in a barrel ; but what then ? If you get your 
 neighbour's tail out of your eyeball, or from under your 
 gill, there are two more tails ready to stick into you. 
 You had better he still ; wriggling will only hurt you 
 worse ; be content with that state (of the herring-barrel) 
 in which it has pleased God to pack you. The Church 
 is rather a humbug, but you had better make the best 
 of it ; the House of Lords are not well-informed, but 
 they mean well : the Conservative party have not 
 studied pohtical economy, but they will make rather 
 less of a mess of it than the Liberals will. I don't want 
 you. I can't do much for you. And I know no one 
 who can. 
 
 The Prospero of the Conservatives, as we all know, 
 has other and magical resources. Let the Calibans of 
 the country party grumble ; but they do his bidding. 
 He has to play his own Ariel for want of an airy sprite. 
 But he is quite equal to it all. He waves his wand, 
 and behold, the Conservative working man ! Democratic 
 suffrage a Tory measure ! Similia similibus curantur ; 
 the power of numbers can only be cured by giving 
 votes to twice as many as have got them ! Are you 
 afraid of Americanising our institutions ? Well, then, 
 extend the suffrage, and have the Ballot! Are you 
 afraid of a disease in the body pohtic ? There is but 
 one remedy — administer it yourself. Vaccination is the 
 political nostrum. If you fear our workmen getting 
 the small-pox of Democracy, give them the cow-pox 
 
362 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 of Tory Ochlocracy. Eesiduum indeed ! all the better 
 for having no political nonsense in their heads. Look 
 after the ' illiterates.' We can give them just as good 
 words as the Whigs, outbid their offers, and undersell 
 their trade. Why not Tory Socialism, as well as Tory 
 Keform ? Do not leave the Devil all the good tunes, 
 nor tlie Whigs all the popular cries. ' Poor EngUsh 
 curate,' is as good as ' poor Irish priest,' and may bring 
 more votes. The Conservative working-man, with tea, 
 cake, and noble lord a discretion^ is a better investment 
 than hungry trades unionists. And as for the ' poor 
 labourer,' how about the ' poor farmer'.^ If the radi- 
 cal critics annoy you, get a bitterer set yourself. If 
 a cheap Press attacks Tory principles, pitch into every 
 holder of Power or Office with tenfold virulence. If 
 the Whigs are weakening Authority, nothing can be too 
 severe or too personal. Personalities in a popular press 
 are the real ways of restoring respect for authority. If 
 you have any fear of popular license, just give them a 
 taste of what license is. If Cleon has got hold of 
 Demos, send for the sausage-seller. If it is to be a con- 
 test in demagogy, show them that we are men at their 
 own game. Nay, if we must have something new, why 
 in the name of all that is subversive, why not Woman 
 Suffrage at once ! Who is afraid of the ladies, who are 
 always open to reason, and full of beautiful sentiment? 
 What if it be the Eadical millennium — it may play the 
 Tory game. Faint heart never wins. Heads or tails ! 
 and the Tory wins with ' Woman.' 
 
 These are the men who have destroyed the prin- 
 ciple of Authority. They are the loudest apostles of 
 
THE PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY. 363 
 
 Democracy — these the self-styled champions and guar- 
 dians of authority. If the very guardians of authority 
 are to outbid their rivals by democratic bribes, what 
 idea can the people have of the principle of authority ? 
 If on the other hand Authority is held up to them only 
 as possession — pure and simple — in other words selfish- 
 ness, if it is something opposed to real capacity, to real 
 leadership, and to real government, if it represents only 
 selfish resistance, mock titles to respect, hereditary in- 
 capacity, aristocratic obstructiveness, a sort of patrician 
 faction-mongering as Eoman nobles got bands of bravos 
 to crush the tribunes, if Authority is represented only as 
 Milo and Clodius represented it in Eome, or as Napoleon 
 represented it in France, what hold is it likely to acquire 
 on the confidence of the people ? To rally viciously 
 round the last rags of the hereditary principle, to vaunt 
 as the type of Authority, the crown — now a mere 
 herald's hatchment hung upon the Palace of our ancient 
 kings ; a hatchment on which is written not resurgarn 
 but requiescat in pace — to extol, as the champion of 
 Authority, a house of Lords which if authority means 
 personal superiority is but the burlesque of Authority 
 — to name as the party of Authority that great party 
 which proclaims that nothing can be done and nothing 
 ought to be done and that the sole function left to the 
 State is to preserve them and all that is theirs — all this 
 is to make blacker and more enduring the night of 
 Democracy, and to defer the dawning of the day when 
 the just influence of the capable for the good of their 
 fellow-citizens shall be allowed its natural scope and 
 authority. 
 
.364 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 We are not writing in the interest of any party, and 
 have no wish to throw on anyone exclusi\'ely the onus 
 of degrading the principle of authority. The difference 
 which separates Liberal from Conservative pohticians 
 is not so enormous to a republican who desires to see 
 all privileges and traditions give place to personal meiit, 
 to see capacity really governing in the interest of the 
 community equally. But it must never be forgotten 
 that an ideal of higher aims has been before us, that 
 Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues have succeeded in 
 awakening a popular enthusiasm by making it felt 
 from, time to time that they will set themselves to 
 pressing national wants, and are capable of heading and 
 organising public opinion to something higher than 
 class interests. It is these inspirations of statesman- 
 ship which have justly given Mr. Gladstone the hold 
 he has had upon public sympathy. si sic omnia. 
 It were too much to ask that the Liberals should uni- 
 formly maintain the spirit of their higher moments. 
 For ordinary matters, and especially under any incon- 
 venient demand, they too have a vein, a steady flow, of 
 inveterate Whiggery, of those sticky commonplaces 
 which so easily foil the old radicalism. The question 
 is not ripe ; the pressure of public opinion is not yet 
 excessive ; the country has not made up its mind — in a 
 word, there are no immediate signs of an insiurrection. 
 Very likely not, but that was not exactly the spirit in 
 which the dis -establishment of the Irish Church was 
 decided on. Then, when a question of any difficulty 
 arises, the regulation plan is to send it to a committee or 
 commission, where rival interests are concihated, much 
 
THE PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY. 365 
 
 as parties in a stormy meeting are conciliated by turning 
 ofi' the gas. By the time the commission has come to 
 an end, no one can see the wood for the trees, and 
 mankind accepts some ' as you were,' in sheer exhaus- 
 tion and loathing for the business. As a mode of 
 legislation, the commission and all its varieties is as 
 hopeful an expedient as if one called a crowd in 
 Charing Cross and begged them all to talk at once, or 
 as if instead of building a house you requested the 
 bricks to lay themselves. Then in all Imperial 
 matters the great thing is to have no policy and to 
 make it understood that you are superior to any such 
 costly luxury. • You are delighted to see Peace ; but if 
 War comes you trust it will be for the best ; and a 
 moral gentlemanlike War at all events. You trust that 
 no one will be greedy or unjust. If any are, you 
 trust that it may be from a good motive ; but you 
 would not for worlds suspect anyone of harbouring 
 such ideas. Peace and goodwill amongst men and a 
 roaring trade with all mankind. It is not for you to 
 have opinions about your neighbours ; it would be 
 false political economy ; if they leave the path of 
 virtue their trade returns will condemn them. No one 
 is going to attack you, if you don't put shackles on 
 commerce. And if they do threaten you. Pooh ! they 
 will take money! This is what nowadays is called 
 our Foreign Policy. Then there is if not demagogy 
 something uncommonly like it, in an open bid every 
 now and then for the support of strong classes and 
 orders in the community. Shopkeepers are flattered 
 by the grossest doctrines of a spurious political 
 
366 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 economy. A striking case again is the mode in which 
 the present Government have dealt with Education. A 
 body of ministers amongst whom Avere men like Mr. 
 Lowe, Mr. Stansfeld, Mr. Forster, could hardly fail to 
 see that to strengthen the power of the Church for the 
 future, to hand over to it the education of so large a 
 portion of the people, was no real settlement of the 
 question, and therefore no statesmanlike act. They 
 know as well as any men that Sectarian State Educa- 
 tion can have no permanent healthy place in our 
 country. It is hateful and every day becomes more 
 hateful to the growth of public opinion. To hand over 
 by a side wind the bulk of education to a sect, which 
 values it as a political engine, is to plant in every 
 parish the poisonous seed of social discord. The sect 
 to which a large part of the education was committed 
 (committed be it said with a crafty and plausible 
 decorum) was undoubtedly for the moment the 
 stronger power in the field, and the most valuable 
 political ally. For the moment the pohcy succeeded ; 
 for the moment it wore an air of equal and impartial 
 good-faith. But for all that it was an insidious and 
 demagogic policy. The most helpless part of the com- 
 munity was handed over to the hypocritical solicitude 
 of the clerical allies of the rich. It cannot last; for 
 the contests it infallibly prepared are already com- 
 mencing One more social difficulty is embittered 
 tenfold. Once more is education adjourned, and the 
 Liberal party have bought a ruinous aUiance at the 
 price of long and inevitable strife. To play into the 
 hands of the strongest or most organised i'action is 
 
THE PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY. 367 
 
 not statesmanship or the principle of Authority. Nor 
 again does it consist in exhibiting Government as the 
 art of evading everything, of pitting rival parties to 
 silence each other, of burying problems under moun- 
 tains of talk and handing over difficulties to wrangling 
 vestries. The type of Authority is not a Nirvana of 
 Neutrality, a lay Non Fossumus^ with a substratum of 
 electoral Hocus-pocus. They, in a word, are the bane 
 of the true power of Authority, who prolong all here- 
 ditary and conventional claims to power, for this is the 
 stigma and curse of Authority, who bearing Authority 
 hold themselves out as the servants of numerical 
 majorities, who aspire only to be the organ of some 
 majority or of some strong faction, who are willing to 
 lead as a driven beast of burden may lead but not 
 otherwise, who are proud to go wherever they are 
 pushed, and equally ready to stand still, as a mode of 
 compromising between opposite courses. 
 
368 STUDIES OF CRISES, 
 
 Section II. — The Principle of Opinion. 
 
 We will now turn to the rival doctrine, that Govern- 
 ment must spring from the will of the people ; and 
 here again we shall find the same eternal verities 
 mingled with the same dangerous consequences, the 
 same incompleteness and onesidedness in the principle 
 by itself. It comes out in every struggle in every part 
 of the world that government by force is more and 
 more distinctly hopeless, as impossible to found as it is 
 inhuman to attempt. More and more the national will 
 surges up as irresistibly and as silently as a tide. We 
 should not know what civilisation meant if it did not 
 imply a growing power of social co-operation, and a 
 diminishing area of blind submission. The field of the 
 popular movement is undoubtedly widening ; and yet 
 the theory of pure democracy is hardly extending. 
 
 But if by this popular movement we mean simply 
 democracy, or government by numerical majorities, we 
 can hardly say that the principle of democracy is gain- 
 ing ground. On the contrary, recent events and 
 discussions have immensely shaken its hold. The 
 extraordinary revolution of the Commune of Paris in 
 1871 was at once the most signal failure of the 
 democratic method as a governing machine, and at 
 the same time showed the leaders of democracy 
 
THE PRINCIPLE OF OPINION. 369 
 
 disavowing and attacking the principle. The workmen 
 of Paris distinctly felt that it was the universal suffrage 
 of the peasantry that had inflicted on them the Empire, 
 and made possible the massacres of May. And to 
 them universal suffrage and plebiscites have become 
 another name for reaction. The history of the Inter- 
 national Society shows precisely the same thing, and a 
 violent secession has resulted from the efforts of the 
 central council to carry the principle of authority 
 somewhat too far. But there was a section to whom 
 the spirit of authority was not strong enough even in 
 the central junta — a section to whom Dr. Marx is a 
 pale revolutionist, with mere constitutional scruples as 
 to the rights of individual citizens. The language of 
 this school — the creme de la creme of the revolutionary 
 propaganda — is singularly instructive. They say in a 
 recent circular, ' The workmen of the towns are only a 
 minority, and must look to their energy and their 
 discipline to make up for numerical inferiority. By 
 this alone will they be able to paralyse the hostile 
 mass ' — of the majority ! 
 
 And whilst the recent revolutionary movements 
 exhibit democratic leaders denouncing the democratic 
 doctrines, the same events show the fatal results of 
 adhering to them in practice. The revolution of Paris 
 of March, 1871, had in its favour one of the most 
 marvellous opportunities in history, a material strength 
 and a strategical position which chance had made 
 almost boundless. It had in its ranks enthusiasm, 
 intelligence, and courage enough to have sufficed, 
 with such unequalled resources. Where the mania 
 
 B B 
 
370 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 for democracy did not interfere, its services were 
 conducted with complete success. The management 
 of the finances, of the post-office, of the commissariat, 
 and so forth, was marked with singular skill. And 
 there was enough ability for other services if it had 
 only received a chance. The city did not lack 
 capacity in various forms, and it possessed one or two 
 men who, if fairly trusted with power, were quite 
 competent to direct the movement in a political as 
 well as in a military sense. Eossel was perhaps 
 superior to any of the Versailles generals ; and 
 Todtleben told him that Paris was impregnable. If 
 Eossel had been trusted as Todtleben was at Sebas- 
 topol, Paris might have held out for years. It fell, 
 not from want of men or arms, skill, courage, or 
 resolution ; it fell from the utter incoherence which the 
 mania for democracy had thrown over every military 
 act of its defenders. No one who has not personally 
 studied it can conceive the grotesque confusion into 
 which every department of defence, every regiment, 
 every company, was continually being thrown by the 
 insane passion for doing everything by votes. When 
 every officer came to be elected by the votes of his 
 men, who debated in their clubs every order he 
 issued, the power of delirium could ' no further go,' 
 and a military contest was as hopeless as it would be 
 on the part of the inmates of a madhouse. Since 
 the days when the Greek historian tells us ships 
 sailed out against the enemy with the crews of each 
 ship carrying on a murderous party conflict amongst 
 themselves, so extravagant a project had never seen 
 
THE PRINCIPLE OF OPINION, 371 
 
 the light as that of defending a city by turning its 
 army into a huge club, and each regiment into a 
 political faction. There is something almost affecting 
 in the sight of a population of hundreds of thousands 
 full of intelligence, energy, and even heroism, as they 
 displayed lavishly before their murderers, offering 
 themselves up a certain prey to a bloody faction, 
 because even on the eve of extermination they would 
 not surrender one jot or one tittle of the sacred right 
 of democratic suffrage. All social objects apart, they 
 remain a monument for ever of the ruin which the 
 democratic machinery pushed to the extreme is able to 
 inflict. It was the suicide of the democratic principle, 
 which offered itself up to extinction in a perfect orgy 
 of self-assertion. If we regard it simply in the matter 
 of administration, and put all ulterior objects aside, 
 the story of the revolution of the Commune can only 
 be considered what the ablest men of the party them- 
 selves consider it, the reductio ad absurdum of de- 
 mocracy as an engine of government. 
 
 In speaking of democracy, what is here meant is 
 the claim of every individual citizen, not only to make 
 his opinion heard, but to make his vote tell, in every 
 public act, not only to watch and influence public 
 affairs, but to interfere in them. It is the principle 
 which is formulated in the famous ' Eights of Man,' 
 that each citizen has an equal right to take part in 
 legislation. But the events of Paris in 1871 are only 
 the most conspicuous, certainly rw3t the only example, 
 of the inherent fatuity of mere democracy. From 
 the opening of 1848 to the present day, the same thing 
 
 B B 2 
 
372 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 has been shown in fifty movements and on fifty battle- 
 fields. It forces itself not only on the mere con- 
 servative or the mere reactionist (whose administrative 
 theory is very much the same), but on all thoughtful 
 adherents of the great movement of progress which these 
 twenty-five years have seen, even on those who distinctly 
 welcome it as a revolutionary change. This genera- 
 tion is slowly learning that if the social revolution 
 (which grows more and more inevitable) is to be 
 worked out naturally and healthily, it \Vill never be 
 by democracy as its method. The steady advent of a 
 new society, the spread of faith in it as in a new 
 religion, in spite of a thousand democratic reverses, 
 and the confusion of the democratic principle, must 
 have taught all men that the movement is something 
 very different from democracy, and must have in 
 reserve very different weapons. On whatever side 
 our sympathies inchne, however difierently we may 
 judge the aim and object of their policies, the genera- 
 tion which has witnessed a hundred defeats of de- 
 mocratic anarchy, and the signal success which 
 Germany has won by the counter-principle, has 
 learned a lesson about democracy which it never 
 can unlearn. However vicious may have been the 
 policy of the war, however detestable the temper in 
 which it was waged, it would be childish to decry 
 the stupendous results which the Prussian regime 
 has drawn from an even partial assertion of the 
 principle that government is the exclusive function of 
 special capacity. 
 
 If we look across the ocean the same behef is 
 
THE PRINCIPLE OF OPINION, 373 
 
 growing upon us. The great Atlantic Eepublic must 
 ever command the homage and kindle the faith of 
 every true republican as the great existing type of 
 the final polity of civilised man. - But since enthusiasts 
 first vaunted to us American ideas we have learned 
 many things about them, and the democratic principle, 
 as one of them, has been, step by step, discredited. 
 Although democracy has in America an opportuneness 
 it never had elsewhere, in the uniform standard of 
 education and the absence of all traditional and 
 artificial authority, the warmest friend of America and 
 of republicanism cannot shut his eyes to the evils of an 
 incessant round of electioneering, and the habit of 
 placing the entire administration at the mercy of the 
 popular vote. It reaches its culmination when every 
 popular swindler can hire an electioneering judge as 
 easily as a coachman. 
 
 What is the lesson then ? Are we entirely to 
 abandon all faith in public opinion, in the influence of 
 the people on government, in the admission of all to 
 full political citizenship ? Have we no refuge but in a 
 benevolent despotism ? In the name of human nature 
 let us not parley with this inhuman dream. That 
 power over men belongs to the capable is a truth, but 
 it is also a half-truth ; and in things social always a 
 half-truth with a mission is a dangerous falsehood. 
 This Berserker ideal of human society, is not a political 
 theory at all ; it is but the disordered echo of some old- 
 world poetry. Sung to us with a whoop of despair as 
 shrill as that with which the Bard defied the advancing 
 hosts of our Edward, we are caught for a moment by 
 
374 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 its picturesque fury — pause, and then pass on. The 
 death-chant of the last of the Bards is left to the 
 instinctive antipathy of modern feeling, and is seldom 
 met with substantial criticism. There is, however, 
 a solid answer to whatever germ of reasoning it 
 contains ; and it may be quite worth while to give it. 
 It is indeed true that in simple and early societies a 
 very great part has always been taken by pure 
 Authority and by actual Force. Societies, like men, 
 have epochs when the lessons of union and of duty 
 have to be forced on them from without, before they 
 have become sufficiently habitual to be adopted from 
 choice. Children learn to act like responsible and just 
 citizens by being trained to do many things against 
 their will, and many contrary to their understanding. 
 Just as caste, slavery, and war have had a power for 
 good in the education of the race, and have an his- 
 torical justification and value, so the coercion of un- 
 intelligent masses by the ruling will and intellect of 
 the one or the few has its own historical importance 
 and honour. The Thors and Odins who first ham- 
 mered wild men into nations, are justly enshrined in 
 the Walhalla of humanity. And there are crises in far 
 advanced societies when concentrated power has been 
 seized and used, more or less violently, by Caesars, 
 Eichelieus, and Frederics, to the ultimate advantage of 
 mankind, and certainly with full historical justification. 
 But to magnify historical dramas into a normal 
 political system, is to substitute poetic enthusiasm for 
 political philosophy. Now it is precisely the mark of 
 highly-advanced societies that their whole organisation 
 
THE PRINCIPLE OF OPINION. 375 
 
 becomes more complex, subtle, and intelligent. Force 
 becomes less and less efficient of good as it becomes 
 too coarse, direct, and blind a power for the body it is 
 to work on. In cultivated communities the spirit in 
 which men live and act and react on each other is 
 everything, and the particular acts they are compelled 
 by the magistrate to do, or to abstain from, almost 
 nothing. The healthy state of a society now depends 
 on its citizens being of a certain character, and dealing 
 with each other as if they valued such a character. In 
 the infinite complexity of modern life, the intelligent, 
 disciplined co-operation of citizens makes up ninety- 
 nine parts of their social action, and what the law-giver 
 and the magistrate compel them to do, only the one- 
 hundredth part. Alfred and Eudolph had a totally 
 different state of things to deal with. In those simple 
 days the great object was to keep men from killing 
 and plundering each other ; and by resolutely hanging 
 highway robbers and sacking thieves' castles, a good 
 foundation for civilisation was laid. But in our day 
 we can see how social evils abound amongst men who 
 never could be brought within the faintest suspicion of 
 law, and whom an omniscient despot could not make 
 just. The evils which modern rulers have to remedy 
 are incalculably subtle, intricate, and intangible. 
 They have uniformly a moral phase, and are curiously 
 mixed up with opmions and habits. Not but that 
 there are not political problems of a high order, and 
 that insight and energy are not as indispensable as 
 ever for dealing with them. But the entanglement 
 and indirect relations of every nerve of a higli in- 
 
376 STUDIES OF CRISES, 
 
 dustrial organism, make any interference a matter of 
 extraordinary delicacy, and force the entire derange- 
 ment of the whole. In every high organism the 
 vitality of the parts and the vis medicatrix naturce 
 are what the physician must rely on, and little can be 
 done by mechanical violence, by forcing the lungs to 
 inhale or the heart to beat. Thus in civilised com- 
 munities the ruler has nothing left but to prepare 
 material for the intelligent co-operation of the citizens. 
 Laws alone can no more make such a community 
 vigorous than they can make it religious or temperate. 
 Heroic kings or Cannings cannot drill it into efficiency, 
 any more than they could produce the Times news- 
 paper by means of slave labour. In modern societies, 
 permeated with education, and devoted to industry, 
 the sole task of the statesman is to harmonise more 
 fully conscious co-operation in the citizens. Thus 
 pubhc opinion is the essence of political life, and the 
 ascendancy of a single will or mind violently imposed 
 on that opinion, reduces the society to a discordant 
 mass. To call in some trenchant hero to deal with 
 modern politics, would be like bringing Thor's hammer 
 to conduct an orchestra of musicians ; would be to 
 suppose that a grown man could be turned into a 
 gentleman by being ' tuntled ' with ground ashes. 
 
 The ' tunding ' theory of political regeneration 
 proceeds, therefore, on an entire misconception of the 
 nature of modern life. The work for modern states- 
 men is to promote a more zealous combination of 
 efforts amongst the citizens, not to galvanise them into 
 spasmodic efforts. The business of a ruler, like the 
 
THE PRINCIPLE OF OPINION, 2>77 
 
 trainer of a racing boat, is to get more swing and dash 
 out of the crew; and he would get very httie if he 
 tried to drive them as galley-slaves are driven, with a 
 whip. In fact, the substance of the theory is an ex- 
 aggeration of the power of the law-giver and of govern- 
 ment — exactly the same as that which supports all 
 theories of Communism and Sociahsm. Communists 
 and Socialists imagine that if they could only get hold 
 of the machinery of the State, they could suppress 
 poverty, annihilate misery, and reward merit. Their 
 error consists in ignorance of the infinitesimal power 
 of Government to supersede the individual wills of 
 the citizens, and the nulUty of any authority that runs 
 counter to the opinions around it. It is more and 
 more true that political conditions ultimately spring 
 from anterior intellectual convictions ; and the attempt 
 to raise the former without a base of the latter becomes 
 more and more preposterous. It is also true that all 
 great chiefs and rulers have been really the organs 
 of a greater or less party in the State, or have always 
 been as much the expression of their collective will 
 as they have been the sources of it. Thus the despotic 
 and the communistic theory of society spring from 
 exactly the same sophism — that of attributing to 
 government a function which in modern societies it 
 is utterly powerless to fulfil. 
 
 The heroic king would never have been heard of, 
 except in an age when a passion for historical tableaux 
 has supplanted a taste for political science, and when 
 practical men have been driven to despair by demo- 
 cratic fatuities. When we get rid of the habit of 
 
378 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 associating progress with democracy, the reahty and 
 irresistible ascendancy of progress are clear enough. 
 If we mean by political progress the consolidation of 
 public opinion, we cannot deny that the future belongs 
 to it. To compare the force of public opinion as it 
 was in Europe in 1773 and as it is now in 1873, 
 the stiffest Conservative can hardly be blind to the 
 enormous difference. He will admit that the whole 
 difference is bound up in the increase of popular 
 education, of mechanical improvements, in the fusion 
 of class under the influence of industry. He may not 
 like any of these things ; but he will hardly deny that 
 they involve of necessity a totally new power in public 
 opinion. Nor can he deny that they are all conse- 
 quences or phases of the industrial type of society, 
 gradually working out its complete development. But 
 the industrial type of society is the definitive form of 
 modern life, beyond which we cannot see or need not 
 inquire. And so the growth of public opinion as a 
 force is simply an epoch in the life of human society. 
 Whether we like it or not, there stands the progress 
 of public opinion, as inevitable as civilisation itself, and 
 we might as well think of expelhng it as of reviving 
 bows and arrows in war. 
 
 After all, that a tendency is strong is not conclu- 
 sive that it is right. But, in truth, the growth of 
 opinion is bound up with all that -is best, as well as 
 all that is strongest, in modern life. The industrial 
 society will be imperfect and struggling towards com- 
 pletion so long as the manual workman is not admitted 
 to full participation in all the advantages which any 
 
THE PRINCIPLE 01 OPINION. 379 
 
 citizen finds in the common society. So long as the 
 social forces are directed towards the interest of a class 
 or of classes, so long will those outside the pale struggle 
 for admittance. The social and political problem is 
 the incorporation of the entire population into society. 
 A very large proportion of it is still in the quasi servile 
 or pupillary state, and is in no sense a source of public 
 opinion. The final unification of society will arise only 
 when opinion has become equalised and consolidated. 
 
 Public opinion, it is plain, is a totally different thing 
 from Democracy, though often confounded with it. 
 Democracy, as in the ' Declaration of the Eights of 
 Man,' supposes equal rights and equivalent voting 
 power in each individual, and a constant appeal to the 
 test of a positive vote. In Democracy each unit is 
 strictly assumed to be the equivalent of every other, 
 and the collective units to be immeasurably more 
 strong, wise, and authoritative than any possible single 
 unit. Now public opinion abhors this fatal mathema- 
 tical equality, this absurd multiplication of ciphers. 
 Public opinion is, on the contrary, eminently elastic. 
 The strong will and the clear thought count with it for 
 thousands, and outweigh thousands, when the me- 
 chanical process of voting would bring out the force 
 of cipherdom. In a system of active public opinion 
 it is quite natural for a society to be kept in the right 
 path, silently approving and insensibly modifying the 
 leadership of the most capable citizen, whom it main- 
 tains half understanding, half accepting on trust, and 
 yet that this very same society, if driven under material 
 agitation to formulate its opinions and express them 
 
38o STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 in a vote, should discard the direction it had willingly 
 accepted, and contradict its own half-conscious inten- 
 tions. 
 
 But, in the widest sense of Public Opinion, that is 
 the inteUigent co-operation of the citizens in modifying 
 the action of the community, every year, each event, 
 all sides of life testify to its triumphant coiu-se. 
 Our own history which so often appears but a 
 stumbling rush towards Democracy, in all its solid 
 and healthy features resolves itself into this. What 
 on the surface are but a series of concessions to 
 Democracy wrung out by fear, or flung out as bribes, 
 and a series of rallies by the rich and the powerful 
 to retain their monopolies, will appear when we count 
 the permanent gain and change, to be slow but serious 
 advances towards a higher sense of pubhc opinion. 
 In Germany the most astounding triumph of Authority 
 which modern history contains is but the prelude to an 
 immediate outburst of Public Opinion. We see it 
 transforming Bismarck into a Liberal. The tension of 
 war is relaxed, the smoke of battle clears away, and 
 we breathe a new atmosphere, and hope for a new era. 
 The very Empire is becoming, against its will, and 
 with strange perversion, watchful of the intelhgent 
 action of the citizens. In France, amidst all the 
 horrors and discord of her crisis, we can see how 
 widely still 1873 differs from 1850, how in a genera- 
 tion the force of public opinion in the intelligent 
 has sprung above the reach of oligarchic conspirators 
 and the arts of an imperial democracy. All roads 
 
THE PRINCIPLE OF OPINION. 381 
 
 lead to Eome, and wars, revolutions, agitations, the 
 desperate plots of Conservatism, and the noisy welter 
 of Democracy, have but one issue, which is to secure 
 to the intelligent union of the citizens the practical 
 control of their destinies. 
 
382 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 Section III. — The Reconciliation. 
 
 Thus far our analysis lias shown us a pair of prin- 
 ciples which are correlative, and yet antagonistic. 
 Each by itself degenerates into an intolerable evil ; 
 each is alike indispensable. Benevolent despotism is 
 the parody of personal ascendancy, just as democracy 
 is the parody of popular influence in government. 
 It is quite certain that societies which give incapa.city 
 equal power with capacity are doomed, and equally 
 certain that those too are doomed on which capacity 
 or incapacity forcibly endeavours to impose its will. 
 On the one hand we must have real leadership, on the 
 other we must have genuine consent. All is lost if 
 we leave rule to numbers, all is lost if we ignore 
 numbers. Mere manipulations of the suffrage give us 
 no fresh force of assent ; whilst they certainly are a 
 singular mode of establishing authority. On the other 
 hand, an angel from heaven would be powerless as a 
 ruler, unless he was aided by active co-operation in 
 the people. What are the conditions under which 
 these two principles will combine, how is each to 
 supplement and correct the other, without prolonging 
 the conflict in which they have been eternally engaged ? 
 Can they ever be brought to work in union instead of 
 working alternately or contradictorily ? 
 
THE RECONCILIATION. 383 
 
 In the first place, let us make up our minds that 
 there is no royal road or ingenious device whereby the 
 two principles may be got to pull together. All the 
 institutions and machinery in the world \\^ill never 
 reconcile two such distinct powers. Their harmony is 
 entirely a matter of tact and practical sense. To lay 
 down constitutions for making personal authority 
 compatible with popular will would be like drawing 
 up a Bill of Eights to promote harmony between 
 husband and wife. The efficient union of the 
 two principles is scarcely less subtle, spontaneous, and 
 intangible. The greater the amount of the machinery, 
 the less the prospect of union. The utmost simplicity 
 is necessary in the apparatus. Let us indeed finally 
 dismiss the idea that any revision of the voting or 
 representative apparatus is to establish a self- working 
 system of balances and checks. In politics of all 
 things pedantry is the most criminal folly. The 
 working out of a healthy political system is a task 
 of long and constant effort, and means nothing but 
 sounder habits of thinking and acting in public men 
 and the public mind. New tones of feeling, not new 
 mechanisms, are the sources of it. Everything else 
 is charlatanism or pedantry. The one habit that 
 can foster political advancement is that of sounder 
 thoughts and higher purposes in ruler and ruled. The 
 whole political problem is simply how to educate men 
 to be of a certain opinion and temper. 
 
 The mark of the true ruler is that he avoid equally 
 two great dangers, so as neither to make himself the 
 mouthpiece of the most numerous party, nor, on the 
 
384 STUDIES OF CRISES. ^ 
 
 other hand, to force his will on a resisting people. 
 It is an utter misconception to assume that the inevit- 
 able expansion of public opinion for the futiu"e makes 
 impossible the ascendancy of the individual and leaves 
 us no issue but in simple democracy. It is true that 
 the progress of opinion, the growing participation of all 
 in public afiairs has for ever made impossible the 
 violent coercion of a people by the will of any leader, 
 good, or bad. Pessimism is a philosophy as silly as it 
 is cynical ; and the philosophy which is for ever 
 growling about this hideous welter has grown as 
 wearisome as it is certainly unpractical. It strangely 
 distorts the prospect. The future has a field for 
 great statesmanship and heroic leaders of men such as 
 the past cannot show, a field all the grander both 
 morally and intellectually because it is essentially 
 Eepublican in its nature, and consists therefore in the 
 free leadership of intelligent wills, that it calls out the 
 resources of a far more subtle and spiritual force, that 
 it will give a far loftier power, because it will be the 
 embodiment of more elevated units. The Eepublican 
 chief may have less of that barbaric power of the 
 sword which attracts some minds towards the old- 
 world king, but he will be as superior to him in true 
 power and dignity as the modern Chancellor is to the 
 patriarch of some savage tribe. 
 
 From the repubhcan point of view, the danger of 
 our parliamentary machinery is not that it gives us too 
 httle of democracy, as that it tends to give us too 
 much. The theory that parliament is to be the mere 
 mirror of the nation, that it is to be the servant of the 
 
THE RECONCILIATION. 385 
 
 people and never to do anything till it is ordered from 
 below, is fast gaining such a hold on the minds of 
 politicians as will take all initiating and controlling 
 vigour out of them. The business of the statesman is 
 to be the servant of the people, in the sense in which 
 the Pope is servusservormn^ as working in their service, 
 but not as the instrument of their orders. The 
 statesman who is worth his salt has to be continually 
 initiating, devising, suggesting. He has often to create 
 a public opinion, to modify it, never to be its tool. The 
 democratic fallacy and the heroic king fallacy proceed 
 from the same root of error. The democratic fallacy 
 assumes that the people will always best know what is 
 good for them ; and the heroic king fallacy assumes 
 that all that is wanted is to force mobs into order and 
 quiet. Both alike forget that in the subtle organism 
 of modern societies the only sound methods of treat- 
 ment are methods of extraordinary complication and 
 delicacy. When the old democratic doctrines grew up, 
 what was wanted, or at least wanted immediately, was 
 the redress of grievances, and the removal of glaring 
 abuses. On the other hand, the great task of Govern- 
 ment was to suppress crimes of violence, and enforce 
 the regular course of justice. We have long left both 
 behind. Societies like generations of men throw up 
 their own special maladies ; and old states necessarily 
 breed diseases of a deep-seated kind. Abuses in them 
 are neither glaring nor obvious, but infinitely insidious, 
 concealed, and complicated. Grievances are not found 
 on the surface irritating the skin, but they wear away 
 the marrow of the bones, andhnger in the joints, blight- 
 
 c c 
 
386 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 ing and deranging each organ in turn. They may be 
 diagnosed and even cured by infinite patience and 
 skill; but the tracing their secret causes and conse- 
 quences requires consummate sagacity, and their 
 healing is a task of prolonged and refined artifice. It 
 is as false to regard them as incapable of cure as to 
 think them curable by drastic remedies. With diseases 
 of this sort to deal with, the modern statesman needs 
 to be perpetually watching, calculating, and acting. It 
 would be preposterous to leave these difficult tasks to 
 popular initiative ; and yet when the remedy is found 
 it can only be applied by popular support. Thus the 
 statesman has to be for ever modifying pubHc opinion, 
 and to be for ever modified by it. He must strain 
 every nerve to carry the right measure to comple- 
 tion, short of the point where it meets with fixed and 
 invincible opposition. He must never force, and 
 never be forced. He must create the opinion on 
 which alone he rests for strength — create it by honestly 
 forcing the conviction that he is right, not by manipu- 
 lating electoral strings. The body on which he works 
 is as changeful as the sea ; yet it has currents as 
 irresistible as the tide. But he is as little to be carried 
 hither and thither by the breath of every wind as he is 
 to brace himself to beat back the set of the tide. 
 
 All this does not imply that the statesman must 
 wait till he has won the suffrage of an absolute 
 majority. He might wait long enough for that. The 
 force of pubhc opinion is assuredly nothing numerical, 
 for the social strength of a conviction in a cultivated 
 community can rarely be expressed by counting of 
 
THE RECONCILIATION. 387 
 
 heads. The organised resolve of one- tenth of the com- 
 munity is often a greater power than the flabby 
 velleities of the other nine-tenths. How often do we 
 see in every meeting, or group, or committee, the clear 
 intelhgence and will of one arrest the floating inde- 
 cision of the rest and spring to the command, if not with 
 the active support at least with the passive assent of 
 the rest. And yet these very men who unconsciously 
 yield to the ascendancy of the superior nature r midst 
 them, if the ballot-box were carried round would belie 
 their own judgment and go back upon their formal 
 decisions. Almost all great things for a time have 
 rested in the energies of a small minority, and most 
 great changes in history have shown a resolute few 
 asserting the ascendancy of conviction. In politics the 
 battle is with the strong few, but only on one condi- 
 tion — that the many can be brought to yield to them 
 at the time, and heartily and intelligently to join them 
 soon. On these terms alone the ascendancy of a sec- 
 tion can be permanent and sound, or the rule of a 
 statesman be other than oppressive. 
 
 It is not easy to find in history practical types of 
 such an authority, of the government of the capable 
 man, himself but the organ of energetic public opinion. 
 The reason is on the surface ; for it is but a generation 
 or two that the repubhcan aspect of public opinion has 
 attained its full proportions, and where this has been 
 done, it has been forced by circumstances into a 
 revolutionary struggle or into democratic distortion. 
 The statesmen of earlier times were great men, but 
 they were types of a different order ; they belonged to 
 
 c c 2 
 
388 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 the military imperial caste, and they ruled as the chiefs 
 of an army, not as the leaders of citizens. The great 
 Frederic will long be remembered as the type of the 
 organiser of nations, though the age which has wit- 
 nessed the astounding results of his policy has hardly 
 yet done justice to the founder of German efficiency. 
 But Frederic was at least as much the commander of 
 an army as he was the ruler of a nation, and in one 
 capacity as much as the other he was ever the soldier, 
 booted and spurred. The Prussian people, it was 
 proved by their utter collapse before the blows of revo- 
 lutionary France, had not then the disciplined intelli- 
 gence which alone makes possible the truly republican 
 chief. The heavings of revolution in France exhibit to 
 us, withm a century, some glimpses of such a type, but 
 imder conditions of spasm so intense as leave but little 
 of normal character. The greatest of modern states- 
 men — Cavour — presents in all essentials the type of 
 such a ruler, but it would be a stretch of courtesy to 
 regard him as an organ of real national opinion. The 
 mass of the Italian people ar^e far too disorganised, and 
 have far too little of political cultivation, to be looked 
 on as a type of a republican community. Cavour, a 
 born statesman in every fibre, had to find the support 
 of his consummate policy largely in the prestige of a 
 military monarchy, and mainly in the discipline of a 
 bourgeoise aristocracy. A truer type of the real 
 republican chief, even if it be a very inferior man, may 
 be found in the career of President Lincoln. Towards 
 the close of the civil war, and especially at the 
 approach of his second presidency, when the whole 
 
THE RECONCILIATION. 389 
 
 energies of the Northern States had been kindled into 
 a glowing unity of action, the democratic discords were 
 hushed and demagogic fatuities were spurned. Then 
 he, in part the representative, in part the author, of 
 public opinion, borne along by the will of the best 
 portion of the nation, yet ever controlling its action and 
 extending its depth and breadth, received as the free 
 gift of fellow-citizens in intense sympathy with him a 
 power as vast as was ever borne by emperor or king, 
 a power which had no duration beyond the moment 
 when he might cease to be in unison with the common 
 w^U, a power which he could. not convert to combat or 
 destroy that will. We saw him ever watching the 
 growth of opinion, striving to raise it to the true level, 
 yet resolved never to outrage it, working to convert a 
 growing minority into a visible majority, yet careful 
 never to force the majority nor any section of it that 
 would abstain from actual war. It was a great 
 moment, which raised both the people and their head 
 far up above their natural selves. Their chief was 
 stronger for good than any despot has been, for his 
 strength rested not on bayonets, but the concentrated 
 will of citizens. And the American people have never 
 been so truly republican, for the majesty of public 
 opinion was never so nobly revealed, as when the 
 whole power of the Kepubhc was freely yet watchfully 
 committed to the hand of an eminent citizen. 
 
 What are the conditions under which this great 
 concentration of power may be made without risk of 
 oppression ? The first is surely that the ruler should 
 be entrusted with great functions, but not with material 
 
390 STUDIES OF CRISES 
 
 force which could ever make him independent of 
 opinion. In spite of the paradoxes we often hear, few 
 things are more different than the various forms of 
 power. By way of illustration, we can easily conceive 
 a statesman intrusted with the task of recasting the 
 entire law of property, or even the whole civil and 
 criminal code, and yet have no force to rely on but a 
 few secretaries. Yet if the legislative power of the 
 country had chosen to accept him as its organ, such an 
 one would be more powerful than an emperor with a 
 million bayonets, and bayonets could add nothing to 
 his power. The grand condition of such government 
 must necessarily be that a state of public opinion should 
 grow up, such as to confide immense tasks to men, 
 whilst withholding from them the material means of 
 enforcing them. We are so much in the habit of 
 associating great power with material force, that we 
 forget that consent may give a power far higher than 
 any material force. All that is needed is a temper in 
 the public mind such that the difficult tasks of the State 
 must be freely intrusted to competent heads, and a 
 temper in public men such that power may be intrusted 
 to them without their attempting to convert it into force. 
 It is a change in the point of view of politics, and nothing 
 more. A great change, unquestionably, but not one 
 beyond the power of persistent education to produce. 
 The great obstacle in the way of granting such power 
 is to be found in the inveterate class instincts and 
 military tendencies which the rulers of the old world 
 have brought to their office. But once show to us a 
 succession of rulers as free from the spirit of privilege 
 and of war as the statesmen of America are compelled 
 
THE REC0NCILIATI0NA> ^//39i 
 
 to be, and there would no long^i* exisft .any |'^9,lousy^'^^^ 
 as there would exist no longer any danger, ijac intrusting ^ 
 them with immense national mandates. '^** \^ ^^ 
 
 The second condition flows from, and completes^be 'a 
 first. As the ruler must never be sustained by mihtary 
 force, so he must never be intrusted with the power of 
 taxation. The extent and the mode in which revenue 
 shall be extracted from the people is a totally different 
 thing from the management of any public service ; and 
 it is moreover a duty which peculiarly belongs, and 
 indeed only belongs, to the people and their represen- 
 tatives. It is most right that the juler of whatever 
 kind, and whatever be the scope to which his functions 
 may be stretched, should depend for the material means 
 of exercising them on the grants which he can show to 
 be properly needed. The completeness and sagacity 
 with which generations of Parliaments in England have 
 established their control over public expenditure leave 
 almost nothing to be desired or amended. The 'power 
 of the Purse' is indeed the great achievement of our 
 English parliamentary system, its great contribution to 
 the political art. So long as that is maintained there 
 can be little real danger of a Government without any 
 serious army, however great were its mandates, ever 
 degenerating into a tyranny. 
 
 The power of the purse is the central function of 
 Parliament, and that which makes it incapable of be- 
 ing ever replaced, but there are other functions, not 
 unimportant, of which pubhcity, interrogation, and the 
 formal ratification of policies are examples, which must 
 ever be cherished. However much we may distrust 
 
392 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 the suffrage and electioneering as real indices of opinion, 
 times must come when, short of deciding discussions by 
 blows, they must be decided by votes. And even if 
 with us the control of the Executive by Parliament has 
 grown to a pitch of outrageous extravagance, to a length 
 when loquacious meddling is endangering the self- 
 respect of all rulers and the stamina of every executive, 
 still there come occasions for the formal sanction of a 
 policy ; and no other machinery is comparable to that of 
 an elective chamber. Thus even if under the growing 
 need of a swifter Executive, and the cumbrous in- 
 efficiency which we still call parliamentary control, we 
 come back at last to the plan of limiting the periods 
 and simphfying the range of parliamentary action, the 
 parliament will remain from its ancient prestige an 
 immense modifying force, at all times ready to become, 
 should occasion require, the sovereign expression of 
 the national will. 
 
 If to these three safeguards — the absence of 
 mihtary force, the parhamentary control over the 
 purse, and the general appeal to Parhament, we add 
 new conditions and guarantees for all possible publicity 
 in every department of Government, and if possible 
 fresh guarantees of free discussion, w^e shall have 
 ample security that its powers will not be abused. 
 There are many matters yet in which, owing to the 
 trammels of parliamentary tradition, no true publicity 
 is ever obtainable, and which are systematically with- 
 drawn from public opinion. With the decay of the 
 system of parliamentary campaigning, governments 
 may gradually lay aside their genius for stratagems, 
 
THE RECONCILIATION. 393 
 
 coups-de-main^ and coups-de-theatre. Gradually they 
 will acquire the habit of giving and expecting con- 
 fidence, and will have no secrets except as to enemies. 
 It would be easy to suggest new formal guarantees for 
 publicity which might be required, especially as to the 
 full publication of intended measures, the bond fide 
 results of past measures, and the personal fitness of 
 nominees for public offices. And in this and some 
 other cases it would be reasonable to require a pro- 
 visional publication, with a view to public approval. 
 With these and such guarantees against abuse, what 
 evil should we run, if we intrusted real and almost 
 dictatorial powers to Government — treating them as 
 we sometimes treat a scientific commission — and 
 withdrawing from Parliament the duty of daily control, 
 were to leave it to the action of public opinion ? 
 
 After all, the only real guarantee for this or any 
 system of government lies in the constant and healthy 
 activity of public opinion. A standard of general 
 education which could raise up opinion in the true 
 sense of the word, that is the organic conviction of the 
 active citizens, as the sole recognised source both of 
 Power and of Freedom, would suffice alone to solve a 
 whole knot of political difficulties. The Government 
 which can endure genuine freedom of speech can 
 never become oppressive, and the people which feels 
 the superiority of moral pressure over direct interven- 
 tion in government will never have an incompetent 
 government. Alreadv the subtle and vitahsing power 
 of opinion is felt in every vein of the national fife. 
 The task of the future — and it is the task of a sound 
 
 D D 
 
394 STUDIES OF CRISES. 
 
 education — is to organise and define its action. Even 
 now its vast superiority as a controlling power over 
 appea Is to the sujSrage and to parliamentary divisions 
 is making itself felt. It is infinitely more elastic, it 
 allows for continual modification, it guides, instead of dis- 
 locating, executive action, and it takes into account the 
 relative values of men or of groups. The problem of 
 republican Authority is solved the day that the people 
 have learned that their part in the State is to study, 
 watch, review, stimulate, and thereby control Govern- 
 ment whilst abstaining from meddling with its acts till 
 they grow insupportable. And the people will have 
 learned this the day that a statesman has appeared 
 who recognises in them the capacity for this part. 
 
 It is not indeed the people from whom the obstacles 
 to Authority arise. Their democracy and distrust of 
 personal ascendency is the reaction of revolt against 
 the personal objects with v/hich ascendency so often 
 has been sought. If they cast off authority, it is 
 because for untold generations they have found it 
 prepared to treat them as its servants. If they insist 
 on assuming government themselves, it is because they 
 fear, from long experience, that none other than them- 
 selves will deal with them evenly. Of themselves, in 
 their own affairs, such is not the spirit they display. 
 There they often show the strongest instinct towards 
 authority, and the plainest readiness to accept it 
 frankly. It is a stock accusation against them that 
 they fling themselves blindly into the arms of leaders, 
 and surrender their freedom in pui*suit of a common 
 cause. Once admit thcni to the sense of being equal 
 
THE RECONCILIATION 395 
 
 citizens with the rest, and show them the ruler whom 
 they can feel to be honestly theirs, and they will 
 exhibit a force of discipline which will startle and 
 shame the cabals and coteries of Parliament and the 
 impracticable obstinacy of municipal egotism. The 
 principle of Authority is in no danger from the grow- 
 ing incorporation of the people in the State, nor from 
 the inevitable advance of the Eepubhcan ideal. It is 
 these alone that can restore it. Let the man but 
 appear, and the time and the people are ready. Show 
 us but the men who require no other title for 
 authority but superior capacity to serve the public, 
 who know not classes and orders, but the nation as a 
 whole, who come before the people not as their 
 creatures but as their rulers, who will watch public 
 opinion, as the seaman watches his compass, not to 
 go where it points, but to learn what are the ever 
 varying conditions of his course. Show us but the 
 men who feel themselves capable of ruling by inspiring 
 convictions, not by forcing obedience, men who can 
 and will govern by grappling with the difficulties of 
 the present, and that in the spirit of the future, and 
 we shall have no lack of willing co-operation and 
 disciplined following of their lead. Show us such men, 
 and the problem will be solved, and the ascendency 
 of personal greatness will have become but the organ 
 and expression of intelligent popular conviction. 
 
 8poUiiuoode «C* Co., Printers, New-shred ISquare, London. 
 
39 Paternoster Row, E.G. 
 London, Noz'embcr 1874. 
 
 GENERAL LIST OF WORKS 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 Messrs. Longmans, Green, and Co, 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Arts, Manufactures, &c. . . . 25 
 
 Astronomy & Meteorology . . 17 
 
 Biographical Works 6 
 
 Chemistry & Physiology ... 23 
 Dictionaries & other Books of 
 
 Reference 14 
 
 Fine Arts & Illustrated Edi- 
 tions 24 
 
 History, Politics, Historical 
 
 Memoirs, &c i 
 
 Index 41 to 44 
 
 Knowledge for the Young ... 40 
 
 PACK 
 
 Mental & Political Philosophy 8 
 
 Miscellaneous & Critical Works 12 
 Natural History & Physical 
 
 Science .18 
 
 Poetry & the Drama 35 
 
 Religious & Moral Works . . 28 
 Rural Sports, Horse & Cattle 
 
 Management, &c 36 
 
 Travels, Voyages, &c. . . . . 32 
 
 Works of Fiction ..'.... 34 
 Works of Utility & General 
 
 Information 38, 
 
 I 
 
 >>»;« 
 
 HISTORY, POLITICS, HISTORICAL- 
 MEMOIRS, &c. 
 
 yoitrnal of the Reigns of 
 King George IV. and King 
 Williai7i IV. 
 
 By the late Charles C. F, 
 Greville, Esq. Clerk of 
 the Conncil to those 
 Sovereigns. Edited by 
 Henry Reeve, Registrar 
 of the Privy Council, 
 
 3 vols. %vo. price 36^. 
 
 The Life of Napoleon III. 
 derived from State Records y 
 Unpublished Family Cor- 
 respondence, and Personal 
 Testimony. 
 By Blanchard ferrold. 
 
 Four Vols. %vo. with Portraits from the 
 Originals in possession of the Imperial 
 Family, and Facsirniles of Letters of 
 Napoleon I. Napoleon III. Queen 
 Hortense, 6^<r. Vol. I. price \%s. 
 
 *:* Vol. II. will be published in the 
 Autumn, and Vols. III. and IV. com- 
 pleting the work, in the Spring of 1 875. 
 
NEW WORKS PUBLISHED BY LONGMANS & CO. 
 
 Recollections and Sugges- 
 tions of Ptiblic Life, 1813- 
 
 1873. 
 
 By yoh7i Earl Russell. 
 
 I vol. Svo. [Nearly ready. 
 
 Introductory Lectures on 
 Modern History delivered 
 in Lent Te7^m 1842 ; with 
 the Inatcgural Lecttire de- 
 livered in December 1 84 1 . 
 By the late Rev. Thomas 
 Arnold, D.D. 
 
 Svo. price "js. 6d. 
 
 Essays on the English 
 Gover7ime7it and Co7istittc- 
 tion fro77i the Reig7i of 
 He7iry VII. to the Prese7it 
 Time. 
 By yoh7i Earl Russell. 
 
 Fcp. Svo. 3J-. 6d. 
 
 On Parliamentary Go- 
 vernment in E7igla7id: its 
 Origin, Develofme7it, a7id 
 Practical Operation, 
 By Alphetis Todd. 
 
 2 vols. Svo. £1. I'JS. 
 
 The Constitutional His- 
 tory of E7igla7id si7ice the 
 Accessio7i of George III. 
 1 760-1 870. 
 
 By Sir Tho7}ias Erski7ie 
 May, K.C.B. 
 
 Fourth Edition. 3 vols, cro^un Svo. iSs. 
 
 De7nocracy in Europe; 
 a History. 
 
 By Sir Tho77ias Erskine 
 May, K.C.B. 
 
 2 vols. Svo. [/// preparation. 
 
 The History of England 
 f 7^0771 the Fall of Wolsey to 
 the Defeat of the Spa7iish 
 Ar77iada. 
 By J. A. Fronde, M.A . 
 
 Cabinet Edition, i2vols. cr.Svo. £z. 12s, 
 Library Edition, 12 vols. Svo. £S. iSs. 
 
 The English in Ireland 
 i7i the Eightee7ith Ce7itzcry. 
 By y. A. Froude, M.A. 
 
 3 vols. Svo. £2. Ss. 
 
 Estimates of the English 
 
 Ki7igs fro77t William the 
 Co7iqueror to George III. 
 By J . L. Sa7iford. 
 
 Crown Svo. 12s. 6d. 
 
 The History of England 
 fro77i the Accession of 
 James 11. 
 By Lord Macaulay. 
 
 Student's Edition, 2 vols. cr. Svo. \2s. 
 People's Edition, 4 vols. cr. Svo. i6j. 
 Cabinet Edition, 8 vols, post Svo. \Ss. 
 Library Edition, 5 vols. Svo. £4. 
 
 Critical and Historical 
 
 Essays co7itributed to the 
 Edinburgh Review. 
 By the Right Hon. Lord 
 Macaulay. 
 
 Cheap Edition^ authorised and complete^ 
 croivn Svo. ^s. 6d. 
 
 Student's Edition, crown Svo. 6s. 
 People's Edition, 2 vols, crcnun Svo. Ss. 
 Cabinet Edition, 4 vols. 2^. 
 Library Edition, 3 vols. Svo. 36^. 
 
 Lord Macaitlays JVorks. 
 Co77iplete a7id u7iiform Li- 
 bi'ary Editio7i. 
 Edited by his Sister, Lady 
 Trevelyan. 
 
 8 vols. Svo. with Portrait, £$. 5J. 
 
NEW WORKS PUBLISHED BY LONGMANS & CO. 
 
 Lectures on the History 
 of England fro7n the Ear- 
 liest Times to the Death of 
 King Edward II. 
 By W.Longman, F.A.S. 
 
 Maps and Illustrations, %vo. \^s. 
 
 The History of the Life 
 and Tifnes of Edward III. 
 By W. Longman, F.A.S. 
 
 With 9 Maps, 8 Plates, and i6 Woodcuts. 
 2 vols. 2>vo. 28j-. 
 
 History of Ejigland 
 under the Dnke of B tec king- 
 ham and Charles the First, 
 1624-1628. 
 
 By S. Rawson Gardiner, 
 late Student of Ch. Ch. 
 
 2 vols. Svo. \In the press. 
 
 History of Civilization in 
 England and France, Spain 
 and Scotland. 
 By Henry Thomas Buckle. 
 
 3 vols, crown Zvo. 245-. 
 
 A Stttdenfs Manual of 
 the History of India from 
 the Earliest Period to the 
 Present. 
 
 By Col. Meadows Taylor, 
 M.R.A.S. 
 
 Second Thousand. Cr. Svo. Maps, Js. 6d. 
 
 The French Revolution 
 and First Empire; an 
 Historical Sketch. 
 By W. O'Connor Morris, 
 
 sometifne Scholar of Oriel 
 
 College, Oxford. 
 
 With 2 Maps. Post Svo. 7s. 6d. 
 
 The History of Ijidia 
 from the Earliest Period 
 to the close of Lord Dal- 
 hoMsies Administration. 
 By fohn Clark Marshman. 
 
 3 vols, croivn Svo. 22s. 6d. 
 
 Indian Polity; a View of 
 the System of Administra- 
 tion in India. 
 By Lieut. -Colonel George 
 Chesney. 
 
 Second Edition, revised, tvith Map. Svo. 21s. 
 
 Waterloo Lect^tres ; a 
 Sttcdy of the Campaign of 
 1815. 
 
 By Colonel Charles C. 
 Chesjiey, R.E. 
 
 Third Edition. Svo. with Map, los. 6d. 
 
 Essays in Modern Mili- 
 tary Biography. 
 By Colonel Charles C. 
 Chesney, R.E. 
 
 Svo. \2s. 6d. 
 
 The Imperial and Colo- 
 nial Constitutions of the 
 Britannic Empire, includ- 
 ing Indian Institutions, 
 By Sir E. Creasy, M.A. 
 
 With 6 Maps. Svo. i^s. 
 
 The Oxford Reformers — 
 John Colet, Erasmus, and 
 Thomas More; being a 
 History of their Fellow- 
 Work. 
 By Frederic Seebohm. 
 
 Second Edition. Svo. 14J. 
 
NEW WORKS PUBLISHED BY LONGMANS & CO. 
 
 The History of Persia 
 and its present Political 
 S it nation ; with Abstracts 
 of all Treaties and Con- 
 ventions between Persia and 
 England, 
 
 By Cle^nents R. Markhani, 
 C.B, F.RS. 
 
 Svo. with Map, 2ls. 
 
 The Mythology of the 
 Aryan Nations. 
 
 ^ By Geo, W. Cox, M.A. late 
 Scholar of Trinity Col- 
 lege, Oxford. 
 
 2 vols. %V0. 2%S. 
 
 A History of Greece. 
 By the Rev. Geo. W. Cox, 
 M.A. late Scholar of 
 Trinity College, Oxfoi^d. 
 
 Vols. I. and IT. 2>vo. Maps, 36^-. 
 
 The History of Greece. 
 By C. Thirlwall, D.D. 
 late Bp. of St. David's. 
 
 8 vols. fcp. Svo. 2Ss. 
 
 The Tale of the Great 
 Persian War, front the 
 Histories of Herodotits. 
 By Rev. G. W. Cox, M.A. 
 
 Fcp. %vo. 3J. 6d. 
 
 The History of the Pelo- 
 ponnesian War, by Thu- 
 cydides. 
 
 Translated byRichd. Craw- 
 ley, Fellozv of Worcester 
 College, Oxford, 
 
 Zvo. 2lS. 
 
 Greek History from The- 
 mistocles to Alexander, in 
 a Series of Lives from 
 Plutarch. 
 
 Revised and arranged by 
 A. H. C lough. 
 
 Fcp. '6vo, Woodcuts, ds. 
 
 History of the Romans 
 
 under the Empire. 
 
 By the Very Rev. Charles 
 
 Merivale, D.CL. Dean 
 
 of Ely. 
 
 8 vols, post %vo. \%s. 
 
 The Fall of the Roman 
 Republic ; a Short History 
 of the Last Century of the 
 Commonwealth. 
 By Dean Merivale, D.CL. 
 
 \2nw. *js. 6d. 
 
 The Sixth Oriental Mo- 
 narchy ; or the Geography, 
 History, 'a7td Antiquities 
 of Part Ilia. Collected and 
 Illustrated f^om Ancient 
 and Aloderri sources. 
 By Geo. Razuhnson, M.A, 
 
 With Maps and Illustrations. 8tv. \^s. 
 
 The Seventh Great Ori- 
 ental Mona7xhy ; or, a 
 History of the Sassanians : 
 with Notices Geographical 
 and Antiquarian. 
 By Geo. Rawlinson, M.A. 
 
 8zv. with Maps and Illustrations. 
 
 {In the press. 
 
NEW WORKS PUBLISHED BY LONGMANS & CO. 
 
 Encyclopcedia of Chro- 
 nology, Historical and 
 Biographical ; comprising 
 the Dates of all the Great 
 Evejits of Histoiy, inchid- 
 ing Treaties, Alliances, 
 Wars, Battles, &c. Inci- 
 dents in the Lives of Ei^ii- 
 nent Men, Scientific and 
 Geographical Discoveries, 
 Mechanical Inventions, a7id 
 Social, Do7nestic, and Eco- 
 nomical Improvements. 
 By B. B. Woodward, B.A. 
 and W. L. R. Gates, 
 
 2>vo. 42s. 
 
 The Histo7y of Rome, 
 By Wilhelm Ihne. 
 
 Vols. I. and II. Svo. ^os. 
 IV. in preparation. 
 
 Vols. Ill and 
 
 History of Ettropeaii 
 Morals from Augnstns to 
 Gharle?nag7ie. 
 By W. E. H. Lecky, M.A. 
 
 2 vols. Sz'O. 2Ss. 
 
 History of the Rise and 
 
 Influence of the Spi7Ht of 
 Ratio7ialis77i i7i Eu7^ope. 
 By W. E. H. Lecky, M.A. 
 
 Cabinet Edition^ 2 vols, croiun Zvo. I 6j". 
 
 History of the Early 
 
 Church fro77i the Eirst 
 
 Preac/mig of the Gospel to 
 
 the Cou7icil of Niccea, a.d. 
 
 325. 
 
 By Miss E. M. Sezvell. 
 
 Fcp. 8vo. 4?. 6d. 
 
 Introdtictio7i to the 
 Scie7tce of Religio7i : Fotcr 
 Lectures delive7^ed at the 
 Royal l7istitutio7i ; with 
 tzvo Essays 07i False A7ta- 
 logies a7id the Philosophy 
 of Mythology. 
 By F. Max Muller, M.A, 
 
 Crowji Sz'o. los. 6d. 
 
 The Stoics^ Epictireans^ 
 a7id Sceptics. 
 
 T7^a7t slated f^ofn the Ger- 
 77ia7t of Dr. E. Zeller, 
 by Oswald J. Reichel, 
 M.A. 
 
 Crozvn Zvo. 14^. 
 
 Socrates and the Socratic 
 
 Schools. 
 
 Tra7islated f 7^0771 the Ger- 
 77ia7i of Dr. E. Zeller, 
 by the Rev. O. J. Reichel, 
 M.A. 
 
 Crown Zvo. Zs. 6d. 
 
 The History of Philoso- 
 phy, f 7^0771 T hales to Go7nte. 
 By Geo7^ge He7t7y Lewes. 
 
 Fourth Edition, 2 vols. Svo. 2,2s. 
 
 Sketch of the History of 
 the Chtcrch of E7igla7id to 
 the Revolutio7i ^1688. 
 By the Right Rev. T. V. 
 
 Sho7^t, D.D. Bishop of 
 
 St. Asaph. 
 
 Eighth Edition. Crozun 2>vo. "js. 6d. 
 
 The Historical Geogra- 
 phy of Eicrope. 
 By E. A. F7'ee77ta7i, D.C.L. 
 
 %vo. Maps. [In the press. 
 
NEW WORKS PUBLISHED BY LONGMANS & CO. 
 
 Essays on the History of 
 
 the Christian Relimon. 
 By yohi Earl Russell. 
 
 Fcp. Svo. 3^. 6d. 
 
 History of the Reforma- 
 tio7i in Europe in the Time 
 of Calvin. 
 
 By the Rev. J. H. Merle 
 UAubignd, D.D. 
 
 Vols. I. to V. Svo. £z. I2s. Vols. VI. <S- 
 VII. cotnpletion, [In the press. 
 
 The Student's Manual 
 
 of Ancient History : con- 
 taining the Political His- 
 tory, Geographical Posi- 
 tion, and Social State of 
 the Principal Nations of 
 Antiquity. 
 By W. CookeTaylor, LL.D. 
 
 Crown Svo. *js. 6d. 
 
 The Studenfs Manual of 
 Modern History : contain- 
 ing the Rise and Progress 
 of the Principal European 
 Nations, their Political 
 History, a7id the Changes 
 in their Social Condition. 
 By W. Cooke Taylor, LL.D. 
 
 Crown Svo. *js. 6d. 
 
 The Era of the Pro- 
 
 testant Revolution. 
 By F. Seebohm, Author of 
 * The Oxford Reformers' 
 
 With 4 Maps and 1 2 Diagrams. Fcp. Svo» 
 2s. 6d. 
 
 The Crusades. 
 By the Rev. G. W. Cox, 
 M.A. 
 
 Fcp. Svo. with Map, 2s. 6d. 
 
 The Thirty Years War, 
 1618-1648. 
 
 By Samuel Rawson Gar- 
 diner, 
 
 Fcp. Svo. with Maps, 2s. 6d. 
 
 The Houses of Lancaster 
 
 and York ; with the Con- 
 quest and Loss of France. 
 By James Gairdner. 
 
 Fcp. Svo. with Map, 2s. 6d. 
 
 Edward the Third. 
 By the Rev. W. War burton, 
 M.A. 
 
 Fcp. Svo. with Maps, 2s. 6d. 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL ^VORKS. 
 
 A utobiography. 
 
 By John Stuart Mill 
 
 Svo. *]s. 6d. 
 
 Life and Correspondence 
 of Richard Whately, D.D. 
 late A rchbishop of Dublin. 
 By E. yane Whately. 
 
 New Edition in i vol. Crown Svo. 
 [In the press. 
 
 Life and Letters of Gil- 
 bert Elliot, First Earl of 
 Minto, fro7n 1 75 1 to 1 806, 
 whe7i his Public Life in 
 Europe was closed by his 
 Appointment to the Vice- 
 Royalty of India. 
 Edited by the Countess of 
 Mi7ito. 
 
 3 vols, post Svo. 3 1 J. dd. 
 
NEW WORKS PUBLISHED BY LONGMANS & GO. 
 
 Memoir of Thomas First 
 Lord Denman, for77ierly 
 Lord Chief Jtistice of 
 England. 
 
 By Sir Joseph Arnould, 
 B.A. K.B. 
 
 With two Portraits. 2 vols. Svo. ^2s. 
 
 The Life of Lloyd First 
 Lord Kenyo7i. 
 By Hon. G. T. Kenyon^ 
 M.A, , 
 
 With Portraits. Svo. 14s. 
 
 Recollectioiis of Past 
 Life. 
 
 By Sir Henry Holland, 
 Bart. M.D. F.R.S. 
 
 Third Edition. Post Svo. los. 6d. 
 
 Isaac Casaubon, 1559- 
 16 14. 
 
 By Mark Pattison, Rector 
 of Lincoln College, Oxford. 
 
 Svo. 
 
 [In the p7 
 
 Life of Alexander vo7i 
 Htimdoldt. 
 
 Edited by Karl Bruhns, 
 and translated by fane 
 and Caroline Las sell. 
 
 With 3 Portraits. 2 vols. Svo. 36J. 
 
 Biographical and Criti- 
 cal Essays, reprinted from 
 Reviews, with Additio7is 
 and Corrections. 
 By A. Hay ward, Q.C. 
 
 Second Series, 2 vols. Svo. 2Ss. 
 Series, 1 vol. Svo. I4J'. 
 
 Third 
 
 Phe Life of Isambard 
 Kingdom Brunei, Civil 
 Engineer. 
 By /. Brunei, B.C.L, 
 
 With Portrait, Plates, and Woodcuts. 
 
 Svo. 21S. 
 
 Lord George Bentinck ; 
 a Political Biography. 
 By the Right Hon. B. 
 Disraeli, MP. 
 
 Eighth Editiofi. Crown Svo. ^s. 
 
 Memoir of George Ed- 
 ward Lynch Cot 1 071, D.D. 
 Bishop of Calcutta; with 
 Selections from his fotcr- 
 nals and Correspondence. 
 Edited by Mrs. Cotton. 
 
 Second Edition. Crotvn Svo. ']s. bd. 
 
 Phe Life and Letters of 
 the Rev. Sydney Smith. 
 Edited by his Daughter, 
 
 Lady Holland, and 
 
 Mrs. Austin. 
 
 Crown Svo. 2s. 6d. sewed ; y. 6d. cloth. 
 
 Essays in Ecclesiastical 
 Biography. 
 
 By the Right Hon. Sir jf. 
 Stephen, LL.D. 
 
 Cabinet Edition. Crown Svo. 'js. 6d. 
 
 Leaders of Public Opi- 
 nion in Ireland ; Swift, 
 Flood, Grattan, GComiell. 
 By W. E. H. Lecky, M.A. 
 
 Crown Svo. ^s. 6d. 
 
NEW WORKS PUBLISHED BY LONGMANS & CO. 
 
 Life of the Duke of 
 
 Wellington. 
 
 By the Rev. G. R. Gleig, 
 M.A. 
 
 Popular Edition, Crozun Svo. with Por- 
 trait, 5.r. 
 
 Felix Mendelssohn' s 
 Letters from Italy and 
 Switzerland, and Letters 
 from 1833 to 1847. 
 Translated by Lady Wal- 
 lace. 
 
 With Portrait. 2 vols, crown Svo. ^s. each. 
 
 The Rise of Great Fami- 
 lies; other Essays a7id 
 Stories. 
 
 By Sir Bernard Burke^ 
 C.B. LL.D. 
 
 Croivn Svo. 12^. 6d. * 
 
 Dictionary of General 
 Biography ; containing 
 Concise Memoirs and No- 
 tices of the most Eminent 
 Persons of all CountrieSy 
 from the Earliest Ages to 
 the Present Time. 
 
 Edited by W. L. R. Gates. 
 
 Svo. 2 IS. 
 
 Memoirs of Sir Henry 
 Havelock, K.C.B. 
 Byjohn Clark Marshman. 
 
 Peoples Edition. Crown Svo. 3^. dd. 
 
 Vicissitudes of Fafnilies. 
 By Sir Bernard Burke, 
 C.B. 
 
 New Edition. 2 vols, crown Svo. 2ls. 
 
 MENTAL and POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 The System of Positive 
 Polity, or Treatise upon So- 
 ciology, of Auguste Comte, 
 A2cthor of the System of 
 Positive Philosophy. 
 
 Translated from the Paris 
 Edition of 1 851 -1854, 
 a ndfu rn ished with Ana- 
 lytical Tables of Contotts. 
 
 [In preparation. 
 
 In Four Volumes, Svo. to be published sepa- 
 rately, and each forming in some degree 
 an independent Treatise : — 
 Vol. I. The General Vino of Positive 
 Polity and its Philosophical Basis. Trans- 
 lated by}. H. Bridges, Isl.V,. formerly Fellow 
 Oriel College, Oxford. 
 Vol. IT. The Social Statics, or the Ab- 
 
 stract Laws of Human Order. Tratislated 
 by Frederic Harrison, M.A. of Lincoln's 
 I nil. 
 
 Vol. in. The Social Dynamics, or the 
 General Latus of Human Progress {tlie Phi- 
 losophy of History). Translated by E. S. 
 Beesly, M. A. Professor of History in Uni- 
 versity College, London. 
 
 Vol. IV. The Ideal of the Future oj 
 Mankind. Translated by Richard Congreve, 
 M.D. formerly Fellorv and Tutor of WcuL- 
 ham College^ Oxford. 
 
 Political Problems, 
 Reprinted chiefly from 
 the Fortnightly RcvieWy 
 revised, and with New 
 Essays. 
 
 By Frederick Harrison, 
 of Li7icoliis hin. 
 
 vol. Svo. 
 
 [/« the press. 
 
NEW WORKS PUBLISHED BY LONGMANS & CO. 
 
 Essays Critical & Nar- 
 rative, partly original and 
 partly repidnted from Re- 
 viezus. 
 By W. Forsyth, Q,C. M.P. 
 
 Ivo. i6s. 
 
 Essays, Political, Social, 
 and Religiotts. 
 By Richd. Congreve, M.A, 
 
 ■JO. iSj-. 
 
 Essays on Freethinking 
 and Plainspeaking. . 
 By Leslie Stephen. 
 
 Crown %vo. los. 6d. 
 
 Essays, Critical and 
 
 Biographical, cont7dbuted 
 to the Edinburgh Review, 
 By Henry Rogers. 
 
 Nnu Edition. 2 vols, crown %vo. I2s. 
 
 Essays on some Theolo- 
 gical Controversies of the 
 Time, contributed chiefly 
 to the Edinbicrgh Review. 
 By the same Atcthor. 
 
 N'eiv Edition. Crown 2>vo. 6s. 
 
 Democracy in America. 
 By Alexis de Tocq^ieville. 
 Translated by Henry 
 Reeve, C B. D.CL. 
 Corresponding Member 
 of the InstitiLte of 
 France. 
 
 Neiv Edition. 2 vols, post 8vo. [In tJu press. 
 
 On Representative Go- 
 verfiment. 
 By John Stuart Mill. 
 
 Fourth Edition^ crown %vo. 2s. 
 
 On Liberty. 
 
 By John Stuart Mill. 
 
 Post Zvo. *js. 6d. croiun Zvo. is. ^d. 
 
 Principles of Political 
 
 Economy. 
 
 By John Stnai^t Mill. 
 
 2 vols. ^vo. 30J". or 1 vol. cro^vn Svo. ^s. 
 
 Essays on someUnsettled 
 Questions of Political Eco- 
 nomy. 
 By John Stuart Mill. 
 
 Second Edition. %vo. 6j", 6(/. 
 
 Utilitarianism. 
 
 By John Sttcart Mill. 
 
 Fourth Edition. 8zv. 5^'. 
 
 A System of Logic , 
 Ratiocinative and Induc- 
 tive. By John Stuart Mill. 
 
 Eighth Edition. 2 vols. %vo. 2^s. 
 
 Examination of Sir 
 William Hamiltoiis Phi- 
 losophy, and of the prifici- 
 pal Philosophical Questio7is 
 discussed in his Writings. 
 By John Stuart Mill. 
 
 Fourth Edition. 
 
 ■JO. l6s. 
 
 TheStibfection oflVomen. 
 By John Stuart Mill. 
 
 New Edition. Post Zvo. ^s. 
 
 Dissertations and Dis- 
 cussions. 
 By John Stuart Mill. 
 
 Second Edicion. 3 vols. %vo. 36J. 
 B 
 
10 
 
 NEW WORKS PUBLISHED BY LONGMANS & CO. 
 
 Analysis of the Pheno- 
 
 me7ia of the Htunan Mind. 
 
 By James Mill. New 
 
 Edition, with Notes, 
 
 Illustrative and Critical. 
 
 2 vols. %V0. 28j. 
 
 A Systematic View of 
 the Science of JtLrispru- 
 dence. 
 By Sheldon Amos, M.A. 
 
 %vo. i8j. 
 
 A Priiner of the English 
 Constitution and Govern- 
 ment. 
 By Sheldon Amos, M.A. 
 
 New Edition, revised. Post-Zvo. 
 
 \In the press. 
 
 Principles of Economical 
 Philosophy. 
 
 By H. D. Macleod, M.A. 
 B arris ter-at- Law. 
 
 Second Edition, in 2 vols. Vol. I. Svo. i^s. 
 
 The Institutes of yus- 
 tinian ; with English In- 
 troduction, Translation, 
 and Notes. 
 By T C. SaTidars, M.A. 
 
 Sixth Edition. Zvo. i8j. 
 
 Lord Bacons IVorks, 
 
 Collected and Edited by R. 
 Z. Ellis, M.A. y. Sped- 
 ding, M.A. and D. D. 
 Heath, 
 
 New and Cheaper Edition. 7 vols. Zvo. 
 IZ- ly. dd. 
 
 Letters and Life of 
 Francis Baco7i, including 
 all his Occasional Works. 
 Collected and edited, with 
 
 a Commentary, by J. 
 
 Spedding. 
 
 7 vols. Svo. j£^. 4$', 
 
 The Nicomachean Ethics 
 of Aristotle. Newly trans- 
 lated into English. 
 By R. Williams, B.A. 
 
 Svo. 12S. 
 
 The Politics of Aristotle; 
 Greek Text, with English 
 Notes. 
 ByRicha7^dCongreve, M.A . 
 
 Neiv Edition, revised. Svo. iSs. 
 
 The Ethics of A ristotle ; 
 zvith Essays and Notes. 
 By Sir A. Grant, Bart. 
 M.A. LL.D. 
 
 Third Edition, revised and partly re-iuritten . 
 [/n the press. 
 
 Bacons Essays, with 
 Annotations. 
 By R. Whately, D.D. 
 
 New Edition. Svo. los. 6d. 
 
 Elements of Logic. 
 By R. Whately, D.D. 
 
 Nexo Edition. Svo. \os. dd. cr. Svo. ^. dd. 
 
 Elements of Rhetoric. 
 By R. Whately, D.D. 
 
 Neiv Edition. Svo. los. 6d. cr. Svo. 4J. 6d. 
 
NEW WORKS PUBLISHED BY LONGMANS 8c CO. 
 
 11 
 
 ^n Outline of the Neces- 
 sary Laws of Thought : a 
 Treatise on Ptcre and 
 Applied Logic. 
 By the Most Rev. TV. 
 Thomson, D.D. Arch- 
 bishop of York. 
 
 Ninth Thousand. Crcnun Svo. ^s. 6d. 
 
 An Introduction to Men- 
 tal Philosophy, on the In- 
 ductive Method. 
 By y. D. Morell, LL.D. 
 
 Svo. I2S. 
 
 E lenient s of Psychology, 
 containing the Analysis of 
 ihe Intellectual Powers. 
 By J. D. Morell, LL.D. 
 
 Post Svo. ys. 6(f. 
 
 The Secret of Hegel: 
 being the Hegelian System 
 ill Origin, Principle, Form, 
 and Matter. 
 By 7. H. Stirling, LL.D. 
 
 2 vols. Svo. 2Ss. 
 
 Sir JVilliam Hamilton ; 
 being the Philosophy of 
 Perception : an Analysis. 
 By 7. H. Stirling, LL.D. 
 
 Svo. 5J-. 
 
 The Philosophy of Ne- 
 cessity ; or. Natural Law 
 as applicable to Mental, 
 Moral, and Social Science. 
 By Charles Bray. 
 
 Second Edition. Svo. gx. 
 
 Ueberweg s System of 
 Logic, and History of 
 Logical Doctrines. 
 
 Translated, with Notes and 
 Appeiidices, by T M. 
 Lindsay, M. A. F.R.S.E. 
 
 Svo. i6s. 
 
 The Senses and the 
 Intellect. 
 By A. Bain, LL.D. Prof 
 
 of Logic, Univ. A berdeen. 
 
 Svo. I5J-. 
 
 Mental and Moral 
 Science ; a Compendium of 
 Psychology a7id Ethics. 
 
 By A. Bain, LL.D. 
 
 Third Edition. Crown Svo. \os. 6d. Or 
 separately: Fart I. Mental Science, 6s. 6d. 
 Part II. Moral Science, a^s. 6d. 
 
 Humes Treatise on Hu- 
 man Nature. 
 
 Edited, with Notes, &c. by 
 T. H. Green, M.A. and 
 the Rev. T H. Grose, 
 M.A. 
 
 2 vols. Svo. iSs. 
 
 Humes Essays Morale 
 Political, and Literary. 
 By the same Editors. 
 
 2 vols. Svo. 2Ss. 
 
 ^^* The above form a complete and uniform 
 Edition of Hume's Philosophical 
 Works. 
 
12 
 
 NEW WORKS PUBLISHED BY LONGMANS fii CO. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS & CRITICAL \VORKS. 
 
 Miscellaneous a7id Post- 
 
 Jmrnous Works of the late 
 
 Hemy Tho7nas Btcckle. 
 
 Edited, with a Biographical 
 
 Notice, by Helen Taylor. 
 
 2, vols. ?)Z'o. £2. i2s. 6(1. 
 
 Short Studies on Great 
 Stcdjects. 
 
 By 7. A. Fro2tde,M,A. 
 formerly Fellow of 
 . Exeter College, Oxford. 
 
 2 vols. cro%v7t Svo. 12s. 
 
 Lord Macaulays Mis- 
 cellaneous Writincrs. 
 
 Library Edition, 2 vols. Svo. Portrait, 2 \s. 
 People's Edition, i vol. cr. Svo. 4s. 6(1. 
 
 Lord Macaulays Mis- 
 cella7zeous Wiatings and 
 Speeches. 
 
 Students'' Editio7i. Crotun Svo. 6s. 
 
 Speeches of the Right 
 Hon. Lord Macau lay, cor- 
 rected by Himself 
 
 People's Edition. Croxun Svo. y. 6d. 
 
 LordMacaulay sSpeeches 
 on Parliai7ientary Reform 
 in 1 83 1 and 1832. 
 
 \6nio. IS. 
 
 The Rev. Sydney SinitKs 
 Essays co?itributed to the 
 Edinburgh Reviezu. 
 
 Authorised Edition, complete in One Volume, 
 Croxvn Svo. 2s. 6d. served, or 3^. 6d. cloth. 
 
 The Rev. Sydney Smiths 
 Miscellaneous Works. 
 
 Croivn Svo. 6s. 
 
 The Wit and Wisdom of 
 the Rev. Sydney Smith. 
 
 Cro7V7i Svo. 3J-. 6d. 
 
 The Misc ellaneotts 
 
 Works of Thomas Arnold, 
 D.D. Late Head Master of 
 Riigby School and Regius 
 Professor of Alodern His- 
 tory in the Ufiiv. of Ox- 
 ford, collected a7id repub- 
 lished. 
 
 Svo. ^s. 6d. * 
 
 Manual of English Lite- 
 rature, Historical and 
 Critical. 
 By Tho7nas Arnold, M.A. 
 
 Nav Edition. Crozvn Svo. "js. 6d. 
 
 Realities of Irish Life. 
 By W. Steuart Trench. 
 
 C r. Svo. 2s. 6d. served, or 3J. 6d. cloth. 
 
 Lectures on the Science 
 of Language. 
 By F. Max Miiller, M.A. 
 
 &c. 
 
 Sezrnth Edition. 2 vols, crozon Svo. l6s. 
 
 Chips from a German 
 Workshop ; being Essays 
 on the Science of Rcligio?i, 
 and on Mythology, Tradi- 
 tions, and Customs. 
 By F. Max Miillcr, M.A. 
 &c. 
 
 3 vola. Sz'O. £2. 
 
NEW WORKS PUBLISHED BY LONGMANS 8c CO. 
 
 13 
 
 Fmnilies of Speech. 
 Fo2cr Lectures delivered at 
 the Royal Institution. 
 By F. W. Fajn^ar, M.A. 
 F.R.S. 
 
 N'civ Edition. Crown %vo. 3J-. ()d. 
 
 Chapters on Language. 
 
 By F. W. Farrar, M.A. 
 F.R.S. 
 
 Nciu Edition. Crown %vo. ^s. 
 
 Soittheys Doctor, com- 
 plete in One Vohmic. 
 Edited by Rev. J. W. 
 Warter, B.D. 
 
 Square crozun Svo. 1 2s. 6d. 
 
 A Budget of Paradoxes. 
 By AttgusttLs De Moigan, 
 FR.A.S. 
 
 Repi'intcd, xvith Attt/ior's Additions, from 
 the Athenaeum. Zvo. \^s. 
 
 Recreations of a Country 
 
 Parson. 
 
 By A. K. LI. B. 
 
 Ttvo Senes, 3^. 6d. each. 
 
 Landscapes y Churches, 
 and Moralities. 
 By A. K. H. B. 
 
 Crown Svo. y. 6d. 
 
 Seaside Mttsings on Sun- 
 days and Weekdays. 
 By A. K. H. B. 
 
 Crown Svo. y. 6d. 
 
 Changed Aspects of Un- 
 
 cka7iged TrzUhs. 
 By A. K. H. B. 
 
 Crozvn Svo. 3^. 6d. 
 
 Counsel and Comfort 
 from a City Ptdpit. 
 By A. K. H. B. 
 
 Crown Svo. 3^. (id. 
 
 Lessons of Middle Age, 
 By A. K. H. B. 
 
 Leisure Hours in Town 
 By A. K. II. B. 
 
 The Autumn Holidays 
 of a Country Parson. 
 By A. K. H. B. 
 
 Croxvn Svo. y. 6d. 
 
 Sunday After^ioons at 
 the Parish CJnirch of a 
 Scottish University City. 
 By A. K. H. B. 
 
 Crown Svo. 3>r. 6r/. 
 
 Lite Commonplace Phi- 
 losopher in Tozan and 
 Country. 
 By A. K. H. B. 
 
 Crown Svo. y. 6d. 
 
 Prese7it-Day Thoughts. 
 By A. K. H. B. 
 
 Crown Svo. y. 6d: 
 
14 
 
 NEW WORKS PUBLISHED BY LONGMANS & CO. 
 
 Critical Essays of a 
 Cotmtry Parson. 
 By A. K. H. B. 
 
 Crown %vo. y, 6d. 
 
 The Graver Thoughts of 
 a Country Parson, 
 By A. K. H, B, 
 
 Two Series, 2^. 6d. each. 
 
 Principles of Education, 
 
 draw7i from Nattire and 
 Revelation, and applied to 
 Female Education in the 
 Upper Classes. 
 By the AtUhor of 'Amy 
 Herbert! 
 
 2 vols. fcp. Svo. I2S. 6d 
 
 From yanuary to De- 
 
 ce ni ber ; a Book for Children, 
 
 Secojid Edition. Svo. 3^'. 6d. 
 
 The Election of Repre- 
 sentativeSy Parliamentary 
 and Mtcnicipal ; a Treatise. 
 By Thos. Hare, Barrister, 
 
 Fourth Edition. Post Svo. Js. 
 
 Miscellaneous Writings 
 
 of John Conington, M.A, 
 
 Edited by f. A. SymondSy 
 
 M.A, With a Memoir 
 
 by H. J. S. Smith, M.A. 
 
 2 vols. Svo. 2 8 J. 
 
 DICTIONARIES and OTHER BOOKS 
 REFERENCE. 
 
 of 
 
 A Dictionary of the 
 English Language. 
 By R. G. Latham, M.A. 
 M.D. F.R.S. Founded 
 071 the Dictionary of Dr. 
 S. Johnson, as edited by 
 the Rev. H. J. Todd, 
 with mcmeroits Emenda- 
 tions and Additions. 
 
 4 vols. 4/(7. £"]. 
 
 Thesattrus of English 
 
 Words and Phrases, classi- 
 fied and arranged so as to 
 facilitate the expression of 
 
 Ideas, and assist in Literary 
 
 Composition. 
 
 By P. M. Roget, M.D. 
 
 Crown Svo. los. 6d. 
 
 English Synonymes, 
 ByE.y. Whately. Edited 
 by Archbishop Whately, 
 
 Fifth Edition. Fcp. Svo. 3^. 
 
 A Practical Dictionary 
 of the French and English 
 Languages. 
 
 By Ldon Contanseau, many 
 years F^^ench Examiner 
 for Military and Civil 
 Appohitinents, &c. 
 
 Post 8w. lOJ. td. 
 
 Contanseau' s Pocket Dic- 
 tionary, French aiid E^ig- 
 lish, abridged from the 
 Practical Dictionary, by 
 the Aiithor. 
 
 Square iSmo. y. 6d. 
 
NEW WORKS PUBLISHED BY LONGMANS & CO. 
 
 15 
 
 New Practical Diction- 
 ary of the German Lan- 
 guage ; Gerina7t - English 
 and English-German. 
 By Rev. W. L. Blackley, 
 
 M.A. and Dr. C. M. 
 
 Eriedldnder. 
 
 Post 2>vo. 'js. 6d. 
 
 A Dictionary of Roman 
 and Greek Anliquilies. 
 With 2,000 Woodcuts 
 from Ancient Originals, 
 ilhcstrative of the Arts 
 a7id Life of the Greeks and 
 Romans. 
 By Anthony Rich, B.A. 
 
 Third Edition. Crown %vo. *js. 6d. 
 
 The Mastery of Lan- 
 guages ; or, the Art of 
 Speaking Foreign Tongues 
 Idiomatically. 
 By Thomas Prendergast. 
 
 Second Edition. Svo. 6s. 
 
 A Practical English Dic- 
 tionary. 
 By John T. White, D.D. 
 
 Oxon. and T. C. Donkin, 
 
 M.A. 
 
 I vol. post Svo. uniform with Contanseau' s 
 Practical French Dictionary. 
 
 [In the press. 
 
 A Latin-English Dic- 
 tionary. 
 
 By John T. White, D.D. 
 Oxon. and J. E. Riddle, 
 M.A. Oxon. 
 
 Third Edition, revised. 2 vols. ^to. ^2s. 
 
 Whites College Latin- 
 E nglis h Dictio 7i a ry ; 
 abridged from the Parent 
 Work for the ttse of Uni- 
 versity Students. 
 
 Mediwn %vo. \%s. 
 
 A Latin -English Dic- 
 tionary adapted for the use 
 of Middle-Class Schools, 
 By John T, White, D.D, 
 Oxon, 
 
 Square fcp. %vo. 3^. 
 
 IVhite syunior Student's 
 Complete Latin - English 
 and English-Latin Dic- 
 tionary. 
 
 Square 121110. \2s. 
 
 e . - / r English-Latin, ^s. 6d. 
 &/«;-a^./,/ 1 Latin-English, 7.. 6d. 
 
 A Greek-English Lexi- 
 con. 
 
 By H. G. Liddell, D.D. 
 Dean of Chris tchtcrch, 
 and R. Scott, D.D. 
 Dean of Rochester. 
 
 Sixth Edition. Crown ^to. 36^-. 
 
 A Lexicon, Greek and 
 English, abridged for 
 Schools fro7n Liddell and 
 Scotfs Greek - English 
 Lexicon. 
 
 Fourteenth Edition. Square i2mo. p. 6d. 
 
16 
 
 NEW WORKS PUBLISHED BY LONGMANS & CO. 
 
 An English-Greek Lexi- 
 con, contaming all the Greek 
 Words used by Writers of 
 good authority. 
 
 By C. D. Yonge, B,A. 
 
 New Edition, ^to. 2\5. 
 
 Mr, Yonge s New Lexicon, 
 English and Gi'eek, abridged 
 from his larger Lexicon, 
 
 Square i2mo. Sj. 6d. 
 
 M'CullocKs Dictionary, 
 Practical, Theoretical, and 
 Historical, of Commerce 
 and Commercial Naviga- 
 tion. 
 Edited by H. G. Reid. 
 
 Zvo. dy. 
 
 The Post Office Gazetteer 
 
 of the United Kingdom : a 
 Complete Dictionary of all 
 Cities, Towns, Villages, and 
 of the Principal Gentle- 
 men s Seats, in Great Bri- 
 tain and Ireland, referred 
 to the nearest Post Tozun, 
 Railway & Telegraph Sta- 
 tion ; with Natural Feather es 
 a7id Objects of Note. 
 By J. A. Sharp. 
 
 In I vol. Zvo. of about l^yxi pages, 
 [l/i f he press. 
 
 A General Dictionary 
 
 of Geography, Descriptive, 
 Physical, Statistical, and 
 Histo7dcal ; foj^mifig a com- 
 plete Gazetteer of the World, 
 By A. Keith fohnstofiy 
 F.R.S.E. 
 
 New Edition, thoroughly revised. 
 
 [/n the press. 
 
 The Public Schools A tlas 
 of Modern Geography. In 
 3 1 Maps, exhibiting clearly 
 the more important Physi- 
 cal Features of the Conn- 
 tries delineated. 
 Edited, with Introductiony 
 by Rev. G Butler, M.A, 
 
 Imperial quarto, 3^-. dd. served; ^s. cloth. 
 
 The Public Schools Ma-. 
 nual of Modern Geography 
 Forming a Compaaiion to 
 * The Public Schools Atlas 
 of Modern Geography! 
 By Rev. G Butler, M.A, 
 
 \In t/u press. 
 
 The Public Schools Atlas 
 of Ancient Geography. 
 Fditcd, with an Introduc- 
 tion on the Study of An- 
 cient Geog7'aphy, by the 
 Rev. G Butler, M.A. 
 
 Imperial Quarto. [In the press. 
 
NEW WORKS PUBLISHED BY LONGMANS & CO. 
 
 17 
 
 ASTRONOMY and METEOROLOGY. 
 
 The Universe and 
 Coming Transits ; 
 
 the 
 Re- 
 searches ijito and New 
 Viezvs respecting the Con- 
 stitutio7i of the Heavens. 
 By R,'A. Proctor, B.A. 
 
 With 22 Charts and 22 Diagrams. %vo. ids. 
 
 The Transits of Venus ; 
 A Popidar Account of Past 
 and Co7}ting Trajisits, from 
 the first observed by Hor- 
 roclcs A.D. 1639 to the 
 Transit of a.d. 2112. 
 By R. A. Proctor, B.A. 
 Cantab. 
 
 IVilh 20 Plates and nnvicrous Woodcuts. 
 Crown Svo. [iVeai'ly ready. 
 
 Essays on Astronomy. 
 A Series of Papei^s on 
 Planets and Meteors, the 
 Stcn and Sun-snrronnding 
 Space, Sta7^s and Star 
 Clondlets. 
 By R. A. Proctor, B.A. 
 
 With 10 Plates and 2^ Woodcuts. 2>vo. I2s. 
 
 The Moon ; her Motions, 
 Aspect, Scenery, and Phy- 
 sical Condition. 
 By R. A. Proctor, B.A. 
 
 With Plates, Charts, Woodcuts, and I,unar 
 Photographs. Crown Svo. I 5j-. 
 
 The Sim ; RfUer, Light, 
 Fire, and Life of the Pla- 
 netary System. 
 By R. A. Proctor, B.A. 
 
 Second Edition. Plates and Woodcuts. Cr. 
 Zvo. i\s. 
 
 Satnrn and its System. 
 By R. A. Proctor, B.A. 
 
 %vo. xuith 14 Plates, i^. 
 
 The Orbs Around Us; a 
 Series of Familiar Essays 
 071 the Moon and Planets, 
 Meteors and Comets, the 
 Snn and Coloured Pairs of 
 Suns. 
 By R. A. Proctor, B.A. 
 
 Crozun Zvo. ']s. 6d. 
 
 Other JVorlds than Ottrs ; 
 The Pltcrality of Worlds 
 Studied under the Light 
 of Recent Scientifc Re- 
 searches. 
 By R. A. Proctor, B.A. 
 
 Third Edition, with 14 Illustrations. Cr. 
 Zvo. lOs.Gd. 
 
 Brinkley's Astronomy. 
 
 Revised and partly re-zviHt- 
 ten, with Additional Chap- 
 ters, and an Appe^idix of 
 Questions for Exa7nination. 
 By John W. Stubbs, D.D. 
 
 Trin. Coll. Dublin and 
 
 F. Bru7iJiow, Ph.D. 
 
 Astronomer Royal of 
 
 Ireland. 
 
 With 49 Diagrains, Crozun ?>vo. 6s. 
 
 Outlines of Astronomy, 
 By Sir J. F. W. Herschel, 
 Bart. M.A. 
 
 Latest Edition, rvitk Plates aitd Diagrams. 
 Scpiare cro%i>n%vo. 12s. 
 
 C 
 
18 
 
 NEW WORKS PUBLISHED BY LONGMANS & CO. 
 
 A New star Atlas, for 
 the Library, the School, and 
 the Observatory, in 1 2 Cir- 
 cular Maps (with 2 Index 
 Plates), 
 By R. A, Proctor, B.A. 
 
 Crown Svo. ^s. 
 
 Celestial Objects for Com- 
 mon Telescopes. 
 By T. W. Webb, M,A. 
 F.R,AS, 
 
 New Edition, with Map of the Moon and 
 Woodcuts. Crown Svo. 'js. 6d. 
 
 LargerStarA tlasjor the 
 Library, in Twelve Cir- 
 cular Maps, photolitho- 
 graphed by A, Brothers, 
 F.R.A.S. With 2 Index 
 Plates and a Letterpress 
 Introduction. 
 By R. A. Proctor, BA. 
 
 Second Edition. Small folio, l^s. 
 
 Magnetism and Devia- 
 tio7i of the Compass. For 
 the use of Students in Navi- 
 gation and Science Schools. 
 By J. Merrifield, LL.D. 
 
 iSmo. IS. 6d. 
 
 Dove's Law of Storms, 
 considered in connexio7i with 
 the ordinary Move^nents of 
 the Atmosphere. 
 Translated by R. H. Scott, 
 M.A. 
 
 Svo. I OS. 6d. 
 
 Air and Rain ; the Be- 
 ginnings of a Chemical 
 Climatology. 
 By R.A. Smith, F.R.S. 
 
 Svo. 24J-. 
 
 Nautical Surveying, an 
 Introduction to the Practi- 
 cal and Theoretical Study 
 
 of. 
 
 By y. K. Laughton, M.A. 
 
 Small Svo. 6j. 
 
 Schellen s Spectrum Ana- 
 lysis, in its Application to 
 Terrestrial S2ibstances and 
 the Physical Constitution of 
 the Heavenly Bodies. 
 Translated by Jane and 
 C. L as sell ; edited, with 
 Notes, by W. Htiggins, 
 LL.D. F.R.S. 
 
 With 13 Plates a Jid 22^ IVoodcuts. Svo. 2Ss. 
 
 NATURAL HISTORY and PHYSICAL 
 SCIENCE. 
 
 The Correlation of Phy- 
 sical Forces. 
 
 By the Hon. Sir W. 
 Grove, F.R.S. &c. 
 
 R. 
 
 Sixth Edition, with other Contributions to 
 Science. Svo. 15J. 
 
 Professor HelmJioltz 
 Popular Lectures on Scien- 
 tific Subjects. 
 Translated by E. Atkinso7i, 
 F.C.S. 
 
 With m'uty Illustrative Wood Engravings. 
 Svo, I2s. 6d. 
 
NEW WORKS PUBLISHED BY LONGMANS 8c CO. 
 
 19 
 
 Ganofs Nahtral Philo- 
 sophy for General Readers 
 and Yotmg Persons; a 
 Course of Physics divested 
 of Mathematical FormulcB 
 and expressed in the lan- 
 guage of daily life. 
 Translated by E, Atkinson, 
 F.CS. 
 
 Cr. Sz>o. with 404 Woodcuts^ *js. 6d. 
 
 Ganofs Elementary 
 Treatise on Physics, Ex- 
 perimental and Applied, 
 for the use of Colleges and 
 Schools. 
 
 Translated and edited by E. 
 Atkinson, F.CS. 
 
 Nezu Edition, with a Coloured Plate and 
 726 Woodcuts, Post Svo. i^s. 
 
 Principles of Animal 
 
 Mechanics. 
 
 By the Rev. S. Haughton, 
 F.R.S. 
 
 Second Edition. %vo. 2,1s. 
 
 JVeinhold s Introduction 
 to Experime7ital Physics, 
 Theoretical and Practical ; 
 including Directions for 
 Co7istructing Physical Ap- 
 parattis and for Making 
 Experiments. 
 
 Translated by B. Loewy, 
 F.R.A.S. With a Pre- 
 face by G. C Foster, 
 F.R.S. 
 
 With numerous Woodcuts. Svo. 
 
 ^Nearly ready. 
 
 Text-Books of Science, 
 Mechanical and Physical, 
 adapted for the use of Arti- 
 sans and of Students in 
 Public and other Schools. 
 {The first Ten edited by 
 T. M. Goodeve, M.A. Lec- 
 turer on Applied Science at 
 the Royal School of Mines; 
 the remainder edited by 
 C. W. Merrifield, F.R.S, 
 an Examiner in the De- 
 partment of Public Educa- 
 tioit.) 
 
 Small Svo. Woodcuts. 
 
 Edited by T. M. Goodeve, M.A. 
 
 Anderson's Strength of Materials, y. 6d. 
 Bloxam's Metals, y. 6d. 
 Goodeve' s Mechanics, y. 6d. 
 
 — Mechanism, 3^, 6d. 
 
 Griffin's Algebra 6^ Trigonometry, ^s. 6d. 
 
 Notes on the same, with Solutions, 3^. dd. 
 Jenkin's Electricity 6^ Magnetism, y. dd. 
 Maxwell's Theory of Heat, t^s. 6d. 
 Merrifield's Technical Arithmetic, 3J. 6d. 
 
 Key, 3J-. dd. 
 Miller's Inorganic Chemistry, "^s. dd. 
 Shelley's Workshop Appliances, 3^-. dd. 
 Watson's Plane 6^ Solid Geometry, t^s. dd. 
 
 Edited by C. W. Merrifield, F.R.S. 
 
 Armstrong's Organic Chemistry, 3^. dd. 
 Thorpe's Quantitative Analysis, 4^. dd. 
 Thorpe and Muir's Qualitative Analysis, 
 3J-. dd. 
 
 Address delivered before 
 the British Association 
 assembled at Belfast ; with 
 Additions and a Preface. 
 By John Tyndall, F.R.S, 
 President. 
 
 2>vo. price '^s. 
 
 Fragments of Science. 
 By John Tyndall, F.R.S, 
 
 Third Editio7i. 8vo. 14s. 
 
22 
 
 NEW WORKS PUBLISHED BY LONGMANS & CO. 
 
 Rocks Classified mtd De- 
 scribed. 
 By B, Von Cotta. 
 
 English Edition, by P. H. LAWRENCE {with 
 English, German, and French Syno- 
 nymes), revised by the Author. Post 
 ^vo. l/\s. 
 
 Primceval JVorld of Swit- 
 zerland. 
 
 By Professor Oswald Heer, 
 of the University of 
 Ztcrich. Translated by 
 W, S. Dallas, F.L.S. 
 and edited by ^ antes 
 Hey wood, M.A. F.R.S. 
 
 2 vols. Svo. with numerous Illustrations. 
 [In the press. 
 
 The Origin of Civilisa- 
 tion , and the Primitive 
 Condition of Man; Men- 
 tal and Social Condition of 
 Savages. 
 
 By Sir f. Ltcbbock, Bart. 
 M.P. F.R.S. 
 
 Third Edition,with2^ Woodcuts. Svo. i6s. 
 
 A Manual of Anthro- 
 pology, or Science of Man, 
 based on Modern Research. 
 By Charles Bray. 
 
 Crown Svo. ^s. 
 
 A Phrenologist amongst 
 the Todas, or the Study of 
 a Pri^nitive Tribe in South 
 India; History, Character, 
 Ctcstoms, Religion, Infaiiti- 
 cide, Polya?idry, Language. 
 By W. E. Marshall, Lieut. - 
 Col. Bengal Staff Corps. 
 
 With 26 Illustrations. Svo. 21s. 
 
 The Ancient Sto7ie Im- 
 plements, Weapons, and Or- 
 naments of Great Britain. 
 By Jolm Evans, F.R.S. 
 
 With 2 Plates and 476 Woodcuts. Svo. 2Ss. 
 
 The Elements of Botany 
 for Fa?nilies and Schools, 
 Tenth Editioit, revised by 
 Thomas Moore, F.L.S. 
 
 Fcp. Svo. with I $4 Woodcuts is. 6d. 
 
 Bible Animals ; a De- 
 scription of every Living 
 Creature mentioned i7i the 
 Scriptures, from the Ape 
 to the Coral. 
 By Rev. J. G. Wood, M.A, 
 
 With about lOo Vignettes on Wood. Svo. 2\s. 
 
 The Rose Amateurs 
 Guide. 
 By Thomas Rivers. 
 
 Tenth Edition. Fcp. Svo. 4f. 
 
 A Dictionary of Science^ 
 
 Literature, a7id Art. 
 
 Fourth Edition, re-edited 
 
 by the late W. T. Brande 
 
 (the A uthor)andRev. G, 
 
 W, Cox, M.A. 
 
 3 vols, medium Svo. 63J. 
 
 Loudon's Encyclopcedia 
 of Plants ; comprisi7ig the 
 Specific Character, Descrip- 
 tion, Ctdture, History, &c, 
 of all the Plants foimd in 
 Great Britain, 
 
 If iih upwards 0/12, 000 Woodcuts. Svo. ^2s, 
 
NEW WORKS PUBLISHED BY LONGMANS & CO. 
 
 23 
 
 The Treasury of Botany, 
 or Popular Dictionary of 
 the Vegetable Kingdom ; 
 with which is incorporated 
 a Glossary of Botanical 
 Terms. 
 Edited by f, Lindley, 
 
 KRS. and T Moore, 
 
 T.L.S. 
 
 With 274 Woodcuts and 20 Steel Plates. 
 Two Paris, fcp. Svo. I2s. 
 
 Handbook of Hardy 
 Trees, Shrubs, and Her- 
 baceous Plants; co7itaining 
 Descriptions &c. of the 
 Best Species in Ctdtivatio7z ; 
 with Culttcral Details, 
 Comparative Hardiness, 
 suitability for partictdar 
 positio7ts, &c. Based on 
 the French Work of De- 
 caisne and Na^idin, and 
 includhig the 720 Original 
 Woodcut Illustrations. 
 By W. B. Hemsley. 
 
 Medium Svo. 2 is. 
 
 A General System of 
 
 Descriptive a^id A nalytical 
 Botany. 
 
 Translated from theFrench 
 of Le Maout and De- 
 caisne, by Mrs. Hooker. 
 Edited and arranged 
 according to the English 
 Botanical System, by J . 
 D. Hooker, M.D. &c. 
 Director of the Royal 
 Botanic Gardens, Kew. 
 
 With 5 , 500 Woodcuts. Imperial Zvo. 5 2s. 6d. 
 
 Forest Trees and Wood- 
 land Scenery, as described 
 in Ancient and Modern 
 Poets. 
 
 By William Menzies, De- 
 puty Stcrveyor of Wind- 
 sor Forest a7id Parks, &c. 
 
 In One Volume^ imperial /^o. with Tiventy 
 Plates^ Coloured in facsimile of the 
 original drawings, price £^. ^s. 
 
 \Preparing for publication. 
 
 CHEMISTRY and PHYSIOLOGY. 
 
 Miller s Elements of 
 Chemistry, Theoretical and 
 Practical. 
 
 Re-edited, with Additions, 
 by H. Macleod, F.C.S. 
 
 3 vols. Svo. £z. 
 
 Part I. Chemical Physics, 15^. 
 Part II. Inorganic Chemistry, 21^. 
 Part HI. Organic Chemistry, 2\s. 
 
 A Manual of Chemical 
 Physiology, inchcding its 
 Points of Contact with 
 Pathology. 
 
 Ry y.L. W. Thudichum, 
 M.D. 
 
 Sz'O. with Woodcuts, ']s. 6d. 
 
24 
 
 NEW WORKS PUBLISHED BY LONGMANS £i CO. 
 
 A Dictionary of Che- 
 mistry and the Allied 
 Branches of other Sciences. 
 By Henry Watts, F.C.S. 
 assisted by eminent 
 Scientific and Practical 
 Chemists. 
 
 6 vols, vicd'mm %vo. £Z. \\s.. 6d. 
 
 Second Stipple7ne7it com- 
 pleting the Record of Dis- 
 covery to the end of 1872. 
 
 [/;/ the press. 
 
 A Course of Practical 
 
 Chemistry, for the ttse of 
 Medical Students. 
 By W. Odling, F.R.S. 
 
 Crown %vo. Woodcuts, 'js. 6d. 
 
 Select Methods in Chemi- 
 cal Analysis , chiefly Inor- 
 ganic. 
 By Wm. Crookes, F.R.S. 
 
 With 22 Woodcuts. Croiun Svo. I2s. 6d. 
 
 Todd and Bowman s 
 Physiological A natoiny, and 
 Physiology of Man. 
 
 Vol. JI. ivitJi iinvicrous Jllustratijus, 25^-. 
 
 Vol. I. Nnu Edition by Dr. Lionel S. 
 Beale, F.R.S. in course of publication^ 
 with numerous Illustrations. Parts I. and 
 II. in 2>vo. price 'js. 6d. each. 
 
 Outlines of Physiology^ 
 Human and Comparative. 
 By J. Marshall PR.C.S. 
 Surgeon to the Univer- 
 sity College Hospital. 
 
 2 vols. cr. %vo. loith 122 Woodcuts, 
 
 Z2S. 
 
 The FINE ARTS and ILLUSTRATED 
 EDITIONS. 
 
 Albert Durer, his Life 
 
 and Wo7'ks; inclnding Ati- 
 tobiographical Papers and 
 Complete Catalogues. 
 By William B. Scott. 
 
 With 6 EtcJiings by the Author and other 
 Illustrations. iSvo. i6s. 
 
 In Fairyland ; Pictures 
 from the Elf World. By 
 Richard Doyle. With a 
 Poem by W. A Hi ugh am. 
 
 With 16 coloured Plates, cont(7inino- ^6 Dc- 
 sig/is. Second Edition, folio, \^s. 
 
 A Dictionary of Artists 
 of the English School: 
 Painters, Sculptors, Archi- 
 tects, Engravers, aiid Orna- 
 vientists ; ivith Notices of 
 their Lives and Works. 
 By S amice I Redgrave^ 
 
 %vo. \^s. 
 
 The New Testa ni en f, il- 
 histratcd zvith Wood En- 
 gravings after the Early 
 Masters, chiefly of the 
 Italian School. 
 
 Cro'iVn 4/«>. Gy. 
 
NEW WORKS PUBLISHED BY LONGMANS & CO. 
 
 25 
 
 The Life of Man Sym- 
 do Used by the Months of 
 the Year. 
 Text selected by R, Pigot. 
 
 25 Ilhistratlons 011 Wood from Designs by 
 John Leighlon, F.S.A. Qiia?-to, 42J-. 
 
 Lyra Germanica ; the 
 Christian Year and the 
 Christian Life. 
 Translated by Miss C. 
 Winkworth. 
 
 With about 325 Woodcut Illustrations by J. 
 Leighton, F.S.A. and other Artists. 
 2 vols. 4to. price 42^'. 
 
 Lord Macatdays Lays 
 of Ancieiit Rome. With 
 90 Ilhtstrations on Wood 
 from Drazuings by G. 
 Scharf 
 
 Fcp. \to. 2 Is. 
 
 Miniahire Edition, with 
 
 Scharf s 90 Ilhtstrations 
 reduced in Lithography. 
 
 Imp. i6mo. los. 6d. 
 
 Sacred and Legendary 
 Art. 
 By Mrs. fameson. 
 
 6 vols, square croivn Zvo. price £^. 15^. 6d. 
 as follozvs : — 
 
 Legends of the Saints 
 
 and Martyrs. 
 
 N'ew Edition, xuith 19 Etchings and iZ'j 
 Woodcuts. 2 z'ols. 2)1 s. 6d. 
 
 Legends of the Monastic 
 Orders. 
 
 New Edition, ivith ii Etchings and 88 
 Woodcuts. I vol. 21 s. 
 
 Legends of the Madonna. 
 
 Nnu Edition, with 27 Etchings and 165 
 Woodctits. I vol. 21 s. 
 
 The History of Our Lord, 
 with that of his Types and 
 Pi^ecnrsors. 
 
 Completed by Lady East- 
 lake. 
 
 Revised Edition, with 13 Etchings and 281 
 Woodcuts. 2 vols. 42s. 
 
 The USEFUL ARTS, MANUFACTURES, &c. 
 
 -^ Manual of Architec- 
 ture : bei7ig a Concise His- 
 tory and Explanatio7i of the 
 Priftcipal Styles of Eui^o- 
 pean A rchitecttire, A nciefit, 
 MedicEval, and Renaissance; 
 with a Glossary. 
 By Tho7nas Mitchell, Au- 
 thor of ' The Stepping 
 Stone to Architecture! 
 
 With 150 Woodcuts. Croivn Zvo. \os. 6d. 
 
 History of the Gothic 
 
 Revival ; aii Atte7npt to 
 shew how far the taste for 
 Mediceval Architecture was 
 retai7ied in Englafid du7n7ig 
 the last two ce7itu7^ies, a7id 
 has bee7i 7^e-developed i7i the 
 presefit. 
 
 By Charles L. East lake, 
 Architect. 
 
 With 48 Illustrations. 
 
 I/nJ>. ?>vo. 3IJ'. 6d. 
 D 
 
26 
 
 NEW WORKS PUBLISHED BY LONGMANS & CO. 
 
 Industrial Chemistry ; a 
 Manual for Manufachc- 
 rers and for Colleges or 
 Technical Schools. Being a 
 Translation of Professors 
 Stohmann and Englers 
 German Edition ofPayens 
 ^ Prdcis de Chimie Indus- 
 trie lie,' by Dr. J. D. Barry. 
 Edited, and stipplemented 
 with Chapters on the 
 Chemistry of the Metals, 
 by B. H. Paul, Ph.D. 
 
 %vo. with Plates and Woodcuts. 
 
 {In the press. 
 
 Gwilfs Encyclopcedia of 
 
 Architecture, with above 
 
 1, 600 Woodcuts. 
 
 Fifth Edition, with Altera 
 tions and Additions, by 
 Wyatt Papworth. 
 
 Svo. 5 2 J. 6d. 
 
 The Three Cathedrals 
 dedicated to St. Paid in 
 London ; their History 
 from the Foundation of 
 the First Building in the 
 Sixth Century to the Pro- 
 posals for the Adorfiment 
 of the Present Cathedral. 
 By W. Longman, F.S.A, 
 
 With numerous Illustrations. Square crown 
 Svo. 21S. 
 
 Hints on Household 
 Taste in Ftirniture, Up- 
 holstery, and other Details. 
 By Cfharles L. East lake, 
 Architect. 
 
 New Edition, with about 90 Illustrations. 
 Square crown 2>vo. i/\s. 
 
 Geometric Turning; com- 
 prising a Description of 
 Plant's New Geometric 
 Chuck, with Directions for 
 its use, and a Series of 
 Patterns cut by it, with 
 Explanations. 
 By H. S. Savory. 
 
 With 571 Woodcuts. Square cr. %vo. 2IJ-. 
 
 Lathes and Turniftg, 
 
 Simple, Mechanical, and 
 
 Ornamental. 
 
 By W. Henry Northcott. 
 
 With 240 Illustrations. Svo. iSs. 
 
 Handbook of Practical 
 Telegraphy. 
 
 By R. S. Culley, Memb. 
 Lnst. C.E. Engineer-in- 
 Chief of Telegraphs to 
 the Post-Office. 
 
 Sixth Edition, Plates ^Woodcuts. Svo. 16s. 
 
 Principles ofMechajtism, 
 for the use of Students in 
 the Universities, and for 
 Engineering Students. 
 By R. Willis, M.A. F.R.S. 
 Professor iti the Univer- 
 sity of Cambridge. 
 
 Second Edition, with 374 Woodcuts. %vo. iSj. 
 
 Perspective ; or, the Art 
 of Drawing what one Sees : 
 for the Use of those Sketch- 
 ing fro7n Nature. 
 By Lieut. W. H. Collins, 
 R.E. F.R.A.S. 
 
 With 37 Woodcuts. Crown %vo. 5 J. 
 
NEW WORKS PUBLISHED BY LONGMANS & CO. 
 
 27 
 
 EncyclopcBdia of Civil 
 
 Engifieeri^tgy Historical^ 
 Theoretical and Practical. 
 By E. Cresy, C,E, 
 
 With above 3, 000 Woodcuts. Svo. ^2s. 
 
 A Treatise on the Steam 
 
 Engine, in its various ap- 
 plications to Mines., Mills, 
 Steam Navigation, Rail- 
 ways and Agriculttire. 
 By y. Bour7ie, C.E. 
 
 With Portrait, 37 Plates, ajid 546 Wood- 
 cuts. OftO. \2S. 
 
 Catechism of the Steam 
 Engine, in its various Ap- 
 plications. 
 By John Bourne, C.E. 
 
 New Edition, with 89 Woodcuts. Fcp.Zvo. ^s. 
 
 Handbook of the Steam 
 
 Engine. 
 
 By J. Bourne, C.E. form- 
 ing a Key to the Author s 
 Catechism of the Steam 
 Engine. 
 
 With 67 Woodcuts. Fcp. %vo. ^s. 
 
 Recent Improvements in 
 the Steam Engine. 
 By y . Bourne, C.E. 
 
 With 124 Woodcuts. Fcp. Svo. 6s. 
 
 L owndess Engineer's 
 Handbook ; explaining the 
 Principles which shoidd 
 guide the Young Engineer 
 in the Construction of Ma- 
 chinery. 
 
 Post Svo. Ss. 
 
 Ure's Dictionary of A rts ^ 
 
 Mamfactures, and Mines. 
 Sixth Edition, re-written 
 and greatly enlarged by 
 R. Html, F.R.S. assisted 
 by mimerotis Contributors, 
 
 With 2,000 Woodcuts. 3 vols, medium Svo. 
 £4. 14s. 6d. 
 
 Handbook to the Minera- 
 logy of Cornwall and 
 Devon; with Instructions 
 for their Discrimination, 
 and copiotis Tables of Lo- 
 cality. 
 By J. H. Collins, F.G.S. 
 
 With 10 Plates, Svo. 6s. 
 
 Gtms and Steel ; Miscel- 
 laneous Papers on Mechani- 
 cal Stibjects. 
 
 By Sir J. Whitworth, 
 C.E. F.R.S. 
 
 With Ilhistrations. Royal Svo. *]s. 6d. 
 
 Practical Treatise on 
 
 Metallurgy, 
 
 Adapted from the last Ger- 
 man Edition ofProfessor 
 KerVs Metalhcrgy by W. 
 Crookes, F.R.S. &c. and 
 E. Rohrig, Ph.D. 
 
 3 vols. Svo. with 625 Woodcuts. £^. igs. 
 
 Treatise on Mills and 
 Millwo7'k. 
 By Sir W. Fairbairn, Bt. 
 
 With 18 Plates and 322 Woodcuts. 2 vols. 
 Svo. 3 2 J. 
 
28 
 
 NEW WORKS PU3LISHED BY LONGMANS & GO. 
 
 Useful Information for 
 
 Engineers. 
 
 By Sir W. Fairbairn, Bt. 
 
 With many Plates and Woodcuts. 3 7!ols. 
 crown Svo. 3IJ-. 6d. 
 
 The Application of Cast 
 and Wrought Iro7i to 
 Building PtLrposes. 
 By Sir W. Fair bairn, Bt. 
 
 With 6 Plates and n8 Woodcuts. Zvo. i6s. 
 
 The Strains in Trusses 
 Computed by means of Dia- 
 grams ; aiith 20 Examples. 
 By F. A. Ranken, CE. 
 
 With 35 Diagrams. Square cr. ^vo. ds. (id. 
 
 Practical Handbook of 
 Dyeing and Calico- Print- 
 ing. 
 By W. Crookes, F.R.S. &c. 
 
 With numerous Illustrations and Specimens 
 of Dyed Textile Fabrics. Svo. /^2s. 
 
 MitchelVs Manual of 
 
 Practical Assaying. 
 
 Foicrth Edition, revised, 
 with the Recent Disco- 
 veries i7tco7porated, by 
 W. Crookes, F.R.S. 
 
 Svo, Woodcuts, 3IJ-. 6d. 
 
 Occasional Papers on 
 
 Sttbjects connected with 
 Civil Engineering, Gtcn- 
 nery, and Naval Archi- 
 tecttcre. 
 
 By Michael Scott, Memb. 
 Inst. CE. & of Inst. 
 
 N.A. 
 
 2 vols. Zvo. xuith Plates, 42s. 
 
 Loudon s Encyclopcedia 
 of Gardening .- comprising 
 the Theory and Practice of 
 . Hortictcltttre, Floriculttcre, 
 Arboricuttui^e, and Land- 
 scape Gardening. 
 
 With 1,000 Woodcuts. %vo. 2.\s. 
 
 Loudon s Eiicyclopcedia 
 
 of Agriculture : comprising 
 the Laying-out, Improve- 
 ment, and Management of 
 Landed Property, and the 
 Ctdtivation and Economy 
 of the Prodiictions of Agri- 
 cidttire. 
 
 With 1,100 Woodcuts. %vo. 2\s. 
 
 RELIGIOUS and MORAL V/ORKS. 
 
 An Exposition of the 39 
 Articles, Historical and 
 Doctrinal. 
 
 By E. H. Browne, D.D. 
 Bishop of Winchester. 
 
 New Edition, ivo. i6s. 
 
 An Introdtiction to the 
 Theology of the Church of 
 England, in an Exposition 
 of the 39 Articles. By Rez\ 
 T. P. Boultbee, LL.D. 
 
 Fcp. %vo. 6j. 
 
NEW WORKS PUBLISHED BY LONGMANS Si CO. 
 
 29 
 
 Historical Lectures on 
 
 the Life of Our Lord fesiis 
 
 CJlTZSt. 
 
 By C. y, Ellicott, D.D. 
 
 Fifth Edition. Svo. I2s. 
 
 Sermons; inchtding Two 
 Sermons on the Interpre- 
 tation of Prophecy, and an 
 ■ Essay on the Right Liter- 
 pretation and Understand- 
 ing of the Scrtptiires. 
 By the late Rev. Thomas 
 Ai^nold, D.D, 
 
 3 vols. Svo. price 24s. 
 
 its 
 
 Christian Life 
 
 Course, its Hindr-anccs, 
 and its Helps; Sermons 
 preached mostly in the 
 Chapel of Rttgby School. 
 By the late Rev. Thomas 
 Arnold, D.D. 
 
 Svo. "js. 6d. 
 
 Christian Life, its 
 
 Hopes, its Fears, and its 
 Close; Sermons preached 
 mostly in the Chapel of 
 Rtcgby School. 
 By the late Rev. Thomas 
 Arnold, D.D. 
 
 Svo. p. 6d. 
 
 Sermons Chiefly on the 
 Interpretation of Scrip- 
 ture. 
 
 By the late Rev. Thomas 
 Arnold, D.D. 
 
 Svo. price Js. 6d. 
 
 Sermons preached in the 
 
 Chapel of Rtcgby School ; 
 zuith an Addixss before 
 Confirmation. 
 By the late Rev. Thomas 
 Arnold, D.D. 
 
 Fcp. Svo. price y. 6d. 
 
 Three Essays on Reli- 
 gion : Nature ; the Utility 
 of Religion; Theism. 
 By John Stuai^t Mill. 
 
 Svo. price \os. 6d. 
 
 Synonyms of the Old Tes- 
 tament, their Beainng on 
 Christian Faith and 
 Practice. 
 By Rev. R. B. Girdlestone. 
 
 Reasons of Faith ; or, 
 the Order of the Christian 
 Argument Developed and 
 Explained. 
 By Rev. G. S. Drew, M.A. 
 
 Second Edition. Fcp. Svo. ds. 
 
 The Eclipse of Faith : 
 or a Visit to a Religious 
 Sceptic. 
 By Henrv Rog-ers. 
 
 Latest Edition. Fcp. Svo. ^s. 
 
 Defence of the Eclipse of 
 Faith. 
 By Henry Rogers. 
 
 Latest Edition. Fcp. Svo. ^s. 6d. 
 
30 
 
 NEW WORKS PUBLISHED BY LONGMANS & CO. 
 
 Sermons for the Times 
 preached in St. P-aurs 
 Cathedral and elsewhere. 
 By Rev. T. Griffith, M.A. 
 
 Croxvn Svo. 6s. 
 
 The Life and Epistles of 
 St. PatU. 
 By Rev. W. J. Conybeare, 
 
 M.A. and Very Rev. J. 
 
 S. How son, D.D. 
 
 Library Edition, with all the Original 
 Illustratiofis, Maps, Landscapes on Steel, 
 Woodcuts, 6r'c. 2 vols. 4/f , 48^. 
 
 Intermediate Edition, with a Selection 
 of Maps, Plates, and Woodcuts. 2 vols. 
 square crozvn Svo. 21 s. 
 
 Student's Edition, revised and condensed, 
 with 46 Illustrations and Maps, i vol. 
 crown Svo. gs. 
 
 A Critical and Gram- 
 matical Commentary on St. 
 Pater s Epistles. 
 By C. 7. Ellicott, D.D. 
 
 Svo. Galatians, Ss. 6d. Ephesians, Ss. 6d. 
 Pastoral Epistles, los. 6d. Philippi- 
 ans, Colossians, & Philemon, los. 6d. 
 Thessalonians, 7^. 6d. 
 
 The Voyage and Ship- 
 wreck of St. Patd ; with 
 Dissertations on the Ships 
 and Navigation of the 
 Ancients. 
 By James Smith, F.R.S. 
 
 Crown Svo. Charts^ \os. dd. 
 
 Evidence of the Truth 
 of the Christian Religion 
 derived frorn the Literal 
 Fidfilment of Prophecy. 
 By Alexander Keith, D.D. 
 
 dfOth Edition^ ivith numerous Plates. 
 Square Svo. 12s. td. or in post Svo. 
 zuith $ Plates, 6s. 
 
 Historical and Critical 
 Commentary on the Old 
 Testament; with a New 
 Translation. 
 By M. M. Kalisch, Ph.D. 
 
 Vol. I. Genesis, Svo. iSs. or adapted for the 
 General Reader, I2J. Vol.11. Exodus, 
 1 5 J. or adapted for the General Reader^ 
 1 2j. Vol. HI. Leviticus, Part I. i 5j-. 
 or adapted for the General Reader, Ss. 
 Vol. IV. Leviticus, Part II. \^s. or 
 adapted for the General Reader, Ss. 
 
 The History and Litera- 
 ture of the Israelites, ac- 
 cording to the Old Testa- 
 ment and the Apocrypha. 
 By C De Rothschild and 
 A. De Rothschild. 
 
 Second Edition. 2 vols, crown Svo. \2s. 6d. 
 Abridged Edition, in i vol. frp. Svo. 3^-. bd. 
 
 Ewald's History of 
 
 Israel. 
 
 Translated from the Ger- 
 man by y . E. Carpenter, 
 M.A. with Preface by 
 R. Martineau, M.A. 
 
 5 vols. Svo. 63^. 
 
 Commentary on Epistle 
 to the Ro77ians. 
 By Rev. W. A. aCo?ior, 
 
 Crown Svo. 3^. dd. 
 
 A Commentary on the 
 Gospel of St. John. 
 By Rev. TV. A. GConor. 
 
 Crown Svo. los. 6d. 
 
 The Epistle to the He-- 
 
 bj^ews ; with Analytical 
 Introduction and Notes. 
 By Rev. W. A. OConor. 
 
 Cnnvn Svo. /\s. 6d. « 
 
NEW WORKS PUBLISHED BY LONGMANS 8c CO. 
 
 31 
 
 Thoughts for the Age. 
 By Elizabeth M. Sewell. 
 
 New Edition. Fcp. Zvo. y. 6d. 
 
 Passing Thoughts on 
 Religion. 
 By Elizabeth M. Sewell. 
 
 Fcp. Svo. 3J. 6d. 
 
 Self-examination before 
 
 Confirmatio7i. 
 
 By Elizabeth M. Sewell. 
 
 2,2mo. IS. 6d. 
 
 Preparation for the Holy 
 
 Communiofi ; the Devotions 
 chiefly from the works of 
 Jeremy Taylor. 
 By Elizabeth M. Sewell. 
 
 22mo. y. 
 
 Readings for a Month 
 Preparatory to Confirma- 
 tion, from Writers of the 
 Early and English Church. 
 By Elizabeth M. Sewell. 
 
 Fcp. %vo. 4^. 
 
 Readings for Every Day 
 in Lent, compiled from the 
 Writings of Bishop 
 feremy Taylor. 
 By Elizabeth M. Sewell. 
 
 Fcp. %vo. ^s. 
 
 Bishop yeremy Taylor s 
 Entire Works ; with Life 
 by Bishop Heber. 
 Revised and corrected by 
 
 the Rev. C. P. Eden. 
 
 lo vols. ^5- 5-f' 
 
 Hymns of Praise and 
 Prayer. 
 
 Collected and edited by Rev, 
 y . Martineati, LL.D. 
 
 Crown Svo. 4s. 6d. 
 
 Thoughts for the Holy 
 Week, for Voting Persons, 
 By Elizabeth M. Sewell. 
 
 Nnv Edition. Fcp. Zvo. 2s. 
 
 Spiritual Songs for the 
 
 Simdays and Holidays 
 
 throughotU the Year. 
 
 By J. S. B. Monsell, LL.D. 
 
 Fourth Edition. Fcp. Svo. 4J. 6d. 
 
 Lyra Germanica; Hymns 
 
 translated from the German 
 by Miss C. Winkworth. 
 
 2 sej'ies, fcp. ^vo. y. 6d. each. 
 
 Endeavours after the 
 Christian Life; Discourses, 
 By Rev. f . MartineaUy 
 LL.D. 
 
 Fifth Edition. Crozun Svo. 'Js. 6d. 
 
 An Introduction to the 
 Study of the New Testa- 
 ment, Critical, Exegeticaly 
 and Theological. 
 By Rev. S. Davidson, D.D. 
 
 2 vols. 2>vo. 2,0s. 
 
 Supernatural Religion; 
 an Inquiry into the Reality 
 of Divine Revelation. 
 
 New Edition. 2 vols. Svo. 24^. 
 
32 
 
 NEW WORKS PUBLISHED BY LONGMANS 8c CO. 
 
 T/ie Life of Christ. 
 
 For the tise of Young Per- 
 sons, selected from the Gos- 
 pels and Ch7^ono logically 
 arranged ; with Snpple- 
 nientajy Notices from 
 parallel Passages. 
 By tJie Rev. R. B. Gar- 
 diner, M.A. 
 
 Crown %vo. 2s. 
 
 Lectures on the Penta- 
 teuch & the Moabite Stone; 
 with Appendices. 
 By y. W. Colenso, D.D. 
 Bishop of Natal. 
 
 ZVO. 12S. 
 
 The Pentateuch and Book 
 of yoshna Critically Ex- 
 amined. 
 
 By y. W. Colenso, D.D. 
 Bishop of Natal. 
 
 Crmvji Zvo. 6j". 
 
 The New Bible Com- 
 me7itary, by Bishops and 
 other Clergy of the An- 
 glican Chnrch, critically 
 examijted by the Rt. Rev, 
 y. W. Colenso, D.D, 
 Bishop of Natal. 
 
 Zvo. 2$s. 
 
 TRAVELS, VOYAG-ES, &c. 
 
 The Valleys of Tirol ; 
 
 their Traditions and Ctcs- 
 
 tonis, and How to Visit 
 
 them. 
 
 By Miss R. II. Busk, 
 Author of ' The Folk- 
 Lore of Rome' &c. 
 
 With Frontispiece and 3 Ma^s. 
 %vo. \2S. Gd. 
 
 Croxvn 
 
 Eight Years in Ceylon. 
 By Sir Samuel W. Baker, 
 M.A. F.R.G.S. 
 
 N'eiv Edition, nvith Illustrations ens^raved 
 on Wood by G. Pearson. Cro^vn %vo. 
 Price "js. 6d. 
 
 The Rifle and the Hound 
 in Ceylon. 
 
 By Sir Satmiel W. Baker, 
 M.A. F.R.G.S. 
 
 Nr.v Edition, ivith Illustrations engraxrd 
 on Wood by G. Pearson. Croivn Zvo. 
 Price -JS. 6d. 
 
 Meeting the Stm ; a 
 Journey all round the 
 World through Egypt, 
 China, fapan, and Cali- 
 fornia. 
 
 By William Simpson, 
 F.R.G.S. 
 
 With Ilelio types and Woodcuts. Zvo. 2\s. 
 
 The Rnral Life of Eng- 
 land. 
 By William Howitt. 
 
 Woodcuts, %vo. 1 2 J. dd. 
 
 The Dolomite Monn^ 
 tains. Excursions through 
 Ty7'ol, Cardnthia, Carftiola^ 
 and Friuli. 
 
 By y, Gilbert and G. C. 
 Churchill, F.R.G.S. 
 
 With Illustrations. 
 
 Sq. cr. %vo. 2 1 J. 
 
NEW WORKS PUBLISHED BY LONGMANS & CO. 
 
 33 
 
 The Alpine Club Map 
 of the Chain of Mont 
 Blanc, from an acttcalStcr- 
 vey in 1 863-1 864. 
 By A. Adams-Reilly, 
 F.R.G.S, M.A.C 
 
 In ^hro mo lithography, on extra stotit draw- 
 ing paper \os. or vionnted on canvas 
 in a folding case, \2.s. 6d. 
 
 The Alpine Club Map 
 of the Valpelline, the Val 
 Tournanche, and the South- 
 ern Valleys of the Chain of 
 Monte Rosa, from actual 
 Survey. 
 
 By A. Adams-Reilly , 
 RR.G.S. M.A.C 
 
 Price 6j. on extra Stout Drawing Paper, or 
 *js. 6d. mounted in a Folding Case. 
 
 Hours of Exercise in the 
 Alps. 
 By John Tyndall, F.R.S. 
 
 Third Edition, with 7 Woodcuts by E. 
 Whymper. Crown Svo. J 2s. 6d. 
 
 Guide to the Pyrenees, for 
 the tcse of Motmtaineers. 
 By Charles Packe. 
 
 Second Edition, with Maps &^c. and Ap- 
 pendix. Crozvn Svo. Js. 6d. 
 
 How to See Norway. 
 By J. R. Campbell. 
 
 With Map and 5 Woodcuts, fcp. Zvo. ^s. 
 
 Untrodden Peaks and 
 Unfrequented Valleys ; a 
 Midsu7nmer Ramble among 
 the Dolomites. 
 By Amelia B. Edwards. 
 
 With numerous Illustrations. 2>vo. 21s. 
 
 The Alpine Club Map 
 
 of Switzerland^ with parts 
 of the Neighbouring Coiin- 
 tries, on the scale of four 
 miles to an Inch. 
 Edited by R. C Nichols, 
 F.S.A. F.R.G.S. 
 
 In Four Sheets, in Portfolio, 42^. or 
 mounted in a Case, \2s. 6d. Each 
 Sheet may be had separately, price 1 2s. 
 or mounted in a Case, \^s. 
 
 The Alpine Guide. 
 By John Ball, M.R.I. A. 
 late President of the 
 Alpine Chib. 
 
 Post Zvo. with Maps and other Illustrations. 
 
 Eastern Alps. 
 
 Price los. 6d. 
 
 Central Alps, including 
 all the Oberland District. 
 
 Price Js. 6d. 
 
 Western Alps, including 
 
 Mont Blanc, Monte Rosa, 
 Zerinatt, &c. 
 
 Price 6i-. dd. 
 
 Introduction on Alpine 
 
 Travelling in general, and 
 on the Geology of the Alps. 
 
 Price IS. Either of theThree Volumes or Parts 
 of the '■Alpine Guide'' may be hadicifh 
 this Introduction prefixed, \s. extra. 
 
 Visits to Remarkable 
 Places, and Scenes illns- 
 trative of striking Passages 
 in English History an. I 
 Poetry. 
 By William Howitt. 
 
 2 Tols. Svo. Woodcuts, 2$S. 
 
Zi 
 
 NEW WORKS PUBLISHED BY LONGMANS & CO. 
 
 V/ORKS of FICTION. 
 
 Whispers from Fairy- 
 la7id. 
 By the Rt. Ho7i. E. H. 
 
 Knatchbull - Htcgessen, 
 M.P. Author of' Stories 
 for my Children! ' Moon- 
 shine,' ' Queer Folk! &c. 
 
 With 9 llhtstrations from Original De- 
 signs engraved on Wood by G. Pear- 
 son. Crozvn 2>vo. price 6j. 
 
 Elena, an Italian Tale. 
 By L. N. Corny n, 
 
 2 vols, post Svo. 1/\S. 
 
 La dy W i II o ugh by ' s 
 
 Diary du7'ing the Reign of 
 Charles the First, the Pro- 
 tectorate, and the Restora- 
 tion. 
 
 Crozun 8w. 7^. (>d. 
 
 Centnlle, a Tale of Fan. 
 By Denys Shyne Law lor, 
 Author of ' Pilgrimages in 
 the Pyrenees and La7ides! 
 
 Crown ?)V0. los. 6d. 
 
 . The Folk-Lore of Rome, 
 collected by Word of Mouth 
 from the People. 
 By R. H. Busk, AtUhor of 
 
 ' The Valleys of TiroV 
 
 &c. 
 
 Croivn Zvo. I2s. 6d. 
 
 Cyllene ; or, The Fall of 
 Paganism. 
 By Henry Siteyd, M,A. 
 
 2 vols, pos ^vo. I4J. 
 
 Tales of the Teutonic 
 Lands. 
 
 By Rev. G. W. Cox, M.A. 
 and E. H. Jones. 
 
 Crffivn Zvo. \os. 6d. 
 
 Beckers Gallus; or Ro- 
 7nan Sce7ies of the Time of 
 Augustus. 
 
 Post Svo. p. 6d. 
 
 Becker's Charicles : Il- 
 lustrative of Private Life 
 of the A7icie7it G7^eeks. 
 
 Post Svo. ys. 6d. 
 
 Tales of Ancient Greece, 
 By the Rev. G. W. Cox, 
 M.A. 
 
 Croavn Svo. ds. 6d. 
 
 The Modern Novelisfs 
 
 Lib7^a7y. 
 
 Atherstone Priory^ 2s. boards ; 2j. dd. cloth. 
 
 The Burgomaster'' s Family, 2s. boards; 
 2s. 6d. cloth. 
 
 Melville's Digby Grand, 2s. and 2s. 6d. 
 
 — — Gladiators, 2s. and 2s.6d. 
 
 Good /or JVothing,2s. «'rr-"2x. 6d. 
 
 Holmby House, 2s. and 2s. 6d. 
 
 Interpreter, 2s. and 2s. 6d. 
 
 A'ate Coz>entry, 2s. and 2s. 6d. 
 
 Queen\f Maries, 2s. and 2s. 6./. 
 
 General Pounce, 2s. and 2s. 6d. 
 
 Trollope's IVarden, is. dd. and 2s. 
 
 Barchester Tcivcrs, 2s. and 
 
 2S. 6d. 
 
 Bramley-Moore's Six Sisters of the Val' 
 leys^ 2s. boards; 2s. 6d cloth. 
 
NEW WORKS PUBLISHED BY LONGMANS & CO. 
 
 35 
 
 Novels and Tales, 
 
 By the Right Hon. Benja- 
 min Disraeli^ M.P, 
 
 Cabinet Edilions, complete in Tejt Volumes, 
 croivn Svo. 6s. each, as follows : — 
 
 Lothair, ds. 
 Coningsby, 6j. 
 Sybil, ds. 
 Tancred, 6j. 
 
 Venetia, bs. 
 Alroy, Ixion, &^c. ds, 
 Youjtg Duke, &^r. 6s. 
 Vivian Grey, 6s. 
 
 Henrietta Temple, 6s. 
 Contarini Fleming, ^c. 6s. 
 
 Cabinet Edition^ in crown 
 
 Svo. of Stories and Tales 
 by Miss Sewell : — 
 
 Amy Herbert, is. 6d. 
 Gertrude, 2s. 6d. 
 EarVs Daughter, 
 
 2s. 6d. 
 Experience of Life, 
 
 is. 6d. 
 Cla'e Hall, is. 6d. 
 
 Ursula, y. 6d. 
 
 Ivors, is. 6d. 
 Katharine Ashton, 
 
 IS. 6d. 
 Margaret Percival, 
 
 y. 6d. 
 Laneton Parsonage, 
 
 y. 6d. 
 
 POETRY and THE DRAMA. 
 
 Ballads and Lyrics of 
 Old Finance; with other 
 Poems. 
 By A. Lang. 
 
 Square fcp. Svo. ^s. 
 
 Moores Lalla Rookh, 
 
 Tenniel's Edition, with 68 
 Wood Engravifigs. 
 
 Fcp. 4to. IIS. 
 
 Moores Irish Melodies, 
 Maclises Edition, with 1 6 1 
 Steel Plates. 
 
 Super-royal %vo. 31J. 6d. 
 
 Miniature Edition of 
 
 Moores Irish Melodies, 
 with Maclises i6i Illus- 
 trations reduced in Litho- 
 graphy. 
 
 Imp, i6mo. los. 6d. 
 
 Milton s Lycidas and 
 Epitaphiuin Damonis. 
 Edited, with Notes and 
 
 Introduction, by C. S. 
 
 y err am, M.A. 
 
 Croivn Zvo. 3^". 6d, 
 
 Lays of Ancient Rome ; 
 . with Ivry and the Ar- 
 mada. 
 
 By the Right Hon. Lord 
 Macaulay. 
 
 i6mo. 3J-. 6d. 
 
 Lord Mac an lay's Lays 
 of Ancient Rome. With 
 90 Illustrations on Wood 
 fro7n Drawings by G. 
 Scharf. 
 
 Fcp. \to. lis. 
 
 Miniature Edition of 
 Lord Macatdays Lays 
 of Ancient Rome, with 
 Scharf s 90 Illustrations 
 reduced in Lithography. 
 
 Imp. \6mo. \os. 6d. 
 
 Soiitheys Poetical Works 
 
 with the Author s last Cor- 
 7Xctions aiid Additions. 
 
 Medium Zvo. tvith Portrait, ii\s. 
 
 Bowdlers Family Shak- 
 
 speai^e, cheaper Genuine 
 Edition. 
 
 Complete in I vol. medium Svo. large type, 
 ivith 36 Woodcjit Illustrations, l^j". or 
 it I 6 vols. fcp. Zvo. price i\s. 
 
36 
 
 NEW WORKS PUBLISHED BY LONGMANS & CO. 
 
 Horatii Opera, Library 
 Edition, with English 
 Notes, Marginal References 
 a7td various Readings. 
 Edited by Rev.J , E. Yonge. 
 
 Svo. 21 s. 
 
 The yEneid of Virgil 
 Translated iiito English 
 Verse. 
 By y. Conington, M.A, 
 
 Crown Svo. gs. 
 
 Poems by yean Inge low. 
 
 2 vols. Fcp. Svo. los. 
 
 First Series, coittainmg ^ Dhided,'' * The 
 Star's Monument,^ (b'c. ibth Tlionsand. 
 Fcp. Sz'o. Ss. 
 
 Second Series, 'A Story of Doom,' * Gla- 
 dys and her Island,'' cr'c. 5/// Thousand. 
 Fcp. Svo. 5 J. 
 
 Poems by yean Ingelow. 
 First Series, with 7iearly 
 1 00 Woodcut Illustrations. 
 
 Fcp. ^lo. 21s. 
 
 RURAL SPORTS, HORSE and CATTLE 
 
 MANAGEMENT, &c. 
 
 Down the Road ; or, 
 Reminiscences of a Gentle- 
 man Coachman. 
 By C. T. S. Birch Rey- 
 nardson. 
 
 With Twelve Chroviolithographic Illustra- 
 tions from Original Paintings by II. 
 Aiken. Medium '^vo. \Nearly ready. 
 
 Blaine's Encyclopcedia of 
 Rtcral Sports; Complete 
 Accounts, Historical, Prac- 
 tical, and Descriptive, of 
 Iltmting, Shooting, Fish- 
 ing, Racing, &c. 
 
 With above 600 Woodcuts {20 from Designs 
 ^j John Leech). %vo. 21s. 
 
 A Book on Angli7ig: 
 a Treatise on the A 7^1 of 
 Angling in every branch, 
 i7tcluding full Illustrated 
 Lists of Salmon Flies. 
 By Francis Francis. 
 
 PostZvo. Portrait and Plates, 15J. 
 
 JVilcockss Sea -Fisher- 
 man : comprising the Chief 
 Methods of Hook and Line 
 Fishing, a glance at Nets, 
 and remarks on Boats and 
 Boating. 
 
 Ncii) Edition, 7inlh 80 Woodcuts. 
 Post Zvo. \2s. dd. 
 
 The Ox, his Diseases and 
 
 their Treatment ; zuith an 
 Essay on Parturition in the 
 Cow. 
 
 By y. R. Dobson, Memb. 
 R.C.V.S. 
 
 Crown Svo. with Illustrations, Js. 6d. 
 
 A Treatise on Horse- 
 shoeing and Lafneness. 
 By f. Gamgee, Vet. Surg, 
 
 Svo. with 55 Woodcuts, \os. 6d. 
 
 Youatt on the Horse. 
 Revised and enlarged by W. 
 Watso7t, M.R.C.V.S. 
 
 Svo. JFoodcuts, 12s. 6d. 
 
NEW WORKS PUBLISHED BY LONGMANS & CO. 
 
 37 
 
 Youatfs JVork on the 
 Dogy revised and enlarged. 
 
 Svo. Woodcuts^ 6s. 
 
 Horses and Stables, 
 By Colonel F. Fit zwy grants 
 X V. the King s Hussars, 
 
 With 24 Plates of Illustrations. %vo. lOs. 6d. 
 
 The Dog in Health and 
 
 Disease. 
 
 By Stonehenge. 
 
 With 73 Wood Engravings. Square crown 
 Svo. 7s. 6d. 
 
 The Greyhound. 
 By Stonehenge. 
 
 Revised Edition, with 24 Portraits of Grey- 
 hounds. Square crozun Svo. los. 6d. 
 
 Stables and Stable Fit- 
 tings. 
 By W. Miles, Esq. 
 
 Imp. Svo. with 13 Plates, i^s. 
 
 The Horses Foot, and 
 how to keep it Sound. 
 By W. Miles, Esq. 
 
 Ninth Edition. Imp. Svo. Woodcuts, 12s. 6d. 
 
 A Plain Treatise on 
 Horse-shoeing. 
 By W. Miles, Esq. 
 
 Sixth Edition. Post Svo. Woodcuts, 2s. 6d. 
 
 Rem a rks on Horses' 
 Teeth, addressed to Ptcr- 
 chasers. 
 By W. Miles, Esq. 
 
 Post Svo. is. 6d. 
 
 The Fly-Fisher's Ento- 
 mology. 
 
 By Alfred Ronalds. 
 With coloured Representa- 
 tions of the Natural and 
 Artificial Insect. 
 
 With 20 coloured Plates. Svo. 14^. 
 
 The Dead Shot, or Sports- 
 mans Complete Guide; a 
 Treatise on the Use of the 
 Gun, Dog-breaking, Pigeon- 
 shooting, &c. 
 
 By Marksman. 
 
 Fcp. Svo. ivith Plates, ^s. 
 
38 
 
 NEW WORKS PUBLISHED BY LONGMANS & GO. 
 
 V/ORKS of UTILITY and GENERAL 
 INFORMATION. 
 
 Maunder s Treasury of 
 
 Knozv ledge aftd Library of 
 Reference ; comprising an 
 English Dictionary and 
 Grammar, Universal Ga- 
 zetteer, Classical Diction- 
 ary, Chronology, Law Dic- 
 tionary, Synopsis of the 
 Peerage, UseftdTables,&c. 
 
 Fcp. Zvo. ds. 
 
 Maunder s Biographical 
 
 Treasury. 
 
 Latest Edition, recon- 
 strzccted a7id partly re- 
 written, with aboict i,ooo 
 additional Memoirs, by 
 W. L. R, Gates, 
 
 Fcp. Svo. 6s. 
 
 Maunder s Scientific and 
 Literary Treasury; a 
 Poptdar Encyclopccdia of 
 Science, Liter attire, and 
 Art. 
 
 New Edition, in part re- 
 written,with above i,ooo 
 new articles, by f. V. 
 Johnson, 
 
 Fcp. ^vo. 6j. 
 
 Maunder s Treasury of 
 Geography, Physical, His- 
 torical, Descriptive, and 
 Political. 
 
 Edited by W. Hughes, 
 F.R.GS. 
 
 IVilh 7 Maps ami i6 Plaics. Fcp. Svo. 6s. 
 
 Maunders Historical 
 
 Treasury ; General Intro- 
 ductory Otitlines of Uni- 
 versal History, and a 
 Series of Separate His- 
 tories. 
 
 Revised by the Rev, G. W, 
 Cox, M.A. 
 
 Fcp. Svo. 6s. 
 
 Maunders Treasury of 
 N alter al Hist oiy ; orPopit- 
 lar Die tiofiary of Zoology. 
 
 Revised and corrected Edition. Fcp. Svo. 
 ivith 9CX) Woodcuts, 6s. 
 
 The Treasury of Bible- 
 Knowledge ; being a Dic- 
 tionary of the Books, Per- 
 sons, Places, Events, and 
 other Matters of which 
 7nention is made in Holy 
 Scripture. 
 By Rev. J. Ay re, M.A. 
 
 With Maps, 1 5 Plates, and numerous Wood- 
 cuts. Fcp. Svo. ()s. 
 
 Collieries and Colliers : 
 a Ha7idbook of the Law 
 and Leading Cases relat- 
 ing thereto. 
 By J. C. Fowler, 
 
 Third Edition. Fcp. Svo. 'js. 6d. 
 
 The Theory and Prac- 
 tice of Banking. 
 By H D. Macleod, M.A. 
 
 Second Edition. 2 vols. Svo. 30J'. 
 
NEW WORKS PUBLISHED BY LONGMANS &, CO. 
 
 39 
 
 Modern Cookery for Pri- 
 vate Families^ reduced to a 
 System of Easy Practice in 
 a Series of carefully-tested 
 Receipts, 
 By Eliza Acton, 
 
 With 8 Plates &= i $0 Woodcuts. Fcp. 8w. 6j-. 
 
 A Practical Treatise on 
 
 Brewing ; with Formulcs 
 for Piiblic Brewers, and 
 Instructions for Private 
 Families, 
 By W. Black, 
 
 Fifth Edition. Svo. los. 6d. 
 
 Three Hundred Original 
 Chess Problems andSttcdies. 
 By fas. Pierce, M.A, and 
 W, T. Pierce. 
 
 With many Diagrams. Sq. fcp. Svo. Js. 6d. 
 Supplement^ 2s. 6d. 
 
 Chess Openings, 
 
 By P. W, Longman, Bal- 
 liol College, Oxford, 
 
 Second Edition^ revised. Fcp. Svo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 The Theory of the Mo- 
 dem Scientific Game of 
 Whist. 
 By W. Pole, F,R.S, 
 
 Fifth Edition. Fcp. Svo. 2s. 6d, 
 
 The Cabinet Lawyer ; a 
 Popidar Digest of the Laws 
 of England, Civil, Crimi- 
 nal, and Constitutional. 
 
 Twenty -fourth Edition, corrected and ex- 
 tended. Fcp. Svo. gs. 
 
 B tacks tone Economised ; 
 being a Compe^idittm of the 
 Laws of England to the 
 Present Time. 
 By D. M. Aird, Barrister. 
 
 Revised Edition. Post Svo. ys. 6d. 
 
 Pezvtners Comprehensive 
 Specifier ; a Guide to the 
 Practical Specification oj 
 every kind of Building- 
 Artificer s Work, 
 Edited by W, Yotmg, 
 
 Croxvn Svo. 6>r. 
 
 Hints to Mothers on 
 
 the Manageme}it of their 
 Health diiring the Peiiod 
 of Pregnancy and ifi the 
 Lying-in Room. 
 By Thomas Bull, M.D\ 
 
 Fcp. Svo. ^s. 
 
 The Maternal Manage- 
 ment of Children ifi Health 
 and Disease. 
 By Thomas Bull, M.D, 
 
 Fcp. Svo. ^s. 
 
40 
 
 NEW WORKS PUBLISHED BY LONGMANS Sc CO. 
 
 KNOAVLEDGE 
 
 T/^e Stepping- Stone to Know- 
 ledge; or upwards ^/ 700 Questions 
 ajid A?iswers on Miscellaiieous 
 Subjects^ adapted to the capacity of 
 Infant minds. 
 iSmo. IS. 
 
 Second Series of the Stepping- 
 
 Stone to Knowledge: Containitig 
 upwards of 800 Questions aiid 
 A7iswers on Miscellafieous Subjects 
 not contained in the First Series. 
 iSmo. is. 
 
 The Stepping-Stone to Geo- 
 graphy : Containing several Hwi- 
 dred Questions and Answers on 
 Geographical Subjects. 
 iSmo. IS. 
 
 The Stepping-Stone to Eng- 
 lish History; Questions and An- 
 swers on the History of England. 
 \%mo. \s. 
 
 The Stepping-Stone to Bible 
 Knowledge; Questions and An- 
 swers on the Old and Nav Testa- 
 7nents. 
 iSmo. IS. 
 
 The Stepping-Stone to Bio- 
 graphy; Quest iojis and Answers 
 on the Lives of Eininent Men and 
 Women. 
 iSmo. IS. 
 
 The Stepping-Stone to Irish 
 
 History : Containing several Hun- 
 dred Questions and Answers on 
 the Histofy of Ireland. 
 iSmo. IS. 
 
 The Stepping-Stone to French 
 History: Containing several Hun- 
 dred Questions and Ans7uers on 
 the History of France. 
 iSmo. IS. 
 
 for the YOUNG. 
 
 The Stepping-Stone to Roman 
 History: Containing several Hu?i- 
 dred Questions and Ansrcers on 
 the History of Kofne. 
 iSmo. IS. 
 
 The Stepping- Stone to Grecian 
 History: Containing sevei'al Hun- 
 dred Questions and Answers on 
 the Histoiy of Greece. 
 iSmo. IS. 
 
 The Stepping-Stone to Eng- 
 lish Grammar : Contaijiing seve- 
 ral Hundred Questions and An- 
 stvers on English Grammar. 
 iZmo. Is. 
 
 The Stepping-Stone to French 
 Pronunciation and Conversation: 
 Cofitaining several Hundred 
 Questions and Answers. 
 iSmo. IS. 
 
 The Stepping-Stone to Astro- 
 nomy: Containing several Hun- 
 dred familiar Questions and 
 Answers on the Earth and the 
 Solar and Stellar Systems. 
 iSmo. IS. 
 
 The Stepping-Stone to Music: 
 Containing several Hundred 
 Questiojis on the Science; also a 
 short History of Music. 
 iSf/io. Is. 
 
 The Stepping-Stone to Natu- 
 ral History : Vertebrate or Back- 
 boned Animals. Part I. Mam- 
 malia; Part II. Birds, Reptiles, 
 Fishes. 
 
 iSmo. Is. each Part. 
 
 The Stepping-Stone to Archi- 
 tecture; Questions and Answers 
 explaining the Principles and 
 Progress of Architecture from the 
 Earliest Times. 
 
 With 100 Woodcuts. iSmo. is. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Acton's Modern Cookery 39 
 
 A irds Blackstone Economised 39 
 
 Alpine Club Map of Switzerland 33 • 
 
 Alpine Guide (The) 33 
 
 Amos' s Jurisprudence 10 
 
 Primer of the Constitution 10 
 
 Anderson s Strength of Materials 20 
 
 Armstrong' s Organic Chemistry 20 
 
 Arnold's (Dr.) Christian Life 29 
 
 Lectures on Modem H istory 2 
 
 Miscellaneous Works 12 
 
 School Sermons 29 
 
 — Sermons 29 
 
 (T. ) Manual of English Literature 12 
 
 A mould's Life of Lord Denman 7 
 
 Atherstone Priory 39 
 
 Autumn HoHdays of a Country Parson ... 13 
 
 Ayres Treasury of Bible Knowledge 38 
 
 ^tz^o;?'j Essays, by Whaicly 10 
 
 Life and Letters, by -S/^a'^///^ ... 10 
 
 Works 10 
 
 Bain's Mental and Moral Science 11 
 
 on the Senses and Intellect 11 
 
 Baker's Two Works on Ceylon 32 
 
 Ball's Guide to the Central Alps 38 
 
 Guide to the Western Alps 38 
 
 Guide to the Eastern Alps 38 
 
 Becker's Charicles and Gallus 34 
 
 5/d;t/&'j Treatise on Brewing 39 
 
 Blackley's German-Enghsh Dictionary 15 
 
 Blaine's Rural Sports 36 
 
 Bloxam's Metals 20 
 
 Boultbee on 39 Articles 28 
 
 Bournes Catechism of the Steam Engine . 27 
 
 Handbook of Steam Engine 27 
 
 Treatise on the Steam Engine ... 27 
 
 1 mprovements in the same 27 
 
 Bawdier' s Family Shakspeare 35 
 
 Bramley-Moore' s Six Sisters of the Valley . 39 
 Brande's Dictionary of Science, Literature, 
 
 and Art 22 
 
 Bray's Manual of Anthropology 22 
 
 Philosophy of Necessity 11 
 
 ^A-/«/^/^y^ Astronomy 17 
 
 Browne's Exposition of the 39 Articles 28 
 
 Brunei' s lAie oi Brtinel 7 
 
 Buckle's History of Civilisation 3 
 
 Posthumous Remains 12 
 
 Bull's Hints to Mothers 39 
 
 Maternal Management of Children . 39 
 
 Burgomaster's Family (The) 39 
 
 Burke s Rise of Great Families 8 
 
 Vicissitudes of Families 8 
 
 Busk's Folk-lore of Rome 34 
 
 Valleys of Tirol 32 
 
 Cabinet Lawyer 39 
 
 Campl>eirs NovwsLy 33 
 
 Gates' s Biographical Dictionary 8 
 
 and Woodward' s Encyclopaedia ... 5 
 
 Changed Aspects of Unchanged Truths ... 13 
 
 Ci^j-^i^yj Indian Polity 3 
 
 Modern Mihtary Biography 3 
 
 Waterloo Campaign 3 
 
 dough's Lives from Plutarch 4 
 
 Colenso on Moabite Stone &c 32 
 
 's Pentateuch and Book of Joshua. 32 
 
 Speaker's Bible Commentary ... 32 
 
 Collins' s Mineralogy of Cornwall 27 
 
 Perspective 26 
 
 Commonplace Philosopher in Town and 
 
 Country, by A. K. H. B 13 
 
 Comte's Positive Pohty 8 
 
 Comyn s '^^rva. 34 
 
 Congreve's Essays 9 
 
 Politics of Aristotle 10 
 
 Conington's Translation of Virgil's ^neid 36 
 
 Miscellaneous Writings 14 
 
 C(?«i'a«jma'j Two French Dictionaries ... 14 
 Conybeare and Howson's Life and Epistles 
 
 of St. Paul 29 
 
 Cotton's Memoir and Correspondence 7 
 
 Counsel and Comfort from a City Pulpit... 13 
 
 Cox's (G. W.) Aryan Mythology 4 
 
 Crusades 6 
 
 History of Greece 4 
 
 ■ Tale of the Great Persian 
 
 War 4 
 
 Tales of Ancient Greece ... 34 
 
 and Jones's Teutonic Tales 34 
 
 Crawley's Thucydides 4 
 
 Creasy on British Constitution 3 
 
 Cresy's Encyclopaedia of Civil Engineering 27 
 
 Critical Essays of a Country Parson 14 
 
 Crookes's Chemical Analysis 24 
 
 Dyeing and Calico-printing 28 
 
 Culley's Handbook of Telegraphy 26 
 
 C«ja^y^' J Student's History of Ireland 3 
 
 D' Aubignd's Reformation in the Time of 
 
 Calvin 6 
 
42 
 
 NEW WORKS PUBLISHED BY LONGMANS & CO. 
 
 Davidson's Introduction to New Testament 31 
 
 Dead Shot (The), by Marksman 37 
 
 De Caisnc and Le Maoui's Botany 23 
 
 De Af organ s Y'^xa.AoxQS .-... 13 
 
 De Tocqueville s Democracy in America... 9 
 
 Disraeli's Lord George Bentinck 7 
 
 Novels and Tales 35 
 
 Dobson on the Ox 36 
 
 Dove's Law of Storms 18 
 
 Doyle's Fairyland 24 
 
 Z^/'^rw'j Reasons of Faith 29 
 
 ^'fl^Z/rt-^^'j' Gothic Revival 25 
 
 Hints on Household Taste 26 
 
 Edwards's Rambles among the Dolomites 33 
 
 Elements of Botany 22 
 
 Ellicott's Commentary on Ephesians 30 
 
 Galatians 30 
 
 Pastoral Epist. 30 
 
 Philippians,&c. 30 
 
 Thessalonians . 30 
 
 Lectures on Life of Christ 29 
 
 Epochs of History 6 
 
 iiz^d:«/.y Ancient Stone Implements 22 
 
 Ewalds History of Israel 30 
 
 Fairbairns A implication of Cast and 
 
 Wrought Iron to Building... 28 
 
 Information for Engineers 28 
 
 Treatise on Mills and Millwork 27 
 
 Farrar's Chapters on Language 13 
 
 Families of Speech 13 
 
 Fitzwygra m on H orses and Stables 37 
 
 Forsyth' slLssdiys 9 
 
 lunvlcr's Collieries and Colliers 38 
 
 Francis's Fishing Book 36 
 
 Freeman' sYW'sXoxxQ.zX Geography of Europe 5 
 
 lYom January to December 14 
 
 /•V't^wrt'^'j English in Ireland 2 
 
 History of England 2 
 
 Short Studies 12 
 
 Gairdncr's Houses of Lancaster and York 6 
 
 Gamgec on Horse-Shoeing 36 
 
 C;rt:;/y^"j Elementary Physics 19 
 
 Natural Philosophy 19 
 
 Gardiner's Buckingham and Charles 3 
 
 Life of Christ 32 
 
 Thirty Years' War 6 
 
 (7///^^/-/ and C^z/rr/^///' J Dolomites 32 
 
 Girdlestone's Bible Synonyms 29 
 
 Goodeve's Mechanics 20 
 
 Mechanism 20 
 
 Grant's Ethics of Aristotle 10 
 
 Graver Thoughts of a Country Parson 14 
 
 f7;r777/t''.f Journal i 
 
 Griffin's Algebra and Trigonometry 20 
 
 Griffi til's Sermons for the Times 29 
 
 Grove on Correlation of Physical Forces ... 18 
 
 Gw ill's Encyclopedia of Architecture 26 
 
 //f7r^ on Election of Representatives 14 
 
 Harrison's Political Problems 8 
 
 Hartwig's Aerial World 21 
 
 Polar World 21 
 
 Sea and its Living Wonders ... 21 
 
 • Subterranean World 21 
 
 Tropical World 21 
 
 Haughton's Kx{\Tcv2^ Mechanics 19 
 
 Hayward's Biographical and Critical Essays 7 
 
 //i?^/-'j Switzerland 22 
 
 //^/wA<?//2'j Scientific Lectures 18 
 
 Helmsley's Trees, Shrubs, and Herbaceous 
 
 Plants 23 
 
 /T^rjfy^f/' J OutHnes of Astronomy 17 
 
 Holland's Recollections 7 
 
 Howitt's Rural Life of England 32 
 
 Visits to Remarkable Places 33 
 
 Humboldt's Life 7 
 
 Hume's 'Essays 11 
 
 — ■ Treatise on Human Nature n 
 
 I/ine's History of Rome 5 
 
 Ingelow's Poems 36 
 
 Jameson s Legends of Saints and Martyrs . 25 
 
 Legends of the Madonna 25 
 
 Legends of the Monastic Orders 25 
 
 Legends of the Saviour 25 
 
 Jenkins Electricity and Magnetism 20 
 
 y^rrrtiw'j' Lycidas of Milton 35 
 
 Jcrrold's Life of Napoleon i 
 
 jfolmston's Geographical Dictionary 17 
 
 KaliscKs Commentary on the Bible 30 
 
 A'^j/V/i'j Evidence of Prophecy 30 
 
 Kenyo7t's (Lord) Life 7 
 
 Kerl's Metallurgy, by Crookes and Rohrig. 27 
 
 Kirby ZiXidi Spence' s Yxi\.Gmo\o^y 21 
 
 Knatciibull - Hugessen s Whispers from 
 
 Fairy-Land 34 
 
 Landscapes, Churches, &c. by A. K. H. B. 13 
 
 Lang's Ballads and Lyrics 35 
 
 Latham's English Dictionary 14 
 
 Laughton's Nautical Surveying 18 
 
 Laivlor's Centulle 34 
 
 Lawrence on Rocks 22 
 
 Lecky's History of European Morals 5 
 
 Rationalism 5 
 
 Leaders of Public Opinion 7 
 
 Leisure Hours in Town, by A, K. H. B.... 13 
 
 Lessons of Middle Age, by A. K. H. B.... 13 
 
 Leaves' s Biographical History of Philosophy 5 
 
 Liddell and Scott's Greek-English Lexicons 15 
 
 Life of Man Symbolised 25 
 
 Lindley and Moore's Treasury of Botany... 23 
 
 Z,/(y'rf' J Magnetism 20 
 
 Wave-Theory of Light 20 
 
NEW WORKS PUBLISHED BY LONGMANS & CO. 
 
 43 
 
 Longmans Chess Openings 39 
 
 Edward the Third 3 
 
 Lectures on History of England 3 
 
 Old and New St. Paul's 26 
 
 Loudon's Encyclopasdia of Agriculture ... 28 
 
 : Gardening 28 
 
 Plants 22 
 
 Z,cw«<a?<?/ J Engineer's Handbook 27 
 
 Lubbock's Origin of Civilisation 22 
 
 Lyra Germanica 25, 31 
 
 Macaulays (Lord) Essays 2 
 
 History of England ... 2 
 
 Lays of Ancient Rome 25,35 
 
 Miscellaneous Writings 12 
 
 Speeches 12 
 
 Works 2 
 
 McCulloch's Dictionary of Commerce 16 
 
 Macleod's Principles of Economical Philo- 
 sophy 10 
 
 Theory and Practice of Banking 38 
 
 Markham s History of Persia 4 
 
 Marshall's Physiology 24 
 
 Todas 22 
 
 Marshman s History of India 3 
 
 Life of Havelock 8 
 
 Marlineau' s ChvisiisLn Life 31 
 
 Hymns 31 
 
 Maunder' s Biographical Treasury 38 
 
 Geographical Treasury 38 
 
 Historical Treasury 38 
 
 Scientific and Literary Treasury 38 
 
 Treasury of Knowledge 38 
 
 Treasury of Natural History ... 38 
 
 Maxwell's Theory of Heat 20 
 
 May's History of Democracy 2 
 
 History of England 2 
 
 Melville's Digby Grand 39 
 
 General Bounce 39 
 
 Gladiators 39 
 
 Good for Nothing 39 
 
 Holmby House 39 
 
 Interpreter 39 
 
 — Kate Coventry 39 
 
 Queen's Maries 39 
 
 Mendelssohn's Letters 8 
 
 Menzies' Forest Trees and Woodland 
 
 Scenery 23 
 
 Merivale's Fall of the Roman Republic ... 4 
 
 Romans under the Empire 4 
 
 Merr {field's Arithmetic and Mensuration... 20 
 
 Magnetism 18 
 
 Miles on Horse's Foot and Horse Shoeing 37 
 
 on Horse's Teeth and Stables 37 
 
 Mill (J.) on the Mind 10 
 
 (J. S.) on Liberty 9 
 
 Subjection of Women 9 
 
 on Representative Government 9 
 
 • Utilitarianism 9 
 
 'j Autobiography 6 
 
 Dissertations and Discussions 9' 
 
 Essays on Religion &c 29 
 
 Hamilton's Philosophy 9 
 
 System of Logic 9 
 
 Mill's Political Economy 9 
 
 Unsettled Questions 9 
 
 Miller's Elements of Chemistry 23 
 
 — Inorganic Chemistry 20 
 
 Minto's (Lord) Life and Letters 6 
 
 Mitchell's Manual of Architecture 25 
 
 Manual of Assaying 28 
 
 Modern Novelist's Library 34 
 
 iT/<?«j^//'j ' Spiritual Songs ' 31 
 
 Moore' s IxishMelodiQS, illustrated 35 
 
 Lalla Rookh, illustrated 35 
 
 Morell's Elements of Psychology 11 
 
 Mental Philosophy n 
 
 Morris's French Revolution 3 
 
 Mailer's Chips from a German Workshop. 12 
 
 Science of Language 12 
 
 Science of Religion 5 
 
 New Testament Illustrated with Wood 
 
 Engravings from the Old Masters 24 
 
 Northcott on Lathes and Turning 26 
 
 (9' Ct?«^r' J Commentary on Hebrews 30 
 
 Romans 30 
 
 St. John 30 
 
 Odling's Course of Practical Chemistry ... 24 
 Owen's Comparative Anatomy and Physio- 
 logy of Vertebrate Animals 20 
 
 Owens Lectures on the Invertebrata 20 
 
 Packes Guide to the Pyrenees 33 
 
 Pattison's Casauban 7 
 
 Payen's Industrial Chemistry 26 
 
 I^ewtner's Comprehensive Specifier 39 
 
 Pierce's Chess Problems 39 
 
 Poles Game of Whist 39 
 
 /^/'^«^(?r^aj/'.f Mastery of Languages 15 
 
 Present-Day Thoughts, by A. K. H. B. ... 13 
 
 /'rfr/'(?r'j Astronomical Essays 17 
 
 Moon 17 
 
 Orbs around Us 17 
 
 Other Worlds than Ours 17 
 
 Saturn 17 
 
 Scientific Essays (New Series) ... 20 
 
 Sun 17 
 
 Transits of Venus 17 
 
 Two Star Atlases 18 
 
 Universe 17 
 
 Public Schools Atlas 16 
 
 Modern Geography 16 
 
 Ancient Geography 16 
 
 Ranken on Strains in Trusses 28 
 
 Kawlinso?i' s Parthia 4 
 
 Sassanians 4 
 
 Recreations of a Country Parson 13 
 
 Redgrave's Dictionary of Artists 24 
 
 Reilly's Map of Mont Blanc 37 
 
 1 Monte Rosa 37 
 
 Reynardson's Down the Road 36 
 
 Rich's Dictionary of Antiquities 15 
 
 A* /z/<:/-' J Rose Amateur's Guide 22 
 
 Rogers's Eclipse of Faith 29 
 
 Defence of Eclipse of Faith 29 
 
 Essays. 9 
 
44 
 
 NEW WORKS PUBLISHED BY LONGMANS & CO. 
 
 Rogers Thesaurus of English Words and 
 
 Phrases 14 
 
 Ronald's Fly-Fisher's Entomology 37 
 
 Rothschilds Israelites 30 
 
 i?«jj^// on the Christian Religion 6 
 
 English Constitution 2 
 
 's Recollections and Suggestions ... 2 
 
 Sandars s ']\x%\\vi\'axi s Institutes 10 
 
 Sanford's English Kings 2 
 
 'Savory's Geometric Turning 26 
 
 Schellen's Spectrum Analysis 18 
 
 Scott' s AVoevi Durer 24 
 
 Papers on Civil Engineering 28 
 
 Seaside Musing, by A. K. H. B 13 
 
 Seebohm's Oxford Reformers of 1498 3 
 
 Protestant Revolution 6 
 
 Sewell's History of the Early Church 5 
 
 Passing Thoughts on Religion 31 
 
 Preparation for Communion 31 
 
 Principles of Education 14 
 
 Readings for Confirmation 31 
 
 Readings for Lent 31 
 
 Examination for Confirmation ... 31 
 
 Stories and Tales 35 
 
 Thoughts for the Age 31 
 
 Thoughts for the Holy Week 31 
 
 Sharp's Post-office Gazetteer 16 
 
 Shelley's Workshop AppHances 20 
 
 Short's ChnrchUxsioxy 5 
 
 Simpson's Meeting the Sun 32 
 
 Smith's Paul's Voyage and Shipwreck 30 
 
 {Sydney) Essays 12 
 
 Life and Letters 7 
 
 Miscellaneous Works ... 12 
 
 Wit and Wisdom 12 
 
 (Dr. R. A.) Air and Rain 18 
 
 Sneyds Cyllene 34 
 
 Southey's Doctor 13 
 
 Poetical Works 35 
 
 Stanley's History of British Birds 21 
 
 Stephen's Ecclesiastical Biography 7 
 
 Freethinking and Plainspeaking 9 
 
 Stepping Stones (the Series) 40 
 
 5//r//«^' J Secret of Hegel n 
 
 Sir William Hamiltoti 11 
 
 Stonehenge on the Dog 37 
 
 on the Greyhound 37 
 
 Sunday Afternoons at the Parish Church of 
 
 a University City, by A. K. H. B 13 
 
 Supernatural Religion 31 
 
 TX)'/^'''-^ History of India .* 3 
 
 Manual of Ancient History 6 
 
 Manual of Modern History 6 
 
 (Jeremy) Works, edited by Eden. 31 
 
 T^<t-Books of Science 19 
 
 7 /if/r/yya//'^ History of Greece 4 
 
 Thomson s Laws of Thought 11 
 
 Thorpes Quantitative Analysis 20 
 
 and Muir's Qualitative Analysis ... ao 
 
 J'/^«^zVA«w' J Chemical Physiology 23 
 
 Todd (A.) on Parliamentary Government... 2 
 
 and Bowman's Anatomy and 
 
 Physiology of Man 24 
 
 Trench's Realities of Irish Life 12 
 
 Trollope's Barchester Towers 39 
 
 Warden 39 
 
 Tyndall's American Lectures on Light ... 20 
 
 Belfast Address 19 
 
 Diamagnetism 20 
 
 Fragments of Science 19 
 
 Hours of Exercise in the Alps... 33 
 
 Lectures on Electricity 20 
 
 Lectures on Light 20 
 
 Lectures on Sound 20 
 
 Heat a Mode of Motion 20 
 
 Molecular Physics 20 
 
 f/^(5^rw^^'j System of Logic 11 
 
 Ure's Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures, 
 
 and Mines 27 
 
 Warburton s Edward the Third 6 
 
 Watson s Geometry 20 
 
 {'Fa/^/j Dictionary of Chemistry 24 
 
 Webb's Objects for Common Telescopes ... 18 
 
 Weinhola's Experimental Physics 19 
 
 Wellington's Life, by Gleig 8 
 
 Whaiely's EngHsh Synonymes 14 
 
 Life and Correspondence 6 
 
 Logic 10 
 
 Rhetoric 10 
 
 White and Donkin's English Dictionary... 15 
 
 and Riddle's Latin Dictionaries ... 15 
 
 Whitworth on Guns and Steel 27 
 
 W^f7<:^<:>^j'j Sea-Fisherman 36 
 
 Williams's Aristotle's Ethics 10 
 
 Willis's Principles of Mechanism 26 
 
 Willonghbys (Lady) Diary 34 
 
 Wood's Bible Animals 22 
 
 Homes without Hands 21 
 
 Insects at Home 21 
 
 Insects Abroad 21 
 
 Out of Doors 21 
 
 Strange Dwellings 21 
 
 Yongc's English-Greek Lexicons x6 
 
 ^^ — Horace 36 
 
 FtJWcJ'// on the Dog 37 
 
 on the Horse 36 
 
 Z^//<;r'j Socrates 5 
 
 Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics... 5 
 
 Spottisivoode dr* Co., Printers, Nexv-street Square, Londoff. 
 
 ^V 
 
,,,VEBSITY OF CAUF0K:.IA 
 LIBRARY 
 
 book was ehaiged out. 
 
 "^'W 
 
 jj^tRBKlt. 
 
 Dtu 31 r 
 
 [30Tn-6,'11^ 
 

RETURN TO the circulation desk of any 
 
 University of California Library 
 
 or to the 
 
 NORTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 BIdg. 400, Richmond Field Station 
 University of California 
 Richmond, CA 94804-4698 
 
 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 
 2-month loans may be renewed by calling 
 
 (415)642-6233 
 1-year loans may be recharged by bringing books 
 
 to NRLF 
 Renewals and recharges may be made 4 days 
 
 prior to due date 
 
 DUE AS STAMPED BELOW 
 
 MAY ^7 1988 
 
I 
 
 GENERAL LIBRARY -U.C. BERKELEY 
 
 ■**-..,