The English Constitution | Page 9

both
of them will promise to do as he likes if he will only tell them what it is;
that, as he now holds the casting vote in our affairs, both parties will
beg and pray him to give that vote to them. I can conceive of nothing
more corrupting or worse for a set of poor ignorant people than that two
combinations of well-taught and rich men should constantly offer to
defer to their decision, and compete for the office of executing it. Vox
populi will be Vox diaboli if it is worked in that manner.
And, on the other hand, my imagination conjures up a contrary danger.
I can conceive that questions BEING raised which, if continually

agitated, would combine the working men as a class together, the
higher orders might have to consider whether they would concede the
measure that would settle such questions, or whether they would risk
the effect of the working men's combination.
No doubt the question cannot be easily discussed in the abstract; much
must depend on the nature of the measures in each particular case; on
the evil they would cause if conceded; on the attractiveness of their
idea to the working classes if refused. But in all cases it must be
remembered that a political combination of the lower classes, as such
and for their own objects, is an evil of the first magnitude; that a
permanent combination of them would make them (now that so many
of them have the suffrage) supreme in the country; and that their
supremacy, in the state they now are, means the supremacy of
ignorance over instruction and of numbers over knowledge. So long as
they are not taught to act together, there is a chance of this being
averted, and it can only be averted by the greatest wisdom and the
greatest foresight in the higher classes. They must avoid, not only every
evil, but every appearance of evil; while they have still the power they
must remove, not only every actual grievance, but, where it is possible,
every seeming grievance too; they must willingly concede every claim
which they can safely concede, in order that they may not have to
concede unwillingly some claim which would impair the safety of the
country.
This advice, too, will be said to be obvious; but I have the greatest fear
that, when the time comes, it will be cast aside as timid and cowardly.
So strong are the combative propensities of man that he would rather
fight a losing battle than not fight at all. It is most difficult to persuade
people that by fighting they may strengthen the enemy, yet that would
be so here; since a losing battle--especially a long and well-fought
one--would have thoroughly taught the lower orders to combine, and
would have left the higher orders face to face with an irritated,
organised, and superior voting power. The courage which strengthens
an enemy and which so loses, not only the present battle, but many
after battles, is a heavy curse to men and nations.
In one minor respect, indeed, I think we may see with distinctness the
effect of the Reform Bill of 1867. I think it has completed one change
which the Act of 1832 began; it has completed the change which that

Act made in the relation of the House of Lords to the House of
Commons. As I have endeavoured in this book to explain, the literary
theory of the English Constitution is on this point quite wrong as usual.
According to that theory, the two Houses are two branches of the
legislature, perfectly equal and perfectly distinct. But before the Act of
1832 they were not so distinct; there was a very large and a very strong
common element. By their commanding influence in many boroughs
and counties the Lords nominated a considerable part of the Commons;
the majority of the other part were the richer gentry--men in most
respects like the Lords, and sympathising with the Lords. Under the
Constitution as it then was the two Houses were not in their essence
distinct; they were in their essence similar; they were, in the main, not
Houses of contrasted origin, but Houses of like origin. The
predominant part of both was taken from the same class--from the
English gentry, titled and untitled. By the Act of 1832 this was much
altered. The aristocracy and the gentry lost their predominance in the
House of Commons; that predominance passed to the middle class. The
two Houses then became distinct, but then they ceased to be co-equal.
The Duke of Wellington, in a most remarkable paper, has explained
what pains he took to induce the Lords to submit to their new position,
and to submit, time after time, their will to the will