Yet, whether they understood or not,
they were obliged to vote, and what was worse, the constituencies
also had to vote, and so the gravest matters were settled in utter
ignorance. This has often been adduced as an argument against an
extended suffrage, but, if it is an argument against anything, it is
an argument against intrusting the aristocracy and even the House
itself with the destinies of the nation; for no dock labourer could
possibly be more entirely empty of all reasons for action than the
noble lords, squires, lawyers, and railway directors whom I have seen
troop to the division bell. There is something deeper than this
scepticism, but the scepticism is the easiest and the most obvious
conclusion to an open mind dealing so closely and practically with
politics as it was my lot to do at this time of my life. Men must be
governed, and when it comes to the question, by whom? I, for one,
would far sooner in the long run trust the people at large than I
would the few, who in everything which relates to Government are as
little instructed as the many and more difficult to move. The very
fickleness of the multitude, the theme of such constant declamation,
is so far good that it proves a susceptibility to impressions to
which men hedged round by impregnable conventionalities cannot yield.
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