A MODERN "SYMPOSIUM." 



97 



A MODERN "SYMPOSIUM." 



IS THE POPULAR JUDGMENT IN POLITICS MORE JUST THAN THAT OF 



THE HIGHER ORDERS? 



LORD ARTHUR RUSSELL.— Mr. Gladstone, 

 in his recent controversy with Mr. Lowe 

 respecting the lowering of the county franchise, 

 expressed the opinion that the popular judgment 

 on political questions was often more just than 

 that of the higher orders. Mr. Lowe : remarked, 

 "We should be glad to have an instance, but 

 none is given us." Mr. Gladstone replied : " To 

 enumerate the instances in full would be beyond 

 the compass of an article which aims at bringing 

 the question to a point, or, indeed, of any article. 

 It might be enough to say, the instances make 

 up nearly the whole history of the country since 

 the peace of 1815." 2 Mr. Gladstone then pro- 

 ceeds to enumerate several striking instances, 

 and concludes: 



"It would be difficult to name a subject of the 

 first magnitude which might not be specified in the 

 list, unless that perhaps of Roman Catholic eman- 

 cipation. Without any other exception, the pop- 

 ular judgment on these broad issues has been more 

 nearly just and true, has gone more to the root of 

 the matter, than that of the higher orders. The 

 question is not whether the confession is one agree- 

 able to make, but whether it is true." 



I have often heard this opinion stated abroad 

 by Continental democrats in a somewhat cruder 

 form, and this mode of depreciating the value of 

 knowledge and education has always seemed to 

 me one of the most objectionable methods of 

 flattering the sovereign. But now that I see it 

 adopted by so eminent a statesman as Mr. Glad- 

 stone, I have thought the question worthy of 

 closer examination, and it becomes, I think, a very 

 interesting problem to inquire whether it is true, 

 and whether it is capable of more precise deter- 

 mination before it can be adopted in political 

 science. The question is, whether instinct really 

 is a safer guide than knowledge in the judgment 

 of political problems, and I believe that, on closer 

 examination, it will be found that the exceptions 

 are too numerous to admit of our adopting the 

 rule for our guidance. The opinion is sincerely 

 held by many members of the advanced Radical 

 party in this country, that, if the direction of 

 public affairs were placed under the more imme- 



1 Fortnightly Revieic, p. 738. 



2 Nineteenth Century, January, p. 200. 



79 



diate control of the working-classes, we should 

 enjoy in England a better government than we 

 do under existing arrangements ; and this opin- 

 ion is very ably represented in the monthly polit- 

 ical summaries of the Fortnightly Review. 



Mr. Frederic Harrison, writing on the govern- 

 ment of the town of Paris by the Commune, says : 



" The idea which the wealthy and professional 

 classes have so carefully fostered, that the whole 

 system of administration from top to bottom is a 

 peculiar mystery in which they alone have been 

 initiated, is a dogma so irrational that it could only 

 obtain as long as fitness for government is supposed 

 to depend on rhetorical skill. In sober truth, the 

 practical sense of an active workman is often the 

 most useful quality in the politician of a crisis. 

 And nothing in this movement (the Commune of 

 1871) is more promising, and certainly nothing has 

 more angered its enemies, than the high measure 

 of success with which mere workmen have con- 

 ducted the government of a vast capital. . . . The 

 workmen have shown how emergencies are to be 

 met, and how it is possible to be a statesman with- 

 out academic adroitness, and to be a minister with- 

 out the ostentation of courts." • 



I am convinced, on the contrary, that if skilled 

 workmen were called upon suddenly to take the 

 places and discharge the^duties of our cabinet 

 ministers, they would find the task quite beyond 

 their power. Yet no one who has read Mr. Fred- 

 eric Harrison's works with attention can doubt 

 the sincerity of his convictions, or suspect him 

 of being a courtier of the working-men. 



We have heard the theorist ; let us now turn 

 to the opinion of Colonel Rossel, who had practi- 

 cal experience of the government of the Parisian 

 Commune, and who paid for his lessons with his 

 life. The following is from the reflections the 

 unfortunate man wrote in prison, and which were 

 published with his posthumous papers : 



" There is one point on which I consider the 

 Commune a complete experiment — that is, the in- 

 competence of the working-classes for government. 

 It is necessary that the exercise of the functions 

 of government should remain in the hands of the 

 instructed classes until the working-classes are 

 possessed of sufficient instruction. Let the people 



1 Fortnightly Review, 1871, p. 573. 



