A MODERN "SYMPOSIUM." 



103 



1832 and 1867 when fairly interrogated in the 

 same way. Nor is it any answer to say that these 

 large electorates would not have decided as they 

 did, had they not been first prompted by such 

 statesmen as Sir S. Romilly, Canning, Buxton, 

 Lord John Russell, Sir James Graham, Sir John 

 (now Lord) Coleridge, and Mr. Gladstone. I en- 

 tirely admit it. But the question is not where 

 the directing power came from, but where the 

 leaders got the steam-power by which the effect 

 was produced. The House of Lords read Sir 

 Samuel Romilly's speeches, and the unreformed 

 Ilouse of Commons heard them. Mr. CanniDg 

 and Lord John Russell were listened to by the 

 whole nation. Sir T. Fowell Buxton was better 

 known to the reformed House than he was to the 

 masses outside. The arguments of Sir John Cole- 

 ridge and Mr. Gladstone were not unfamiliar to 

 the House of Lords which so long declined to 

 abolish university tests. But these influences 

 fell without effect on the privileged classes, while 

 they bore seed and brought forth fruit abundant- 

 ly among the masses of the electorate. And that 

 is precisely what Mr. Gladstone meant when he 

 said that the popular judgment, when appealed 

 to by the right arguments, responds to them far 

 more freely and cordially than the judgment of 

 what is called the higher classes. Why these 

 classes are so much less sensitive when the right 

 chords of sympathy are struck, I do not know. 

 But I am quite sure that so it is. In a tolerably 

 long political experience I can recollect hardly 

 any great issue where the popular feeling, when 

 it was ranged against what is termed " society," 

 was not, as judged by the event, in the right. 

 Even in relation to the so-called " papal aggres- 

 sion " I suspect that both society and. the popular 

 feeling were equally in the wrong, and " society " 

 quite as wrong as the people. Certainly in regard 

 to the factory laws, in relation to the toleration 

 of trades-unions, in relation to the Irish Church, 

 in relation to the American Civil War, in relation 

 to the last Reform Bill, and in relation to army 

 purchase — to mention no matter on which an al- 

 most final judgment has not yet been pronounced 

 — society would always have voted by immense 

 majorities against the measures which the popu- 

 lar judgment, as enlightened by " the minority of 

 the minority," sanctioned, and with regard to 

 which, as far as I know, almost all sensible men 

 would now admit that society was wrong and the 

 people right. Of course society has no organized 

 exponent, so that I have been obliged to go for 

 tests to the various organized bodies of whose 

 degree of estrangement from popular influences, 



and subjection to the influence of what is termed 

 " educated " judgment, we have some positive 

 evidence. But, the evidence on these points be- 

 ing what it is, I submit that it lies with Mr. Lowe 

 and Lord Arthur Russell to make out something 

 like a rejoinder to the case I have tried to pre- 

 sent, and to the far more formidable case to 

 which, if it were permissible to write a volume, 

 instead of a few pages, it would be exceedingly 

 easy to extend it. 



Mr. GRANT DUFF. — A wise man lately 

 taken from us, Mr. Walter Bagehot, once quoted 

 to me some words which I do not remember ever 

 having seen in print, but which owe their origin, 

 I think, like many other noteworthy things, to 

 Dr. Newman : " When we have stated our terms 

 and cleared our ground, all argument is generally 

 either superfluous or fruitless." 



It is most necessary to remember such a say- 

 ing as this, in these Symposia, if we would not 

 run the risk of appearing to differ with each 

 other, when we are really at one. 



I think, after reading what they have said, 

 that there is far less divergence of opinion be- 

 tween Lord Arthur Russell and Mr. Hutton than 

 the latter seems to believe. Lord Arthur would 

 not deny that the " popular judgment " is more 

 teachable by " the minority of the minority " than 

 the " higher orders," while he expresses the 

 strongest possible dissent from the view which 

 is put forth in the passage which he quotes from 

 Mr. Frederic Harrison, and to which the words 

 of the unhappy Colonel Rossel seem to me a con- 

 clusive answer. I gather, too, from a phrase 

 which Lord Arthur uses about the want of ear- 

 nestness or enthusiasm in certain sections of Paris 

 and London society, that he quite admits the one 

 other advantage which the " popular judgment " 

 has over the " higher orders " — that, namely, it 

 is more serious, and quicker in its sympathies 

 with the efforts made by the "minority of the 

 minority " agninst some kinds of evil, than are 

 the " higher orders ; " and I entirely agree with 

 his conclusion that " there is no disagreeable con- 

 fession to make, and that the uneducated masses 

 are only in the right when led by right-minded 

 leaders." The whole art of politics, worthy of 

 the name, in our day, appears to be to try to 

 get the ideas of " the minority of the minority " 

 stamped as deep as possible on, and spread as 

 wide as possible among, the masses ; and it is in 

 the belief that " the minority of the minority " 

 has succeeded in doing that in the past, and will 

 succeed more in doing it in the future, that I am, 

 like Lord Arthur, a Liberal politician. 



