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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



3. Because they conceived that the reform- 

 ers directly menaced their interests by diminish- 

 ing the security of their property. 



4. Because they were irritated by over-state- 

 ments of probable good results, and other ex- 

 traneous matter, which deformed, when it became 

 a matter of public agitation, the views of the 

 " minority of the minority." 



Precisely the same thing occurred in the case 

 of slavery and the slave-trade, and of the Catholic 

 claims, and of the Irish Church, and of the repeal 

 of university tests, and of trades-unions, and of 

 the last Reform Bill, and of army purchase. In 

 every one of these instances cited by Mr. Hutton, 

 the "minority of the minority" was met in what 

 is called " society " by a great absence of culti- 

 vated intelligence, by the general interest of the 

 prosperous to keep things as they are, by the 

 direct and special interest of many influential 

 persons in the keeping up of abuses, and by a 

 certain dislike of the exaggerations which are 

 always incident to a popular movement. These 

 evil influences acted with varying effect in each 

 of the instances cited, but in every one all of 

 them acted more or less. 



Mr. Hutton appears to me to admit all that 

 Lord Arthur asserts when he allows, after citing 

 his instances, that the electorates of 1832 and 

 1867 would not have decided rightly in those in- 

 stances if they bad not been prompted by jurists 

 and statesmen. That, as I understand Lord Ar- 

 thur, is his whole contention. The masses were 

 right because they were more teachable by culti- 

 vated intelligence and noble personalities than 

 was what is called " society." Lord Arthur 

 would not for a moment deny that the " minority 

 of the minority " got from the masses the " steam- 

 power " by which they effected the great things 

 which they did effect in the iustances cited by 

 Mr. Hutton and in many others. 



The view on which Lord Arthur Russell's 

 paper is based seems to. me to be this : The 

 people has a right to ask for wise guidance from 

 those who have the infinite blessings of real edu- 

 cation, leisure, and long training in the art of 

 government ; while they, the natural leaders of a 

 free people, have a right to ask from that people 

 a fair measure of confidence, and a disposition to 

 believe that those politicians, and the friends of 

 those politicians, who have led them wisely in 

 the past, will lead them wisely in the future. 



The doctrine of honest disbelievers in liberal 

 principles, the doctrine which was so well acted 

 on, for example, by the excellent Prussian bu- 

 reaucracy, was, " Everything for the people, noth- 



ing by the people." The liberal doctrine, on 

 the other hand, is summed up in the formula, 

 " Everything for the people, nothing without the 

 people ; " but that formula has no connection 

 with the doctrines of those who conceive politi- 

 cal wisdom to be evolved, in some mysterious 

 manner, out of the contact of vast numbers of 

 persons individually not wise. 



In every well-ordered state", call it monarchy, 

 or republic, or what you will, the " minority of 

 the minority " must be the guiding force, but the 

 nearer that a state approaches to being a democ- 

 racy, the more care must the " minority of the 

 minority " take, not only to be right, but to seem 

 right, not only to be recognized by those whom 

 they would lead as safe, but as sympathetic. 

 Since the great changes of 1867 and 1868 this 

 has become very apparent, both in North and 

 South Britain. We have a more impulsive con- 

 stituency to deal with than we had. Well, then, 

 what should the " minority of the minority " do 

 — flatter prejudices, encourage the masses to lis- 

 ten only to the counsels of passion, tell deputa- 

 tions that the business of even those cabinet 

 ministers who must in the nature of things be to 

 a great extent specialists, if they are to be of 

 any use, is only to find out the wishes of their 

 employers ? Surely not ! That is the way in 

 which great states are ruined. The "minority 

 of the minority," while never concealing that it 

 thinks it has a right to lead, should endeavor to 

 place itself at the point of view of the masses, to 

 understand what they feel, and to help them, if 

 they are wrong, to take a correcter view. This 

 will in the long-run be the wise, as it is unques- 

 tionably the honest, policy; but it involves a 

 good deal of trouble. It involves, for instance, 

 at this moment, for that small but important 

 fraction of the " minority of the minority " which 

 is formed by the political leaders of the Liberal 

 party, not the base-line of conduct which has 

 been lately recommended to them — the following, 

 namely, the example set by their opponents of 

 harassing the Government of the day by petty 

 guerrilla warfare in the House of Commons — but 

 the drawing up of a clear programme of policy, 

 and the discussion and explanation of that policy 

 on many' thousand platforms. We are in the 

 midst of. a bad decade of the century — a decade 

 marked by the triumph of falsehood and charla- 

 tanism in politics — a decade marked by a bad 

 tone in "society," a tone of which a painful rec- 

 ord will remain, for the condemnation of a bet- 

 ter age, in the files of the new class of journals 

 which has sprung up for its amusement, and for 



