30G 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



sence of the more subtile agencies of temptation. 

 But the working-man, whom Fortune does not 

 taint, and whom it is nobody's interest to corrupt, 

 is one thing; the working-man practised upon, 

 courted, flattered, whether by the old-fashioned 

 arts, or by the new-fangled conservative dema- 

 goguism now so much in vogue, is another. His 

 little bark will carry no great breadth of canvas ; 

 and the puff of factitious adulation will act upon 

 its equilibrium like a squall. Of course, I do not 

 speak of those select men, who, as Mr. Harrison 

 has so well shown, are the homogeneous and sym- 

 pathizing standard-bearers that Nature has elect- 

 ed, and stamped with her own indisputable Jiat, 

 to guide the working community from within its 

 own precinct. I speak of the average man, when 

 subject to more than what had thus far been his 

 average danger. On the whole, I admit freely 

 that the deductions from the benefit of popular 

 suffrage are varied and serious. But what we are 

 now contending with is the allegation that it is 

 not a benefit at all, but a mischief. 



To point the issue still more exactly, let me 

 say that I decline to widen it, as Mr. Lowe would 

 have me, by allowing it to comprehend universal 

 suffrage. The apostle said, " Knowing the ter- 

 rors of the Lord, we persuade men ; " and Mr. 

 Lowe, with perfectly warrantable tactics, know- 

 ing the terrors of universal suffrage, seeks to per- 

 suade men thereby. What we want in these 

 papers is conviction, rather than persuasion. I 

 therefore put aside universal suffrage, which with- 

 out doubt must include some elements of unim- 

 agined horror, elements not yet fully developed, 

 because, as far as I know, it differs from house- 

 hold suffrage only in the free inclusion of lodg- 

 ers, whether belonging to the family or otherwise. 

 I have never heard of an attempt, as yet, to reg- 

 ister the sleepers under the dry arches of Wa- 

 terloo Bridge. But let us pass by the subject as 

 one too dreadful to contemplate, and be content 

 to deal with the original matter of debate — name- 

 ly, the establishment in the counties of the en- 

 franchising law which, ten years ago, we gave to 

 the towns. 



This being the issue, Mr. Lowe has, in the 

 middle of his short paper, stated the argument 

 from his point of view with his usual exactness. 

 He says the rationale is extremely simple ; and so 

 far I agree with him. His main contention is, 

 that the member of the lower class is liable to all 

 the sources of error which affect the member of 

 the higher class, and with these is " liable to many 

 deceptions from which the other is exempt." He 

 must take most of his opinions at second hand, 



and " his chance of being right depends on the 

 hands into which he may chance to fall." And 

 Mr. Lowe thinks it a strange paradox to maintain 

 (as indeed it would be if any one did maintain it) 

 that "a man with all the causes of error incident 

 to the wisest, and several more peculiarly his own, 

 is less liable to error than they." " The wisest," 

 I stop to observe, mean the richest ; but the ques- 

 tion chiefly at issue is whether wealth, together 

 with its accompaniments, is altogether entitled to 

 this commanding and conclusive panegyric. 



That the rich have vast advantages, I am 

 among the first to contend ; that the very highest 

 and noblest, because most fully and largely de- 

 veloped, specimens of humanity are found among 

 the highest classes, I for one believe. But they 

 too have their mob, as well as their elect and 

 favored specimens. I concede, however, to Mr. 

 Lowe, without hesitation or reluctance, the su- 

 periority of their intellectual qualifications ; not 

 universally ; for in their mob there are many ex- 

 ceptions ; but as a whole. There remains behind 

 a grave inquiry, to which it seems to me that the 

 opponents generally have given very insufficient 

 heed. It is whether political judgments are 

 formed by means of intellectual qualifications 

 alone. For if there be another element, which 

 helps to determine them in all or in certain cases, 

 it may then prove that the entrance of that ele- 

 ment into the case may disturb and overset what, 

 as I freely admit, would otherwise be solid and 

 well-poised computations. 



Now my stand has been taken on a basis of 

 fact, which no one has attempted to shake. I 

 affirm that, so far as we know the facts, and with 

 a possible exception or two, the popular judg- 

 ment on the great achievements of the last half- 

 century, which have made our age (so far) a praise 

 among the ages, has been more just and true than 

 that of the majority of the higher orders. Mr. 

 Lowe alleges that these have been the trophies 

 of " moderate " Liberalism. Sometimes : but this 

 is not true (for example) of the first Reform Act, 

 nor of Negro Emancipation, nor of Corn Law Re- 

 peal, nor of cheap postage, nor of relief of the 

 press from taxes, nor of the further extension of 

 the franchise, nor of the Abolition of Church 

 Rates, nor of Irish disestablishment, nor of the 

 Irish Land Act ; not to mention that moderate 

 Liberalism, except on the occasions when it re- 

 calcitrates, is as much eschewed by the Tories as 

 immoderate. So that my proposition stands. 

 Can Mr. Lowe fail to perceive how telling, how 

 grave a fact this is, if it be a fact at all? It is 

 surely one broad enough to sustain the super- 



