526 History of the English Landed Intci-est. 



baronet destined to make room for the manufacturer and tlie 

 trader ? Will precedence of rank be some day decided by tlie 

 antiquity of commercial bouses, and will the heraldry of the 

 future be based on the distinguishing signs of ancient crafts 

 and mysteries? 



But even while we discuss the probabilities of this oligarchy 

 of the middle classes, there comes an ominous murmur from 

 the ranks of the democracy, which in the words of one of its 

 spokesmen, objects " to leap out of the frying pan of feudalism 

 into the fire of capitalism." The organisers of the "Free- 

 Trade-in-Land League," contend that up to the date of the 

 abolition of feudal tenures at the Restoration, " the landlords 

 were never allowed to forget that they were mere land trus- 

 tees and State tenants, liable to eviction at any moment for the 

 non-payment of rent." ^ Such as these wish to place back the 

 hands of Time's clock to that particular period, but not, how- 

 ever, so as to allow an unbridled commercialism to intercept 

 the spoil that they thus hope to appropriate. If, therefore, the 

 merchants and the farmers do not wish to behold the reins 

 of government dropping into the hands of an ignorant de- 

 mocracy, it behoves them to heal their differences at once with 

 the landlords and each other, and to oppose a solid front to this 

 new danger. 



Ignorance like fear is both cruel and unjust, and the knell of 

 British o-reatness will have sounded when our Constitution lies 

 at the mercy of the Proletariat. It may be a moot question 

 whether political power should be subject to either an heredi- 

 tary or plutocratic monopoly, but there is no sense in bestowing 

 it upon every individual merely because he has attained the 

 responsibilities of manhood. There must be a large majority 

 of politicians who would prefer to see some education test 

 applied to all aspirants for political power. To such the 

 recent extension of the franchise to the rural labourer, and its 

 proposed extension to every male adult, must surely appear a 

 greater danger to our nation than would be even the abolition 

 of both monarchy and House of Peers. Is it not therefore 



' FoUticH for tha People, 1st series. J. M. Davidson. 



