On the record
I am afraid I must put aside at once the idea that it will be altered entirely and altered for the better.
Said by
Walter Bagehot
Source
gutenberg.orgWalter Bagehot: “I am afraid I must put aside at once the idea that it will be altered entirely and altered for the better.”
Editor's note · Context
Bagehot expresses skepticism about the complete and beneficial alteration of the electoral system.
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That a House of Commons may work well it must perform, as we saw, five functions well: it must elect a Ministry well, legislate well, teach the nation well, express the nation's will well, bring matters to the nation's attention well.
He could have found the truth as a statesman just as he found it when a judge; but he never did find it.
There is no ELASTIC element, everything is rigid, specified, dated.
If the above reasoning be sound, compulsory constituencies are necessary, voluntary constituencies destructive; the optional transferability of votes is not a salutary aid, but a ruinous innovation.
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