For many years, indeed from the year 1830, when I retired from office, I have endeavoured to manage the House of Lords upon the principle on which I conceive that the institution exists in the Constitution of the country, that of Conservatism.
Bagehot reflects on his efforts to manage the House of Lords with a conservative approach since 1830.
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More from Walter Bagehot
The power of free interchange of ideas being wanting, the ideas themselves were barren.
If those persons be people of different temperaments, different ideas, and different educations, you have an almost infallible security that nothing, or almost nothing, will be done with excessive rapidity.
Now it is not conceivable that a race of beings with valuable instincts supporting their existence and supplying their wants would need these simple tools.
Nothing promotes intellect like intellectual discussion, and nothing promotes intellectual discussion so much as government by discussion.
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