As far as it goes, the mere putting up of a subject to discussion, with the object of being guided by that discussion, is a clear admission that that subject is in no degree settled by established rule, and that men are free to choose in it.
Bagehot explains that initiating discussion on a subject indicates its unsettled nature.
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But all men heed great results, and a change of Government is a great result.
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.
We have thus a whole group of ancient republics of non-Aryan race, and one which, being more ancient than the classical republics, could not have borrowed from or imitated them.
Perhaps such powers as these are what a wise man would most seek to exercise and least fear to possess.
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