Walter Bagehot: “Again, the Congress declares war, but they would find it very difficult, according to the recent construction of their…”

The power of free interchange of ideas being wanting, the ideas themselves were barren.

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.

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.

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.