Walter Bagehot: “We have, by unequivocal admission, the best budget in the world.”

I own that I do not entirely sympathise with the horror of these anomalies which haunts some of our best critics.

Political philosophy is still more imperfect; it has been framed from observations taken upon regular specimens of politics and States; as to these its teaching is most valuable.

Just so the lines of our Constitution were framed in old eras of sparse population, few wants, and simple habits; and we adhere in seeming to their shape, though civilisation has come with its dangers, complications, and enjoyments.

These anomalies, in a hundred instances, mark the old boundaries of a constitutional struggle.