Walter Bagehot: “But a free nation rarely can be--and the English nation is not--quick of apprehension.”

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.

The whole history of civilisation, is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards.

No doubt this momentary gain is bought at a ruinous after-cost.

Perhaps such powers as these are what a wise man would most seek to exercise and least fear to possess.