On the record
Parliamentary reform might afterwards have been conceded to instructed opinion, but nothing ought to have been conceded to the mob.
Said by
Walter Bagehot
Source
gutenberg.orgParliamentary reform might afterwards have been conceded to instructed opinion, but nothing ought to have been conceded to the mob.
Bagehot argues that parliamentary reform should be guided by informed opinion rather than mob influence.
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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.
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.
There is no ELASTIC element, everything is rigid, specified, dated.
The work would be done so well that we should not want any one to look over or revise it.