Walter Bagehot

And each of those rich people was put forward by great parties whose notions were the notions of the rich--whose plans were their plans.

The electors only selected one or two wealthy men to carry out the schemes of one or two wealthy associations.

So fully was this so, that the class to whom the great body of the ten-pound householders belonged--the lower middle class--was above all classes the one most hardly treated in the imposition of the taxes.

A small shopkeeper, or a clerk who just, and only just, was rich enough to pay income tax, was perhaps the only severely taxed man in the country.

He paid the rates, the tea, sugar, tobacco, malt, and spirit taxes, as well as the income tax, but his means were exceedingly small.

Curiously enough the class which in theory was omnipotent, was the only class financially ill-treated.

As I have endeavoured to show in this volume, the deference of the old electors to their betters was the only way in which our old system could be maintained.

No doubt countries can be imagined in which the mass of the electors would be thoroughly competent to form good opinions; approximations to that state happily exist.

They were just competent to make a selection between two sets of superior ideas; or rather--for the conceptions of such people are more personal than abstract--between two opposing parties, each professing a creed of such ideas.

They were competent to decide an issue selected by the higher classes, but they were incompetent to do more.

The grave question now is, How far will this peculiar old system continue and how far will it be altered?

I am afraid I must put aside at once the idea that it will be altered entirely and altered for the better.

I cannot expect that the new class of voters will be at all more able to form sound opinions on complex questions than the old voters.

There was indeed an idea--a very prevalent idea when the first edition of this book was published--that there then was an unrepresented class of skilled artisans who could form superior opinions on national matters, and ought to have the…

And no one will contend that the ordinary working man who has no special skill, and who is only rated because he has a house, can judge much of intellectual matters.

The messenger in an office is not more intelligent than the clerks, not better educated, but worse; and yet the messenger is probably a very superior specimen of the newly enfranchised classes.

They have no time to improve themselves, for they are labouring the whole day through; and their early education was so small that in most cases it is dubious whether even if they had much time, they could use it to good purpose.

We have not enfranchised a class less needing to be guided by their betters than the old class; on the contrary, the new class need it more than the old.

The real question is, Will they submit to it, will they defer in the same way to wealth and rank, and to the higher qualities of which these are the rough symbols and the common accompaniments?

Many, perhaps most of the intelligent Conservatives, were fearful of the consequences of the proposal; but as it was made by the heads of their own party, they did not like to oppose it, and the discipline of party carried them with it.

On the other side, many, probably most of the intelligent Liberals, were in consternation at the Bill; they had been in the habit for years of proposing Reform Bills; they knew the points of difference between each Bill, and perceived that…

Many Radical members who had been asking for years for household suffrage were much more surprised than pleased at the near chance of obtaining it; they had asked for it as bargainers ask for the highest possible price, but they never…

Altogether the Liberals, or at least the extreme Liberals, were much like a man who has been pushing hard against an opposing door, till, on a sudden, the door opens, the resistance ceases, and he is thrown violently forward.

In the meantime our statesmen have the greatest opportunities they have had for many years, and likewise the greatest duty.

They have to guide the new voters in the exercise of the franchise; to guide them quietly, and without saying what they are doing, but still to guide them.