members must be followed by grave evils. It is thought that the House has in this respect lately undergone a change for the worse, and is likely still further to deteriorate. And there is undoubtedly some reason for the apprehension.

The gravest of all the evils to which representative institutions are liable is that the supreme management of affairs should pass into the hands of men who are unprincipled and incapable. And the evil is most to be feared where the government is most popular, where the suffrage is most widely extended. This is the chief danger of democracy, and it is a very real danger. Whatever may be thought as to the advisability of lowering the suffrage—and we have already expressed our confidence in the broad political intelligence of the people-there can be little doubt that the entrance into the House of any large number of uneducated representatives would be fraught with mischief. It is one thing to give the uneducated classes a share of political power, it is quite another to

entrust them with the chief share of active administration. The danger is not only that such representatives will be lacking in intelligence but that they will be peculiarly open to certain evil influences. Under such circumstances political power would be specially liable to get into the hands of those who seek only for notoriety, who have no real stake in the country, and who are reckless of its future and permanent interests. "It would be difficult," says Mr. Lecky, “to exaggerate the dangers that may result from even a short period of such rule, and they have often driven nations to take refuge from their own representatives in the arms of despotism." It has been forcibly pointed out by the same writer how liable the national revenue would be to malversation, how likely that the country would be plunged into war, and its political institutions recklessly destroyed. "Hence to minds ambitious only of notoriety, careless of the permanent interests of the nation, and destitute of all real feeling of

political responsibility, a policy of mere destruction possesses an irresistible attraction." He further points out how, when other things are equal, the class which has least to gain by dishonesty will exhibit the highest level of integrity, the class whose interests are most bound up with those of the nation will be most careful of the national welfare, the class which has most leisure and most means of instruction, will as a whole be the most intelligent. Besides this— and this consideration will be most appreciated by the House itself—the tact, the refinement, the reticence, the conciliatory tone of thought and manner, characteristic of the highly educated classes, are all peculiarly valuable in public men whose task it is to reconcile conflicting pretensions and to harmonise jarring interests.

There is also the probability that such uneducated representatives would be more subservient to party, and that their presence in the House would tend to farther aggravate the abuses of the system; for although the uneducated

classes taken as a whole are not specially influenced by party considerations, the individual taken from their midst and launched into political warfare is apt to become the bitterest of partisans.

CHAPTER VI.

THE LESSONS OF LEGISLATION.

"Sure enough just laws are an excellent attainment, the first condition of all prosperity for human creatures; but few reflect how extremely difficult such attainment s."

CARLYLE.

A

THE chief fact which a study of legislation brings home to us is its ineffectiveness. perusal of the Statute Book almost necessarily convinces us that legislation is to a startling degree inadequate, ineffective, and mischievous. No doubt it has done many great things, but it has also done many very small ones-many petty, vexatious, gratuitous mischiefs. No doubt it has done much good, but it has done an almost equal amount of harm; and that it