There, then, is a great authority, Edmund Burke, maintaining that governments are more liable to wilful error than those whom they govern--and the main value of majority rule is that it tends to bring the presumption round to the side of government, by making the voice of government also the voice of the people. I do not think the claims of majority rule can be put on any higher footing than that--that if the government is really expressive of a governed majority (and not merely of a majority to whom the constitution has accorded licence and privilege above its fellows) then the favourable presumption in any conflict comes round to the side of government. But if government claims its sanction from a majority, then we must enquire further into the composition and character of that majority; and yet further whether the mandate of that majority is the output of its conscience or merely of its self-interest; we must watch its workings, and see what really brings it to the poll--its moral sense, its pleasure in motor-cars, or its inclination (based on a national love of sport) to select and to back the winner. At whose bidding to-day, and for what motive, are we really being governed? Our duty toward government can never be greater than toward that voice of sanction on which it rests. And short of a voice of the whole people conscientiously uttered, and so conditioned as to be really free and equal, I do not see whence an entire sanction of government is to come--though you may have (under such and such circumstances) a large increase of presumption in its favour. But obviously there are degrees. We in England clearly recognise that. We have recognised it in our own history; we recognise it in looking abroad upon other countries. And we rather approve--most of us--of revolution against a Russian or a German government which has refused so to aim that the people shall be in some sort their own governors. Similarly, in this country, the sanction may be imperfect--we may have secured the form but not the substance. If so--if the form is so manipulated as to be virtually of no effect--the moral sanction is by so much lessened. Universal franchise--on the unattainable qualification, let us say, of standing on one leg for a fortnight, would be a mockery deserving of instant revolt. And there is some mockery in setting up any qualification of which a willing and painstaking citizen cannot avail himself--or herself. Perhaps there is also some mockery--some cheapening of citizenship--in setting up a qualification which requires no willingness and no pains.