Constitutional history -- Great Britain; Constitutional law -- Great Britain; Great Britain -- Politics and government
It is quite true that this imaginative sentiment is supported by a
sensation of political satisfaction. It cannot be said that the mass of
the English people are well off. There are whole classes who have not a
conception of what the higher orders call comfort; who have not the
prerequisites of moral existence; who cannot lead the life that becomes
a man. But the most miserable of these classes do not impute their
misery to politics. If a political agitator were to lecture to the
peasants of Dorsetshire, and try to excite political dissatisfaction,
it is much more likely that he would be pelted than that he would
succeed. Of Parliament these miserable creatures know scarcely
anything; of the Cabinet they never heard. But they would say that,
"for all they have heard, the Queen is very good"; and rebelling
against the structure of society is to their minds rebelling against
the Queen, who rules that society, in whom all its most impressive
part--the part that they know--culminates. The mass of the English
people are politically contented as well as politically deferential.
A deferential community, even though its lowest classes are not
intelligent, is far more suited to a Cabinet government than any kind
of democratic country, because it is more suited to political
excellence. The highest classes can rule in it; and the highest classes
must, as such, have more political ability than the lower classes. A
life of labour, an incomplete education, a monotonous occupation, a
career in which the hands are used much and the judgment is used
little, cannot create as much flexible thought, as much applicable
intelligence, as a life of leisure, a long culture, a varied
experience, an existence by which the judgment is incessantly
exercised, and by which it may be incessantly improved. A country of
respectful poor, though far less happy than where there are no poor to
be respectful, is nevertheless far more fitted for the best government.
You can use the best classes of the respectful country; you can only
use the worst where every man thinks he is as good as every other.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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