'I took up for the first time broad democratic ground. Attacking the famous speech of Mr. Lowe, [Footnote: Mr. Lowe had asked in the debate on the "Representation of the People Bill," as reported in Hansard, on March 13th, 1866: "If you want venality, ignorance, drunkenness; if you want impulsive, unreflecting, violent people, where do you look for them? Do you go to the top, or to the bottom?"] I declared that so far was I from agreement with these calumnies, that I was of opinion that those homely and truly English qualities which had to some slight extent grown slack among the upper classes were to be met with in all their strength as much in the more intelligent portion of the now unrepresented classes, as among those familiarly styled "their betters." With regard to the question of the fitness of the artisans for the franchise, I argued that they had not to decide for themselves between Austria and Prussia in the Holstein question, but had to decide between candidates who would settle the more abstruse questions for them. The middle classes, I contended, could as a body do no more, and the artisan was just as competent to judge of honesty and ability as the £10 householder; and less likely to be influenced by bribery and intimidation, as being more independent and more fearless of consequences. Moreover, any attempt to keep the great mass of the people from all share of political power seemed to me idle: whether we liked their advent to government or whether we feared it, it was inevitable, and the longer we delayed to prepare for it the worse it would be for so-called Conservative interests when it came. I contended that the working man had proportionately a greater stake in the country than the rich; that the taxes which he paid were a vastly more serious matter to him than those which the rich paid were to them, and that a hundred of the laws passed by Parliament vitally affected the interests of the working people to one which injured those of the upper class.' For a young man whose political views were so maturely thought out, debate was no mere exercitation; his education was fast passing into apprenticeship for public life; and in February, 1865, his father, Sir Wentworth Dilke, coming forward at a by-election in the Liberal interest for Wallingford, gave the Union debater his first chance on a public platform.