e, and if
it were, it isn't good manners to keep saying it. I prefer a society
where people have places and know them. They always do have places in
any possible society; only, in a democratic society, they refuse to
recognize them; and, consequently, social relations are much ruder,
more unpleasant and less humane than they are, or used to be, in
England. That is my first prejudice; and it follows, of course, that I
hate the whole democratic movement. I see no sense in pretending to
make people equal politically when they're unequal in every other
respect. Do what you may, it will always be a few people that will
govern. And the only real result of the extension of the franchise has
been to transfer political power from the landlords to the trading
classes and the wire-pullers. Well, I don't think the change is a good
one. And that brings me to my second prejudice, a prejudice against
trade. I don't mean, of course, that we can do without it. A country
must have wealth, though I think we were a much better country when we
had less than we have now. Nor do I dispute that there are to be found
excellent, honourable, and capable men of business. But I believe that
the pursuit of wealth tends to unfit men for the service of the state.
And I sympathize with the somewhat extreme view of the ancient world
that those who are engaged in trade ought to be excluded from public
functions. I believe in government by gentlemen; and the word
gentleman I understand in the proper, old-fashioned English sense, as a
man of independent means, brought up from his boyhood in the atmosphere
of public life, and destined either for the army, the navy, the Church,
or Parliament. It was that kind of man that made Rome great, and that
made England great in the past; and I don't believe that a country will
ever be great which is governed by merchants and shopkeepers and
artisans. Not because they are not, or may not be, estimable people;
but because their occupations and manner of life unfit them for public
service.

"Well, that is the kind of feeling--I won't call it a principle--which
determined my conduct in public life. And you will remember that it
seemed to be far more possible to give expression to it when first I
entered politics than it is now. Even after the first Reform
Act--which, in my opinion was conceived upon the wrong lines--the
landed gentry still governed England; and if I could have had my way
they would have