one we ought at present to think of legislating. Another
generation may find in the new representative system defects such as we
find in the old representative system. Civilisation will proceed. Wealth
will increase. Industry and trade will find out new seats. The same
causes which have turned so many villages into great towns, which
have turned so many thousands of square miles of fir and heath into
cornfields and orchards, will continue to operate. Who can say that a
hundred years hence there may not be, on the shore of some desolate
and silent bay in the Hebrides, another Liverpool, with its docks and
warehouses and endless forests of masts? Who can say that the huge
chimneys of another Manchester may not rise in the wilds of Connemara?
For our children we do not pretend to legislate. All that we can do
for them is to leave to them a memorable example of the manner in which
great reforms ought to be made. In the only sense, therefore, in which
a statesman ought to say that anything is final, I pronounce this bill
final. But in what sense will your bill be final? Suppose that you could
defeat the Ministers, that you could displace them, that you could
form a Government, that you could obtain a majority in this House,
what course would events take? There is no difficulty in foreseeing
the stages of the rapid progress downward. First we should have a mock
reform; a Bassietlaw reform; a reform worthy of those politicians who,
when a delinquent borough had forfeited its franchise, and when it was
necessary for them to determine what they would do with two seats
in Parliament, deliberately gave those seats, not to Manchester or
Birmingham or Leeds, not to Lancashire or Staffordshire or Devonshire,
but to a constituent body studiously selected because it was not large
and because it was not independent; a reform worthy of those politicians
who, only twelve months ago, refused to give members to the three
greatest manufacturing towns in the world. We should have a reform which
would produce all the evils and none of the benefits of change, which
would take away from the representative system the foundation of
prescription, and yet would not substitute the surer foundation of
reason and public good. The people would be at once emboldened and
exasperated; emboldened because they would see that they had frightened
the Tories into making a pretence of reforming the Parliament; and
exasperated because they would see that the Tory R