r such as under ordinary circumstances we should
have had.

Nor does the experience of the last election much help us. The
circumstances were too exceptional. In the first place, Mr. Gladstone's
personal popularity was such as has not been seen since the time of Mr.
Pitt, and such as may never be seen again. Certainly it will very
rarely be seen. A bad speaker is said to have been asked how he got on
as a candidate. "Oh," he answered, "when I do not know what to say, I
say 'Gladstone,' and then they are sure to cheer, and I have time to
think." In fact, that popularity acted as a guide both to
constituencies and to members. The candidates only said they would vote
with Mr. Gladstone, and the constituencies only chose those who said
so. Even the minority could only be described as anti-Gladstone, just
as the majority could only be described as pro-Gladstone. The remains,
too, of the old electoral organisation were exceedingly powerful; the
old voters voted as they had been told, and the new voters mostly voted
with them. In extremely few cases was there any new and contrary
organisation. At the last election, the trial of the new system hardly
began, and, as far as it did begin, it was favoured by a peculiar
guidance.

In the meantime our statesmen have the greatest opportunities they have
had for many years, and likewise the greatest duty. They have to guide
the new voters in the exercise of the franchise; to guide them quietly,
and without saying what they are doing, but still to guide them. The
leading statesmen in a free country have great momentary power. They
settle the conversation of mankind. It is they who, by a great speech
or two, determine what shall be said and what shall be written for long
after. They, in conjunction with their counsellors, settle the
programme of their party--the "platform," as the Americans call it, on
which they and those associated with them are to take their stand for
the political campaign. It is by that programme, by a comparison of the
programmes of different statesmen, that the world forms its judgment.
The common ordinary mind is quite unfit to fix for itself what
political question it shall attend to; it is as much as it can do to
judge decently of the questions which drift down to it, and are brought
before it; it almost never settles its topics; it can only decide upon
the issues of those topics. And in settling what these questions shall
be, statesmen have now especially a