me far more contrasted
than it ever was.

The full effect of the Reform Act of 1832 was indeed postponed by the
cause which I mentioned just now. The statesmen who worked the system
which was put up had themselves been educated under the system which
was pulled down. Strangely enough, their predominant guidance lasted as
long as the system which they created. Lord Palmerston, Lord Russell,
Lord Derby, died or else lost their influence within a year or two of
1867. The complete consequences of the Act of 1832 upon the House of
Lords could not be seen while the Commons were subject to such
aristocratic guidance. Much of the change which might have been
expected from the Act of 1832 was held in suspense, and did not begin
till that measure had been followed by another of similar and greater
power.

The work which the Duke of Wellington in part performed has now,
therefore, to be completed also. He met the half difficulty; we have to
surmount the whole one. We have to frame such tacit rules, to establish
such ruling but unenacted customs, as will make the House of Lords
yield to the Commons when and as often as our new Constitution requires
that it should yield. I shall be asked, How often is that, and what is
the test by which you know it? I answer that the House of Lords must
yield whenever the opinion of the Commons is also the opinion of the
nation, and when it is clear that the nation has made up its mind.
Whether or not the nation has made up its mind is a question to be
decided by all the circumstances of the case, and in the common way in
which all practical questions are decided. There are some people who
lay down a sort of mechanical test; they say the House of Lords should
be at liberty to reject a measure passed by the Commons once or more,
and then if the Commons send it up again and again, infer that the
nation is determined. But no important practical question in real life
can be uniformly settled by a fixed and formal rule in this way. This
rule would prove that the Lords might have rejected the Reform Act of
1832. Whenever the nation was both excited and determined, such a rule
would be an acute and dangerous political poison. It would teach the
House of Lords that it might shut its eyes to all the facts of real
life and decide simply by an abstract formula. If in 1832 the Lords had
so acted, there would have been a revolution. Undoubtedly there is a
general truth in the rule. Whether a bill has come up o