nce only, or
whether it has come up several times, is one important fact in judging
whether the nation is determined to have that measure enacted; it is an
indication, but it is only one of the indications. There are others
equally decisive. The unanimous voice of the people may be so strong,
and may be conveyed through so many organs, that it may be assumed to
be lasting.

Englishmen are so very miscellaneous, that that which has REALLY
convinced a great and varied majority of them for the present may
fairly be assumed to be likely to continue permanently to convince
them. One sort might easily fall into a temporary and erroneous
fanaticism, but all sorts simultaneously are very unlikely to do so.

I should venture so far as to lay down for an approximate rule, that
the House of Lords ought, on a first-class subject, to be slow?--very
slow--in rejecting a Bill passed even once by a large majority of the
House of Commons. I would not of course lay this down as an unvarying
rule; as I have said, I have for practical purposes no belief in
unvarying rules. Majorities may be either genuine or fictitious, and if
they are not genuine, if they do not embody the opinion of the
representative as well as the opinion of the constituency, no one would
wish to have any attention paid to them. But if the opinion of the
nation be strong and be universal, if it be really believed by members
of Parliament, as well as by those who send them to Parliament, in my
judgment the Lords should yield at once, and should not resist it.

My main reason is one which has not been much urged. As a theoretical
writer I can venture to say, what no elected member of Parliament,
Conservative or Liberal, can venture to say, that I am exceedingly
afraid of the ignorant multitude of the new constituencies. I wish to
have as great and as compact a power as possible to resist it. But a
dissension between the Lords and Commons divides that resisting power;
as I have explained, the House of Commons still mainly represents the
plutocracy, the Lords represent the aristocracy. The main interest of
both these classes is now identical, which is to prevent or to mitigate
the rule of uneducated numbers. But to prevent it effectually, they
must not quarrel among themselves; they must not bid one against the
other for the aid of their common opponent. And this is precisely the
effect of a division between Lords and Commons. The two great bodies of
the educated rich g