at "there is not a
brick of the Palmerston House standing". The change since 1865 is a
change not in one point but in a thousand points; it is a change not of
particular details but of pervading spirit. We are now quarrelling as
to the minor details of an Education Act; in Lord Palmerston's time no
such Act could have passed. In Lord Palmerston's time Sir George Grey
said that the disestablishment of the Irish Church would be an "act of
Revolution"; it has now been disestablished by great majorities, with
Sir George Grey himself assenting. A new world has arisen which is not
as the old world; and we naturally ascribe the change to the Reform
Act. But this is a complete mistake. If there had been no Reform Act at
all there would, nevertheless, have been a great change in English
politics. There has been a change of the sort which, above all,
generates other changes--a change of generation. Generally one
generation in politics succeeds another almost silently; at every
moment men of all ages between thirty and seventy have considerable
influence; each year removes many old men, makes all others older,
brings in many new. The transition is so gradual that we hardly
perceive it. The board of directors of the political company has a few
slight changes every year, and therefore the shareholders are conscious
of no abrupt change. But sometimes there IS an abrupt change. It
occasionally happens that several ruling directors who are about the
same age live on for many years, manage the company all through those
years, and then go off the scene almost together. In that case the
affairs of the company are apt to alter much, for good or for evil;
sometimes it becomes more successful, sometimes it is ruined, but it
hardly ever stays as it was. Something like this happened before 1865.
All through the period between 1832 and 1865, the pre-'32 statesmen--if
I may so call them--Lord Derby, Lord Russell, Lord Palmerston, retained
great power. Lord Palmerston to the last retained great prohibitive
power. Though in some ways always young, he had not a particle of
sympathy with the younger generation; he brought forward no young men;
he obstructed all that young men wished. In consequence, at his death a
new generation all at once started into life; the pre-'32 all at once
died out. Most of the new politicians were men who might well have been
Lord Palmerston's grandchildren. He came into Parliament in 1806, they
entered it after 1856. Such