true now than it was in 1789, that--as Arthur Young told the French mob
which stopped his carriage--the rich pay many taxes (over and above the
poor-rates, a direct tax on the capitalist in favour of the labourer)
more than are paid by the poor. "In England" (says M. de Tocqueville of
even the eighteenth century) "the poor man enjoyed the privilege of
exemption from taxation; in France, the rich." Equality before the law
is as well-nigh complete as it can be, where some are rich and others
poor; and the only privileged class, it sometimes seems to me, is the
pauper, who has neither the responsibility of self-government, nor the
toil of self-support.

A minority of malcontents, some justly, some unjustly, angry with the
present state of things, will always exist in this world. But a majority
of malcontents we shall never have, as long as the workmen are allowed to
keep untouched and unthreatened their rights of free speech, free public
meeting, free combination for all purposes which do not provoke a breach
of the peace. There may be (and probably are) to be found in London and
the large towns, some of those revolutionary propagandists who have
terrified and tormented continental statesmen since the year 1815. But
they are far fewer in number than in 1848; far fewer still (I believe)
than in 1831; and their habits, notions, temper, whole mental
organisation, is so utterly alien to that of the average Englishman, that
it is only the sense of wrong which can make him take counsel with them,
or make common cause with them. Meanwhile, every man who is admitted to
a vote, is one more person withdrawn from the temptation to disloyalty,
and enlisted in maintaining the powers that be--when they are in the
wrong, as well as when they are in the right. For every Englishman is by
his nature conservative; slow to form an opinion; cautious in putting it
into effect; patient under evils which seem irremediable; persevering in
abolishing such as seem remediable; and then only too ready to acquiesce