and as they are apt to think they can create it, the great political
trial now beginning will simply fail. The wide gift of the elective
franchise will be a great calamity to the whole nation, and to those
who gain it as great a calamity as to any.

I do not of course mean that statesmen can choose with absolute
freedom what topics they will deal with and what they will not. I am
of course aware that they choose under stringent conditions. In
excited states of the public mind they have scarcely a discretion at
all; the tendency of the public perturbation determines what shall
and what shall not be dealt with. But, upon the other hand, in quiet
times statesmen have great power; when there is no fire lighted,
they can settle what fire shall be lit. And as the new suffrage is
happily to be tried in a quiet time, the responsibility of our
statesmen is great because their power is great too.

And the mode in which the questions dealt with are discussed is
almost as important as the selection of these questions. It is for
our principal statesmen to lead the public, and not to let the
public lead them. No doubt when statesmen live by public favour, as
ours do, this is a hard saying, and it requires to be carefully
limited. I do not mean that our statesmen should assume a pedantic
and doctrinaire tone with the English people; if there is anything
which English people thoroughly detest, it is that tone exactly. And
they are right in detesting it; if a man cannot give guidance and
communicate instruction formally without telling his audience "I am
better than you; I have studied this as you have not," then he is
not fit for a guide or an instructor. A statesman who should show
that gaucherie would exhibit a defect of imagination, and expose an
incapacity for dealing with men which would be a great hindrance to