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 an enormous change in the age of the workers
necessarily caused a great change in the kind of work attempted and
the way in which it was done. What we call the "spirit" of politics
is more surely changed by a change of generation in the men than by
any other change whatever. Even if there had been no Reform Act,
this single cause would have effected grave alterations.

The mere settlement of the Reform question made a great change too.
If it could have been settled by any other change, or even without