I do not of course mean that the ten-pound householders were great
admirers of intellect or good judges of refinement. We all know
that, for the most part, they were not so at all; very few
Englishmen are. They were not influenced by ideas, but by facts; not
by things impalpable, but by things palpable. Not to put too fine a
point upon it, they were influenced by rank and wealth. No doubt the
better sort of them believed that those who were superior to them in
these indisputable respects were superior also in the more
intangible qualities of sense and knowledge. But the mass of the old
electors did not analyse very much: they liked to have one of their
"betters" to represent them; if he was rich they respected him much;
and if he was a lord, they liked him the better. The issue put
before these electors was, Which of two rich people will you choose?
And each of those rich people was put forward by great parties whose
notions were the notions of the rich--whose plans were their plans.
The electors only selected one or two wealthy men to carry out the
schemes of one or two wealthy associations.

So fully was this so, that the class to whom the great body of the
ten-pound householders belonged--the lower middle class--was above
all classes the one most hardly treated in the imposition of the
taxes. A small shopkeeper, or a clerk who just, and only just, was
rich enough to pay income tax, was perhaps the only severely taxed
man in the country. He paid the rates, the tea, sugar, tobacco,
malt, and spirit taxes, as well as the income tax, but his means
were exceedingly small. Curiously enough the class which in theory
was omnipotent, was the only class financially ill-treated.
Throughout the history of our former Parliaments the constituency
could no more have originated the policy which those Parliaments