Page:Eminent English liberals in and out of Parliament.djvu/182

 without her share; and, in her treatment of them, politically speaking, she has walked with remarkable fidelity in the footsteps of the men of "the little city" Witness Mill and Westminster. Westminster, in a moment of illumination, elected as her representative in Parliament the greatest political thinker in the kingdom, but soon felt the honor she had thus done herself more than she could bear, and returned in haste to her vomit. In no other civilized country except England could such a man have been excluded for any length of time from the national councils. In France half a dozen signed articles would probably have brought him about as many offers of seats in the legislature, while in the United States he would, to a certainty, have been made an ambassador of the first rank. Even Spain values her Castelars and Pi y Margalls. England alone keeps on, if not absolutely stoning the prophets, at least studiously neglecting them. The result we see in the heavy arrears of domestic legislation, the helplessness and criminality of our diplomacy abroad, and, worse than all, the disgust with representative institutions which a Parliament of intellectual imbeciles is sure, sooner or later, to inspire.

That so distinguished an authority as Mr. Morley, on nearly every one of the great questions—political and ethical—which agitate modern society, should never yet have found a place at St. Stephen's is a standing impeachment of the political sagacity of popular constituencies. And it would be an additional cause for rejoicing if a scholar and a gentleman like Mr. Morley could be made to replace one or other of the corrupt ring of ignorant, vainglorious, aldermanic gluttons who have taken so many of the London constituencies cap-