great fact. It is the new force in politics which it is the fashion to prate about.

What is this new force? It is easier to say what it is not than to define what it is. It is not a plebiscite. It is not the verdict of the electors at the ballot box, or the constitutionally expressed voice of the country. It is not a formal vote of any kind, either of the whole people or of any part of those entitled to act on their behalf. But it is difficult to say what it is. It is as variable in quality as it is in quantity. It changes with the place, time, and circumstances, and what is regarded as public opinion by one man is something altogether different in the estimation of another. Macaulay is the only one I have met with who has attempted to describe it. "Public opinion," he says, "is expressed by the measured voices of all classes, parties, and interests. It is declared by the press, the exchange, the market, the club, and society at large."1 Public opinion of this sort can hardly be said to be expressed by "measured voices" at all, for this can only be done by a vote. This description is only applicable to public opinion when it is unanimous. But in politics there is no unanimity. Except when some great political crime or blunder has been committed there.

1 Hist. of Eng., vol. iii. p. 543. See, also, something to the same effect in Todd's Parl. Gov., vol. i. p. 14.

are always two or more parties who view things in two or more different aspects. When one speaks of the opinion of society, or of a club, or of the press, we should therefore want to know What society, What club, and What section of the press was referred to. The very indefinableness of public opinion has its advantages, however. It leaves full scope for the play of the boldest imagination. The thing we speak of is all around us. It seems as universally diffused as the air we breathe, and almost as imperceptible. All parties in the state claim to represent it, and yet each imagines it enjoys a monopoly. The most unpopular minister that ever held office has never been without the comforting assurance that public opinion was on his side. No doubt the three tailors of Tooley Street at length became to believe that they were the country.

It cannot be asserted that it is a desirable thing for a representative chamber to be influenced by any force whatsoever outside the constituent body which called it into existence. Yet there can be no doubt that the House of Commons has been repeatedly influenced by what is called public opinion or outside pressure. While professing to have the greatest respect for the verdict of the country constitutionally expressed, the House of Commons has, nevertheless, required, nay insisted-and continues to require and

insist that that opinion shall be endorsed by public meetings and other demonstrations of the same kind, and without that endorsement, it has on numerous occasions refused to proceed with the business before it. In the following pages I shall endeavour to show (1) that Parliament has rejected measures which the constituent body have approved of, because their approval had not been endorsed by what is called public opinion; (2) that it has rejected measures which the constituent body were in favour of, because public opinion was supposed to be adverse to them; (3) that it has passed measures to which it was itself opposed, because public opinion was believed to be in favour of them, or because they were enforced by outside pressure.

I. The House of Commons has repeatedly rejected measures which had been approved of by the constituent body because public opinion had not endorsed them. The history of Lord John Russell's three Reform Bills will serve to illustrate what I mean under this head. His first Reform Bill, introduced into the House of Commons in 1852, was a great advance upon the Reform Act of twenty years before. It proposed the enfranchisement of several large towns, the disfranchisement of certain small boroughs, and the lowering of the borough and county qualification for electors. It is not disputed

that the constituents were in favour of reform on the lines here laid down at the time that this measure was introduced; and it admits of no doubt that this measure owed its introduction to positive pledges given by ministers to their constituents at the previous general election. The premier, Lord Palmerston, had on that occasion distinctly pledged himself to parliamentary reform, and the Queen's speech at the opening of the session showed that he had not forgotten the circumstance, as it intimated that the government intended to propose "such amendments in the act of the late reign relating to the representation of the Commons in Parliament as may be deemed calculated to carry into more complete effect the principles upon which the law is founded." This was distinct enough. Here, then, was a bill which one might suppose would be certain to be carried: the country had pronounced in favour of it at a general election; a majority of members had expressly or tacitly given their adherence to it at the hustings; and the ministry had pledged themselves through their chief to carry it into law. It was not carried into law, however, and no serious attempts were even made to discuss its provisions. Its rejection was a foregone conclusion. It was laid aside by general consent of all parties, and for no other reason than because there was an absence of enthusiasm in favour of it out of doors. The House

would not bother itself about a measure when there was no violent agitation out of doors in favour of it.1

Lord John Russell's second Reform Bill, introduced in 1854, was in many respects an improvement on the first. It provided for the extension of the franchise in counties and boroughs, for the disfranchisement of boroughs having fewer than three hundred electors; boroughs not having more than five hundred were to return only one member, and cities and counties having a population of one hundred thousand, and returning only two members, were to return three under the bill. The measure appears to have been carefully prepared, and its provisions were fully and ably discussed by its author; but like the previous bill on the same subject, the House would not entertain it. The bill was objected to as inopportune (owing to the impending war with Russia) and uncalled for, there being, it was alleged, no agitation in favour of it out of doors. To these objections Lord John Russell very forcibly replied :-"I cannot think," he said, "there is any danger in discussing the question of reform during the excitement of a foreign war. The time that is really dangerous for such a discussion is the time of great popular excitement and dissension at home. It is said there is no feeling on the subject; that there is a complete apathy about Molesworth's Hist. of Eng., vol. ii. p. 371.