PUBLIC OPINION

AND

LORD BEACONSFIELD.

[1875-1880.]

CHAPTER I.

THE PLACE OF PUBLIC OPINION IN THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION.

§ 1. Significance of the Contest which marked Lord Beaconsfield's last Ministry.

LORD BEACONSFIELD's last Ministry will be chiefly remembered in connection with the war between Russia and Turkey, and the bitter and protracted controversy to which that war gave rise in England.

Great events took place which have left their mark upon the map; but perhaps after all the chief importance of the time to us Englishmen may consist in its bearing on our own Constitution.

A particular line of policy in foreign affairs was earnestly pressed upon the English Government. In this matter Public Opinion at first assumed its own right to dictate, and took for granted that this right was unquestionable. But in the struggle which ensued, the question "What ought to be done?" got mixed up with the question "Who has the right to decide?"

The right which Public Opinion had assumed of laying down the course to be followed with reference to the broad issues of foreign policy was challenged.

Hence the time is one of controversy on a fundamental constitutional point: the place of Public Opinion in the English Constitution.

§ 2. The connection between the organisation of Public Opinion and Government by Consultation.

Probably no government that ever existed, not even the most despotic, has ever been able to shake itself quite loose from all restraint imposed by Public Opinion. In the last resort, as it has been said, despotism has been tempered by fear of assassination. The question is not so much between States which are ruled in accordance with Public Opinion and States which are ruled without any reference to it whatever, as between States where the constitution comprises some organisation of Public Opinion and States where this is not the case. In States of the latter class, though the rulers must at times be borne away by the pressure of Public Opinion, yet its action is fitful, uncertain, and, it may be added, proportionally violent. It cannot, properly, be called sovereign. But in States where a recognised means exists, as a part of the constitution, for the organisation of Public Opinion, for gathering it up and condensing it, for bringing its inchoate suggestions to a head, and for definitely ascertaining its verdict, so that the course of the State may be governed by that verdict-in such States we may properly say that Public Opinion is sovereign.

If, then, we wish to classify governments with reference to the place of Public Opinion, they fall, in the first place, into the two great genera which have just been indicated, according as Public Opinion is, on the one hand, unorganised in the constitution, or, on the other hand, organised and sovereign.

But important distinctions will arise from the mode in which Public Opinion is organised. It may be ascertained, shaped, and expressed ("represented" we say) by some body of men which, by the practice of the constitution at the time, is recognised as appropriate for the matter in hand. This, of course, is the most obvious case; but the question arises whether Public Opinion may not, as another alternative, find its exponent in a single man.

From this point of view, constitutions may be classified as "Consultative" or "Arbitrary." The distinction now drawn is between those forms of government where the great acts of sovereignty are due to a single mind, and those where such acts are the resultant of the concurrence of many minds consulting together. The essence of Consultative Government appears to lie in the elimination not

rely of personal interests but also of personal bias; and thus it

aims by the joint working of many minds to approximate to the working of an ideal mind.

To consider the practical differences in the manner of government likely to result from the adoption of the Arbitrary or the Consultative method would be beyond our present purpose; but the point may be illustrated by the following passage:—

When Boswell said to him that people would wonder how he could bring himself to take so much pains with his speeches, knowing with certainty that not one vote would be gained by them, Burke answered that it is very well worth while to take pains to speak well in Parliament .. and though an Act that has been ably opposed becomes law, yet in its progress it is softened and modified to meet objections whose force has never been acknowledged directly.-Morley's Burke, p. 210.1

We may use the term Cæsarism generally for any form of representative democracy where the representative is a single man. It is the characteristic of the Cæsar always to found his claim to rule on the will of the people, in contradistinction to the Autocrat who stands upon divine right or military force. How far, we may now ask, can Cæsarism properly be classed as coming within the category of governments where Public Opinion is sovereign? Can it be held that the Cæsar and the Autocrat fall respectively into the two great genera first recognised, distinguished by the sovereignty or non-sovereignty of Public Opinion?

If indeed the constitution could provide Public Opinion with an organ whereby it could intervene at any moment when the Cæsar ceased to be representative, and replace him by another, then, to be sure, we should allow it to be a case where Public Opinion remains sovereign. We may doubt, however, whether it is possible to find means which should operate like some selfacting machinery to put the Cæsar out of power the moment he begins to diverge from the course marked out for him by Public Opinion, without recourse in some form or other to an organisation of Public Opinion on a consultative basis.

On the other hand, if the Cæsar has been elected once for all, or even if he can only be replaced at long intervals, or by a special and abnormal effort, then we must come to the conclusion that Public Opinion has abdicated its sovereignty-at all events, for the time being-and the Cæsar is only to be distinguished from the Autocrat by the greater deference which he is willing to pay to unorganised Public Opinion. It may well be questioned 1 English Men of Letters, Macmillan and Co.

whether a Cæsarism must not necessarily be of this nature. It seems to follow that the arbitrary species of government by Public Opinion has at best but a precarious existence.

We have thus practically eliminated one of the cross-divisions arising out of the above two-fold division of governments, and have been led to the conclusion that all governments in which Public Opinion is really sovereign must adopt in some form the consultative method. We may now turn to the converse crossdivision and ask whether it is possible to have a government on the consultative method in which Public Opinion is not sovereign. We are led by this question to recognise a certain ambiguity in the phrase "Public Opinion." There is the Public Opinion of the whole nation, and there is the Public Opinion of each section or stratum of it. Clearly a consultative body may exist that only represents the opinion of one section or one stratum; and in a country that is governed by a consultative body of this nature it cannot properly be said that Public Opinion is sovereign. But if the consultative body really represent all the important elements of Public Opinion capable of existing in the country at the time, (whether actually elected by the persons in whom these elements reside, or not, is for the present purpose immaterial,) then Public Opinion may be said to be sovereign. It is worth notice, moreover, that these conditions may be fulfilled even when the assembly is in form aristocratic; provided, as just now said, that all the elements of Public Opinion capable of existing in the country at the time be virtually represented. It is the mark of the oligarchic assembly on the other hand that it deliberately suppresses certain really existent elements of Public Opinion.

These points, however, need not detain us further, it being the present object to show not so much that all government by consultation must be government by Public Opinion, as that all government by Public Opinion must adopt the consultative method.

§ 3. Hostility to Arbitrium a Mark of the English Constitution.

If we now consider the nature of the English Constitution as tried by this scheme of classification, we see at once that the consultative character is conspicuous in it.

Indeed no characteristic appears to be more thoroughly ingrained in the traditions of English polity than hostility to