England? Have not Reform Bills done much to diminish its power?' Something; but still not enough. The present House of Commons, elected five years ago, is nearly as much the representative of land, capital, and aristocracy as the last. Privilege tells at every point—often I believe unconsciously. For in one thing is England supereminentin one thing to be envied by all other nations; I mean in the general ability and purity of her statesmen. No one ever dreams of imputing to an English statesman of eminence any corruption, anything worse than party or class prejudice. Therein you look for their weaknesses; and I have never heard it gravely suggested in my time that there was a member of the House of Commons to be bought with money. How vast and blessed an influence on English society is exerted by the high personal character of her great statesmen, you cannot overestimate. Yet, as I said, privilege is mighty. No ministry can be formed without a preponderating representation of the aristocratic party. Sons of peers or Whig land-owners have, in a Liberal government, the best chances of under-secretaryships. In the army or navy, admirably as they have been reformed, privilege still wins appointments and promotions. Privilege resists reforms, gets special benefits, influences Parliament, sits on magisterial benches in the country, maintains unjust laws, discourages the unprivileged classes. XIII. INSTANCE OF POWER OF PRIVILEGE—THE BIRMINGHAM SEWAGE BILL. of power lege mingham Bill. Let me give you an instance. Birming- Instance ham some time ago was suffering in a ghastly of Priviway from bad drainage. The town council The Birsucceeded in carrying through the Committees Sewage of the Lords and Commons a sewage bill, at a cost of 20,000l. This bill proposed to discharge the sewage of the town on land. lying near the property of Sir Charles Adderley and Sir Robert Peel. But these gentlemen, though one of them professed to be a sanitary reformer, would have no sewage The between the wind and their nobility, and though it had been proved to the satisfaction of the two Committees that the proposed scheme would create no nuisance near their property, they collected enough friends and landowners to throw the bill out of the House of Commons on the third reading. people of Birmingham lost their 20,000l., and its enormous population went on generating disease. The case was aggravated by this fact: the minority in the division in the House of Commons on the Birmingham Sewage Bill represented more voters than the majority. We still retain those relics of a barbarous era of statesmanship, unequal constituencies, and ten of the smallest towns in Great Britain may outvote ten of the largest. This is one of the incidents of privilege, as it also gives it additional power, ANOTHER XIV. INSTANCE OF COMBINED IN FLUENCE OF VESTED INTERESTS AND instance of influence interests Act of Again, the National education originated Another by Lord John Russell and his coadjutors combined slowly pushed its way for thirty years through of vested all the difficulties created by the indifference and privilege: the of the people, by sectarian animosity, by the Education assumption of the Established Church, by 1870. the arrogance of Roman Catholic pretensions, as to the education of citizens who belong first to the state and then to their churchespretensions, let me add, which, as we in England have learned to our cost, no people can listen to without peril, or concede without derogating from its liberties. Government endeavoured for years to secure a national education by voluntary effort aided by the state. Thus there grew up a great group of vested interests-the denominational schools, most of them belonging to the Church or to the Romanists. They failed, however, to penetrate the dense mass of ignorance; and under the pressure of terrible facts we resolved to take a step forward. The Education Act of 1870 recognised the duty of the state to see that no child should grow up without the opportunity of a good education. It postponed the recognition of the complementary principle that every child should be compelled to take advantage of that opportunity. The Act also enacted that no part of England and Wales should be deficient in school accommodation; it did not, by making the education everywhere rate-supported and free, make it a right purchased by the whole community, common to every child in the community, and therefore to be enjoyed without stint or reproach. One step more was required to make the system perfect. The education given by the state should be given under state inspection—it should be secular only-its expenses should be subject to the control of a body elected by the ratepayers. The moment you omit any modification of these principles, you let loose in the community the dogs of religious war, |