than its numerical value. We may in these happy nations weigh votes as well as count them, though in less favoured countries we can count only. But in free nations, the votes so weighed or so counted must decide. A perfect free government is one which decides perfectly according to those votes; an imperfect, one which so decides imperfectly; a bad, one which does not so decide at all. Public opinion is the test of this polity; the best opinion which with its existing habits of deference, the nation will accept: if the free government goes by that opinion, it is a good government of its species; if it contravenes that opinion, it is a bad one.
Tried by this rule the House of Commons does its appointing business well. It chooses rulers as we wish rulers to be chosen. If it did not, in a speaking and writing age we should soon know. I have heard a great Liberal statesman say, “The time was coming when we must advertise for a grievance.”[1] What a good grievance it would be were the ministry appointed and retained by the Parliament a ministry detested by the nation. An anti-president government league would be instantly created, and it would be more instantly powerful and more instantly successful than the Anti-Corn-Law League.
It has, indeed, been objected that the choosing business of Parliament is done ill, because it does not choose strong governments. And it is certain that when public opinion does not definitely decide upon a marked policy, and when in consequence parties in the Parliament are nearly even,
- ↑ This was said in 1858.
