Lord Morris (better known to most of us as Sir
Michael Morris, the ex-Lord Chief Justice of Ireland) made a lively speech at the Cecil Club on Wednesday, on the best way of promoting Constitutionalism in a democratic assembly like the House of Commons, an assembly which is passing onwards into democracy " by leaps and bounds." The first point, he said, was to secure that the leaders should be well-instructed statesmen and not mere opportunists ; but even the well- instructed statesmen must know what popular opinion was, what the " man in the street" thought ; for if they did not, they would make for themselves superfluous difficulties which they might otherwise avoid. Lord Melbourne was once found talking to a fool at the Reform Club, and was reproached with having done so, and replied : " I am often in the habit of speaking to sensible people, and now I want to know what the fools think." Evidently Lord Morris holds that our best con- stitutional statesmen do not sufficiently acquaint themselves as to what the fools think, and so do not always know how best to avoid a considerable loss of energy in surmounting difficulties which, in a society full of sagacious people, would not have been difficulties at all. We have little doubt that that is so ; but what a horror it adds to political life, to have to consider not only bow to make your policy sagacious, but also how to make it not unnecessarily irritating to fools !
Previous page
