MR. COWEN ON PARLIAMENTARY SHORTCOMINGS.
MR. COWEN, in speaking on Saturday to the miners of Durham, hit upon an odd accusation against the House of Commons, and a still odder remedy for the evil of which he complained. His complaint was of" the disposition to plane
down opinion to a common level, to round off all individu- ality of character, all independence of action, and to establish a dull uniformity, instead of a genial and enlivening diversity of thought." We call that an odd accusation, coming as it does from Mr. Cowen, because Mr. Cowen professes to be a democrat of democrats ; and of this at least there can be no question, that it is the characteristic disposition of democracy in establishing representative instit utions —a disposition at once evil and good—" to plane down opinion to a common level, to round off all individuality of character, all independence of action, and to establish a dull uni- formity, instead of a genial and enlivening diversity of thought." We call this at once the evil and the good of democracy in relation to the representative institu- tions which it imposes. It is both, because undoubtedly in tending to make average opinion—what is right in the opinion of ninety-nine out of every hundred—prevail over all the varieties of taste proper to eccentricity and genius, it does tend, indeed, to ignore more and more that which is useful or interesting to only one in the hundred, unless he can gain the ear of the rest, even though that one in the hundred have more human nature in him than all the other ninety and nine put together. Of course, this involves a great evil wherever what is true and original gets suffocated by the dullness of the multitude ; of course, too, it involves a great good, when it really results in the raising of the ninety and nine common-place people to a fractionally higher level of character and intelli- gence, even though that elevation be gained at the cost of the exceptional character which is discouraged and depressed. The whole meaning of democracy is, however, that the advantage of the few must be sacrificed, when it comes into competition, as it often must do, with the good of the many ; —that a very small substantial increase in the knowledge and dignity of the million is to be secured at the cost, if it must be, of a much larger increase in the knowledge and dignity of the middle or upper class ; that a more diffused respectability of the dull,uniform character is to be gained, if it can only be so gained, at the sacrifice of a high concentration of taste and refinement in a single class. When a Conservative says to us that the modern House of Commons is not what the unreformed House of Commons was,—a stage for the brilliant display of the great gifts of a few,—we always reply that we admit the truth of what is alleged, but that, on the other hand, it is, what the unreformed House of Commons was not, an Assembly in which the elementary education of between four and five millions of children is a matter of infinitely greater importance than the higher culture of a few score of select youths. In the old House of Commons, the passing of the Education Act of 1870 would have been impossible. In the new House of Commons, refined passages of arms between men of taste and genius, who compete rather for an imaginative victory over the minds of their hearers than for success in interpreting the wants of the toiling millions, are becoming impossible. But Mr. Cowen ap- pears to us to wish to have all the advantages of democracy with- out having any of its evils,—to secure all the attention which democracy does certainly secure to the prosaic wants and sufferings of the million, and to have as well all the freshness, elasticity, and genius which used to be displayed in a House of Commons that was not so closely related to the wants of the million, but which could afford to foster and applaud wit and imagination whenever they were displayed, and how- ever irrelevant they were to the cravings of the people. The mere fact that there are twenty people to be considered, where there were not so very long ago only ten, and that these twenty are very often gathered into a close town group, where the ten were spread over a considerable acreage in the country, has itself a tendency "to plane down opinion to a common level, to round off all individuality of character, all independ- ence of action." For the larger number, especially when collected in a more concentrated group, impress themselves and their dull uniform wants much more powerfully on the mind, and obscure your sense of the freshness of unusual or unique forms of character by the dead- level of need which they too often present. We can hardly understand how it is that Mr. Cowen, as a well- known advocate of democracy, can reasonably complain of the House of Commons for its success in representing a democracy. And it is success in representing a democracy to give the same slow, emphatic utterance to all wide-spread wants, and the same sturdy discouragement to those exceptional flights of individuality and genius which, though they may lighten the political atmosphere, do so at the cost of with- drawing attention from the great leading features of the poli- tical scene. But if Mr. Cowen's complaint of the House of Commons is, as coming from a democrat, an odd one, his proposed remedy for the evil of which he complains is odder still. He thinks that if more members of the working- class could be got into the House of Commons, you would get "an ingenuousness and freshness of char- acter" which would greatly relieve the dull uniformity of the Assembly. Now, so far as the present Assembly is marked by dullness and uniformity, the reason is, we think, not in the least the want of individual ability, and even talent, in that assembly, but the want of opportunity for their success- ful display. Business exigencies, party exigencies, and the overpowering pressure of the constituencies almost suffocate what individual ability and resource there is in the House. Five out of six able men have to be silent, in order that the sixth may get the opportunity of shortly exposing the folly of the vain and empty bidders for popular favour. Fill the House with men of the genuine artisan class, and though they might be as ingenuous as Mr. Burt and as fresh as Mr. Broadhurst, the only effect would be that feeling more keenly than any of their colleagues the absolute need of action rather than talk, they would, like Mr. Burt and Mr. Broadhurst, pretty sedulously hold their tongues, and follow their leaders in suppressing as much as possible the volubility of the loquacious party. That, no doubt, would be a grand result, and one which we have always desired ; but it would not be the result for which Mr. Cowen looks. It would not restore the old vivacity and originality of an Assembly in which the great majority listened and the man of genius talked, but would at best only tend to diminish the confusion of an Assembly in which the political speculators talk, and the men of sagacity only try to compress talk. A few more shrewd working-men might greatly improve the representative char- acter of the House of Commons,—we are disposed to think they would greatly improve it,—but certainly the way in which they would imptove it would not be by breaking through the dull uniformity of opinion, but rather by trying to suppress the impertinent exuberances of opinion,—a very different matter,—in short, by urging the House of Commons more steadily to decisive votes. The artisans would reflect the democracy even better than the present representatives reflect it, and because they reflected it better, they would talk less and do more work. But that appears to be exactly what Mr. Cowen complains of. If we understand him rightly, he wants to see the House do less work and talk better than it does. But if he wants all the brilliancy and originality of the olden times, and yet all the sympathy with the "dim common populations" of the modern times, he must be dis- appointed; and though he may get more of the last by getting members of the working-class into the House of Commons, he will, for that very reason, get less of the first. His working- class Members will respond to the demands of the working- class ; and to respond to the demands of the working-class, means a much grimmer silence and a much more decisive gift for action than was the habit of the brilliant days on which Mr. Cowen looks back with yearning and regret.
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