| <Saturday Review 16 February 1856: Bagehot>
| <Dull Government>
| Parliament is a great thing, but it is not a cheerful thing. Just 
| reflect on the existence of <p> “Mr. Speaker.” </p> First, a 
| small man speaks to him ~~ then a shrill man speaks to him 
| ~~ then a man who cannot speak <hi> will </hi> speak to 
| him. He leads a life of <p> “passing tolls,” </p> joint-stock 
| companies, and members out of order. Life is short, but the 
| forms of the House are long. Mr. Ewart complains that a 
| multitude of members, including the Prime Minister himself, 
| actually go to sleep. The very morning paper feels the weight 
| of this leaden <hi> régime. </hi> Even in the dullest society you 
| hear complaints of the dulness of Parliament ~~ of the 
| representative tedium of the nation.
| That an Englishman should grumble is quite right, but that he 
| should grumble at gravity is hardly right. he is rarely a lively being 
| himself, and he should have a sympathy with those of his kind. 
| And he should further be reminded that his criticism is out of place 
| ~~ that dulness in matters of government is a good sign, and not a 
| bad one ~~ that, in particular, dulness in Parliamentary 
| Government is a test of its excellence, an indication of its success. 
| The truth is, all the best business is a little dull. If you go into a 
| merchant’s counting-house, you see steel pens, vouchers, files, 
| books of depressing magnitude, desks of awful elevation, staid 
| spiders, and sober clerks moving among the implements of tedium. 
| No doubt, to the parties engaged, much of this is very attractive. 
| <p> “What,” </p> it has been well said, <p> “are technicalities to 
| those without, are realities to those within.” </p> To every line in 
| those volumes, to every paper on those damp files, there has 
| gone doubt, decision, action ~~ the work of a considerate brain, 
| the touch of a patient hand. Yet even to those engaged, it is 
| commonly the least interesting business which is the best. The 
| more the doubt, the greater the liability to error ~~ the longer the 
| consideration, generally the worse the result ~~ the more the pain 
| of decision, the greater the likelihood of failure. In Westminster 
| Hall, they have a legend of a litigant who stopped his case 
| because the lawyers said it was <p> “interesting.” “Ah,” </p> he 
| remarked afterwards, <p> “they were going up to the ‘Lords’ with it, 
| and I should never have seen my money.” </p> To parties 
| concerned in law, the best case is a plain case. To parties 
| concerned in trade, the best transaction is a plain transaction ~~ 
| the sure result of familiar knowledge; in political matters, the best 
| sign that things are going well is that there should be nothing 
| difficult ~~ nothing requiring deep contention of mind ~~ no 
| anxious doubt, no sharp resolution, no lofty and patriotic execution. 
| The opportunity for these qualities is the danger of the 
| commonwealth. You cannot have a Chatham in time of peace ~~ 
| you cannot storm a Redan in Somersetshire. There is no room for 
| glorious daring in periods of placid happiness.
| And if this be the usual rule, certainly there is nothing in the nature 
| of Parliamentary Government to exempt it from its operation. If 
| business is dull, business wrangling is no better. It is dull for an 
| absolute Minister to have to decide on passing tolls, but it is still 
| duller to hear a debate on them ~~ to have to listen to the two 
| extremes and the <hi> via media. </hi> One honourable member 
| considers that the existing ninepence ought to be maintained; 
| another thinks it ought to be abolished; and a third ~~ the 
| independent thinker ~~ has statistics of his own, and suggest that 
| fourpence-half-penny would <p> “attain the maximum of revenue 
| with the minimum of inconvenience” </p> ~~ only he could wish 
| there were a decimal coinage <p> “to facilitate the calculations of 
| practical pilots.” </p> Of course this is not the highest specimen of 
| Parliamentary speaking. Doubtless, on great questions, when the 
| public mind is divided, when the national spirit is roused, when 
| powerful interests are opposed, when large principles are working 
| their way, when deep difficulties press for a decision, there is an 
| opportunity for noble eloquence. But these very circumstances are 
| the signs, perhaps of calamity, certainly of political difficulty and 
| national doubt. The national spirit is not roused in happy times ~~ 
| powerful interests are not divided in years of peace ~~ the path of 
| great principles is marked through history by trouble, anxiety, and 
| conflict. An orator requires a topic. <p> “Thoughts that breathe 
| and words that burn” </p> will not suit the <p> “Liability of 
| Joint-Stock Companies” </p> ~~ you cannot shed tears over a <p> 
| “toll.” </p> Where can there be a better proof of national welfare 
| than that Disraeli cannot be sarcastic, and that Lord Derby fails in 
| a diatribe? Happy is the country which is at peace within its 
| borders ~~ yet stupid is the country when the Opposition is 
| without a cry.
| Moreover, when Parliamentary business is a bore, it is a bore 
| which cannot be overlooked. There is much torpor secreted in the 
| <hi> bureaux </hi> of an absolute Government, but <reg orig=“no one”>
| no-one </reg> knows of its existence. In England it is 
| different. With pains and labour ~~ by the efforts of attorneys ~~ 
| by the votes of freeholders ~~ you collect more than six hundred 
| gentlemen; and the question is, what are they to do? As they 
| come together at a specific time, it would seem that they do so for 
| a specific purpose ~~ but what it is they do not know. It is the 
| business of the Prime Minister to discover it for them. It is 
| extremely hard on an effervescent First Lord to have to set people 
| down to mere business ~~ to bore them with slow reforms ~~ to 
| explain details they cannot care for ~~ to abolish abuses they 
| never heard of ~~ to consume the hours of the night among the 
| perplexing details of an official morning. But such is the 
| Constitution. The Parliament is assembled ~~ some work must be 
| found for it ~~ and this is all that there is. The details which an 
| autocratic Government most studiously conceals are exposed in 
| open day ~~ the national sums are done in public ~~ finance is 
| made the most of. If the war had not intervened, who knows that 
| by this time Parliament would not be commonly considered “The 
| Debating Board of Trade?” Intelligent foreigners can hardly be 
| brought to understand this. It puzzles them to imagine how any 
| good or smooth result can be educed from so much jangling, 
| talking and arguing. M. de Montalembert has described 
| amazement as among his predominant sensations in England. he 
| felt, he says, as if her were in a manufactory ~~ where wheels 
| rolled, and hammers sounded, and engines crunched ~~ where all 
| was certainly noise, and where all seemed to be confusion ~~ but 
| from which, nevertheless, by a miracle of industrial art, some 
| beautiful fabric issued, soft, complete, and perfect. Perhaps this 
| simile is too flattering to the neatness of our legislation, but it 
| happily expresses the depressing noise and tedious din by which 
| its results are really arrived at.
| As are the occupations, so are the men. Different kinds of 
| government cause an endless variety in the qualities of statesmen. 
| Not a little of the interest of political history consists in the singular 
| degree in which it shows the mutability and flexibility of human 
| nature. After various changes, we are now arrived at the business 
| statesman ~~ or rather, the business speaker. The details which 
| have to be alluded to, the tedious reforms which have to be 
| effected, the long figures which have to be explained, the slow 
| arguments which require a reply ~~ the heaviness of subjects, in a 
| word ~~ have caused a corresponding weight in our oratory. Our 
| great speeches are speeches of exposition ~~ our eloquence is 
| an eloquence of detail. <reg orig=“No one”> No-one </reg> can 
| read or hear the speeches of our ablest and most enlightened 
| statesmen without being struck with the contrast which they 
| exhibit ~~ we do not say to the orations of antiquity (which were 
| delivered under circumstances too different to allow of a 
| comparison), but to the great Parliamentary displays of the last 
| age ~~ or Pitt, or Fox, or Canning. Differing from each other as the 
| latter do in most of their characteristics, they all fall exactly within 
| Sir James Macintosh’s definition of Parliamentary oratory ~~ <p> 
| “animated and continuous after-dinner conversation.” </p> They 
| all have a gentlemanly effervescence and lively agreeability. They 
| are suitable to times when the questions discussed were few, 
| simple, and large ~~ when detail was not ~~ when the first 
| requisite was a pleasant statement of obvious considerations. We 
| are troubled ~~ at least our orators are troubled ~~ with more 
| complex and difficult topics. The patient exposition, the elaborate 
| minuteness, the exhaustive disquisition, of modern Parliamentary 
| eloquence, would formerly have been out of place ~~ they are 
| now necessary on complicated subjects, which require the 
| exercise of a laborious intellect, and a discriminating 
| understanding. We have not gained in liveliness by the change, 
| and those who remember the great speakers of the last age are 
| the loudest in complaining of our tedium. The old style still lingers 
| on the lips of Lord Palmerston; but it is daily yielding to a more 
| earnest and practical, to a sober before-dinner style.
| It is of no light importance that these considerations should be 
| recognised, and their value carefully weighed. It has been the 
| bane of many countries which have tried to obtain freedom, but 
| failed in the attempt, that they have regarded popular government 
| rather as a means of intellectual excitement than as an implement 
| of political work. The preliminary discussion was more interesting 
| than the consequent action. They found it pleasanter to refine 
| arguments than to effect results ~ more glorious to expand the 
| mind with general ratiocination than to contract it to actual 
| business. They wished, in a word, to have a popular Government, 
| without at the same time, having a dull Government. The English 
| people have never yet forgotten what some nations have scarcely 
| ever remembered ~~ that politics are a kind of business ~~ that 
| they bear the characteristics, and obey the laws, inevitably 
| incident to that kind of human action. Steady labour and dull 
| material ~~ wrinkles on the forehead and figures on the tongue ~~ 
| these are the English admiration. We may prize more splendid 
| qualities on uncommon occasions, but these are for daily wear. 
| You cannot have an aera <hi> per annum </hi> ~~ if every year 
| had something memorable for posterity, how would posterity ever 
| remember it? Dulness is our line, as cleverness is that of the 
| French. Woe to the English people if they ever forget that, all 
| through their history, heavy topics and tedious talents have 
| awakened the admiration and engrossed the time of their 
| Parliament and their country.