The Sun.
London, England, 1867-08-19 00:00:00

THE TIIEORY OF MINORITIES.

The recognition by Parliament of the right of
minorities, though for the present limited in extent,
involves a principle deeply affecting the whole
organism of Government. Its universal adoption—
for it is not in the nature of such a principle to
remain only partial in its application—will shift the
basis on which public society rests, and will, in
reality, do more towards weakening obedience and
upsetting authority than the most democratic
lowering of the franchise ever yet seriously pro-
posed. For, to admit the right of minorities is to
break up the unity of corporate bodies, of the com-
munity ; it is to transfer authority from the com-
munity to the individual, to make the House of
Commons represent not communities, not the na-
tion, but persons and numbers.
But what authority is there in mere numbers ?
There is an authority intelligible and definite in

the community, in the corporate body, in the nation.
Its will, as expressed by the majority, is the will of
the community, of the corporate body, or of the
nation, loyally accepted and obeyed by all ; the acts
which proceed from such an expression of will are
the acts of the nation. But once destroy this prin-
ciple and you disintegrate society, and you will
have to fall back, as the only alternative, for the
source of authority on the will of the individual.
To admit the doctrine of minorities is to inaugurate
the reign of individualism, which is the bane of
modern society. But what Christians regard as
the bane of modern civilization—the erection of the
individual reason into the supreme and ultimate
judge of all acts, the source of all authority, philo-
sophers look upon as the triumph and the highest
result of modern progress. The supremacy of the
individual will is their creed ; all authority outside
of the individual is nothing else than a cession of his
sovereign rights, a delegation, for convenience sake, '
to the community of a portion of his supremacy. We
were not, therefore, surprised to find the philoso-
phers, the doctrinaires, the advocates of pure
" Geist," combining with old-fashioned and obstruc-
tive Tories to force on practical statesmen what, in
men like John Stuart Mill, is no mere crotchet,
but a Parliamentary development of their philoso-
phical theories.
To stiff and " wooden " politicians of the Lord
Ellenborough stamp—the heavy weights on the
Tory course—any extension of the franchise, though
conceived in the spirit of the Constitution, is down-
right treason—the commencement of inevitable
democracy—the beginning of the end of the British

Empire.
Such men, with political weights and scales in
their hands, are for ever weighing and balancing,
as grocers do pennyworths of sugar, political privi-
leges against popular demands ; they see in the
growth of the people in intelligence and political
activity, nothing but danger to the Constitution.
They are wilfully blind to the great merit of our
Constitution —its elasticity, its adaptability to the
growth of the nation, its power of comprehension.
Dull of eye, these obstructive politicians, void of
the true Conservative spirit, see not the signs of the
times in which they can scarcely be said to live, but
they fill the ear with evil forebodings ; prophets of
ill, their prophecies have a tendency to bring about
their own fulfilment. In voting with the philoso-
phical Radicals these men, both Tory and Whig,
had no idea -whatsoever on the theory of minorities.
They seized upon it simply in the hope of surrepti-
tiously cutting down and paring away the largely
extended franchise which, in a generous and un-
grudging spirit, th,; Government and the House of
Commons had conferred upon the people in full
confidence that the working classes, admitted to
the franchise, would act in obedience to old tradi-
tions and kindly associations so as to continue in
the ways of the Constitution. If the right of mi-
norities was only made use of by the obstructives
as a " dodge" to cripple the Reform Bill, the doc-
trinaires and philosophers rejoiced in its success as
in the triumph of a principle which, though prized
by " the politicians of the writing table," by the
philosophers," the ". enthusiasts," and the
"dreamers," they never for an instant fancied
would be adopted by practical statesmen, or be
driven by " Geist " into the heads of the " Philis-
tines." Hence their inordinate joy at such an un-
expected triumph.
The Times broke out in a strain of unconcealed
self-laudation. It regretted, for the honour of the
English press, that it stood alone in its support of
the right of minorities which but yesterday scouted
by Mr. Bright as the " spawn of feeble brains,"
rejected by practical politicians like Mr. Disraeli
and Mr. Gladstone, is to-day, thanks to Mr.
Lowe and the doctrinaires of the Times, to
John Stuart Mill and the philosophers, to the
House of Lords and its fears of the people,
erected into a principle of the Constitution. How
far in the support and in the development of
this novel principle—so deeply affecting the whole
organism of Government----Tories of the Lord
Ellenborough stamp, and philosophical Radicals will
combine, it is difficult to reckon. Between these
two small but influential parties there is one point
of contact, and that is their common detestation of
practical politicians of the great Middle class and of
the "Philistines." The Spectator,the most able and
consistent exponent of Rationalism in every rela-
tion of life, looks upon the introduction of the
new principle involved in the right of minorities as
the dawn of a new era in English politics. This
I English interpreter and worshipper of " Geist"
—this high-priest of individualism—announces
with an almost ecstatic joy, the dethronement
of the great Middle class and of its unintellectual
leaders. It sees in the alliance of the " thinkers,"
and of the Democrats, an inauguration of the
reign in England of a philosophic democracy. The
working men, inspired and led by the philosophers,
the philosophers freed from ancient prejudices and
precedents, by which unintellectual statesmen and.
the great Middle class are bound, will not shrink
from applying to politics the discoveries of pure
reason. In such a process the Spectator and. the
class it represents sees not only the means of de-
livering modern society from the dangers which
threaten its stability, but of attaining to a more
perfect state than has ever yet been seen. Fas
est et ab hoste doceri ; which means that we may
wisely learn from the Spectator what we have to
avoid, viz., the application to politics by the theory
of minorities of the doctrine of individualism, a
doctrine equally opposed to the principles of
authority in polities as in religion.—Westininster
Gazette.