inion. It must not be a mere majority, but a large majority; a steady
majority; a genuine majority representing a real and earnest desire, and
especially in the classes who are most directly affected; not a mere
factitious majority such as is often created by skilful organisation and
agitation; by the enthusiasm of the few confronting the indifference of
the many. In free and democratic States one of the most necessary but
also one of the most difficult arts of statesmanship is that of testing
public opinion, discriminating between what is real, growing and
permanent and what is transient, artificial and declining. As a French
writer has said, 'The great art in politics consists not in hearing
those who speak, but in hearing those who are silent.' On such questions
as those I have mentioned we may find the same statesman without any
real inconsistency supporting the same measures in one part of the
kingdom and opposing them in another; supporting them at one time
because public opinion runs strongly in their favour; opposing them at
another because that public opinion has grown weak.

One of the worst moral evils that grow up in democratic countries is the
excessive tendency to time-serving and popularity hunting, and the
danger is all the greater because in a certain sense both of these
things are a necessity and even a duty. Their moral quality depends
mainly on their motive. The question to be asked is whether a politician
is acting from personal or merely party objects or from honourable
public ones. Every statesman must form in his own mind a conception
whether a prevailing tendency is favourable or opposed to the real
interests of the country. It will depend upon this judgment whether he
will endeavour to accelerate or retard it; whether he will yield slowly
or readily to its pressure, and there are cases in which, at all hazards
of popularity and influence, he should inexorably oppose it. But in the
long run, under free governments, political systems and measures must be
adjusted to the wishes of the various sections of the people, and this
adjustment is the great work of statesmanship. In judging a proposed
measure a statesman must continually ask himself whether the country is
ripe for it--whether its introduction, however desirable it might be,
would not be premature, as public opinion is not yet prepared for
it?--whether, even though it be a bad measure, it is not on the whole
better to vote for it, as the nat