Now the question is whether this political secrecy is of any of the kinds that can be called legitimate.  We have roughly divided legitimate secrets into three classes.  First comes the secret that is only kept in order to be revealed, as in the detective stories; secondly, the secret which is kept because everybody knows it, as in sex; and third, the secret which is kept because it is too delicate and vague to be explained at all, as in the choice of a country walk.  Do any of these broad human divisions cover such a case as that of secrecy of the political and party finances?  It would be absurd, and even delightfully absurd, to pretend that any of them did.  It would be a wild and charming fancy to suggest that our politicians keep political secrets only that they may make political revelations.  A modern peer only pretends that he has earned his peerage in order that he may more dramatically declare, with a scream of scorn and joy, that he really bought it.  The Baronet pretends that he deserved his title only in order to make more exquisite and startling the grand historical fact that he did not deserve it.  Surely this sounds improbable.  Surely all our statesmen cannot be saving themselves up for the excitement of a death-bed repentance.  The writer of detective tales makes a man a duke solely in order to blast him with a charge of burglary.  But surely the Prime Minister does not make a man a duke solely in order to blast him with a charge of bribery.  No; the detective-tale theory of the secrecy of political funds must (with a sigh) be given up.

Neither can we say that the thing is explained by that second case of human secrecy which is so secret that it is hard to discuss it in public.  A decency is preserved about certain primary human matters precisely because every one knows all about them.  But the decency touching contributions, purchases, and peerages is not kept up because most ordinary men know what is happening; it is kept up precisely because most ordinary men do not know what is happening.  The ordinary curtain of decorum covers normal proceedings.  But no one will say that being bribed is a normal proceeding.

And if we apply the third test to this problem of political secrecy, the case is even clearer and even more funny.  Surely no one will say that the purchase of peerages and such things are kept secret because they are so light and impulsive and unimportant that they must be matters of individual fancy.  A child sees a flower and for the first time feels inclined to pick it.  But surely no one will say that a brewer sees a coronet and for the first time suddenly thinks that he would like to be a peer.  The child’s impulse need not be explained to the police, for the simple reason that it could not be explained to anybody.  But does any one believe that the laborious political ambitions of modern commercial men ever have this airy and incommunicable character?  A man lying on the beach may throw stones into the sea without