Now, I am fully disposed to acquiesce in this second assumption likewise, but with a qualification that is of considerable moment, as we shall see presently.

3.  The third and last assumption is as follows:—­Not only is the question in all its bearings supposed to be adequately set forth in the speeches constituting the debate, but, in point of fact, the mass of the members, or a very important section or proportion of them, rely upon this source, make full use of it, and are equipped for their decision by means of it; so much so, that if it were withdrawn none of the other methods as at present plied, or as they might be plied, would give the due preparation for an intelligent vote; whence must ensue a degradation in the quality of the decisions.

It is this assumption that I am now to challenge, in the greatest instance of all, as completely belied by the facts.  But, indeed, the case is so notoriously the opposite, that the statement of it will be unavoidably made up of the stalest commonplaces; and the novelty will lie wholly in the inference.

The ordinary attendance in the House of Commons could be best described by a member or a regular official.  An outsider can represent it only by the current reports.  My purpose does not require great accuracy; it is enough, that only a very small fraction of the body makes up the average audience.  If an official were posted to record the fluctuating numbers at intervals of five minutes, the attendance might be recorded and presented in a curve like the fluctuations of the barometer; but this would be misleading as to the proportion of effective listeners—­those that sat out entire debates, or at all events the leading speeches of the debates, or whose intelligence was mainly fed from the speaking in each instance.  The number of this class is next to impossible to get at; but it will be allowed on all hands to be very small.

Perhaps, in such an inquiry, most can be made of indirect evidences.  If members are to be qualified for an intelligent decision in chief part by listening to the speeches, why is not the House made large enough to accommodate them all at once?  It would appear strange, on the spoken-debate theory of enlightenment, that more than one-third should be permanently excluded by want of space.  One might naturally suppose that, in this fact, there was a breach of privilege of the most portentous kind.  That it is so rarely alluded to as a grievance, even although amounting to the exclusion of a large number of the members from some of the grandest displays of eloquence and the most exciting State communications, is a proof that attendance in the House is not looked upon as a high privilege, or as the sine qua non of political schooling.

[EVIDENCE OF THE INUTILITY OF THE MERE SPEAKING.]