It is too soon as yet to attempt to estimate the effect of the Reform Act of 1867.  The people enfranchised under it do not yet know. their own power; a single election, so far from teaching us how they will use that power, has not been even enough to explain to them that they have such power.  The Reform Act of 1832 did not for many years disclose its real consequences; a writer in 1836, whether he approved or disapproved of them, whether he thought too little of or whether he exaggerated them, would have been sure to be mistaken in them.  A new Constitution does not produce its full effect as long as all its subjects were reared under an old Constitution, as long as its statesmen were trained by that old Constitution.  It is not really tested till it comes to be worked by statesmen and among a people neither of whom are guided by a different experience.

In one respect we are indeed particularly likely to be mistaken as to the effect of the last Reform Bill.  Undeniably there has lately been a great change in our politics.  It is commonly said that “there is not a brick of the Palmerston House standing”.  The change since 1865 is a change not in one point but in a thousand points; it is a change not of particular details but of pervading spirit.  We are now quarrelling as to the minor details of an Education Act; in Lord Palmerston’s time no such Act could have passed.  In Lord Palmerston’s time Sir George Grey said that the disestablishment of the Irish Church would be an “act of Revolution”; it has now been disestablished by great majorities, with Sir George Grey himself assenting.  A new world has arisen which is not as the old world; and we naturally ascribe the change to the Reform Act.  But this is a complete mistake.  If there had been no Reform Act at all there would, nevertheless, have been a great change in English politics.  There has been a change of the sort which, above all, generates other changes—­a change of generation.  Generally one generation in politics succeeds another almost silently; at every moment men of all ages between thirty and seventy have considerable influence; each year removes many old men, makes all others older, brings in many new.  The transition is so gradual that we hardly perceive it.  The board of directors of the political company has a few slight changes every year, and therefore the shareholders are conscious of no abrupt change.  But sometimes there is an abrupt change.  It occasionally happens that several ruling directors who are about the same age live on for many years, manage the company all through those years, and then go off the scene almost together.  In that case the affairs of the company are apt to alter much, for good or for evil; sometimes it becomes more successful, sometimes it is ruined, but it hardly ever stays as it was.  Something like this happened before 1865.  All through the period between 1832 and 1865, the pre-’32 statesmen—­if I may so call them—­Lord