Dr. Temple has had a very interesting correspondence with the
alitor of The Daily News on the subject of the representation of classes. Both parties are evidently in earnest in trying to catch the point of view of the other, but highly as we respect the principles of The Daily News, we think it is a little perverse in this matter. The editor does not deny Dr. Temple's perfectly unanswerable position,—that wherever sheer numbers are repre- sented, as in France and Australia, things are done which edu- cated intellects would not endure, and would at once veto, for the obvious reason that education cannot nominate any substantial number of members. In France, for instance, the liberty of the Press is a name, because the masses believe in the Emperor, and do not believe in thought. The Daily News replies that the 61. householders are sufficiently educated to insist on the liberty of the Press, and that, as for anything else, the ignorant classes are as much divided as the thinking classes, and will never therefore be able to combine to suppress any special opinion. This is all h There is no doubt that the masses of Geneva, for instance, sup- ported M. Fazy because he was in favour of lavish expenditure in public works, and that such questions must arise again and again. But the truth is, the argument of The Daily News means—that education makes no difference in the political wishes of the people, —that thinking and learned men are not more likely to agree more nearly in any class of political opinions than unthinking and unlearned men,—a cynical idea at bottom, which we should scarcely have attributed to a writer so able and so much in earnest.
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