Aug. 13.
A cursory glance at the hi tory of the British Houses of Parliament must convince anybody that literature has not! been at all badly represented in, those august assemblies in times past. To recall a few of the) literary stars that ae also shone in the political firmament, there are i Morley, Burke, Macaulay,, Lecky, Sheridan, to mention only a few' of the great names. Nor were] these people members of the "dumb friends' league." Their] voices were frequently heard and to-day, even, we read their speeches, not generally perhaps for their political significance,—for some of the problems they dealt with do not now concern vus,—but as examples of good literature, and beautiful diction; for many of these men were masters of the spoken as well as of the written word.
At the present time, however, there appears to be a lack of literary geniuses in the Mother of Parliaments, True there are any number of writers in both Houses, but it would be wide of tie mark to call their produetions literature. Most_ members the Cabinet have one or more books to their name, but these are works that deal imamly with Present day problems and the) writers themselves would be the last people on earth to claim for them such literary merit as is likely to make them remembered by future generations or fo corn them a place among the classics of the English language. In fact there is something depressing in the uniformity of the representatives of present day democracy. Political geniuses! there may be, though they tend to hide their light under bushel; but men of this type are not, always the sort of people! whose lives and works can be held up as examples of high! endeavour for our children and our children's children to copy. Of men of genius in that most difficult and yet most enduring of all the arts—titerature, there may be said to be none:
Nor is it difficult to find reasons for this want. For] better or worse we are living in the age of the specialist—the man who attends solely to one! particular job, and politics is becoming more and more of a profession for which one must! submit to special training, and to succeed in which one must let other things go by the board.
'Then the amount of spade work which has to be done to-day by' any man who hopes successfully to contest a constituency makes it impossible for him to secure the quietude and seclusion that! are, with very rare exceptions, 30 necessary for the output of work, of real literary merit. The successful business man who can leave much of his work in the hands of his trained subordinates or the labourite who is financed by his union have a much better' chance of "nursing" a constituency than the scholarly man} of letters. Neither does the latter tend to shine in present, day electioneering meetings like the men of the above mentioned types. The person who has spent. his life in persuading customers to buy his goods or shareholders, to agree to his business policy or he who has forced. his way in the face of the opposition or jealousy of his rivals to a commanding position in his trade union are! not the sort of men to flinch at} the jibes of the practised heckler, or to lose their heads at some rowdy demonstration of the "many headed." Few men whose delight is in the quietude of thei studies could be brought to face the mob of semi-educated voters: which a candidate for parliament, must cajole or hoodwink.
And. yet Parliament would be all the better for the presence of a few literary geniuses even if they were somewhat irresponsible and more than a little unpractic-Speeches of literary merit. are none so common now but that we might have more of them; and their authors would present a refreshing contrast with the normal type of politician which might even rehabilitate the sadly fallen reputation of democratic government.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.