For the purposes of this argument the point here is that not only the mere rabble but the unpropertied and impecunious from any cause, either from lack of interest or of capacity, live at secondhand in their relations to politics and are not themselves at “grips with things” and therefore easily become the prey of the demagogue, the undetected liar.
The practical value of the property qualification test though not properly appreciated has not been entirely overlooked by previous writers. For example, Bagehot:
“Property indeed is a very imperfect test of intelligence; but it is some test. If it has been inherited it guarantees education; if acquired it guarantees ability; either way it assures us of something. In all countries where anything has prevailed short of manhood suffrage, the principal limitation has been founded on criteria derived from property. And it is very important to observe that there is a special appropriateness in this selection; property has not only a certain connection with general intelligence, but it has a peculiar connection with _political_ intelligence. It is a great guide to a good judgment to have much to lose by a bad judgment; generally speaking, the welfare of the country will be most dear to those who are well off there.” (_Parliamentary Reform_, p. 320.)
Bagehot, like most political writers and speakers, while recognizing the educative value to the voter of property ownership and management, fails to give sufficient importance to the effect of a business training. He elsewhere dwells upon the beneficial influence upon the voter of leisure, of education, of lofty pursuits, of cultivated society; but he overlooks the obvious fact that all good government is a business enterprise, and that a business training is essential to the instruction of the electorate. This oversight was perhaps natural for two reasons: one the traditionary contempt in which all business was formerly held in England, and by the literary class everywhere. Dickens, for example, had not the least idea of business capacity or of the intelligent life of the business world of London, and Thackeray very little. Their business men are of varying degrees of stupidity. The fact is that the world of art and letters has always been over conceited and inclined on insufficient evidence to believe itself superior in intelligence to the world of work and business. The other reason for the oversight referred to is that in former days business training was far less thorough and extended than it has since become and is today.