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Hereditary Genius
105
Again, the exceptional position of a Cabinet minister cannot possibly
be a just criterion of a correspondingly exceptional share of natural
gifts, because statesmanship is not an open profession. It was much
more so in the days of pocket boroughs, when young men of really
high promise were eagerly looked for by territorial magnates, and
brought into Parliament, and kept there to do gladiatorial battle for
one or other of the great contending parties of the State. With those
exceptions, parliamentary life was not, even then, an open career, for
only favoured youths were admitted to compete. But, as is the case in
every other profession, none, except those who are extraordinarily
and peculiarly gifted, are likely to succeed in parliamentary life, unless
engaged in it from their early manhood onwards. Dudley North, of
whom I spoke in the chapter on Judges, was certainly a great
success; so, in recent times, was Lord George Bentinck; so, in one
way or another, was the Duke of Wellington; and other cases could
easily be quoted of men beginning their active parliamentary life in
advanced manhood and nevertheless achieving success; but, as a
rule, to which there are very few exceptions, statesmen consist of
men who had obtained—it little matters how—the privilege of
entering Parliament in early life, and of being kept there. Every
Cabinet is necessarily selected from a limited field. No doubt it
always contains some few persons of very high natural gifts, who
would have found their way to the front under any reasonably fair
political regime, but it also invariably contains others who would have
fallen far behind in the struggle for place and influence, if all England
had been admitted on equal terms to the struggle.
Two selections of men occurred to me as being, on the whole, well
worthy of confidence. One, that of the Premiers, begun, for
convenience' sake, with the reign of George III.; their number is 25,
and the proportion of them who cannot
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