From ‘Scraps of Paper‘, The Spectator, 22 May 1915:
Fifty years ago Parliament was far more conscious collectively of the sanctity of contract than it is at the present time, and the change of attitude can only be attributed to the change of constituency. The House of Commons of previous generations was elected by a constituency composed of a limited number of voters, mostly belonging to the middle classes. Those classes, being for the greater part engaged in commercial occupations of various kinds, had all learned the value of contract.
Today the House of Commons is to a very large extent under the influence of the working-class vote, and the average wage-earner has never been taught by experience, in the same way as the average middle-class voter has been taught, the supreme importance of observing bargains. If a man in business breaks his bargain, his reputation is gone and ruin faces him.
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