But even if I could secure that all these objects would be settled by a Parliamentary or Royal Commission in the way in which I should approve, I should much prefer that a Commission should not issue for the next twenty years at least.
This is the point to which I desire to direct your attention in the first place, and I hope to end with the suggestion of an alternative, based upon the grounds on which I demur to the Commission.
There are two main sources of argument on which the proposal for present legislative interference with the University rests, the supposed inadequacy or perniciousness of the results of the 1854 Commission, and the flood of light supposed to have been thrown upon University matters by the report of the recent—let us call it the 1871—Commission. Of course, a lot of floating discontent gathers round any proposal for reform. The Catilinarians of every community hope that something will fall to their lot, if a sufficient chaos is produced but the vague aspirations of the generally unsatisfied can hardly be speculatively dealt with, and at all events we may neglect them if we can satisfy the leaders under whose banners they fight. There may perhaps be some who still think that one more Commission, like the third wave, will land us on a shore of rest, and hating our continued state of reforming dissipation are ready to throw in their lot with, anybody who will promise a final scheme. It is these I would particularly address. My main position is, that no immediate reform from within or without can now be final.
Let me begin, then, with those who are dissatisfied with the results attained by the Commission of 1854. I need not stop here to compare the condition of
