Democracy and Liberty. William Edward Hartpole Lecky

boroughs; but his scheme was defeated, and he himself abandoned the policy of reform.

      There can be little doubt that for many years after the horrors of the French Revolution the anti-reform party represented with perfect fidelity the true sentiments of the English people, and no kind of blame should be attached to the ministers who resisted parliamentary reform during the continuance of the war. After that period, however, home politics were for some years unskilfully conducted, and the reform party grew steadily in strength. The reaction which the French Reign of Terror had produced had spent its force. The many forms of misery and discontent produced by the sudden fall of prices, by the enormous weight of the war taxation, by the growth of the factory system, and by the vast and painful transformation of industry it involved, had all their influence on political opinion. Lord John Russell, dissociating parliamentary reform from radical schemes of universal suffrage, electoral districts, and vote by ballot, repeatedly brought forward the wise policy of disfranchising small boroughs which were found guilty of gross corruption, and transferring their seats to the great unrepresented towns, beginning with Leeds, Birmingham, and Manchester. Such a policy, if it had been adopted in time, and steadily pursued, might have long averted a great and comprehensive change; but it was obstinately resisted. Many mistakes, and perhaps still more the establishment of peace, had dimmed the reputation which the Tory party had justly gained by their conduct of the war. On the other hand, the no less just discredit which had fallen upon the Whig party on account of the profoundly unpatriotic conduct of a large section of its members in the early years of the war had passed away. Most of its new leaders were men who had no part in these errors, who were untainted by French sympathies and revolutionary doctrines, who reflected the national feelings quite as truly as their opponents.

      The triumph of Catholic Emancipation greatly accelerated the change. The Catholic question had been for many years that on which public opinion was mainly concentrated; and experience shows that the strength of public opinion which is needed to carry a great organic change in England can never be simultaneously evoked on two totally different questions. Some very acute judges, indeed, who cared nothing for Catholic Emancipation in itself, steadily resisted it because they saw that, once it was carried, the undivided enthusiasm of the country would flow into the channel of reform.⁷

      After the settlement of the Catholic question the Whig party, having no longer the anti-Popery prejudice to contend with, acquired all the popularity its democratic tendencies would naturally give it, and obtained the undivided support of the Protestant Dissenters. A great Whig cause had triumphed, and it had triumphed by the Act of a Tory ministry. The struggle had demonstrated clearly the coercive power which might be exercised over Parliament by organised popular agitation. The Tory party was defeated, divided, discredited, and discouraged, and a new class of Irish reformers were introduced into Parliament. The cry for reform grew louder and louder, and the triumph of the cause in France greatly assisted it.

      Under all these influences a movement of public opinion in favour of parliamentary reform was created which had probably never been equalled in England for its spontaneity and force. The country seemed for a time on the verge of revolution; but the measure was at last carried. To many contemporaries the destruction of the nomination boroughs and of the controlling power of the aristocracy over the House of Commons seemed destined to ruin the parliamentary system of England. But the men who chiefly presided over this great change were genuine patriots, profoundly imbued with the best political philosophy of the English school, and as far as possible from sympathy with the French apostles of liberty. It is curious to notice how deeply rooted the English sentiment of the necessity to well-ordered and enduring freedom of disparities of political power has been, even at the time when parliamentary government was in its infancy. No one expressed this feeling better than Shakespeare, in the noble words which he places in the mouth of Ulysses:

      Degree being vizarded,

      Th' unworthiest shows as fairly in the mask.

      The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre,

      Observe degree, priority, and place.

      O! when degree is shak'd,

      Which is the ladder in all high designs,

      The enterprise is sick. How could communities,

      Degrees in schools, and brotherhoods in cities,

      Peaceful commerce from dividable shores,

      The primogenitive and due of birth,

      Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels,

      But by degree, stand in authentic place?

      Take but degree away, untune that string,

      And, hark, what discord follows! each thing meets

      In mere oppugnancy: the bounded waters

      Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores,

      And make a sop of all this solid globe:

      Strength should be lord of imbecility,

      And the rude son should strike his father dead:

      Force should be right; or rather, right and wrong

      (Between whose endless jar justice resides)

      Should lose their names, and so should justice too.

      Then everything includes itself in power,

      Power into will, will into appetite;

      And appetite, a universal wolf,

      So doubly seconded with will and power,

Must make perforce a universal prey,

      And last eat up himself.⁸

Though the Reform Bill undoubtedly changed the centre of political power in England, it left the leading characteristics of the old system undestroyed. The constituencies were still very different in size and population. The suffrage in different parts of the kingdom was very variously arranged. All the old powers and influences were retained, though their proportionate weight was changed. The House of Lords still remained an important element in the Constitution. The landed interest was still powerful in the county constituencies. Property was specially and strongly represented, and the Reform Bill brought great masses of hitherto unrepresented property, as well as great centres of population, into the circle of the Constitution. The middle class, which now became the most powerful in the political system, was one which could be excellently trusted with a controlling power. Aristotle long since observed, that it is to this section of the community that the chief power in government may be most wisely and most profitably given. It is not the class most susceptible to new ideas or most prone to great enterprises, but it is distinguished beyond all others for its political independence, its caution, its solid practical intelligence, its steady industry, its high moral average. It also, perhaps, feels more promptly and more acutely than any other class the effects of misgovernment, whether that misgovernment takes the form of reckless adventure and extravagant expenditure, or whether, in the not less dangerous form of revolutionary legislation, it disturbs settled industries, drives capital to other lands, and impairs the national credit, on which the whole commercial system must ultimately rest.

      In England, however, this middle class, though it became after 1832 the most powerful, had not the same absolute empire as in France. The active administration of affairs was chiefly in the hands of the upper and most cultivated class. The chief controlling power lay with the great middle classes, and followed mainly the bent of their wishes and tendencies. At the same time, the suffrage was so arranged that it was, in some degree at least, within the reach of the skilled artisans—a great and intelligent class, who should have a distinct place and interest in every well-ordered government.

It does not appear to me that the world has ever seen a better Constitution than England enjoyed between the Reform Bill of 1832 and the Reform Bill of 1867. Very few parliamentary governments have included more talent, or represented more faithfully the various interests and opinions of a great nation, or maintained under many trying circumstances a higher level of political purity and patriotism. The constituencies at this time coincided very substantially