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CHAP.

X.

Burke's political opinions, in short, were very similar to those of Bacon, if only the authority of parliament were § 8. Com- substituted for the authority of the crown. The pre

parison between

Burke and

Bacon.

dominance of the crown with Bacon-the predominance of the parliament with Burke-was the form in which intelligence was to bear sway over ignorance. Neither of these great men dreamed for a moment of shutting his ears to the voices of those who were excluded from any actual part in the government. But they thought that those voices should be raised simply to enlighten those higher powers, which, unless they were given over to folly or madness, would be able, from the vantage ground on which they stood, to take an impartial view of all questions at issue. In both cases the theory broke down in precisely the same way. The Stuart kings proved unable to rise above the limitations of ordinary human self-conceit and ignorance, and the history of the seventeenth century proved that the place for the action of intelligence must be found in the midst of the representatives of the nation, and not in some separate sphere, the motions of which were governed by rules and forces of its own. The lesson of the eighteenth century was precisely the same. The House of Commons, elected as Burke wished it to be always elected, and endowed with all those powers with which Burke wished it to be endowed, turned a deaf ear to the warnings and exhortations of the great philosophical statesman of that day, as James I. had turned a deaf ear to the warnings and exhortations of Bacon. It shared to the full in the ignorance and corruption of its generation, and its members thus sank into subservient instruments of a king who had honours and rewards to bestow. It used the power, which Burke ascribed to it, of taxing the colonies in special emergencies, to tax them when there was no emergency at all, just as Charles I. had used the

special powers entrusted to him for the defence of the nation at a time of grave and unexpected danger, to lay on ship-money when there was no such danger to be feared. It hurried England into an uncalled-for and hopeless war with America, just as Charles I. hurried England into an uncalled-for and hopeless war with Spain and France. It is not likely that the immediate realisation of Chatham's idea of electoral reform would have brought about at once a better state of things, any more than the immediate realisation of Eliot's idea of parliamentary predominance would have brought about at once a better state of things. Much gradual political education was necessary before the House of Commons was fit to take the lead in the seventeenth century, or before any wide popular foundations would be fitted to bear up the edifice of government in the eighteenth century. But it was on the side of Chatham's ideas rather than on the side of Burke's that the hopes of the future lay, if it were only for this reason—that Burke's principles excluded the popular leadership of Chatham, whilst Chatham's principles would find ample room for the intellectual guidance of Burke.

CHAP.

X.

The imposition of taxation upon America was un- $9. The doubtedly popular at first. Englishmen believed that new Tories. the seven years war had assigned to them, not the empire, but the booty of the world. Partly from a desire to escape from its own burdens, partly from contemptuous ignorance of the feelings of the colonists, in the first stages of the quarrel the nation took the side of the king. Instead of correcting the errors of king and people, the House of Commons shared them. Nothing in history is more remarkable than the way in which, excepting in the very greatest crises, any ministry was sure of a majority in the House of Commons. There was a majority for the imposition of the American

CHAP.

X.

STO. The American

War.

Stamp Act in 1765. There was a majority for repealing it in 1766; and there was again a majority for taxing duties upon imports into America in 1767. Even as late as in 1788, when a great minister, strong in the confidence of the crown and the nation, was threatened with removal from office through accidental causes, it never occurred either to his friends or his opponents that, if a new ministry succeeded in establishing itself in office, it would find any difficulty in securing a majority in the House of Commons. In part, the phenomenon was owing to the corrupt influence which the wearer of the crown was able to exercise, but, in the first years of the reign, it was also owing to the general weariness of the domination of the Whigs, and a desire to find in the king a rallying point of national strength. When the American war came, he became the rallying point of national stubbornness as well. Hence the success achieved by George III. in the formation of that new Tory party which came into power with Lord North in 1770. The party thus formed was no longer beset by the difficulties which had weakened those politicians who had gloried in the name of Tory in the reign of Anne. There was no longer any disputed succession. The questions springing out of the Toleration Act had long been laid asleep. It was a party simply gathered in hostility to the great Whig houses, and advocating, as the cardinal point of its political creed, the right of the king to name his own ministers, and thereby to direct the policy of the government, though it did not at all deny the right of parliament to hold those ministers responsible, a right which, subservient as parliament was, it seemed little likely to wish to put in

execution.

George III. had everything on his side but political intelligence. Whether Chatham were right in holding

that the attempt to tax America was absolutely unconstitutional, or Burke in holding that it was simply inexpedient, there could be no doubt that it was impracticable. Resistance in America ripened into revolution. The attempt to coerce the colonists ended in failure. The distance across the Atlantic was too great to enable the British government to keep its armies in a complete state of efficiency, and the extent of the colonial territory was too great to make it possible to subdue the new nation which had arisen. France took the opportunity of helping the enemies of Britain, and the independence of the United States was the result. It was a happy result for Britain as well as for America. Compulsory taxation of an unrepresented people was a violation of the principles on which England had thriven, and it would have been impossible to violate them in America without holding them lightly in Europe. At least the unrepresented classes in England would have been treated as if their wishes and needs were beneath consideration. The military force which would have been needed to maintain the authority of the mother country in America would have hindered the free play of constitutional forces at home. When therefore, after the collapse of the war, a new government came into office, it came in with the authority which is derived from having been in the right when it was in opposition, and with no very hard task in governing a country which had not suffered so much as it seemed to have suffered. The real difficulties of the new government arose from its own composition. Chatham was dead; but his successor Shelburne and his youthful son the second William Pitt inherited the traditions of his policy. They were not inclined to rest the government of the country on a confederacy of great landowners. They perceived that the development of

CHAP.

X.

CHAP.
X.

II. The Coalition Ministry.

the new Tory party had its root in the demand of the nation for a larger basis of power. That basis they proposed to supply by an electoral reform which should strengthen the House of Commons by placing increased reliance on the more independent classes of society, whilst they were quite ready to conciliate the king by interesting him in their policy and by showing deference to his wishes. The Whigs, on the other hand, looked with aversion upon any extension of popular power, or of court influence. The personal quarrel which broke out between Fox, who after Rockingham's death became the leader of the Whigs, and Shelburne, who was the leader of the followers of Chatham, was only the symptom of an ineradicable difference of principle.

Fox and his

That difference of principle led to a grave constitutional crisis. When, upon Rockingham's death, the king appointed Lord Shelburne prime minister, whole party refused to serve under him. Forming an unprincipled coalition with the immediate followers of Lord North, to whom they were bound by no tie of common political principle, they installed themselves in office. Then ensued a struggle such as had not been known since the Tory victories of Harley and St. John in the days of Anne. A bill prepared by Burke for the reform of the government of India was passed by large majorities in the House of Commons. When it reached the House of Lords, it was thrown out through the personal intervention of the king. The king then dismissed the ministry and placed the premiership in the hands of young William Pitt. After a struggle of many weeks, parliament was dissolved, and a new parliament was returned, giving a large majority to Pitt and the king. By constitutional purists the mode of Pitt's appointment is regarded with abhorrence. It should how

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