ever be remembered that the right of parliament, if supported by the constituencies, to obtain the dismissal of a minister was not in question. No doubt our modern practice, according to which the House of Commons, by merely signifying its disapprobation, can obtain either an immediate change of government or an immediate dissolution, is an improvement on the practice of 1783. But it is also true that the House of Commons of 1881 is an improvement on the House of Commons of 1783. It does not now contain a large number of members without political principle, and eager simply to possess themselves of so much of the loaves and fishes of political adventure as they may be able through dexterous management to secure. In 1783 therefore it was simply a question which side could bribe the highest. The offers of the coalition proved in the end less attractive than the offers of the king, and the sounder part of the country rallied round the opponent of a coalition which appeared to be guided by no principle whatever, and whose only great political performance, the India bill, was exposed to many just criticisms, and which. awakened through misinterpretation even more hostility than it deserved.

СНАР.

X.

Ministry.

It was for the king to justify the intrigue by which $12. Pitt's Pitt's government was formed, by showing that the policy of the new ministry was more than an intrigue. In Pitt he had found a man who could lay the foundations of the organisation of intelligence in the place of the organisation of hereditary rank and hereditary wealth. The new Tory party, to which the son of Chatham gave consistency, was, in truth, identical with the Liberal party of more recent times. The early years in which he exercised authority were marked by great reforms and by attempts at reforms even greater than it was then possible to carry out. He had learned from

CHAP.

X.

Adam Smith the first principles of political economy, and the commercial treaty with France was the first visible result of the new science. He failed, indeed, in carrying his scheme of parliamentary reform, but the mere fact that he addressed himself to the nation generally was in itself a preparation for parliamentary reform. The evil notion that it was enough if the House of Commons was satisfied, whatever might be the feeling outside its doors, had prevailed too much with all parties. Pitt definitely cast it aside. It was upon an appeal to the constituencies that he had sustained himself in office, and he never forgot the debt which he owed them. The constituencies, too, were themselves very different from those which had existed at the beginning of the reign. Wealth was no longer confined to the great landowners and a few commercial magnates of the city of London. The nabobs, as they were called, the men who had heaped up riches in India, had been the first to dispute the way to parliament with the possessors of large estates. A far better element had been introduced into English society by the growth of manufacturing industry. The introduction of the steamengine, the construction of navigable canals, and the application of newly invented machines to manufactures, had brought into existence a class of thoughtful and intelligent men, possessed of property of a kind which was entirely free from the influence of the great landed proprietors. The gradual change in the distribution of wealth was accompanied by a gradual elevation of the standard of religion and morals. The seed sown by Wesley had taken root and flourished amongst those who owned no special tie to his person or his teaching. Everywhere appeared a life and vigour which had been entirely wanting fifty years before. There was, in all

classes, more decency in outward life, more public spirit than before. Much remained to be done, but the progress was sufficiently great to make the nation, as a whole, content with itself, and unwilling to seek a remedy for its evils in violent and revolutionary change.

CHAP.

X.

192

СНАР.
XI.

§ 1. New Ideas in France.

CHAPTER XI.

THE INFLUENCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

NEW ideas had for many years been influencing every European state. Men of intelligence rebelled against systems which were powerful only for evil, and sought either to regulate the world in accordance with the results of thought, or to call up a new power in the masses to overthrow the ancient and effete fabric of society. Naturally these ideas were more powerful in France than elsewhere, because it was there that misgovernment had done its worst, from sheer incompetency to fulfil its task. The leaders of the French Revolution had before them an aristocracy which thrust the burdens of the state upon the other classes whilst they preserved its advantages to themselves, and a church which did little or nothing to quicken the spiritual life of its members, whilst its higher officials were sunk in sloth or dissipation. In opposition to these evils a double tendency was soon manifested, the one, of which the typical personage was Rousseau, which looked to pure democracy as the remedy against the evils of an effete aristocratic society, the other, of which the typical personage was Voltaire, which looked to clearer intellectual belief as a remedy for the evils caused by ignorance and folly. By the combination of these two movements, modern society was to be deeply moulded in the future.

It was, however, almost inevitable that the first attempt to carry them out would end in disaster, and that the new democracy, when called upon the stage, being entirely without political experience or constitutional habit, should show itself to be capricious and tyrannical in its instincts, and unwilling to recognise not merely those traditions of the past which no nation can afford to throw off in an instant, but even the warnings of those who would seek to curb its violence by moral restraint. Europe was alarmed and enraged by the sight of a reign of cruelty and violence, at variance with the humanitarian professions of the perpetrators of the crime.

The first effect of the French Revolution upon the Englishmen of the eighteenth century was not unlike the first effect of the Reformation upon the Englishmen of the sixteenth century. Both in the sixteenth and the eighteenth century society was settled on too solid bases to be thrown off its balance by the new ideas by which it was destined to be ultimately moulded. In both cases the work of the preceding generations had been so far well done that only a small minority would be willing to set it aside entirely in favour of something altogether new. In both cases the fact that there was such a minority caused a revulsion of feeling and a desire to cling to the old without change or alteration. In both cases, after a certain time had elapsed, the new ideas made their way quietly and by degrees, gradually modifying the old ideas without shock or violence.

CHAP.

XI.

§ 2. The Effect in

England.

last Years

In this way, the ideas which produced the French §3. The Revolution exercised up to about 1822 a repellent of Pitt's power upon English political life, whilst since that date Ministry. their influence has been steadily attractive. From 1789 onwards Pitt ceased to be the master of the nation. Driven against his inclination into a war with France,