The rise of democracy
Rose, J. Holland (John Holland), 1855-1942
• fW.Y~'3<S. .:, ;i,'"' ' - THE RISE.B THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES To be published monthly. The Victorian Era Series. In crown 8vo volumes, cloth boards, 2s. 6d. each. The series is designed to form a record of the great movements and developments of the age, in politics, economics, religion, industry, literature, science, and art, and of the life work of its typical and influential men. Under the general editorship of Mr. J. HOLLAND ROSE, M.A., late Scholar of Christ's College, Cam- bridge, the individual volumes will be contributed by leading specialists in the various branches of knowledge which fall to be treated in the series. On i^th November. The Rise of Democracy. By J. HOLLAND ROSE, M.A., late Scholar of Christ's College, Cambridge (Editor of the Series). On i^th December. The Anglican Revival. By J. H. OVERTON, D.D., Rector of Epworth and Canon of Lincoln. In preparation — Charles Kingsley. By the Very Rev. C. W. STUBBS, D.D., Dean of Ely. [OVER. The Growth and Administration of the British Colonies, 1837-1897. By the Rev. W. GRESWELL, M.A. The Free Trade Movement and its Results. By G. ARMITAGE SMITH, Principal of the Birbeck Institution, and for many years Lecturer on Economics for the London Society for the Extension of University Teaching. John Bright. By C. A. VINCE, M.A., late Fellow of Christ's College, Cam- bridge. The Growth of London, 1837-1897. By G. LAURENCE GOMME. Charles Dickens. By GEORGE GISSING. National Education. By H. HOLMAN, M.A., one of H.M. Inspectors of Schools. Recent Advances in Astronomy. By A. H. FISON, D.Sc. The Science of Life. By J. ARTHUR THOMSON, M.A. Indian Life and Thought since the Mutiny. By R. P. KARKARIA, B.A. »* Further announcements will be made from time to time. BLACKIE & SON, LIMITED, LONDON. GLASGOW, AND DUBLIN. \Dictorfan J6ra Series The Rise of Democracy The Rise of Democracy By J. HOLLAND ROSE, M.A. Late Scholar of Christ's College, Cambridge; author of "The Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era" LONDON BLACKIE & SON, LIMITED, 50 OLD BAILEY, E.G. GLASGOW AND DUBLIN 1897 sso General Preface. As the present volume is introductory to the Victorian Era Series, it is proper to explain the purport of the series as a whole. It aims at describing in attractive and scholarly form the chief movements of our age and the lifework of its influential men. Each volume will deal with a well-defined subject, which it will exhibit in its historical setting and in its relation to present conditions. Collaboration, recognized as being an essential of modern historical work, has been adopted in this series, in that each volume will be the work of a writer who has made its subject a special study. This will, it is hoped, ensure the coherence of the individual volumes, and the unity and balance of the series as a whole. In this volume I have endeavoured to describe, as fully as limits of space permit, the course of the political movement which has profoundly modified the whole of our public life. One remark as to the usage of terms seems to be called for here Throughout my inquiry I have used the term democracy in its strict sense, as government by the people, and not in the slipshod way in which it is now too often employed to denote the wage- earning classes. That this misuse of the term is responsible for much slipshod thought on political matters, will, I trust, be made clear in the latter part of this little work. The Radical movement attained strength and persistence in the first years of Queen Victoria's reign; and its peaceful char- acter has been due in no small degree to the loyalty awakened by the Queen's personal character and life. But in order to understand the aims of the Radicals who drew up the Charter, it is necessary to review the trend of events during the preceding generation, and to connect the political history of the present reign with the social and economic problems which became an urgent part of practical politics on the conclusion of the great war. After tracing the origin and general course of the Chartist movement, I have endeavoured to show its connection with the latter-day Radicalism, which led up to the Reform Acts of 1867 1368021 vi General Preface. and 1884-85; and in the two closing chapters I have ven- tured on a brief examination of two of the burning questions of the day. In regard to these topics — Labour Legislation and Foreign Policy — I have striven calmly to look facts in the face, and to inquire by the light of the teachings of the past, what is the significance of the present situation. In one respect, the present time seems opportune for some such inquiry as is hazarded in this little work. The lull in the strife of political parties affords a good opportunity for a quiet consideration of our actual position and a deliberate survey of the course of the struggle. That there has been a striking change in the relations of parties and the conduct of the fight will be evident to all who contrast the political speeches of to-day with the excited harangues of 1880-5; while those again will seem tame beside the fervid declamations of the " forties ". In my treatment of the more strictly historical parts of the subject, I have purposely given only the briefest reference to many politicians who figure largely in Parliamentary annals or in the gossip of Pall Mall. My desire has been rather to dwell on the efforts of humbler individuals, who stirred up the artisans of England to action which finally compelled responsible states- men to listen to their demands. I have accordingly bestowed more attention on William Cobbett than on Viscount Melbourne, on Henry Vincent than on Lord John Russell. In some direc- tions this little work essays to open up new ground, and where I have described well-known events I have endeavoured to invest them with a new significance by approaching them from the point of view of the workman's club rather than of the lobby of St. Stephen's. In relation to Free-trade, Irish affairs, educa- tional efforts, and the work of several influential thinkers and statesmen, my narrative may seem incomplete ; but these topics will be handled in other volumes of the series. My indebtedness to other workers in this field is, I believe, everywhere acknowledged in foot-notes. For valuable advice on several topics I must express my grateful acknowledgments to Mr. G. Laurence Gomme, and to Messrs. C. V. Coates and G. W. Johnson, both of Trinity College, Cambridge. J. H. ROSE. BALHAM, S.W., October^' *897- Contents. CHAPTER I Page The Origin of English Radicalism 9 CHAPTER II Radicals and the Reform Bill of 1832 - - - - 32 CHAPTER III The Revolt against the New Poor Laws - 52 CHAPTER IV The Fight for a Free Press 62 CHAPTER V Crown, Parliament, and People (1837) - - 77 CHAPTER VI The Rise of 'Chartism (1838-1839) - 84 CHAPTER VII The Physical-Force Chartists - - - 97 CHAPTER VIII The Complete-Suffrage Movement - 114 CHAPTER IX Revolution or Evolution f I2$ viii Contents. CHAPTER X Pag* Phases of Political Thought ..... jfj ^^_____ CHAPTER XI ^The Reform Bills of 1866-1867^ " - - - 167 CHAPTER XII The Ebb and Flow of Public Opinion - - - - 186 ^ CHAPTER XIII \The Third Reform Act 200 CHAPTER XIV Democracy and Labour - 214. CHAPTER XV Democracy and Foreign Policy ----- 235 INDEX 249 The Rise of Democracy. Chapter I. The Origin of English Radicalism. Any inquiry into the course of democratic progress in England would be confessedly flimsy and superficial which did not endeavour, however briefly, to indicate the nature of the movement in its earlier stages. Is English democracy of home growth, or does it owe its chief impulse to the cognate movement in France? Was it propelled onwards by a conscious striving after new ideals, or was it merely the result of discontent aroused by material discomforts and unjust laws? Did our Radical reformers claim that they were initiating a new era for humanity at large, or were they content with redressing the ills of the time? To these and similar questions it is hoped that this little work will furnish some reply, not, as a rule, explicitly and in set terms, but rather by means of an unbiassed narrative which will leave the reader free to draw his own conclusions as to the drift of events, the full significance of which cannot as yet be fully realized. A few words may not be out of place here to suggest one important difference which separates the democracy of the last hundred years from that of the ancient world. Popular government, as we now know it, aims at con- ceding full political rights and duties to all adult males who are not obviously disqualified properly to discharge io The Rise of Democracy. them. We should now deny the name of democrat to any who would withhold these rights from a majority of the adult men of the state. In the ancient worla, on the other hand, popular government never contemplated, even as a possible contingency, that civic responsibility should ever be accorded to the slaves, on whom fell nearly all the burdens of menial employments. Govern- ment was therefore in the hands of a minority, sometimes of a small minority. Oftener still it was the tool of a faction; but there is no instance of a defeated faction deliberately enfranchising the hewers of wood and drawers of water in order to compass the overthrow of its successful rivals. Such a proposal would have been wholly unintelligible to the democrats of ancient Greece and Rome.1 The political and social problems which modern de- mocracy has endeavoured to solve are therefore im- measurably wider and grander than any which came within the ken of the philosophers and statesmen of the ancient world. To what influence are we to attribute the broadening and humanizing tendencies of modern politics? Primarily to the love of individual liberty cherished by the Teutonic tribes who laid the founda- tions of a new social order throughout Western Europe. Their sense of the dignity of man as man, when strengthened by Christian teaching, opened up a new future, which was to receive its fullest and most un- fettered development in England. It was here that re- presentative government found its first complete expres- sion in a national Parliament as the guardian of popular liberties — a fact which decisively answers the question as to the native origin of our democracy in its early or mediaeval phase. But the question as to the origin of the great impulse towards popular government charac- 1Cf. Aristotle's Nic. Ethics, bk. x. chap. 6: "No one allows a slave to share in happiness any more than in the life of a citizen ". The Origin of English Radicalism. n teristic of the last century scarcely admits of so clear an answer; for under the warping" influence of time, intrigue, and war, the essentially democratic features of our earlier parliamentary system were gradually effaced, until there seemed to be some danger that the masterful influence of George III., and the bribes skilfully administered by the "King's Friends", would degrade the constitution of the United Kingdom to the level of that of the Electorate of Hanover. It was at this crisis of our history, when our affairs seemed about "to be hurried into the rage of civil violence or to sink into the dead repose of despotism ", that a great thinker, renowned not less for his conser- vatism than his candour, reawakened the flame of patriotic enthusiasm for our ancient constitutional liberties. In his Thoughts upon the Present Discontents (1770) Burke complained that the House of Commons was beginning to exercise control upon the people, whereas " it was designed as a control for the people". Lifting up his voice in protest against the insidious influence of the secret Cabal, which intrigued in the supposed interests of the king, he called on the people to defeat its aims by compelling public men to pay attention first and foremost to public opinion, so that the House of Commons might again become, what it ought to be, "the express image of the feelings of the nation ". To this end the whole body of the people must be called in to watch the proceedings of Parlia- ment, must distribute lists of the votes given by mem- bers, and by the pressure of public opinion must seek to diminish the subservience of the House of Commons to the crown. Not that Burke was republican: far from it. His aim all through his political career was to re- store and then to maintain that balance of powers be- tween crown, Lords, and Commons which he regarded as the essential feature of the English constitution. 12 The Rise of Democracy. An interesting result of his protest, and of the excite- ment arising out of the prosecutions of Wilkes, was soon to be seen. In 1780 a band of energetic reformers, among whom Major Cartwright and Home Tooke were the most prominent, founded the Society for Constitu- tional Information, which published several pamphlets to prove the urgent need of parliamentary reform. At a meeting of the society presided over by the great Whig orator, Charles James Fox, a programme, which was destined to be revived fifty-eight years later by the Char- tists, was adopted as summarizing the aims of zealous Whig reformers. It comprised the following as its most prominent demands — annual parliaments, universal suf- frage, equal voting districts, abolition of the property qualification for members of Parliament, payment of members, and vote by ballot at parliamentary elec- tions. Only by the attainment of these reforms, so the society affirmed, could the House of Commons regain its old position as the guardian of the people's liberties against all encroachments by the other estates of the realm. But, apart from their historical significance, these proceedings of the first important reform club were with- out any immediate result. Parliament and people alike yawned at the mere mention of reform; and after seem- ingly fruitless efforts at educating public opinion, the society decently expired. Its work, however, was not to perish. The exposure of the abuses of court patronage, and of the sordid obsequiousness of a Parliament of borough-mongers, was soon to arouse a storm of indig- nation when the lightning flashes of the French Revolu- tion of 1789 lit up the darkness of the night. At once the old apathy to matters political disappeared as if by magic. Scores of clubs were founded on the model of the famous Jacobin Club of Paris, and several of them es- sayed to imitate the trenchant vigour of the attacks of The Origin of English Radicalism. 13 Robespierre's disciples on old institutions. Certainly the Gothic irregularities of the English political edifice fa- voured the attacks of the "radical reformers" — a name now first used in the heated controversies of the time to denote those who would tolerate no mere patchwork, but demanded a reconstruction of the old edifice on an essentially popular basis. The Birmingham Club dis- tinguished itself by a vigorous attack on the abuses and absurdities of our electoral system, declaring in its manifesto that the constitution was a venerable fraud, and that seats for the House of Commons were sold as openly as stalls for cattle at a fair. The same facts, when set forth in more academic language by reformers in 1780, had evoked no general response. Yet, in 1792, English public opinion seemed about to become scarcely less Jacobinical than that of France. In both lands the extreme reformers were in a small minority; but the decision of their views and the weakness of the systems which they attacked seemed to promise a speedy triumph to democracy of the most advanced type. But the im- pulse which came from France, though potent, was transient. The diversion of her democratic ardour into the alluring vistas of military glory, opened up by Bona- parte, soon alienated her warmest admirers on these shores ; and the wave of French political influence ebbed almost as rapidly as it had flowed over our land. he had repeatedly urged in the previous decade; and the end of the century saw the prospects of democracy gloomier even than amidst the torpor of 1780. Then there was the apathy of ignorance and sheer Saxon stolidity : now there was a keen sense of disgust at the facile perversion of French democracy by the baubles of power skilfully dangled by Napoleon. The new creed that promised to renovate the world had apparently led only to the triumph of militarism and the spoliation of neighbouring peoples by a nation which bowed its own neck to the yoke in order the more completely to sub- jugate others. " I find nothing great : Nothing is left which I can venerate; So that almost a doubt within me springs Of Providence, such emptiness at length Seems at the heart of all things." These were the feelings of Wordsworth, when now in 1803 he regarded the heart-breaking finale of all the wild hopes and aspirations aroused by the French Revolution of 1789, of which he had sung — " Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive ; But to be young was very heaven". Nor was it only the sensitive temperament of the poet which acutely felt the disillusionment. The same tone of pessimism pervades the writings of many of the publicists of the day, who had welcomed the fall of the Bastille as the beginning of a new era for the whole human race. A new generation had to arise, oppressed by other evils than those of war, distracted by new social and industrial problems, before the ardour for reform could revive; and when again it gathered strength, its inspiration was drawn from native sources. But, apart from the sudden chill which the personality and career of Napoleon cast over English reformers, The Origin of English Radicalism. 15 there were other influences of a more directly practical nature which led the younger leaders to adopt methods consonant with the traditions of the land of Hampden. Indeed, most of the men who had been imbued with French Jacobinism passed away in the period 1793-1815, or lived in exile, leaving" the venerable Major Cartwright as almost the sole connecting link between the earlier generation of reformers and those who now arose to grapple with the grievances and problems bequeathed to posterity by the war period. To his genial moderating influence we may justly ascribe the good sense which generally characterized the efforts of the young English democrats. His influence it was which helped to turn it back into the old paths, and held aloft the constitu- tional programme of 1780 as the goal of popular striv- ings. The adoption of a practical scheme of reform, such as could conceivably be gained by constitutional means, was indeed the urgent need of the time. Never was the United Kingdom in a more parlous state than when the crowning triumph of Waterloo placed it at the head of the nations. It was but a short distance from the Capi- tol of military triumph to the Tarpeian rock of sedition and civil strife. Four short years separated Waterloo from Peterloo. Never has a nation been more perplexed and dismayed by the sudden drop from glory to misery, from national exultation to civil discord, than the people of England in iSis.1 In this sudden awakening from the glamour of an unparalleled military triumph to the stern realities unveiled by peace, we may find an ex- planation of the rapid growth of a Radicalism which was far more deeply rooted than that of 1780, and far more practical than that of 1790. The industrial and social 1 Lowe in his Present State of England (1823), ch. 2, remarks how un- expected, even by experienced financiers, was the misery which came with the peace. 16 The Rise of Democracy. causes contributing to this discontent accordingly claim a brief review before we examine the resulting political efforts. Patriots who, in the year of Waterloo, looked solely on the surface of things, very naturally concluded that the might of England was unbounded. They pointed to the growth of her revenue from ^19,258,000 in 1792 (the last year before the wars) to the gigantic total of ^105,698,000 in 1814. What limits were there to her resources, they exclaimed, when, in spite of enormous losses in men and treasure, the prices of agricultural produce and the rent of land had doubled within that period? As for our manufactures, the annual value of our exports of cotton goods had trebled in the years 1801-1814; and the growing wealth of the community was attested by the increasingly luxurious manners adopted by our upper and middle classes. All this was undeniably true. It aroused the wonder and admiration of Mr. Colquhoun, author of The Resources of the British Empire, at the growth of wealth which seemed to be unchecked even by all the waste of warfare. Had these cheery optimists pursued their researches further, they would probably have found that much of the prosperity was of a wholly artificial character. A good deal of it was due to the war expenditure ; and the expenditure of energy and wealth in warfare is no more nutritive than the process of "feeding a dog on its own tail". Though the propertied classes gallantly met the annual claim of two shillings in the pound on their incomes, yet most of the financial burden was bequeathed to future generations. After Waterloo, the nation had to bear the burden of a national debt which amounted in all to more than ^861,000,000, entailing a yearly interest of ^32, 600,000. When we remember that the currency had been debased by an influx of paper notes of doubtful value, we can realize the intensity of the (H416) The Origin of English Radicalism. 17 strain resulting- from the return to ordinary conditions of industrial and financial life. We can also understand the popularity gained by that wrong-headed, warm- hearted champion of the working-classes, William Cob- bett, when he exclaimed to many an excited crowd that the country could not and must not bear this burden, but must make a clean sweep of the debt and then start clear. It was, indeed, a working-man's question, when the debt imposed an annual charge of thirty shillings per head on every inhabitant of these islands, and when that burden rested mainly on the necessaries of life and the means of production. In this grievance is to be found the chief motive power of democratic movements after i8i5.1 But, besides piling up an enormous debt, the war bequeathed many other difficulties of an indus- trial and social nature. The supremacy of our industries and of our commerce was very largely the result of the Napoleonic wars. Our land had undergone none of those invasions which had all but ruined the trade and industries of every continental country. After Trafalgar our merchantmen sailed in comparative safety, while French ships, and even those of the neutrals, were well- nigh swept off the seas; and even our mighty foe con- fessed the collapse of his efforts to strangle British trade when his agents ordered English cloaks to supply the French troops campaigning on the Vistula, and sugar from the British West Indies for the imperial table. England was the middleman between the Continent of Europe and the rest of the world.2 But would her monopoly survive the advent of peace? Would not rather her manufacturers and merchant princes be ruined when trade resumed its natural course? The question 1 At the end of his Political Register of Oct. 5, 1816, Cobbett confidently prophesies that the national debt will lead to parliamentary reform. 3 1 have treated this question in my article ' ' Napoleon and English Com- merce", in the English Historical Review of Oct. 1893. Ai (M416) B i8 The Rise of Democracy. was indeed most serious ; and but for our rapid advances in labour-saving machinery, we might have suffered a complete collapse. As it was, the value of our cotton goods exported sank from ^"20,600,000 in 1815, to an average of ;£ 16,400,000 for the next decade; while the decline in the value of the woollen goods exported was so persistent as not to be made up, until the reforms of Sir Robert Peel breathed new life into our industries. The gravity of the social crisis which faced us after Waterloo will be realized if we glance very briefly at the industrial changes then progressing in our land. The in- vention of spinning-machines by Hargreaves, Crompton, and others in the years 1764-1779, and the subsequent application of steam-power had already begun to ruin the spinning-wheel industry, by which wives and daugh- ters had often kept the wolf from the door; and after 1803 Dr. Cartwright's power-loom began to press hard on hand-loom weavers. Toil as these Silas Marners might, they could not successfully compete with untiring machinery, every improvement in which reduced the price of cloth, and ground them down into the ever- rising stratum of wage-earners. Two facts will suffice to illustrate the magnitude of the changes brought about by the alchemy of steam-power. Mr. Gaskell, the author of a work Artisans and Machinery, has com- puted that the cost price of a "piece" of cloth of the same quality was reduced in the years 1800—1820 from twenty-five to eight shillings; and that enlightened manufacturer, Robert Owen, whose social aims will be described in the following chapter, stated to a committee of the House of Commons in 1816 that the cotton-mills of Great Britain were then producing as much as could be made by eighty millions of operatives working with- out machinery. These startling assertions reveal the causes of our wealth during the great war when the Continental peoples were industrially dependent on us, The Origin of English Radicalism. 19 and of the distress which overtook us when those nations, turning- to the pursuits of peace, began to imitate our inventions and encroach on our markets. The brunt of the distress caused by over-production and the fall of prices, was of course felt most acutely by the wage- earners, who clustered about that cheerless nucleus of modern life — the factory. But the misery, which was to be the chief propelling power of democracy in England, was fed from yet an- other source. Side by side with these industrial changes, an agricultural revolution had slowly but surely ruined our sturdy yeomen farmers, and had often dispossessed peasants of small but invaluable rights over common fields and common pasturage. The chang-es had begun in the earlier half of the previous century, when the general cultivation of root-crops broke up the old waste- ful system of farming on the open fields and necessitated enclosure and the application of improved methods. But these changes, which, according to Arthur Young, might have been beneficial even to the peasantry had they been carried out gradually and wisely, were forced on with feverish activity under the stimulus of the great war, when the price of wheat often rose to £6 a quarter. The Napoleonic war cut us off from free intercourse with the Baltic lands, on which we had mainly to rely; the United States were closed to our ships ; and no one had ever dreamt of importing corn from La Plata and India, much less from our feeble settlements in Australia. In face of the risk of actual famine which confronted us in wet summers, there was every need to increase the yield of corn ; and long experience had shown that this could only be achieved by enclosing the open fields, often worked on the old communal system, and by adopt- ing improved methods of husbandry on large holdings. As many as 1931 parishes in England and Wales applied to Parliament during the war period for powers to enclose 20 The Rise of Democracy. their "open " fields and common lands; and even when, after Waterloo, prices fell to their normal level, enclosures continued in diminished numbers. The chief results of these enclosures were an enormous increase in the agricultural wealth of the country, and a lamentable falling off in the independence of the peas- antry. " 111 fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates and men decay." Thus Goldsmith had warned us of the social evils which would result from the enclosure of commons; and the vision of the poet was on the whole as true as the argu- ments of the agricultural reformers who advocated the change. Many a parish was severely crippled by the expense of gaining the special act of Parliament which was required; and the reallotment of the common fields and wastes gave many opportunities for sheer robbery. In these cases, we may imagine, the iron of injustice drove deep into the minds of the dispossessed cotters, as they left the country, or sank to the position of wage- earners. Even where there was no fraud, the poor and the shiftless benefited little by a change which demanded the application of skill, energy, and capital to the soil. Myriads of peasants who had jogged along comfortably on the produce of their arable plots and pasturage rights, eking it out, perhaps, by work at the spinning-wheel and the hand-loom, now saw all hope of independence vanish when science came to be applied to agriculture as well as to manufactures. Previously they had been half "manufacturers", half farmers; but the specialization of callings which marks the nineteenth century was sooner or later fatal to their nondescript existence. They fell, as it were, between two stools; and those who had neither the money nor the energy to become skilled manufacturers or successful farmers, sank to the The Origin of English Radicalism. 21 position of day-labourers on the land, or floated away as social drift-wood into the seething eddies of the new factory townships. In his thoughtful inquiry into the development of human society, Mr. Kidd has pointed out that changes which have developed the nation's resources have been fatal to the independence and welfare of the individual. It may be questioned whether the remark is as widely applicable as is claimed by that able writer. But it certainly is true of the manufacturing and agricultural changes which were in progress at the time of the great war. The events of the war rendered those changes far more sudden, and therefore more harmful to our social system, than they would otherwise have been. The monopoly enjoyed by our manufacturers and merchants during the war gave to our trade an unhealthy stimulus, the ruinous effects of which were acutely felt after the return to ordinary conditions. The same remark applies to our rural life. The monopoly in food-supply enjoyed by our landlords and farmers in these islands forced on a change which might perhaps otherwise have been gradual and devoid of evil social results. The nation was saved from financial ruin by being able suddenly to draw upon two almost unworked sources of wealth ; but the drain was really at the expense of future vitality. Our commerce and agriculture were apparently never so flourishing as in the year of Waterloo ; but the show of prosperity was gained at the expense of industrial and social changes which were deeply resented by our working-classes. There were special reasons why this resentment should take a political form. Any inquiry into the details of public expenditure sufficed to convict government of reckless extravagance and a shameless prodigality in the bestowal of sinecures. Indeed, many a champion of retrenchment and reform jumped to the wholly erro- 22 The Rise of Democracy. neous conclusion that the war against Napoleon had been got up for the benefit of the governing classes. This contention, as absurd as it was unpatriotic, very properly doomed the opposition to impotence, until the great struggle for European independence had been fought and won. The dawn of peace tended to restore the old relations of parties. The Tories were the cham- pions not only of monarchical prerogatives, but also of many of the regulations adopted by Pitt and his fol- lowers to check the progress of French democratic ideas. The Whig party, which had been cleft asunder by the schism of Burke and Fox, and had been further weakened by the adoption of a nagging anti-national policy through the war period, now began to recover something of its old prestige. Not that it had as yet definitely adopted the policy of parliamentary reform. Disgusted by the failure of democracy on the Continent, and by the schism which it had caused in the once formidable Whig party, the leaders held suspiciously aloof from this dangerous principle until the efforts of working-men democrats again forced the question into the sphere of ' ' practical politics ". For the present, only the more adventurous Whigs lent any support to " radical reformers " in their efforts to annul or mitigate the harsh legislation of the war period. The independent attitude of artisan reformers can readily be understood in the light of partisan politics of the time, and by the lurid glare shed from industrial and agrarian grievances. Thefr industrial independence was gone ; they had become wage-earners, and yet they were forbidden by law to combine for any purpose. Prevented from combination for a rise of wages, they saw Parliament pass a law which seemed to be designed solely to keep up the price of corn in the interests of landlords and farmers. Indignation made them politicians. The determination to gain the right of combination in trade-unions, and to secure bread The Origin of English Radicalism. 23 at its natural price, inevitably led the leaders of the labouring classes to press for a drastic measure of electoral reform. Out of the depressing- conditions of their homes discontent arose as naturally as malaria from a marsh. With little artificial aid from any agitators, except from one who will presently be noticed, the two most characteristic working-class movements of our day — Trade-unionism and Chartism — began to gather force and volume. The former aimed at confronting master manufacturers with an equality of power; while the Radicals, and later the Chartists, hoped to restore to the working-classes all, and more than all, their old rights through the instrumentality of Parliament. It was natural that the attention of working-men should first be directed to electoral reform. In the autumn of 1815 our legislators passed the famous Corn Law, with the aim of keeping up the average price of wheat to about eighty shillings per quarter, a price which was declared to be "reasonable between the farmer, landlord, and public ". Until home corn had reached that price, foreign corn was to be completely excluded from our ports. Had this Corn Law been passed as a temporary expedient for preventing the sudden collapse of our greatest industry, few reasonable men would have agitated against it. The average price of wheat in the previous five years had been close on a hundred shillings a quarter; and the farmers, whose toil had saved the country from starvation, might reasonably claim some guarantee against a headlong fall in the price of corn, such as might probably result from the advent of peace. But the Parliament of landlords ap- parently desired that the Corn Law of 1815 should be permanent, and that the rapid growth of our population should drive wheat up to a price which now appeared "reasonable" to them, though it was nearly double the average price of the years 1760-1790. The men of 24 The Rise of Democracy. London and Westminster made vehement demonstra- tions against the bill during its discussion. It was in vain. The bill became law. The marked preference thus shown for the interests of the country over those of the towns led to various disturbances. Bakers' shops were pillaged; and the popular excitement, after once breaking bounds, portended indiscriminate destruction. Bands of operatives roamed through the factory town- ships, smashing the new hated machines; and dis- charged soldiers and sailors often joined the rioters, to show their hatred of a government which neglected them while it pampered the Prince Regent and his minions. Amidst the ferment in the towns the followers of a Dr. Spence, who desired a general levelling of property, found a favourable opportunity of disseminating their ideas ; and, as will presently appear, one of their meet- ings was to have a noteworthy result. Misery breeds political nostrums as rapidly as an epidemic favours the sale of quack remedies: and it may be questioned whether the English public has ever been so plied with infallible recipes— of the "Morrison" type — as in the generation succeeding Waterloo. That an ignorant populace, when oppressed by grievous burdens, when per- plexed by strange symptoms, when distracted by rival nostrums, should ultimately have selected the means which have peacefully tended to the healing of the body politic, argues a statesmanlike instinct which is surely unequalled in the world's history. Among the restora- tive processes which have been at work, democracy of the English type may certainly be reckoned as one of the chief. We are now in a position to understand the chief steps in the renovation of the nation's life. The outlook in 1816 was certainly gloomy. States- men and people were alike perplexed by the increase of misery and discontent, when they had looked for peace and prosperity. The discontent, though wide-spread, The Origin of English Radicalism. 25 was vague and purposeless, until by the action of a group of Radicals, whose chief thinkers will be noticed in the next chapter, it became concentrated on a demand for a complete reform of Parliament. Foremost among the more popular champions of Radicalism stands a burly and pugnacious personage who claims some attention. Few Englishmen of this century have exerted a wider and more powerful influence on the progress of demo- cracy than William Cobbett. His position as the first English newspaper editor who caught the ear of the people and made the press a permanent power, would entitle him to notice here, even if he had not given a powerful impulse to parliamentary reform. That he did not earn for himself the higher renown of a legislative reformer was due to the strange defects which marred an otherwise striking character. His personality, like his career, is a tissue of inconsistencies and contradictions. The son of a farmer of Farnham in Surrey, he spent his youth as a copying clerk in Gray's Inn. To escape from this drudgery, he enlisted as a soldier and served for seven years under the union-jack in Nova Scotia, occupying his leisure time there with study and court- ship. Returning to England, he obtained his discharge in 1791 and proceeded to France, where he learnt the language and declaimed against the Revolution with all the fervour of a devoted royalist. On the approach of war between France and England, he set sail for America; and, as a bookseller in Philadelphia, he strove, in a paper called the Porcupine, to prick the bubbles of democratic enthusiasm. The success of his royalist propaganda may be measured by his own statement, that there were in that city about ten thousand persons who would have rejoiced to see him murdered, while not more than fifty would have stirred an inch to save him. He next flitted to his native shores, there to live in the turmoil ever dear to him ; and as the English government 26 The Rise of Democracy. was exceedingly unpopular, he gave it the support of his fretful quills. But a change came over the spirit of the Porcupine, or the Weekly Register as he now re- named it. A slight from the frigid William Pitt changed the loyalty of the editor to bitter dislike of the govern- ment, which was later on envenomed by the imposition of a heavy fine and two years' imprisonment for certain libellous articles. Thenceforth the cloak of Tom Paine fell on Cobbett's shoulders, together with a double portion of his mordant powers of sarcasm and abuse. He reduced the price of his Register to twopence, and held up to execration not only the government but all who differed from him. He therefore had abundant materials at hand for his facile pen. The abuses of government were notorious; and his impulsive and vindictive temperament constantly brought him into collision with nearly all prominent men, even those of the opposition. The Radical member for Westminster, Sir Francis Burdett, on whom Cobbett had showered praises as the saviour of the country, was suddenly de- nounced as the type of all that was mean and base; Hunt "the patriot" shrank into Hunt "the greatest of liars" ; and O'Connell, from being "the glory of Ireland", was execrated as "a vile vagabond ". Genial and good- natured though he was at home, stout and hearty though he was in physique, Cobbett almost rivalled Rousseau in the morbid sensitiveness which was ever detecting imaginary insults, and in the persistence with which he nursed his revenge. Such men may initiate a movement, but they are the ruin of every party or asso- ciation which they seek to found or regulate. And yet the bluff south countryman was not without his sterling qualities. His determination to educate himself and his fellows was to have a most important influence on English working-men of that period. His sketches of home-life and of the joy of training a family The Origin of English Radicalism. 27 revealed new possibilities to the men of that generation ; and in his Rural Rides, the descriptions of scenery and the dog-like patience of our peasantry are presented with the freshness and pathos of Rousseau himself. The enormous mass and unfailing vigour of his writings evoked from the Standard the startling statement that he was unrivalled since the time of Swift for clearness, force, and power of copious illustration. For "twenty- nine years — eleven weeks only excepted" — his weekly paper regularly appeared to excite the interest or the passions of our people. It is true that its variety and vigour were largely due to the almost canine pugnacity of the editor, and to other qualities which favour the output of "copy". So numerous were the water-tight compartments of his brain that he could freely dismiss the memory of past errors and gleefully proceed to alienate newly -made allies or cudgel another set of opponents, while the vigour and sustained power of his attacks gained the admiration of an athletic people, even apart from the respect felt for his manly exposure of political abuses. Such was the man who now led the popular demand for a drastic reform of Parliament. In his paper of October 26, 1816, he demanded that the House of Com- mons should be elected annually by all the tax-payers of the land', and that all other questions should be secondary to this. " Let us have this reform first, and all other good things will be given unto us." This determined agitation commenced by Cobbett may be considered the definite commencement of Radicalism in its nineteenth- century guise. Others, it is true, had agitated for yet larger demands; but, for reasons which we have now considered, they had made no permanent impression on our people. Now, however, amidst the distress which followed on the great war, Cobbett's agitation was to have important results. 28 The Rise of Democracy. Samuel Bamford, a weaver of Middleton near Man- chester, records in his memoirs that the comparative absence of riots after 1816 was due to Cobbett's advice to working-men to agitate for a complete reform of Parliament, and that they thenceforth became deliberate and systematic in their proceedings. They started "Hampden Clubs" in all the towns and villages of South Lancashire, and speakers crossed the Pennines to stir up the more apathetic Yorkshiremen. Delegates of the federated clubs drew up a political programme which demanded annual election of Parliaments; exclu- sion of all "placemen"; that every man of more than eighteen years of age, who paid taxes, should have a vote ; that every 20,000 inhabitants should send a member to the House of Commons; and that "talent and virtue should be the only qualifications necessary" for mem- bers. 