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A SHORT HISTORY OF
ENGLISH LIBERALISM



BY

W. LYON BLEASE



    _No rational man ever did govern himself by abstractions and
    universals.... A statesman differs from a professor in an university;
    the latter has only the general view of society.... A statesman, never
    losing sight of principles, is to be guided by circumstances; and,
    judging contrary to the exigencies of the moment, he may ruin his
    country for ever._

    BURKE, "On the Petition of the Unitarians."



T. FISHER UNWIN
LONDON: ADELPHI TERRACE
LEIPSIC: INSELSTRASSE 20

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TO
"THE MANCHESTER GUARDIAN"



_First Published in 1913_

(_All rights reserved._)

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CONTENTS

  CHAPTER                                                 PAGE

  I. LIBERALISM AND TORYISM                                  7

  II. POLITICAL CONDITIONS IN THE REIGN OF GEORGE III       42

  III. THE FIRST MOVEMENT TOWARDS LIBERALISM                69

  IV. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND ENGLISH OPINION            100

  V. THE DECLINE OF TORYISM                                142

  VI. THE MIDDLE-CLASS SUPREMACY                           168

  VII. THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL AND PALMERSTON                190

  VIII. THE BEGINNING OF THE GLADSTONE PERIOD              230

  IX. GLADSTONE VERSUS DISRAELI                            265

  X. THE IMPERIALIST REACTION                              294

  XI. LIBERALISM SINCE 1906                                324

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{7}

A Short History of English Liberalism

CHAPTER I

LIBERALISM AND TORYISM

This book attempts to trace the varying but persistent course of Liberalism
in British politics during the last hundred and fifty years. It is not so
much a history of events as a reading of them in the light of a particular
political philosophy. In the strict sense a history of Liberalism should
cover much more than politics. The same habit of mind is to be discovered
everywhere else in the history of thought, most conspicuously in religious
history, but not less certainly in the history of science and of art. The
general victory in these innumerable conflicts of opinion has been to
Liberalism, and the movement of the race, during the period with which the
writer is concerned, is precisely measured by the degree in which the
Liberal spirit has succeeded in modifying the establishments of the
preceding age. The object of this book is to investigate the course of that
process of modification in politics.

By Liberalism I mean, not a policy, but a habit of mind. It is the
disposition of the man who looks upon each of his fellows as of equal worth
with himself. He does not assume that all men and women are of equal
capacity, or equally entitled to offices and privileges. But he is always
inclined to leave and to give them equal opportunity with himself for
self-expression and for self-development. He assumes, as the basis of his
activity, that he has no right to interfere with any other person's
attempts {8} to employ his natural powers in what he conceives to be the
best way. He is unwilling to impose his judgment upon that of others, or to
force them to live their lives according to his ideas rather than their
own. They are never to be used by him for his own ends, but for theirs.
Each is to be left to himself, to work out his own salvation. The Liberal
habit of mind has its positive as well as its negative side. Just as it
leads its possessor to refrain from interfering with the development of
others, so it leads him to take active steps to remove the artificial
barriers which impede that development. Natural obstacles will remain,
though even these may be diminished. But the artificial conditions, which
prevent or hinder growth, are perpetually obnoxious to the Liberal. Upon
class distinctions in society, privileges of sex, rank, wealth, and creed,
he wages unceasing war. They are, in his eye, weights and impediments. To
one of two individuals, not distinguishable in natural capacity, they give
an advantage which is denied to the other. It is the object of the Liberal,
not to deprive any individual of such opportunities as are required for the
exercise of his natural powers, but to prevent the excessive appropriation
of such opportunities by members of the privileged class. The differences
between the practical aims and methods of Liberals at different times are
very wide. But the mental habit has always been the same. "The passion for
improving mankind, in its ultimate object, does not vary. But the immediate
object of reformers and the forms of persuasion by which they seek to
advance them, vary much in different generations. To a hasty observer they
might even seem contradictory, and to justify the notion that nothing
better than a desire for change, selfish or perverse, is at the bottom of
all reforming movements. Only those who will think a little longer about it
can discern the same old cause of social good against class interests, for
which, under altered names, Liberals are fighting now as they were fifty
years ago."[1] The constitutional Liberalism of Fox, the economical
Liberalism of Cobden, and the new collectivist Liberalism of Mr. Lloyd {9}
George exhibit great differences in comparison. But the three men are alike
in their desire to set free the individual from existing social bonds, and
to procure him liberty of growth.

The justification for this individual freedom is not that the man is left
to his own selfish motives, to develop himself for his own advantage. It is
that it is only in this way that he can realize that his own best advantage
is only secured by consulting that of his fellows. "The foundation of
liberty is the idea of growth... it is of course possible to reduce a man
to order and prevent him from being a nuisance to his neighbours by
arbitrary control and harsh punishment.... It is also possible, though it
takes a much higher skill, to teach the same man to discipline himself, and
this is to foster the development of will, of personality, of self-control,
or whatever we please to call that central harmonizing power which makes us
capable of directing our own lives. Liberalism is the belief that society
can safely be founded on this self-directing power of personality."[2] This
Liberalism has nothing to do with anarchy. Coercion may be consistently
applied wherever individual liberty is employed for the public injury, and
the imprisonment of burglars and the regulation of factories by law are
only two aspects of the same thing. But Liberalism restricts freedom only
to extend freedom. Where the individual uses his own liberty to restrict
that of others he may be coerced. But in spite of the modifications to
which all such political principles must be subject, the general rule holds
good. The ideal Liberal State is that in which every individual is equally
free to work out his own life.

The practical difficulty of working out the relations between the
individual and the society in which he is placed is of course very great,
and it will probably always be impossible to maintain a perfect
equilibrium. No doubt we shall always suffer from one or other of the two
unsatisfying conditions--the sacrifice of the individual to what the
majority thinks to be the right of the whole society, and the sacrifice of
the {10} society to the undue emancipation of the individual. But the
necessary imperfection of the result is no argument against this or any
other political system of thought. Politics are no more than a means of
getting things done, and when we have found a society of perfect human
beings, we can fairly complain that their affairs are not perfectly
managed. So far as he can, the Liberal aims at securing this balance of
social and individual good, remembering that the good of society can only
be measured by the good of all its members, and not by the good only of
some dominant rank, creed, or class. "Rights are relative to the well-being
of society, but