CHAPTER XXXVI.
Conclusion.
In the foregoing chapters, I have endeavored to trace the rise and progress of the Great British Party of Reform, which, adopting such changes in principle and policy as experience may suggest, will live and grow till every man has a voice in the election of both branches of the Legislature that governs him—till the burdens of taxation are impartially distributed among the people—till the sinecure and pension rolls are destroyed—till the public debt is paid or repudiated—till the main reliance for home defense rests with an organized militia—till the marine of a free commerce has chased the "wooden walls" from the ocean—till traffic in the land is as free as in the wheat it grows—till labor, fairly paid, becomes labor duly respected—till every sect supports its own church and clergy, and none other—till common schools, drawing nourishment from the bosom of the State, nestle in every valley—till the precepts of the law are made plain, and its admistration cheap—till Ireland becomes independent, or is allowed her just share in the national councils—till the dogma that a favored few are born booted and spurred, to ride the masses "by the grace of God," has had its last day, and the England of the times "when George the Third was King" exists only in the chronicles of History.
Since these Sketches were commenced, Europe has been the theater of a series of revolutions and counter-revolutions. France rose, overthrew the Monarchy, and expelled Louis Philippe. In an evil hour, she thrust aside Lamartine, to make room for Louis Napoleon. Ireland, having made an attempt to break her chains, has fallen into the arms of despair. Austria and Prussia kindled a flame which, for a time, gladdened the eye of Liberty. The expiring embers have been trodden out by the hoof of the Cossack. Rome expelled her Dictator, and founded a Republic more glorious and free than that of antiquity. She died under assassin blows dealt across the Alps by a professedly fraternal hand. Hungary made a stand for Freedom which electrified the world. Her immortal Kossuth and Bem have been compelled to flee to the mountains, while the hordes of Russia lay waste her plains, and Austria, the meanest of despots, rivets chains on the limbs of her sons. From this dark and dreary prospect, the eye turns to the Radical Reformers of Great Britain and Ireland. Acting through institutions comparatively free, they will by slow but sure advances yet work out for themselves, and, by the aid of kindred spirits in other countries, for Europe, the great problem of Constitutional liberty. In the present aspect of Continental affairs, they, with the Radical Republicans of France, must be regarded as the rallying point, the forlorn hope of the struggling masses from the Gulf of Finland to the Straits of Gibraltar.
THE END.