CHAPTER II
POLITICAL CONDITIONS IN THE REIGN OF GEORGE III
Modern English politics may be fairly said to begin about the accession of George III. The conflict of Liberalism and Toryism can no doubt be traced farther back. But though the same principles may have been at stake during the Civil War, or even in the time of the Lollards, the general movement was slow, and the connection with modern politics less definite. About the middle of the eighteenth century society began to group itself more permanently, and a train of events was started which can be traced continuously to our own time. Movement also became more rapid, and the appearance of the social fabric has been more changed in the last hundred and fifty years than it was in the preceding fifteen hundred. It is possible, therefore, to get a substantially accurate explanation of modern politics by a survey of the recent period alone. So many causes have been crowded into those few years that the weight of the others is almost negligible. The history of Liberalism is, for practical purposes, the history of Liberalism since 1760. This chapter will therefore examine the political condition of England about that date.
The political structure changed little between 1760 and 1820. At the end of that period, as at its beginning, power was in the hands of a class which monopolized every privilege of race, sex, creed, and rank, and disposed, at its discretion, of the fortunes of all inferior persons. Ireland and the Colonies were subordinated to Great Britain, women to men, Catholics and Dissenters to Churchmen, manufacturers, traders, and workmen to landowners.
The classification of humanity, for political purposes, was complete. The machinery of the State was controlled by a governing class, bound to listen to the complaints of its subjects, but not submitted to their authority. The temper of this class as a whole, though it was nominally divided into Tories and Whigs, was essentially Tory. The two sections disputed between themselves, and some of the Whigs expressed Liberal opinions on particular subjects. But the general mental habit of both parties was that of Toryism. It was not until after the Reform Act of 1832 that even the germ of a Liberal party made its appearance in English politics, and it was not until after the Reform Act of 1867 that such a party held office. The history of Liberalism in the early period of its growth is the history of its slow and painful progress through people who did not consciously accept it.
The general Tory view of political society was most forcibly expressed after the French Revolution. The proclamation of the equality of individuals which that implied was met by very clear and explicit denials. It is obvious that Toryism was thus strung to its highest pitch, and that it may have been less aggressive in temper before the violence of the Revolution inflamed it. But though it was exaggerated by the Revolution, it was not essentially altered, and the language of the Tories of 1820 may fairly be taken to illustrate the mental habit of Tories of 1760. The root principle of government was that it should be controlled by the wealthy owners of land. There was some free voting in towns. But most borough seats could be bought, and many were in the absolute disposition of the nearest landowner. The owners of freeholds worth forty shillings a year voted in county elections, and were comparatively independent. But no voter, however sturdy and self-reliant, had a real voice in politics. The landed gentry took politics for their business, and if the voter could draw attention to what he conceived to be a grievance, the landowner decided whether any remedy should be applied. "The country gentlemen," said Lord North, "are the best and most respectable objects of the confidence of the people."[[29]] Wilberforce described
the same class as "the very nerves and ligatures of the body politic."[[30]] The manufacturing class and traders were looked upon with a curious and comical jealousy. The great growth of these classes at the end of the century meant a new form of wealth and a new form of political power, and Sir William Jones probably spoke the feelings of most of his class when he opposed a motion for the Reform of Parliament in 1793. He said "it had ever been his opinion, since he began his political career, that the country had too much of a commercial turn, and that its commerce would soon become more than a match for its virtues. The petitioners proposed a measure that evidently tended to throw weight into a scale which preponderated too much already. He asserted that boroughs, bought and controlled by men of property, formed the only balance to the commercial influence, which was increasing by too rapid strides, and which ought to be checked."[[31]] So Robert Jenkinson, afterwards Earl of Liverpool, "thought the landed interest, which was the stamina of the country, ought to have the preponderant weight, the manufacturing and commercial interest the next place, and then those whom he styled 'the professional people.'" He therefore opposed attempts to reform Parliament, because "the counties and many of the populous boroughs were required for the return of country gentlemen. The commercial towns secured the election of certain persons in that line, and the close boroughs for the election of the professional people."[[32]] He thus divided society into nicely graded classes, and constructed the whole political system with a view to securing that each class should express just the value which he attached to it. Corrupt town constituencies were to be preserved in the constitution in order that the landed gentry might preserve their monopoly of politics against the men of commerce. But a more striking, because a more innocent, revelation of the arrogance of the dominant class is contained in Lord John Russell's record of his discovery of intelligence among employers of labour. Russell was a Whig, and lived long enough to become a Liberal. In 1810,
when he was a young man, he made a pilgrimage through England, and solemnly made this entry in his diary. "The first of the few remarks still to be made is the singular quantity of talent we found amongst the manufacturers. There was not one master manufacturer of Manchester or Leeds ... that might not be set apart as a man of sense, and hardly any that, besides being theoretically and practically masters of their own business, were not men of general reading and information."[[33]] What are we to think of social estimates, when a young nobleman makes a note of signs of intelligence among captains of industry in the conscientious spirit in which his modern successors record traces of civilization among Papuans or the inhabitants of the Congo? The public privileges of the two classes corresponded with these private estimates of their relative importance. Political offices as a matter of course were reserved for the landed proprietors. A trader was sometimes made a knight or a baronet, but never a peer.[[34]] The best appointments in the Army and Navy and what is now called the Civil Service were distributed in the same way. A Member of Parliament must have a definite income derived from land.[[35]] A similar qualification was required in Justices of the Peace. No one could kill game who was not a landowner, or a person holding a licence as gamekeeper from a landowner. If a man died in debt, his plate, furniture, and stock in trade might be seized by his creditors, but his land could not. In every way land was invested with peculiar rights. There were in fact only three ways in which a man might rise to political importance without being a landowner. A few naval officers of high rank had risen from mean beginnings. Servants of the East India Company sometimes acquired vast fortunes in India, and forced their way into domestic politics by sheer weight of wealth. A lawyer of