a class, not a people. The war was a war between two civilizations, one based on free labour, the other on slavery. The intervention of England would have meant war on behalf of the bad old system against that which was most in harmony with her own. So long as the issue in the States was doubtful the risk remained. Confederate privateers were fitted out in English ports, and the Government was scandalously remiss in taking steps to stop them. Mr. Gladstone in 1862 made an indiscreet speech which hinted at recognition, and the American Ambassador nearly sent in his papers. The one public man who kept his head cool and his vision clear was John Bright, who spoke unceasingly against the approval of slavery. But it was reserved for some nameless men and women to make the noblest display of wisdom which came from England during the war. The condition of the people of Lancashire would have been little worse than it was if every one of their cotton-mills had been swept from the face of the earth. Practically the whole of the cotton operatives and their families lived for months together upon charity. If any had cause to clamour for recognition and the defeat of the North, it was they. But in the midst of their distress this magnificent race stood by its principles. No saint or philosopher ever betrayed a greater fortitude than these poor and simple workfolk. While the merchant princes of Liverpool clamoured for war, and sent their clerks to howl at Henry Ward Beecher when he pleaded the cause of the North, the suffering populace of East Lancashire made no complaint. At one meeting at Manchester they even passed a resolution of sympathy with the North. This is probably the noblest thing that has ever been done in the world. It is not uncommon for men and women, in the excitement of war and in defence of their homes and children, to sacrifice themselves and all they have. But the act of the Lancashire workfolk was done in cold blood, and in defiance of every natural impulse. There is nothing more majestic in human records than the spectacle of these starving men and women, gathered in the very shadow of their dark and silent mills to encourage those whose success meant the continuing of their own miseries. The
use of such a people as this in support of the Southern States would have been a monstrous crime. The final triumph of the North saved the Government from such a fatal error and made the recognition of the independence of the South unnecessary by making it impossible.
CHAPTER VIII
THE BEGINNING OF THE GLADSTONE PERIOD
The Palmerston era was now at an end, and that of Gladstone was beginning. The first had been a period of domestic indifference and external agitation. Energy at home and restraint abroad were the marks of the first Liberal Ministry. The dominating force in practical politics was a man who derived his principles from a mixture of sound stocks. A temperate foreign policy, a rigorous economy in expenditure, and a dislike of commercial interference and restriction he had inherited from Sir Robert Peel. Beginning his career as a strong Churchman, he had gradually acquired the old Whig liberality in religious matters. "I think it," he wrote in 1865, "a most formidable responsibility in these times to doubt any man's character on account of his opinions. The limit of possible variation between character and opinion, ay, between character and belief, is widening, and will widen."[[280]] To belief in popular government he seems to have approached of his own nature, and he shared with Bright the honours of leadership in the new agitation for Reform. His party was compounded in much the same way of the different schools, old Whig doctrines of freedom of opinion, Palmerston's enthusiasm for nationalities, and the Manchester School's dislike of foreign affairs and preference for domestic interests combining in a general theory of individual and national liberty, which for the first time approached complete Liberalism. In two directions
the policy of the new school of thought showed a distinct advance upon any of its predecessors. Its conception of freedom was less pedantic than that of Benthamites or Manchester men, and it was not afraid to imitate the methods of State interference which Tory philanthropy alone had previously ventured to employ. This new spirit combined with the regard for nationalities to produce an entirely novel policy in Ireland, where peculiar diseases were at last met with peculiar remedies.
The policy of economic reconstruction, which was first seriously undertaken by the Liberal Ministry of 1868, was undertaken largely in response to pressure from a new section of society. The Reform Act of 1832 had enfranchised the £10 householder. The Representation of the People Act of 1867 enfranchised every town-dweller who paid rates. The first gave power to the middle class. The second gave power to the working class. The artisans, whose political agitation had died out in the Chartist movement of 1848, had devoted their energies since that date to the development of their industrial organizations. In 1863 Holyoake started an "Association for the Promotion of Co-operation," and in 1869 the Co-operative Societies had a total capital of £2,000,000, and an annual trade of £8,000,000. A similar growth had taken place in the case of Trade Unions. Between 1855 and 1865 the numbers of Trade Unionists seem to have been more than doubled, and Unions which in 1870 contained 142,000 members, had 266,000 in 1875.[[281]] This form of organization was even more directly political than co-operation in the manufacture or supply of goods. It was frequently brought into conflict with legal theories about conspiracy, restraint of trade, intimidation, and breach of contract; and the necessity of amending the existing law was apparent.
This growth of organizations had produced a great increase of intelligence and influence among the better sort of working men. In thus managing affairs on a large scale, they had developed a capacity for political control which was very different from the vaguer discontent of an earlier generation. They were now