Page:Australian views of England.djvu/98

  It is useless to attempt disguising the fact, the great bulk of the English nation cares nothing about politics in the abstract, or what is called political principle. The Nonconformist party are sincere enough in their opposition to church-rates; the extreme free-traders are undeniably in earnest in their projects of public economy and commercial freedom; other men have their hobbies, which they ride with enthusiasm. But both the people out of doors and members of Parliament evince something like the dying-out of the inflexibility and the strong fire of past times. It is not a dying-out, however, as will be seen some of these days.

The feeling on the civil war in America is not the least perplexing manifestation of these times. So long as victory attended the rebellious slave-holders, sympathy for their cause was too active to be concealed amongst certain classes here, as well among the new families who have risen to social position by trade, as among the old Conservative proprietors. Some would argue the question in a thin disguise; the republic was too large and unwieldy for one state; the natural divisions of the country, and the distinctive cha-