Page:History of the Radical Party in Parliament.djvu/129

 CHAPTER VII. FROM THE CLOSE OF THE WAR TO THE DEATH OF GEORGE III. (1815-1820). AT the close of the war the English people had a right to demand that attention should be given to measures for the improvement of their material and social condition, and the increase of their political liberties. They had earned the right by a long and patient endurance of difficulty and distress. They had borne the pressure of the enormous war taxation ; they had filled the ranks of the army, and manned the ships of the navy, under regulations which regarded the privates in either service as nothing better than mere fighting machines ; and they had submitted to a long series of repressive and coercive laws, not indeed without murmurs, but without any attempt at violent resistance. They had done this in order that the hands of the Government, which was responsible for the conduct of a struggle which came at last to be regarded as one for national existence, might not be weakened by internal difficulties and divisions. Now that peace had been secured, it was natural that the people should expect that, by reduction of taxation and by wise commercial, legislation, their burdens should be reduced ; and that, in questions affecting their welfare, their own voices should make them- selves heard. On all sides the popular expectations were utterly disappointed, the popular demands vehemently resisted. The first years of the peace were marked by commercial and manufacturing difficulties, and by consequent industrial sufferings which surprised as much as it distressed the public