Page:History of the Radical Party in Parliament.djvu/22

8 grouping of different sections round particular leaders and in defence of special ideas, and which gave to politicians, without traditional or family connections with them, the desire to appeal to a wider constituency. This period, which on other accounts may be taken as almost the starting-point of a new era in our political history, was the beginning of the reign of George III. It was then that the old fight between royal prerogative and popular liberty was recommenced, but under conditions very different to those which had marked the cessation of the former conflict between the two forces. In the struggle with the later Stuarts, the people had found in Parliament an instrument which was sufficient for the purpose of opposing despotism and maintaining constitutional government. But the institution, which was at that time vital, had since become mechanical. It was regarded, partly by classes whose special interests it served, and partly by the general reverence of the country whose liberties it had protected, as sacred in form as well as beneficial in spirit. Under the first two Georges there was no danger that the Crown would either encroach upon the domain of Parliamentary power or use Parliament itself for autocratic purposes. But this very freedom from royal interference, and the preponderance of Whig principles which made outward struggle unnecessary, led to internal corruptions; so that when George III. and his immediate advisers came to examine the position with a view of reconstructing the personal power of the monarch, they found the process so far advanced that the King was able to bribe, to intimidate, and to corrupt with as much freedom as Walpole had done or as Newcastle was doing. The constitutional machine was weakened, and if it were not amended and strengthened it must become amenable either to irregular pressure from the people or to the direction and dictation of the Crown.

Before the accession of the new King it had been proved, by the success of Pitt, that whatever might be the completeness of the Whig system of Parliamentary management, a decided manifestation of public feeling was sufficient to