Page:History of the Radical Party in Parliament.djvu/231

 1832.] Cannings Premiership to Passing of Reform Act. 217 spirit of representative government ; it is an assertion that the people are not entitled to a voice in the administration of their own affairs. To maintain limitations which already exist, is bad enough ; to take votes from those who possess them, is insulting as well as unjust ; but to do this whilst a remedial and conciliatory measure is being offered to promote peace and remove disaffection, is of all conceivable courses the most impolitic and unstatesmanlike. It inflicts a new wound whilst an old one is being healed, and makes national health im- possible. Such were the great measures, with their merits and their faults, which the Ministry in violation of all their pre- vious policy and pledges, but in accordance with what they believed to be a solemn national duty proposed and carried. We need not follow the course of their progress through Parliament. The Emancipation Bill was, as we have seen, first explained to the Commons on the 5th of March, and on the 1 3th of April it received the royal assent. The passing of this great measure was another proof that neither class interests nor party organizations, neither the determination of ministers nor the resistance of peers and monarch, could permanently defeat the will of the people, expressed on behalf of an object just and politic. Still, it could not but be seen that, however desirable was that object and however beneficial its effect, it had been obtained in an unsatisfactory manner. It was proposed and carried by men who had spent the greater part of their political life in oppos- ing it, and who even now did not profess to believe that it was right, but had only been convinced by violent agitation that it had become necessary. Such a course is dangerous to the character of statesmanship and to the honour of statesmen. Laws which are proposed by men who do not believe them to be essentially just and wise, can hardly commend them- selves to the reverence, even if they secure the obedience, of the whole people. Yet the ministers who carried emancipa- tion were beyond all question honest and honourable ; they would have scorned to do, for the sake of personal power or emolument, what they consented to undertake from a feeling