Page:History of the Radical Party in Parliament.djvu/329

 1846.] Sir Robert Peel's Administration. 315 numerical majority of the whole party, yet such an important section that if they had been sufficiently organized they would have been justified in insisting upon the recognition of their leaders in the constitution of the Ministry. They appear, as a rule, not to have felt either the desire or the necessity for such organization and separate action, and by degrees the Whigs thought it more politic to lean towards the Conservative rather than the Radical element a policy which must have been always congenial to men like Melbourne and Palmerston, who had left, under the stress of excitement in the reform days, a party with which they had always much sympathy. After the election of 1841, the conditions were altogether different. The united forces of Whigs and Radicals together were outnumbered by the Conservatives, and the two sections were quietly merged in one opposition. There remained, however, the same divergence of ultimate object the Whigs desiring a return to office on the basis of a very moderate policy ; the Radicals striving to achieve particular reforms, but with no great hope of directing the ordinary conduct of affairs. Without some considerable extension of Parlia- mentary reform it was impossible for them to obtain such numbers in the House of Commons as would justify them in looking for supremacy or equality in office, and such ex- tension was beyond reasonable expectation for some time to come. To strive for it, indeed, was still the great dis- tinguishing characteristic of Radicalism, and the extent to which it was pursued might fairly be taken as a test of the loyalty of members to their principles. In this matter the new free-traders were as faithful as any of the older Parliamentary Radicals, and more constant than some of them. An opportunity of applying this test occurred at the very beginning of the new Parliament. On the 28th of August, the day after the division which had unseated the Ministry, on the report on the address, Sharman Crawford, who now sat for Rochdale, moved an amendment declaring that the House felt it to be its duty to consider the means