Page:History of the Radical Party in Parliament.djvu/39

Rh the same effect which would have resulted from the avowed sanctity of individual and sectional interests. There was, in the first place, an abstraction called the nation, which was separated, in the minds of the rulers, from the people of whom it consisted, and tended more and more to mean the particular classes who, by birth or wealth, by aristocratic connections or court influence, were brought into immediate contact with the Government. The men in office then could aim at advantages to the nation, in the way of military glory, territorial additions, or international influence, without counting the cost in loss and want and misery to the people who found the taxes and filled the armies. To the same officials the security of the nation meant the stability of the existing form of government, and any extension of popular power seemed to threaten revolution and national disaster. Therefore, in order to preserve the nation, the people were to be kept in subjection, and even in ignorance; and men so unlike in character and ability as and, combined to resist and defeat the first attempt to establish by law a system of popular education. It will be seen how the effect of the French Revolution was to increase and to extend these feelings, and to put back for an indefinite time the attempts which were being made on behalf of social progress and constitutional reform.

This, it may be said, was the Tory idea of national policy. In its best aspect, it may be stated as the government of the people, for the nation by prerogative. The Whig view was different in theory, but not so much unlike in practice. It recognized, indeed, the happiness and welfare of the people as the direct objects at which governments should aim, but it refused to give to the people any active share in the work of their own improvement and progress. Whilst, therefore, it often appealed successfully to outbursts of public opinion on behalf of particular measures, it refused to place any permanent constitutional power in the hands of the people. The Whig theory was the government of the people, for the people by existing privileged