Page:History of the Radical Party in Parliament.djvu/477

 1865.] Palmers ton's Last Administration. 463 5th of July he resigned. On the following day Parliament was prorogued and dissolved. The general election which took place immediately was not a very exciting affair. The masters of the constituencies, the landowners, Whig and Tory alike, were anxious not to raise any troublesome questions, and agreed to support Palmerston as the great preventive of change. In that case it did not much matter whether the nominal Liberal majority was a little greater or a little less ; the Premier was to be retained in office in either case. The large popular constituen- cies gave evidence of their continued desire for reform, and in some cases made the Ministry feel the effect of their discon- tent. Thus Sir Charles Wood had to leave Halifax, which required a more independent Liberal ; and Frederick Peel was dismissed from Bury, to make way for a good Radical in the person of Mr. R. M. Phillips. An important addition was made to the ranks of the party by the election for Westminster of John Stuart Mill. The action of such a man was a fresh refutation of the charge that Radicals were mere thoughtless demagogues, without a knowledge of the great principles on which the government of a country should be founded. Here was a man who had deeply studied the laws of political economy and the philosophy of society and politics, and who, as the result of his knowledge and thought, was convinced that the safest foundation for national well-being was the extension of the area of popular representation. It is probable that a nominal loss of one election was as great a real benefit to the cause as the gain of several others. The University of Oxford, by its rejection of Mr. Gladstone, only showed, as far as it was itself concerned, that it hated anything like sympathy with popular desires or support of popular measures. But as respected its late representative, it set him free from that desire to represent even the prejudices of his old constituents, which, if it could not affect the growth of his political opinions or the sincerity of his convictions, might hamper and impede his practical progress. The sense of relief from this indefinite but real restraint was not absent from his own mind, as some