Page:History of the Radical Party in Parliament.djvu/490

 476 History of the Radical Party in Parliament. [1865- of July Mr. Gladstone moved the second reading of the Compulsory Church Rates Abolition Bill. It was evident that the bill could not be carried during the session, and on that ground its opponents urged its withdrawal. On such a question, however, a declaration of principle was desirable, and, after an adjournment, the second reading was carried on the ist of August, with the understanding that no further progress should be made. It must have been an unpleasant thought for the Conservative Ministry, that they could not resist an attack upon the Church of which they were the sworn champions. The necessary routine work being got through, the session closed on the loth of August. During the recess the education of the Ministry went on, the lessons being given in every part of the country, and the reform agitation extending in all directions. The Hyde Park railings had been pulled down before the prorogation, but the other great demonstrations to which reference has been made now followed each other in rapid succession. The movement was everywhere joined by people who do not usually take an active part in political agitation, but who, convinced now that nothing could be done in the way of permanent legislation until the reform question was disposed of, united in a demand for its settlement. These men, too, saw plainly that Mr. Bright, instead of being the firebrand which he was called by the Whigs, was in reality a statesman who had first seen the true remedy for existing evils, and had manifested as much wisdom in his methods as courage in his advocacy of them. In the course of this agitation, he had secured for himself and his party that full assurance of popular confidence which made it not only possible, but imperative, that he and they should take a prominent and influential part in the responsible government of the country. Parliament met on the 5th of February, 1867, and it was soon seen that the agitation had done its work. The Ministry which had come into power by the rejection of a Reform Bill, and which in July was not prepared to commit itself to a promise to introduce a measure of its own, now in February