Page:History of the Radical Party in Parliament.djvu/68

54 the actual and the expedient meant the conditions of the Constitution as he found them existing in his own time. They were the result of the endeavour of past generations to bring those conditions into harmony either with ideas of right or with the changing requirements of a society in which new interests were arising and new powers were being exerted. The Constitution, the form of government which Burke was willing to accept, was the result of constant and continuous growth and change. But he seemed desirous, and his theory involves the necessity, of arresting this process of development. The wisely expedient thing is to be careful that alteration is not mere arbitrary change, but the consequence of natural growth. But Burke, as we have seen, opposed every suggestion of constitutional reform. The necessity of some reform was accepted by almost every other great practical statesman of his time. Chatham, and his son William Pitt, Richmond, Shelburne, Portland, Fox, had all recognized the fact that some modification of the representative system was essential, in order to make it consistent with the social and political necessities of the time. Burke resisted every one of these attempts. What he was willing and indeed anxious to do, was to remove abuses of the system. He would clean and oil the machinery, but would not have it altered. And if the instrument of government were indeed a machine, and not a living organism, he might have been right. It was arguable that this machine had been perfected, and did not admit of improvement. But if it is permissible to regard the form of a constitution apart from the feelings, the traditions, the sympathy, and the wishes of a people, we should have to go further than Burke, and to admit that at any given time in any nation the actual state of things would be practically unchangeable. It would be for the administrators of the day to be satisfied with it—as Burke was in the case of England—to settle the matter. Forms of government would be, as Pope said, indifferent:

The whole case is changed if we take the other view, and