Page:History of the Radical Party in Parliament.djvu/69

Rh regard political institutions as a part of a living social organism. Inorganic machines may remain unchanged, but to a living organism change is a part of the law of its being. Either growth and development or decay and disintegration are, and always must be, going on. It is the test of the wisdom and sagacity of statesmen, that they shall know how little or how much change is desirable or inevitable.

The Radicals were acting in obedience to a sound political law—and that none the less although they did not understand its origin and basis—in declaring that some constitutional change was necessary alike to comply with the wishes and requirements of the people, and to improve the working of the practical government of the country. That their proposals were defeated and the natural growth checked, does not invalidate this interpretation of the law. The natural growth of a child or of a limb may be impeded and distorted by artificial bandages, but it is at the cost of present suffering and permanent weakness. The greatness of the suffering which came upon England because its political institutions were not allowed to represent its varying interests and reflect its growing spirit and intelligence, the history of the country from the outbreak of the French war to the death of Castlereagh sufficiently demonstrates. Pitt's own career is a sort of illustration in little of the theory that has been discussed. When he ceased to be progressive, he became positively reactionary; dropping reform, he took up restriction of personal liberty and freedom of expression, and employed the constitutional forms, into which he ceased to want to infuse new life, as instruments for the exercise of the most arbitrary rule.

There was no possibility of either healing over or concealing the differences in the Whig camp. Burke's statement as to the end of the friendship betwixt himself and Fox, was made on the 6th of May, 1791. On the 11th the final debate took place, in which Burke, whilst declaring that sentence of banishment from his party had been pronounced against him, vindicated his position and accepted the decree of severance