Page:Radicalism, what is it?.djvu/25

21 of the party fail in evoking the sympathy of those who love Order, Liberty and Progress—watchwords daily debased from their true significance. Where they are typical of a Liberal programme, they ought rather to be interpreted as meaning, Disorder, License and Revolution. To menace the Legislature with hordes of the lowest of our people—to stop traffic and commerce—desecrate the Sabbath, and double the work of the Police Courts on the following day is called &apos;Peaceful agitation,' To copy the faults without the experience of foreign nations is deemed—&apos;Political wisdom&apos;—To assault principle after principle of our noble constitution, the accumulated wisdom of our forefathers, is regarded as the true characteristic of a &apos;Friend of the People."

Those however who regard political professions simply as devices for the hustings prefer the practical test of performances. Nor can anything be more a propos just at present, than to review the long term of office enjoyed by the Liberal party, and to ascertain what grounds, if any, exist for the self satisfaction that prevails among its adherents, and what grounds there may be for most serious reprehension.

A brief summary of Foreign Policy during the past sixteen years, will furnish us with some data on which we may form a true opinion.

Mr. Kinglake in his interesting volumes just published on the Crimean war, vividly describes the effect on the Czar of the loss of the Battle of the Alma.