Page:Australian views of England.djvu/22

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10
AUSTRALIAN VIEWS
[Let.

are some public favourites in the Conservative ranks—men who are conspicuous for their thorough English qualities, and these men exercise an influence in favour of their party which is essentially personal and non-political. But, even in politics, many of the working classes have decided leanings to Conservatism, or rather to the men of Conservative reputation, for I doubt whether their preference is for Conservatism in the abstract. This feeling, it will be remembered, distinguished many of the Chartists of by-gone years, and even now we find Ernest Jones dedicating his poems to Sir Bulwer Lytton. The shopkeepers, for the most part, are "Liberals," and so are many of the commercial classes above them; but it is the voice of these "Liberals" which is loudest in its abuse of Mr. Bright. Their Liberalism extends little beyond their own order, and the secret of the working men's preference for the Conservatives is that the Conservatives really evince a more genuine feeling of fellowship for the working men, when they come in contact with them, than is to be found among the new families of opulence which have been admitted to political power by the Reform Act.

Theoretical Radicalism is beyond all doubt at a