We may also watch the introduction of ideas and principles likely to attract one section of the Whigs and repel another, or calculated to attract the attention and incite the interest of persons and classes who had hitherto held aloof from political work. When any special excitement is produced on great questions this tendency to definite organization may be suddenly awakened into active life, as when water is upon the point of freezing, a touch or a breath will expedite the process and seem to serve as the immediate cause of crystallization. Such circumstances did arise in England in the latter half of the eighteenth century, and they were sufficiently marked to form a political era.
Mr. Lecky—agreeing in that with Wingrove Cooke—ventures to be more precise, and to fix the actual year in which he thinks the party was born. He says, "The year 1769 is very memorable in political history, for it witnessed the birth of English Radicalism, and the first serious attempt to reform and control Parliament by a pressure from without, making its members habitually subservient to their constituents."[1] This statement is a great deal too definite as regards dates, and that perhaps arises from a misconception by the writer of the distinguishing feature of the new party. It is a mistake to suppose that it was a novel idea characteristic of the Radicals, that outside opinion ought to influence the action of Parliament. That, on the contrary, was the strongly expressed opinion of the old Whigs, as opposed to those now called Radicals; the latter seeking rather some constitutional means for representing larger numbers of the people, and representing them more purely, in the legislature itself. The external pressure theory was urged strongly by Burke, who, in this and all other branches of political opinion and philosophy, was the ablest exponent of Whig principles; and he constantly proposes it as a means whereby constitutional reform, which he disliked, might be rendered unnecessary and prevented.
- ↑ "History of England in the Eighteenth Century," vol. iii. p. 174; Wingrove Cooke, "History of Parties," vol. iii. p. 188 et seq.
