276 History of the Radical Party in Parliament. [1834- being useless for revenue purposes, but effectual for the limita- tion of the influence of the press. The Radicals, as we have seen, were powerless. They moved resolutions such as that introduced on the I3th of April for the abolition of flogging in the army, which was lost by 215 votes to 95 which were rather protests on behalf of principles than efforts expected to have practical results. In point of fact, the people outside, and the popular members inside, Parliament were convinced by the action of the privileged governing classes of both parties that little was to be hoped for until some further reform of Parliament was obtained, and it was now that the seed was sown which grew into the Chartist agitation. At the opening of the session of 1837 it was the general opinion that the Whig Government had reached a stage of weakness and degradation which seemed to render their continuance in office impossible. Harriet Martineau says of them, " The history of our Whig Administrations is almost always made up of obstruction on the part of their adversaries, and powerless on their own ; but never were the Whig rulers reduced to more desperate straits than in the spring of 1837. ... In the House of Lords the Tories cried out that the country was without a Government ; and the Radical members in the other House repeated the cry." Spencer Walpole says, " Hopelessly discredited, the ministers passed through the autumn of 1836 ; hopelessly discredited they met Parliament in the spring of 1837."! Nor was this a mere unexpressed feeling of which the Government might, have been unconscious. They had both foes and friends who spoke out the truth plainly. At the end of the previous session on the 1 8th of August, 1836, Lyndhurst had gloried over their position. " Was there ever," he said, " in the history of this country a body of men who would have condescended so low as to attempt to carry on the government under such circum- stances ? In this House they are utterly powerless they can effect nothing. . . . Yet, thus disgraced and trampled
- " History of the Thirty Years' Peace," vol. ii. p. 339.
t " History of England from 1815," vol. iii. p. 375.
