The History of the Radical Party in Parliament/Chapter 1

by William Harris

 

THE HISTORY

OF THE

Radical Party in Parliament.

 

 

CHAPTER I.

 

INTRODUCTION—ORIGIN OF THE PARTY.

 

The growth and development of political parties follow the same general laws as those which affect and govern other social organisms. A party is sometimes spoken of as a piece of mechanism which can be formed at will, which is absolutely distinct from other associations of the same kind, and the outlines of which can be definitely and sharply drawn. Such a description can apply only to special combinations for particular purposes. The Anti-Corn Law League and its supporters might have been called the free-trade party; and on the other side we have had what called itself the fair-trade party. Such organizations, however, are not parties in the proper sense of the term; they are not the result of the natural cohesion of men accepting the same general principles and ready to apply them to special cases as they occur, but rather combinations of people who, whatever their general principles, are willing to co-operate for a special purpose. Men holding the most divergent views as to the true laws of government, could, and did, combine to effect the repeal of the corn laws; but their aggregation did not form a political party which could survive the adoption of the one object, and devote itself to affecting the broad general lines of national policy. This is to be taken as applying not to the individual members of the league, but to the particular organization itself. Its founders and main supporters, if not in numbers, at least in power, were members of a wider party, and were the result of its growth and the occasion of its further development; but in that respect the league was an instrument which they used, and not an organism of which they were parts.

Let us now take an example—the most important, perhaps, in our history, and sufficiently remote to enable us to examine it with impartiality—of the manner in which natural party characteristics survive, and more conscious and artificial combinations die out. In the struggle between the Royalists and the Parliamentarians in the seventeenth century, the two most elementary parties into which a nation can be divided, and which in every community exist in a more or less developed state, came into inevitable contest. The principles of authority on the one side and of liberty on the other were opposed in the most direct manner. These two ideas are both essential to the existence of society and to the exercise of the functions of government; yet they are so essentially distinct, and, under certain circumstances, so .conflicting, that they form centres towards which individual natures, with varying tendencies and sympathies, are attracted in natural groups. They may be regarded as vital powers, each struggling to preserve its own existence, and which, although they are ultimately reconcilable, are for a time fiercely antagonistic.

We should have to go much further back if we wished to trace the time when the first divergence took place, and in a community all practically accepting the idea of a personal authority, there were some who desired to place limits to its exercise, and who by degrees became wise enough to devise and strong enough to enact regular constitutional checks. We have to consider a later time, when King and Parliament formed the centres round which were ranged the lovers of authority on one side and of liberty on the other. The two parties were not entirely homogeneous, nor could the line of demarcation between them be clearly and sharply drawn. There was so much difference between the two wings of either army, and so much sympathy between what were called the moderate sections of the two, as might be expected if their development as parties was the result of natural social growth. Falkland and Essex, although fighting in opposite camps, were nearer in sympathy to each other than the former was to Strafford or the latter to Harrison. The main lines, however, were always discernible; popular rights on one side, and personal power on the other, were arrayed in opposition. So far the party distinctions were evidently the result of the action of natural laws, of the gradual growth and development of social and intellectual germs. But the excitement of the times gave to this growth an abnormal impetus, and produced a political structure which could not find permanent nourishment either in the intelligence or the sympathies of the mass of the people. The republic was the thorough of Liberalism, which opposed itself to the autocratic thorough of the King and Strafford. Such a form of government may prove to be the natural result and outcome of the ideas of liberty and popular rights, but it was then produced out of due time, and even if the life continued, the outer form decayed. So that what was seen when the crisis passed away was a return largely to the old state of things, with this difference—that both of the naturally formed parties, that of authority and that of liberty, were considerably modified. The extreme section of absolutists, with their idea of divine right, began to die out, and the process was so continuous and rapid that, if not as a theory, at least as an element of English politics, it has become a mere rudimentary survival, an embryotic function, representing an instrument which in earlier times society was able to oppose to the dreaded evils of lawlessness and anarchy. In that direction there is no further growth. At the same time, the development which had taken place at the other end of the scale, and which produced the Radicalism of the republic, although nipped and checked, was not killed. The old form was gone, but the seeds of life still existed, and, under more temperate and natural surroundings, the idea has grown in spite of, or perhaps in consequence of, difficulties which have called into being its strongest faculties, and have led to its survival in the political struggle.

During the period which immediately followed the Restoration, that struggle continued to be one between two old parties. In 1688 the triumph remained with the Liberals, and it was not unnatural that the methods and instruments by which it had been accomplished should be formulated, and regarded as the only possible conditions of Liberal life, and thus Whiggism became a sort of creed. But the hardening of creeds is the death of religions, and the life of Liberalism had to find for itself some new form. The idea of popular rights could not be permanently embodied in a group of noble houses, nor in a definite parliamentary system of limited constituencies. To some extent—to a great extent indeed—this spirit infused itself, in the course of time, in nearly all sections of the Liberal party; but it was forced upon the attention of the old Whigs by the left wing of the party, and there were always some of the acknowledged leaders by whom it was not accepted. It must be borne in mind that this new spirit affected not only the methods of government—the legislative machinery—but also the objects to be aimed at, the legislation to be achieved. The two things, indeed, are inseparably connected. Freedom and self-government are essential elements in the happiness and nobility of a people, and the supposed interests of the governing class—be that class large or small—will affect the character of its legislation.

If, then, there is any reality or any usefulness in the existence of a Radical party, it will employ its energies in two directions—in the endeavour to extend political rights and duties; and in the effort to promote, as far as law can fairly do so, the diffusion amongst the whole people of the real blessings of civilization, material, intellectual, and moral. A considerable part of such a programme would be the common property of all Liberals; but if we find in one section of them an increasing recognition of the necessity of consciously devoting the powers of government to the service of the Democracy, we may profitably trace the growth and development of that section into the separate entity which we call the Radical party. We must, however, limit this inquiry to the presence and operation of the party in Parliament. It is only in the legislature that direct and immediate influence can be exercised over the principles and policy of the government. Until it can find expression there, no cause and no party can be said to be within the range of practical politics. Any change forced upon the nation by powers extraneous to Parliament would, if possible at all, be revolution, and not reform. None such has taken place within the period covered by our inquiry. What has often occurred is, that certain questions have been debated and agitated for by people outside before they have found organized support inside Parliament. But the history of the formation and discussion of social and political ideas in the community at large, would be at once too extensive and too indefinite for our present purpose, which is to ascertain not how ideas originate, but how certain classes of them obtain expression in policy and law. The former object would be the work of the science of sociology; the latter may furnish a manageable chapter in political history. So far as it is really effective, it will deal with the same natural laws of growth and evolution, but it will only attempt to observe them as they are manifested within specific limits of time, place, and circumstance.

If this theory of the development of the party is sound, we must not expect to be able to fix any precise and definite date for its birth. We may, however, trace, either in the ranks of the Liberals in Parliament or among the people outside, the action of causes which would lead to new combinations. 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.

In his "Thoughts on the Causes of the Present Discontents," Burke says, "I see no other way for the preservation of a decent attention to public interest in the representatives but the interposition of the body of the people itself." Mr. Morley fairly summarizes Burke's view on this point. "Against the system of the omnipotence of the administration," he says, "Burke called on the nation to set a stern face. 'Root it up,' he kept crying; 'settle the general course in which you desire members to go; insist that they shall not suffer themselves to be diverted from this by the authority of the Government of the day; let lists of votes be published, so that you may ascertain for yourselves whether your trustees have been faithful or fraudulent;—do all this, and then there will be no need to resort to those organic changes, those empirical innovations, which may possibly cure, but are much more likely to destroy.'"^[2] It is true that he at the same time objected to authoritative mandates given by a constituency to its members, but all the same he constantly urged the efficiency of popular pressure as a substitute for organic change.

The Radicals, then, were striving for some legal and settled reform; the Whigs, resisting constitutional modifications, advocated a plan of irregular outside agitation, which was in their own minds indefinite, and which, if it ever became definite, must have become revolutionary. It was not therefore characteristic either of the old Whigs or of the new Radicals, that either of them appealed to public opinion as a power in the State. The distinction was, that one set of men would have used it in order to strengthen the traditional forms into which Parliamentary Liberalism had been moulded, whilst the others wanted to give it permanent and recognized force in the official government of the country.

Whilst it is impossible to point with certainty to any particular year as marking the origin of a party whose existence was the result not of an act of creation, but of growth and development, it is quite possible to refer to a time when movements took place amongst the Whigs, which led to the grouping of different sections round particular leaders and in defence of special ideas, and which gave to politicians, without traditional or family connections with them, the desire to appeal to a wider constituency. This period, which on other accounts may be taken as almost the starting-point of a new era in our political history, was the beginning of the reign of George III. It was then that the old fight between royal prerogative and popular liberty was recommenced, but under conditions very different to those which had marked the cessation of the former conflict between the two forces. In the struggle with the later Stuarts, the people had found in Parliament an instrument which was sufficient for the purpose of opposing despotism and maintaining constitutional government. But the institution, which was at that time vital, had since become mechanical. It was regarded, partly by classes whose special interests it served, and partly by the general reverence of the country whose liberties it had protected, as sacred in form as well as beneficial in spirit. Under the first two Georges there was no danger that the Crown would either encroach upon the domain of Parliamentary power or use Parliament itself for autocratic purposes. But this very freedom from royal interference, and the preponderance of Whig principles which made outward struggle unnecessary, led to internal corruptions; so that when George III. and his immediate advisers came to examine the position with a view of reconstructing the personal power of the monarch, they found the process so far advanced that the King was able to bribe, to intimidate, and to corrupt with as much freedom as Walpole had done or as Newcastle was doing. The constitutional machine was weakened, and if it were not amended and strengthened it must become amenable either to irregular pressure from the people or to the direction and dictation of the Crown.

Before the accession of the new King it had been proved, by the success of Pitt, that whatever might be the completeness of the Whig system of Parliamentary management, a decided manifestation of public feeling was sufficient to overpower an institution which was strong only by its traditions, and not by its representative character. And when Henry Fox^[3] openly set to work, in 1762, to buy a majority in favour of the treaty which closed the war, it became evident that the old barrier against despotic power was not calculated to resist the new weapons which were directed against it. All real Liberals, therefore, came to see that some change was necessary, and it is in the choice of methods by which the alteration was to be effected that the process of differentiation of Whigs and Radicals is to be traced. The difference is discernible in more than one great question, but it was not at the time recognized as making a distinct division in the party. Neither at that early period, nor for a long time afterwards, did any set of men announce that they held opinions which separated them from the rest of the Liberals, and that they intended to form a new party. A political party, let us repeat, cannot be created in that manner; it must grow, and it is because it has silently and gradually been developed in this manner, that the Radical party is at length seen to be an operative power in the State.

In some way or other actual entities get themselves distinctive names, but it was long after the first signs of its existence were manifested that the name of Radical was given to the party. Harriet Martineau, writing of the year 1819, says, "It is stated to have been now that the reformers first assumed the name of Radicals."^[4] The name was certainly given, or taken, in immediate connection with an agitation for parliamentary reform, but it has from time to time been used, and properly used, to designate those who not only sought directly to increase the power of the democratic element in the government, but who tried to utilize existing institutions for obtaining some material, intellectual, or social advantages for the unrepresented masses of the people.

The fixing of a name was not only in itself a proof of the public recognition of distinctive aims and methods, but it led naturally to efforts to define those aims and describe those methods. As to objects, Carlyle, writing in 1840, says, "Radical members, above all, friends of the people, chosen with effort by the people to interpret and articulate the dumb, deep want of the people! To a remote observer, they seem oblivious of their duty. Are they not there, by trade, mission, and express appointment of others, to speak for the good of the British nation? Whatsoever great British interest can the least speak for itself, for that, beyond all, they are called to speak. They are either speakers for that great dumb, toiling class which cannot speak, or they are nothing that one can well specify."^[5] As to method, Miss Martineau, when dealing with the state of parties at the death of George IV., contrasts generally three systems of government. "On every account it was a good thing that the old Tory rule was broken up, but chiefly for this that when the thing was done by strong compulsion of fact, of necessity men were beginning to look for the principle of the change, and thereby to obtain some insight into the views of the parties that had governed, or would or might govern, the country. Men began to have some practical conception that the Tories thought it their duty to govern the people (for their good) as a disposable property; that the Whigs thought it their duty to govern as trustees of the nation, according to their own discretion; and that there were persons living, and effectually moving in the world of politics, who thought that the people ought to govern themselves through the House of Commons."^[6]

We find, then, that immediately after the accession of George III., a series of events took place which involved important changes in the position and principles of English political parties. Amongst those changes was such a movement in the ranks of the Whigs as was equivalent to a breakup and reconstruction of their party, which from that time ceased to be identical with the general body of Liberals. In the course of this action there was gradually formulated a series of ideas, tending to the increase of the popular power, around which were concentrated at different times groups of politicians in and out of Parliament, not always composed of the same persons—various objects attracting individuals with varying force. There was, however, a tendency to unite amongst those who were most frequently and most generally agreed; and by such union again there was more clearly defined a common programme, and the way was opened to the existence of a new party. This movement, like every other manifestation of active political life in England, was arrested by the events which followed the French Revolution. It resumed its progress after the peace so definitely that a distinctive name had to be found, and in a few years after, historians recognized the fact that the new party, under the new name, was exercising an important influence on the national policy.

 

1. "History of England in the Eighteenth Century," vol. iii. p. 174; Wingrove Cooke, "History of Parties," vol. iii. p. 188 et seq.
2. "Men of Letters—Burke," p. 58.
3. Afterwards Lord Holland.
4. "History of the Thirty Years' Peace," vol. i. p. 226.
5. "Chartism," p. 5.
6. "History of The Thirty Years' Peace," vol. i. p. 555.