that the attempt to tax America was absolutely unconstitutional, or Burke in holding that it was simply inexpedient, there could be no doubt that it was impracticable. Resistance in America ripened into revolution. The attempt to coerce the colonists ended in failure. The distance across the Atlantic was too great to enable the British government to keep its armies in a complete state of efficiency, and the extent of the colonial territory was too great to make it possible to subdue the new nation which had arisen. France took the opportunity of helping the enemies of Britain, and the independence of the United States was the result. It was a happy result for Britain as well as for America. Compulsory taxation of an unrepresented people was a violation of the principles on which England had thriven, and it would have been impossible to violate them in America without holding them lightly in Europe. At least the unrepresented classes in England would have been treated as if their wishes and needs were beneath consideration. The military force which would have been needed to maintain the authority of the mother country in America would have hindered the free play of constitutional forces at home. When therefore, after the collapse of the war, a new government' came into office, it came in with the authority which is derived. from having been in the right when it was in opposition, and with no very hard task in governing a country which had not suffered so much as it seemed to have suffered. The real difficulties of the new government arose from its own composition. Chatham was dead; but his successor Shelburne and his youthful son the second William Pitt inherited the traditions of his policy. They were not inclined to rest the government of the country on a confederacy of great landowners. They perceived that the development of СНАР. X. СНАР. § 11. The Coalition Ministry. the new Tory party had its root in the demand of the nation for a larger basis of power. That basis they proposed to supply by an electoral reform which should strengthen the House of Commons by placing increased reliance on the more independent classes of society, whilst they were quite ready to conciliate the king by interesting him in their policy and by showing deference to his wishes. The Whigs, on the other hand, looked with aversion upon any extension of popular power, or of court influence. The personal quarrel which broke out between Fox, who after Rockingham's death became the leader of the Whigs, and Shelburne, who was the leader of the followers of Chatham, was only the symptom of an ineradicable difference of principle. That difference of principle led to a grave constitutional crisis. When, upon Rockingham's death, the king appointed Lord Shelburne prime minister, Fox and his whole party refused to serve under him. Forming an unprincipled coalition with the immediate followers of Lord North, to whom they were bound by no tie of common political principle, they installed themselves in office. Then ensued a struggle such as had not been known since the Tory victories of Harley and St. John in the days of Anne. A bill prepared by Burke for the reform of the government of India was passed by large majorities in the House of Commons. When it reached the House of Lords, it was thrown out through the personal intervention of the king. The king then dismissed the ministry and placed the premiership in the hands of young William Pitt. After a struggle of many weeks, parliament was dissolved, and a new parliament was returned, giving a large majority to Pitt and the king. By constitutional purists the mode of Pitt's appointment is regarded with abhorrence. It should how ever be remembered that the right of parliament, if supported by the constituencies, to obtain the dismissal of a minister was not in question. No doubt our modern practice, according to which the House of Commons, by merely signifying its disapprobation, can obtain either an immediate change of government or an immediate dissolution, is an improvement on the practice of 1783. But it is also true that the House of Commons of 1881 is an improvement on the House of Commons of 1783. It does not now contain a large number of members without political principle, and eager simply to possess themselves of so much of the loaves and fishes of political adventure as they may be able through dexterous management to secure. In 1783 therefore it was simply a question which side could bribe the highest. The offers of the coalition proved in the end less attractive than the offers of the king, and the sounder part of the country rallied round the opponent of a coalition. which appeared to be guided by no principle whatever, and whose only great political performance, the India bill, was exposed to many just criticisms, and which awakened through misinterpretation even more hostility than it deserved. It was for the king to justify the intrigue by which Pitt's government was formed, by showing that the policy of the new ministry was more than an intrigue. In Pitt he had found a man who could lay the foundations of the organisation of intelligence in the place of the organisation of hereditary rank and hereditary wealth. The new Tory party, to which the son of Chatham gave consistency, was, in truth, identical with the Liberal party of more recent times. The early years in which he exercised authority were marked by great reforms and by attempts at reforms even greater than it was then possible to carry out. He had learned from СНАР. X. $12. Pitt's Ministry. СНАР. X. Adam Smith the first principles of political economy, and the commercial treaty with France was the first visible result of the new science. He failed, indeed, in carrying his scheme of parliamentary reform, but the mere fact that he addressed himself to the nation generally was in itself a preparation for parliamentary reform. The evil notion that it was enough if the House of Commons was satisfied, whatever might be the feeling outside its doors, had prevailed too much with all parties. Pitt definitely cast it aside. It was upon an appeal to the constituencies that he had sustained himself in office, and he never forgot the debt which he owed them. The constituencies, too, were themselves very different from those which had existed at the beginning of the reign. Wealth was no longer confined to the great landowners and a few commercial magnates of the city of London. The nabobs, as they were called, the men who had heaped up riches in India, had been the first to dispute the way to parliament with the possessors of large estates. A far better element had been introduced into English society by the growth of manufacturing industry. The introduction of the steamengine, the construction of navigable canals, and the application of newly invented machines to manufactures, had brought into existence a class of thoughtful and intelligent men, possessed of property of a kind which was entirely free from the influence of the great landed proprietors. The gradual change in the distribution of wealth was accompanied by a gradual elevation of the standard of religion and morals. The seed sown by Wesley had taken root and flourished amongst those who owned no special tie to his person or his teaching. Everywhere appeared a life and vigour which had been entirely wanting fifty years before. There was, in all |