Page:History of the Radical Party in Parliament.djvu/40

classes, that was practically, by the aristocracy. We now have evidence of the more definite formation, within the bounds of what we call Liberalism, of a party the individual members of which would have called themselves Whigs, and are some of them still regarded as characteristic leaders of that body, but who aimed at objects and would have adopted means which were distinctly beyond the Whig programme. Even now there was no conscious attempt to form a new party; the old lines were followed. The Radicals supported and often were members of Whig cabinets, only they desired that the party should travel quicker and further in the direction of democratic reform. Those who were most impressed with the evils which existed, the waste of the national resources, the corruption and jobbery in all departments of the public service, the pressure of taxation, the reckless conduct of the war, the repression of all attempts to improve the moral and intellectual condition of the people, were the most convinced that no essential change could be effected whilst the whole power of government remained in the hands of a limited class, to every member of which a share in the spoils of corruption seemed within reach. But this consciousness did not, in a great part of their political life, separate many of the men who held it from their colleagues in the Whig ranks. Fox, who looked to reform as the instrument by which permanent improvement was to be gained, was the colleague in office and the friend in council of Burke, who wanted to abolish jobbery without extending the popular power in the Constitution. Yet the views of the reformers gradually became distinctive, and there was a growing tendency in those who held them to associate and work together. That this association was only incidental to, and not a systematic part of, the political life of the more important men led to noteworthy results. What organization existed was loose, inefficient, and easily broken, so that its members were not influenced by it in joining or forming ministries, or in taking any other step affecting practical Parliamentary work. Fox and Sheridan, for instance, at the time we are now